Driving in Trucks with Boys

Yesterday I knew Lizzie wasn't a baby anymore when I told her, "I need to get you a bib so you don't spill on yourself." Lizzie sighed, "Oh, Mom!" She sounded much older than her 2.5 years.

A couple of days ago, I went on a walk alongside Ethan and Lizzie, who were driving in their little truck. Those things can go fast enough that you have to run to keep up! We went around our circle once and I was so sweaty and hot that we had to go in. But, no matter how hot it is here, it sounds hotter where my parents live in South Carolina. My mom said that they've been in the 100's with so much humidity that the heat index is 115 degrees F. Glad I'm not there!

Snapshot of Bedtime

I decided to snap a few shots of Russ reading the kids a bedtime story (Richard Scarry's "The Wolf and the Kids") tonight and try to post it while they were still reading. No luck, they're done already. But this happened just a few minutes ago. How's that for up to date?

Matt wanted Russ to read a page out of his Insects book, and Ethan's stipulation was "But nothing disgusting--like that giant white worm!"


Ethan loves to do this funny pose...all the time.



Tomorrow is Matthew's 9th birthday. He has been SO excited about this...for the past three months! That's all we've heard about from him. I hope his day goes well, because he's built it up so much that I'm afraid to disappoint him. We have a Star Wars party planned, although mostly it's a pool party. We'll still try to do some Star Wars games there if we can. We're going up to our property at Canyon Lake to swim in the HOA pool there. It's usually empty and it's the best pool! Clean and quiet. But, it's a 25 minute drive.

We got Matthew 11 pounds of Legos that I won in an Ebay auction. I believe Russ is currently trying to figure out how to package all those Legos so that Matt can't guess what is in the package(s). Matthew can build anything out of Legos--currently his passion is Star Wars Clone Wars (cartoon version). The boys just saw the original Star Wars today for the first time. Since then Matt has been drawing X-Wing targets for a game he made up. He is so creative. My little tormented, creative genius. Did you know that Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) is also bipolar? So are Jean-Claude Van Damme and Picasso among others.

I need to go finish making Matt's birthday ice cream cake. Signing out.

4th of July

Today was the Stone Oak Ward 4th of July breakfast and bike parade. Russ and I didn't get the memo that the time changed to 9:00 am instead of 8:00 am. So, we showed up at 8:15 thinking we were late...Of course, we didn't hear because we were late getting to church yesterday and missed the announcements. That's what we get for being late. In fact, when I was telling the boys to hurry or we'd be late, Ethan asked "Are we ever on time?"

So, the bike parade was so fun--watching all these little kids ride around on their bikes that were decorated for the 4th of July. Ethan rode his bike, Lizzie rode her scooter and Matthew opted out, until he saw his friend riding a Razor scooter and decided to try it. They had a good time, although it's hard to tell by Ethan's pictures. He was so determined and focused on riding that he forgot to smile. At one point he was riding inside the loop of bikers, going against traffic. When I stopped him, he said "But the other kids were getting in my way!" That Ethan, he's a problem solver.


Lizzie got a little flag that she never let go or stopped waving the rest of the day it seemed like. She was so cute.


I heard a funny conversation between the boys yesterday. Ethan was asking Matt to describe a pill bug. (I do not know why.) Matthew gave this thoughtful response: "Well, it's an arthropod that kind of looks like a trilobyte." I 'm thinking, what the heck is a trilobyte?! Matt reads all these books about dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, as well as watches movies about them over and over.

Back to the story: Ethan then asked Matthew, "What color is it?" Matt contended that it was a deep dark blue color. Ethan insisted that it was gray, and promptly turned to me and announced, "Mommy, Matt can't even describe a pill bug!" That was hilarious to me since Matt just gave a better answer than most adults (including myself) ever could. He's such a bright kid, he is always amazing me.

Currently Matt's favorite pastime is building Star Wars ships out of Legos. He is obsessed with Star Wars stuff, even though he has never seen the movies. I don't get it. But, we're having a Star Wars birthday themed party for him in two weeks.