Cool Pops!

One of G's favourite words is cool pops! It even sounds enough like the word to often get what he asks for.  We have them as snacks after school. Here the kids are enjoying their snack

Video

At the blackberry festival A talked with my boss about getting a princess ukulele with ninja turtle stickers.  She then said that G could have a ninja turtle ukulele to play with her.  She has previously said that she and G are going to have a band that plays about Jesus and play in church. So here is her rendition of what there band will be like once G is playing both guitar and drums.

Future Band: https://youtu.be/8bEWTPYiNp0

Blackberry Festival

We have a blackberry festival in our town yearly. Since we had nothing else to do today, and taking two young children to play in the 90+ degree weather for a few hours sounded like a good idea, we walked up the street to see what this blackberry festival was all about. The kids did quite well and only got testy towards the end. Or neighbours run the train that goes in around a block, so blessedly we got to ride for free. G had decided that trucks and trains are the best thing EVER and we had trouble getting him off. Alexis also liked going and talked the neighbour girls into riding with her when Chris and I got tired.

Overall a new lackey had started for Chris. Hopefully, this guy will work out better than the last helper he had. Summer sessions are almost over, so hopefully we won't end up with a truly wacky fall term.

Nothing new is really happening for me at work.  We have our biannual qualification happening this next week, so the past week has been a bit stressful preparing for it. 

Tomatoes

Out neighbours are growing tomatoes in their front yard. They enchant G and every time we walk by them we have to look and see how many "ball" there are. We stopped by yesterday and they are really starting to grow.

We also tasked with it neighbours and got to see them finally.  It has been a while as they are busy right now.

We also got to see the US Womens national team pound Japan in the Women's World Cup Final. We set several records during the game and came away with several of the awards for the tournament in general. It was a good game and quite entertaining to see A trying to scold me a time or two. If you did not see the game at the end of 20 minutes the score was 4-0. Not exactly a typical soccer match score. We I kept trying to eat dinner but got up repeatedly to watch and cheer for the women.  Since it was dinner time A felt the need to get me to go back to my dinner seat. She wasn't too happy with the response of me saying I'll just watch the game. Chris tried explaining to her that i got a special dispensation since it was a match that happened every four years. This week she did learn about literal-ness though, so no real surprise.  We told her she needed to sit down because she kept going to the kitchen for no reason so she say on the floor beneath her chair. 

I need to get to work though so hopefully you ask had good weeks last week and have a good week this week. 

All boy

We couldn't get in the door at Lowe's without paying in the lawn mowers.  We climbed on ALL of them and had to see how each one worked. 

Hi! Hi! Tuck!

While we were driving the incredibly long distance to Disney a few weeks ago (all 9 or so hours) G decide to start waving to truckers. I can only imagine what the truckers aware enough to see a little hand waving at them.  We would wave as well once we got to the front. A few truckers honked at us to say hello which made G giggle.  The general sequence of events:

G, "Tuck! Hi!" As we got close to the rear of the truck we start waving. G would try to climb out of his 5-point harness carseat (which he did successfully Houdini his way out of in a parking lot on the trip) so the he could wave the entire length of the 53' truck. As we approached the front the trucker would wave or honk if they were paying attention. 

This sequence has continued for two weeks now. We have even started seeing it with pick up trucks around town.  It is a fun game he is playing and laughing about. 

The reason I'm thinking about this is that today we made the trek to Winston-Salem to see a Pediatric ENT and an allergist with G.  As we drove we waved to truckers between bites of cereal, muffin, and raisins.  We also decided that raisin make great projectiles when expelled from the nose. They are the right size to partially insert into a nostril, and with a quick blowing action can go far. We had to apologise to the doctors today wanting to look up his nose...

The result of the visits is that allergies are probably a large part of the inflammation and fluid in his head. We will do some more allergy testing as he gets older. In the mean time we are going ahead with "ear tubes" to get the fluid out of his middle ear.  He will become proud owner of these devices the beginning of August if all goes according to plan.

We also found out where the massive amount of food has been going on him: his feet. We got him measured in April, and in 3.5 months his feet grew 1.5 sizes. We got him some new shoes while we were in the big city as well since we had some time between the doctor appointments.

A is becoming quite the 4 year old.  She even played nice and remembered my friend was picking her up from school today since the trek was not for her to make with us.  The really cool thing is that A has stopped sucking her thumb.  She hasn't sucked her thumb since before our Disney trip.

Shoes!

One of the best parts to Disney was A's fascination with the character's shoes. After we got to meet Sofia A lifted the hem of the dress to check out the shoes. Sofia didn't quite know what to do about that. When we were done simply starring and being shy with Elsa (she jumped up and down screaming until we got to her) she had to check out the shoes.  Elsa was a bit better prepared and she lifted the hem of her dress to show off the stylish snowy shoes. Even though she was technically "done" taking to A, Elsa told her about the shoes and talked about hour pretty they were.  Anna's could be seen, but she still had to get a good, close view of them. As Jasmine walked by A got a good look, but we didn't get in line because she doesn't know Jasmine well. Ariel was self explanatory with her fin on display for all to see. Note she wants a mermaid fin. We've always known that A will be a shoe girl (her grandmother is one, so at least it is honest) but not quite the extent of it. 

It was also neat to see the shoes weren't forgotten as part of the costumes for the actresses. The shoes were integral and looked quite comfortable, even to my comfort-over-style eyes. 

The amount of detail in the costumes was also remarkable, but I'd expect nothing less.  How the princesses carried themselves and always made the girl in front of them seem like the only one in the room was remarkable to me. A screamed, jumped, waved and made a huge attempt to get to all the princesses before her turn, but the princess never wavered from her current child and didn't mention the weird behaviour to A when they met with her.

Anyway, just a thought about Disney that I don't want to forget. That and we need to go back with more people who want to see true excitement before A decides the princesses aren't real.