Three little stories about....fish (?)

We have decided to try again. (no, no more babies) We are now the proud owners of a small aquarium and three little fish. The kids are having lots of fun feeding them and watching them. The filter, unfortunately doesn't seem to be working right. This morning the water is a nice shade of brown (ewww)!

Tanner went fishing last night for scouts. Marc said he was a really good caster, but sadly not the best catcher. Only 2 of the dozen or so scouts actually caught a fish .





And finally a short video of our little fish. This kid is scary around the swimming pool. More than once this summer she has just launched herself into the pool alone! I have laid awake at night worrying about her making it through swimming season. Fortunately, a good chunk of our city pool is just the right height for her. And because she just wants to be like the other kids, she seems to be figuring out the swimming part.

Out of the crib

A few weeks ago, we found a pretty sweet deal on a set of bunkbeds at Costco and picked them up for the little girls' room. Mary has been asking to sleep in her new bed since, but has not been able to actually stay in it long enough to fall asleep....until Friday night. She spent her first night in her new 'big-girl' bed. I think it helped that she shopped with me, didn't have a nap, swam for a few hours and spent the evening playing with the cousins. She was too pooped to get out of bed. She's growing up fast (sniff, sniff)

County Fair

Each week we get together with grandma and the rest of the family for lunch. This week I noticed that the county fair was going on and suggested that we go check it out. Who doesn't love hanging around farm animals when it is 90 degrees outside?

We saw some adorable baby pigs.
We sunk some of Marc's hard-earned money on the rides. Mary really thought this one was a lot of fun. She even practiced her pageant wave for when she is Miss Warren County!
Our cousin Cameron talked his 65-year-old grandpa into riding this contraption with him. No spinny rides for me, thank you.
Tanner wasn't interested in the rides. He asked if he could play a game or two. I tried to talk him out of it telling him that you never win anything and it was a waste of money. He proved me wrong. He managed to get a ping pong ball into a little fish bowl and walked away with a goldfish. He was really cute, too. At one point after we got home he pulled a chair up to the counter and read a book next to his fish. He has been wanting a pet for a while.

I was a bit concerned about Joe (the goldfish) because he just sat on the bottom of this vase we put him in. Every now and then he would start to fall over sideways but would correct himself. I stopped on the way home from book club and bought fish food and fed him and he came up to the top to get the food but quickly sank back to the bottom. I went to bed a little worried but encouraged that he had eaten. Unfortunately, as apparently often happens with goldfish, Joe was dead in the morning and poor Tanner was pretty upset. There's another reason to add to the list of reasons not to have pets. The cousins that went to the fair with us won 4 goldfish and all of theirs died within 2 days. I think that helped Tanner feel a little better.

Boards

This is a picture of our office (sorry it is really dark), where Marc has spent the vast majority of the month of July.

The stacks on the floor are his patient files that he will be presenting tomorrow morning at 9:45 in what will hopefully be the last of the tests he has to take for a long time! He has worked really hard and is really nervous. Your good wishes (and prayers!) appreciated!

Ella's birthday

It is sometimes a bummer to have your birthday on a Sunday, so we tried to make it fun and special for Ella. We even brought both sets of grandparents over!

We started with breakfast in bed. She was pretty excited.

She got this funny headband. I told her she could not wear it to sacrament meeting!

Ella has seen some mini cakes at the grocery store and added it to her list of wishes for her birthday. Grandma got this purple and pink one for her and she helped make the 'Starfy' cake on the right.

There we a couple of presents.

And at the end of the day, a happy seven year old.

Happy birthday Ella! We love you lots and lots!

blogging for the sake of blogging

Things I said this morning that I never thought I would:

"You don't get any cereal until you finish that doughnut!"

Kenna bought doughnuts yesterday and the kids wanted both this morning. In hindsight I'm not sure what my logic was at the time other than to exert authority over my children.

"Sarah, you have to leave your knockers in the van!"

I didn't realize what I had said until Kenna start giggling. Sarah had one of those annoying toys with two balls and a handle that you shake up and down and they clack together, and she wanted to take it into sacrament meeting. I stand by my position but I recognize my poor choice of words.

As a side note, the township where we live has these free movie in a park events every two weeks. They have this big inflatable screen and we all set up chairs in the park and watch a movie. This past week was "Where the Wild Things Are" In short, it was absolutely the worst movie I have ever seen. The plot made no sense, I only wanted bad things to happen to the main characters and didn't care what happened to the others. We asked the kids if they wanted to leave and only Tanner wanted to go. So we suffered through it, but please learn from our mistakes and save yourselves from the agony.

Spring Break in Florida 2010

Here's what we did....



A little baby blessing.A little getting to know our newest cousin, Addy. An unplanned easter egg hunt.

A little pretending to be an astronaut (and we did actually get to see the launch of the final space shuttle...but no pictures of that!) A teeny tiny bit of Disney.
A lot of cousin time.

An awful lot of Mary doing anything but go near the ocean.And a lot of fun in the water.

Tanner would say we also did a lot of driving which is true. As it turns out everyone (or at least the other four moms at my kid's bus stop) goes to Florida for spring break!