RIP To This Little Pool

My friend, Jules, gave us this pool towards the end of last summer. And now may it RIP...it was well-loved and well-used....Rona (the dog) already misses it. Lol.

Fun With Cousins...

...but first, I would like to offer proof that advancing to age three did not, I repeat DID NOT, cause Sullivan to be any less messy at meal time...

On Tuesday, the temp gauge in my car read 111 at one point. I had to take the boys to the doctor (Sully had three year check and Keats needed a shot for kindergarten) and it was yucky to be out in that heat! The gauge didn't drop below 109 for our entire trip to the doc. The temp is fine when we're at home since we have a/c, and the pools out back, but the van is just soooo hot and gross.

Sully weighs 32 pounds (the same weight he's been for sooooooo long!) and is 39 inches tall. He didn't cooperate with the measurement- this was his first standing height- so I think it is off by maybe half and inch or an inch. He wouldn't put his heels close to the wall and was scrunching his neck. Oh well...we all know he is tall enough & weighs plenty to be a healthy kid! He is 50% for weight and 75% for height. That is basically where he's always been, with the occasional 75-90%, and is where Keaton hovered as well.

Yesterday the temp got to around 108 and the boys and I picked up Erin & Mason to come play with us out back. Here are pics of the afternoon.

Popular spot at the Moore Waterpark

Erin & Keats scootin' down the slip n' slide

Sully told me, "Look Mama, I play a guitar!"

Keats & Erin prepare to go underwater as divers...

Snorkeling

Rare smile for a camera for Erin...very cute!

Love all the splashes.

It Is 106 Degrees At 7 P.M. Here....

Keats is getting so brave in the water! He'll "dive" in and put his whole head under, no plugging his nose or anything. He is practicing holding his head underwater longer & longer each time. We've spent many hours in the pool the past few days and his progress is amazing. I think its time to get him back into lessons.

They have soooo much fun playing together now. It is wonderful to watch!

Great shot of the toothless gap!

Little poser.

So funny how he just rests on his hands like this. Does it all the time.

I was taking pics of Keats going under water and I hear Sully say, "Okay, cheese, Mommy" and this was the pose he was in. Lol.

Awwww.....

Summer Stuff

Here's the actual scooter. Cute, huh?! I've commuted to work twice now and haven't had much trouble. The first day was a little scary getting out into traffic but each day I get more comfortable with the bike. Mike has LOVED having the van while I'm at work! Both days he took the boys to far away parks, out to lunch, and to the video stores. Yesterday they ate out for both lunch and dinner. Hopefully they are just enjoying their newfound freedom and won't continue to keep up that restaurant pace...otherwise I really will need to work more often! ;o)

It has been blazing hot here in Salem the past few days. This morning I woke up at 5 and started filling up the pools. The temperature is supposed to get over 100 several times this week so I thought we'd better be prepared. I don't want to have to go anywhere in a hot car so if the pools stay full we can just hang out at home. I took the boys to the store about 7 this morning (to beat the heat) so we could buy a few floatie things for the pool. Keats is in love with the mattress thingy. Here are some pics of our first round outside today. I'm trying to keep us on a 30 minutes outside, 30 minutes inside schedule. That way no one should get sunburned, dehydrated, or bored!

Sweet New Ride

Mike went out and bought us this Honda Metropolitan scooter today! This is just a pic from a Honda website, but ours is identical. How cute is this thing??

A few weeks ago, I was driving home from work and saw an ad for a moped and it suddenly hit me that we should buy one. This way, I can take the moped to work and leave the van home with Mike so that he and the boys aren't trapped at home. The scooter was very inexpensive and the insurance is about a hundred bucks a year. It gets a hundred miles per gallon, too! Excellent!

This solves many problems for us. I won't be able to take the moped on days with, say, snow or whatever, but I can get a good set of rain gear (or borrow Mike's!) and I will be fine. Mike is excited, too, not just that he gets to have a car during the day but because he had a moped a long time ago and is looking forward to cruising around on our cute new Metro!

Oregon Coast Trip

It's My Party...I'll Get Mad If I Want To!

Here is my sweet, adorable, huggable, kissable baby boy's reaction to the Happy Birthday song at his birthday party.

Gift Excitement

All Keaton Wants For Christmas Is...

...yup, you guessed it: his two front teeth! He lost his other front tooth this morning. The Tooth Fairy now must come to the beach to pick up the tooth! Lol. This makes five baby teeth gone for Keats.

Grumpy Birthday Boy

Pretty funny, huh? ;o)

Pool Party

I'm only going to post the pics right now. I am BEAT from working all day...crazy hospital!! Tomorrow we leave for two nights at the beach so I just wanted to get these on here. I'll talk about Sully's party later on in the week. :o)

Okay...I'm up waaaaayy too early today so I guess I'll fill in the info about the party...

It was fun!

In attendence were: Jamey, Phoebe, Morgan, Nora, and Zanden. Along with them were the grown-ups & wish-they-were-grown-ups: Debbie, Ginger, Jules, Sam, Erin, and Mason.

Plus Mike, Patti, Keats, and Sully....so we had plenty o' people!

There was no form to the party, just pool time followed by eating time followed by present time followed by cake & ice cream time. ;o) The weather was much warmer than I thought it would be so it was a perfect day for a pool party. I found two pools on clearance so we had those two, one partially-popped pool that served as the slide pool, and the slip n' slide. I grilled some pineapple, hot dogs, and burgers, plus there was a tomato/cucumber salad and chips.

The cake was pretty cute. Not bad for my first attempt at getting really fancy (the sandbox cake was soooooo easy and required minimal creativity so I don't count that one!) and I learned some things about cake decorating in the process. Mostly I learned that I bought too much candy! Lol. Mason was kind enough to take a bunch off my hands though. Such a selfless, thoughtful kid, huh? ;o)

For gifts, Sully received a rocket launcher (totally fun!), Star Wars tent (which Keaton has hijacked already), a big red ball (awesome especially since our other big one popped a month ago), two seek n' find books, a bouncy cartoon character (the kittens freak out over this toy!), color/sticker book & crayons, a package of five Matchbox vehicles, and a little electric keyboard. I'll post little videos of how excited he was to open each gift, too.

We did a "practice run" on the gift opening early in the day. You see...Sully gets mad when you choose the song rather than His Controllingness choosing the song. So, I knew he'd get mad when we sang Happy Birthday to him at the party. We bought him two gifts so I decided to let him open one in the morning...after suffering through a rendition of the birthday song.

True to Sullivan Patrick form, he was pissed!! He yelled at us to stop, but we continued. Afterword I told him that we sing and then he gets the good stuff...hoping that he'd remember it later in the day.

(He didn't. Look for video coming soon.)

So the first pic shows him opening a Wonder Pets backpack & lunchbox set. He was thrilled, as you can see.

I baked three cakes so that I could have one extra in case I messed up. I cut the edges off the cake so that it was just the soft, moist cake, and set aside the pieces. When the boys asked for some, I initially thought to say "no way" but realized it really wasn't much worse than having a bagel or something for breakfast: eggs, oil, flour...so I let them go for it. Here's Sully enjoying a very big piece of plain cake.

Keats, hamming it up.

Close-up of the pool occupants. They are mini-Teddy Grahams. Three are sitting in Gummy Lifesavers and two are on little pieces of sour fruit roll. The blue pool water is Jello.

Not exactly as I wanted it to turn out but it sure was fun!

Sharks circling the cake...much like the kids were just before it was serving time!

This is Morgan, my friend Ginger's daughter. Morgan was born exactly six weeks after Sully, so she turns three on August 29th.

Phoebe on the left, Keaton on the right, and Zanden diving into the water. Brave boy!

Phoebs, getting ready to slide into the water.

Keaton and Zanden. Zanden is just two months younger than Keats. They went to preschool together for about a year. I've mentioned Zanden before, but he is the son of Michelle & Sharrie's cousin, Sam.

The birthday boy giving a sweet smile!

Mason & Jamey trying out the slip n' slide.

The crowd playing in the pool.

Daredevil.

Keaton, Jamey, and Zanden. Jamey & Zanden are second-cousins. :o) The three of them played so well together! Actually, all the kids did great and had a fun time.

Once Sully noticed all the big boys sitting on the trampoline he just had to sit with them!

(Notice how good Zanden is at smiling for the camera?? Awesome!)

Morgan, the swimsuit model. Look at the sweet waves in her hair...

Here is Nora playing with the dry-erase board. Nora is the daughter of my friend Jules. Nora turns two in September.

These are Sullivan's very favorite book-books. They are "seek & find for toddlers" and are big board books with hidden pictures. He knows them all by heart (yes, even the two he just received for his birthday) but that doesn't stop him from doing them over & over & over again.

Aunt Debbie really got into the job of helping Sully with his gifts! Love the expression on her face. I can never help the boys with their presents because I am the one taking the pictures! Aunt Dobbie (how Sully pronounced it at first) was nice enough to hold back the swarm of kids while Sully tore open his loot.

Phoebe & Ginger. Phoebs has gorgeous eyes, huh?

I found some neato Crayola window crayons and let Erin decorate all the windows downstairs. This creation was done by Debbie, then Erin added her stuff, and Mason filled in the bottom part.