It's a Rainy Day

It rained here once, and on that glorious day we made the kids walk in the rain twice. They didn't complain, primarily because the air and rain temperatures were quite warm, but also because they LOVE to wear their rain boots and carry around their umbrellas. (We used to let Will play with his umbrella in the house, but when he started using it like a boat and sitting in it - which resulted in three broken umbrellas in less than two weeks - umbrellas became an outdoors-only toy. Now both Will and Hallie live for rain so the umbrellas can come down off the out-of-reach shelf in the front closet.)

This walk - the second of the day - only lasted to the end of our street and back, but it was probably the best 15 minutes of my weekend.

So handsome.

Humidity curls - she's clearly my daughter.

"OMG there's an ant!  I can't walk there, Daddy!
Pick me UUUUUUUPPPPPPPP!"

There is very little I love more than walks in the rain with my people.

Six

Has it been a year since Will turned "A Whole Hand" old? 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days? I can't believe it.

It seems like we celebrated Will's fifth birthday just yesterday.

Will's fifth birthday wasn't yesterday, however, and I know this because yesterday he reminded me that he was five-years-and-364-days old. Five-years-and-one-day old Will wouldn't have known how many days there are in a year, or that "physics has to do with gravity", or that "multiplication is kind of like adding numbers over and over again".  The ease with which he communicates, the depth of his knowledge, the confidence with which he carries himself, and his ability to make new friends and adjust to new environments remind me every day that even though I can still call him a little boy (when he's not listening), he won't be little for much longer.

At the same time, I see my superhero-cape-wearing baby struggle to meet the social expectations of kindergarten - controlling his emotions, solving his problems with words, winning humbly and losing gracefully, and "keeping his hands to himself while waiting in line for lunch" (straight from a note home from his kindergarten teacher) - and am reminded that he is nowhere near grown.

Thank goodness.

Here's to you, my sweet boy.  May you spend this coming year just like a six-year-old little boy should: playing baseball and soccer, taking karate and swimming lessons, building Lego spaceships, watching Tom & Jerry cartoons, reading Garfield comic books, reenacting Star Wars sword fights, making new friends, loving kindergarten, and antagonizing your little sister.  And I hope you do it all while "rockin' it" in your superhero cape.

Happy birthday, Will.  I love you to the moon and back plus infinity times a million with a cherry on top.

AJ's Songs

We are lucky enough to be in possession of rough cuts of a number of Aunt Jenna's songs (that she both wrote and recorded), which we put on a CD so that we could enjoy them in the car. The kids have learned nearly all of the words to the ones I let them listen to (there's one that I've decided isn't three and nearly-six-year-old appropriate because it deals with an abusive relationship), and often rock out to them both with and without music throughout the day.

Once, at the grocery store, Hallie repeatedly sang the lyrics, "I swear I won't fight if you'll just spend the night" to strangers in the canned goods aisle. As always, I just apologized and walked away quickly before they could think too in-depthly about her proposition.

Will's preference is to jam out to AJ songs at home, where he has more room to incorporate his signature somersault-meets-donkey-kick move into his performances.

Broke


You Rescued Me


Will only likes the uptempo songs, so the next videos will be of Hallie singing the ballads.

NOT a Future Pro Disc Golfer

Remember how talented Will is with a disc? Granted, his skills jumped to a new level this summer, but he's had a decent throw and a solid understanding of the game since he was about three.

Last weekend the four of us hit one of our local disc golf courses for a round and while we were there we thought we'd check to see if Hallie has the same innate disc golf skills as Will does.


She doesn't.

Worried

As if I wasn't already worried about how Hallie will turn out, I found this in her room last week.

Poor, poor Honey Bear never saw that pink belt coming.

Come Inside

Princess Hallie graciously invited me into her pink castle (a pink tent, in the shape of a castle), and though the castle is roughly the size of a coffee mug and lives in the poorly air conditioned (think 85 or so degrees when the rest of house is at a barely-tolerable 80 degrees) playroom, I agreed to join her.

It was as crowded and sultry as I expected it to be inside the castle, which must be why Hallie thought to put on her swimsuit ahead of time.

First we colored.

Then we got married, which involved "dancing witt itch udder" (dancing with each
other) and then kissing. Dancing was tough to do in the tent.

After our wedding I asked Hallie if I could take a few pictures of her. She agreed.
 Unfortunately the first picture looked kind of funny because she was chewing gum.

Hallie didn't take kindly to my request that she stop chewing her gum for just a minute.

Then Will photo bombed us.

I could only take about 12 minutes in the castle with Hallie, not because of anything she was doing (for the first time that week she was actually kind of sweet to me), but because the space was just too cramped and stuffy. She didn't want me to leave, until I told her that I was headed into the forest (kitchen) in search of Prince Charming (something to make for dinner), that is. Then she packed me a basket of bread and sent me on my way.

Piddy Pease?

"Piddy pease can I bring her home, Mama? Piddy pease?  I love her SOOOO much!"

It's getting harder and harder to say no...