Magic!

We recently added another event at our local library, a Magic Show. The guys was just fantastic with the kids. Here he was doing a trick where he kept pulling golf balls out of his mouth.Then Tab got lucky enough to be selected to come up and help him with one of his tricks!

Here he is greeting the magician. The magician was jumping up and down as if Tab was shaking his hand very vigorously. Tab thought it was awesome.First Tab had to stuff a scarf into the bag.Then he had to wave his spider over the bag, as if it were a magic wand.
At the end of the trick, the spring snake things popped out of Dracula's coffin. Tab thought they were pretty awesome. Since this event Tab has been making up and performing "Magic Tricks" where he makes things appear and disappear. He thinks he's pretty hot stuff.

Repayment

As I have mentioned before, this past year has been absolute hell for me. On top of moving and having absolutely no friends for a good portion of the year, Paisley was a nightmare. She screamed 24 hours a day, there was no bonding going on and well....this post isn't really about that. This post is about repayment.

Paisley, since being medicated for Silent Reflux or GERD, has been an angel. She is such a happy kid most of the time. She sleeps through the night (vs. getting up to 6-8 times a night), will ride in the car without screaming bloody murder the entire time, as a matter of fact she often is chatty or sleeping! She is just plain a HAPPY girl. And she plays a lot by HERSELF! and with her brothers. All I have to say is that this is the best repayment ever and I hope that it lasts at least as long as the torture did. Love you little girl.

A Tribute to Taylor

So, one day right after Tab got up from his nap after church (thus the black socks and stoner face), I noticed that the outfit he had chosen was reminiscent of a good friend. He had athletic shorts, a t-shirt on and had pulled his black socks up as high as they would go. I looked at Jason and said, now all he needs is a sweat band around his forearm and a baseball cap and he would be a spitting image of Taylor. This means nothing to those of you who don't know Taylor, but we sure got a kick out of it.

Trapeze Artists

I cannot say enough how much I LOVE our local library system, especially in the summer. They bring such great performers in for the kids. One evening I took the kids to a Trapeze show. It was so much fun, for the kids and for me too!

They started out by lining up a bunch of kids on the ground. Then one of the three girls handstand walked over all of them! It was pretty impressive.Then they did some sweet fire eating, which I'm not going to share pictures of because you couldn't really tell what they were doing in the pictures. But it was freaking cool.

Then they started on the trapeze.Tab was a little concerned about this one. He was really worried that she was going to fall as she was spinning around in circles.Paisley was truly in awe.She kept clapping and clapping and clapping. I was trying to get a good picture but she was on my lap.Then they started on the silks.
This girl was awesome. She did the whole wind up and roll down this. It was awesome. She was even more impressive as she had a broken foot.
We had a lot of fun. Benton was a little nervous about this girl, so he wouldn't pose with her for the picture. He was pretty much crawling up my leg whilst I took this picture.

Transformers Again

As we are all well aware Tab has an obsession with Transformers. Well. I bought him some slippers for $2 that had ugly puffy transformer heads stitched to the tops. So I cut them off and per his request but a decepticon on one foot and an autobot on the other. Love you Tab.I only aim to please.

Butterflies

Tab and Benton have been really into spotting butterflies this summer. Not long ago Tab spotted and caught this "butterfly". I didn't have the nerve to tell him that it was in fact a moth.Look at that face. He couldn't be more proud. (And yes it was about 90 degrees out and he was wearing a fleece. This kid is crazy. But he just loves that fleece.)He wanted to make sure that he had "food".
Releasing the butterfly to go back "home".

Doing her own thang...

Apparently her nap was more important than her snack.

Summer in the Sun

We have spent quite a bit of time outside as the summer has provided us with quite a bit of beautiful and roasting hot summer sun. We go for walks. Paisley loves when daddy carries her around.The boys love riding their 4-wheeler
and tractor.Hey, I do believe that sign says NO PARKING dudes. Get moving.
Mostly we go for a lot of bike rides. We had strong hopes that Tab would be fast enough for us to go out on the awesome trails they have around here. Alas, perhaps next summer. So we stick to our little neighborhood.Benton and Paisley enjoy their time in the bike trailer. (Side Note: We bought the smallest helmet we could find for Paisley but it is still for 3 years and up and she has a hard time with it. Does anyone know where you can find an "infant" helmet?)And Jason has fun pulling them.
And Jason finally put together one of our super crappy bikes so that I could go riding with them. Don't mind my gomer helmet that needs to be replaced very badly.
Paisley just loves being outside. She is killing the butt in all of her pants because she doesn't crawl, she scoots and she insists on scooting around on the cement.

4th of July

So, I finally downloaded our pictures from the 4th.

We started our weekend at the Beach. The kids had a blast running around and playing in the sand. Alex was yelling into a hole they dug into the sand.Keturah took a while to warm up to the sand but then she was in heaven.The boys spent some time trying to figure out how to use the skim board. Matt didn't do too bad. Jason did alright as well, but I just happened to catch a picture of him biffing it.It was so nice to just hang out. It was almost like old times.Tab and Alex enjoyed the bath crayons.Tab drew a picture of Paisley. I love the pig tails and dress. We did a bunch of hanging out and playing. Of course there was a ton of playing with transformers.Saturday morning we went to the parade.
Isn't she just gorgeous?We had a lot of fun watching.Keeping the babe's happy.Later in the afternoon we went to a little carnival. The kids displaying their tickets. Redeeming the tickets.They loved the little train.I think that they spent 15 minutes at least in the bounce house.Sarah and I enjoyed hanging too.Love this little guy. He is so handsome. Monday I took the kids to another little 4th of July event. They loved getting their faces painted.Paisley didn't really love getting hers done, so her butterfly is incomplete. Alas.