A Tooth on the Looth!

The day I feared has come!  Loose teeth give me the heeby jeebies, and now we have our first in the house.  John discovered it last night, already after bed time.  Buck had a work dinner, so when he called sometime after 9, and I heard the kids STILL playing in their room, I let John tell him over the phone.  He was so excited, pacing the halls in his super hero tighty whiteys, telling Buck about his tooth.  I realized poor thing would never be able to get to sleep until he told him about it.  This morning he was up bright and early to be sure he could show him before he left for work.  I'm pretty sure his fingers haven't left his mouth since he discoverd the loose tooth.  I finally mustered up the courage to feel the bottom right tooth, and it is, in fact loose!  Funny, I've always had this random artificial age gap in my mind between myself and parents with kids losing teeth.  Well, my birthday is coming.  I guess I'm almost officially older in more ways than one.

A Little Confused

Yesterday Ellie told me she wanted to see the baby.  I pulled my shirt up thinking she wanted to see my big belly.  At first she was disappointed and said, "It's gone!"  Then she pulled my shirt up higher and said, "There it is!  There's the baby!" pointing to my belly button.  Something tells me she's going to be a little disappointed when the baby comes and requires a little more attention than my belly button.

Family Time

Here are some randoms from this week.

 It's really difficult to not cheat at Go Fish.  Not only is this how Eve "holds" her hand, but she also announces each card she draws.  John spread his hand in his chair and asked me not to look.  I suppose that's what 2 extra years of card savvy gets you.  After playing this for at least a year with Grandma, we played with real cards, rather than cards with fish on them.  Despite me telling him repeatedly before, for the first time John realized it's "Go Fish" not "Goldfish", and he was so proud to discover why you say, "Go Fish" when you don't have the requested card.  Funny.

Also this week John and Eve wanted tattoos.  I showed them how to give them to each other.  What a neat trick!  They enjoyed it.

Peaches

For those of you who don't know, South Carolina grows more peaches than any other state except California.  We've easily eaten our weight in peaches this summer already, and there are still several weeks in the season.  We went to Fisher's Orchard again this year and brought along a friend who is a photographer.  She took the first picture and several others that turned out amazingly (http://photosbysabrinablog.com/peach-picking/), but here are mine...

 I don't think I had even unloaded everyone from the car before John found his way into a tree.  He LOVES climbing the trees, and they're perfect for it.  He only fell out 2 or 3 times, but no harm done.  The peaches were worth the sacrificial scrapes.

 It's nearly impossible to get a good picture of 3 kids, particularly when they don't want their picture taken, particularly when they're in a tree, particularly when all three don't exactly want to be in the tree.

 "Ellie!  Don't eat that one!  That one was on the ground!"

 And this is why I don't have many pictures of John's sweet face picking and eating peaches.  Did I mention he loves climbing the trees?

We picked a ton, and ate several, then per my maternity obsession, I decided to try making jam.

 I had pools of juice in my lap that had dripped from my elbows while peeling.  I can't capture the smell and feel of fresh local peaches dripping down my arms, but this comes sort of close.

 Hard at work making a big mess

 13 jars of YUM!

I'm not sure I've tried peach jam before, but I gave it a shot today.  It's heavenly!

Independence Day

I wanted the kids to do a craft for July 4.  I bought some foam, but couldn't think of anything to do with it.  This is what they came up with on their own...well, John and Eve did Ellie's.  I love their creativity, but the picture cracked me up.  Abe Lincoln, Wonder Woman, and Naked Firecracker Baby.

 Here's Eve's pose.  (For the record, her shirt isn't really that revealing.  She put it on sideways, and I corrected it before we went to our cookout)

I had to add this from the July 4th Jam session.  Rock on, Eve!

4th of July Jam Session

Today is the 4th of July.  I had the girls all dressed in their cute matching shirts, but we we're just hanging out most of the day.  I walked in to find this sweet jam session.  The girls were ready to rock and roll!  So, of course, all those years of practicing "Stairway to Heaven" and "More Than Words" growing up, Buck was well prepared to bust out his best rendition of "Part of Your World" (from the Little Mermaid), with the best little back-up musicians ever!

Guppies

This year was our first year participating in guppies.  Guppies is a program that several neighborhood pools have.  Teenagers from the swim team work one-on-one with the kids, giving lessons and playing games.  They met twice a week through the month of June, and last weekend had their Guppy meet to finish off the season.  John and Eve had a blast!  Here they are at the Guppy meet.  It was extra fun because we had just watched the swimming olympic trials, and the meet was just as official.  Each swimmer's name was announced before the race, and they had a starting "beep" just like in the Olympics.

 Diving off the blocks!  The first race they did was 25m freestyle.

 Each swimmer had a helper with them in case they needed a break, but for the first time John made it all the way across, no break, breathing to the side and making big ice cream scoops the whole way!  I was so excited and proud of him!

 He was pretty proud too!

 Eve's turn off the blocks!

 Up until Guppies, Eve has done really well making her way through the water, but couldn't get her head up to breathe.  When Guppies started, she got really good at keeping her head up over the water, but then ended up straight up and down and couldn't move much.  She's somewhere in between now, but in the excitement of the race forgot to put her face in the water.  A little more help from her helper, but still she made it all the way across the pool!

 Thumbs up, Eve!  Very proud of her, too!

 Next they did back stroke.  John participated, but Eve wasn't ready.  John hasn't practiced that much, so the length of the pool was a stretch, and by that point he was sort of done.  Afterward they had kickboard and floatie races.

 Ellie was a trooper!  Last weekend the weather was over 100.  Fortunately, this was early in the morning, but still, it wasn't quite fair to be so hot, watching all the other kids swim, and not get to get in.  Several doughnuts and a new pair of sunglasses (that conveniently matched her outfit and necklace) got her through it.

 At the end they got medals, certificates, and a goodie bucket.

 Eve and her teacher Miss Allison.  She LOVED her!

 Afterward we went to the playground before it got too crazy hot.  Payback time!  Daddy's turn to swing!

 Ellie gave a good push, too.

 Two beach balls

The Olympics Are Coming!!!

Realizing that none of the kids have any recollection of the Summer Olympics, we've been trying to get them excited about it.  Unfortunately since they haven't seen the Olympics or a majority of the sports involved, they really couldn't care less.  The Olympic Trials started recently, and we happened upon the swimming trials just prior to their Guppy meet (I'll post on that separately).  It was a perfect time to show them, and got them excited about their meet at the same time.  John wasn't overly impressed, stating that he knew all the strokes already, but he did enjoy watching it for a short time.  The other day we flipped to girls' gymnastics and recorded it for them to watch.  Yesterday evening I told them we were going to watch it.  "Let me guess...more Olympics?  Not again!  I'd rather watch fun TV."  I told them it was something they'd never seen, and promised they'd like it.  They LOVED it!  Ellie was saying, "they're flying!" and they were all engrossed for about a half hour.  After that, they started to lose interest in the TV, but not the sport.  A gymnastics meet began in our den, and Buck and I watched silently entertained for 30 minutes or so while they all rolled, flipped, stood in funny positions, then transitioned into exercise with jumping jacks (always entertaining to watch at these ages), push-ups, and just running in circles.  I guess they had their Wheaties for breakfast!