Backyard Frisbee and the Thieving Troll

Tate finally found a sport at which he's great and completely enjoys. He and Jake love to play frisbee in the backyard most evenings. There's only one problem. We have a little white-haired troll that likes to steal the frisbee and hide it in his cave.










We've tried distracting the troll, feeding the troll, locking it up in a cage (Mom's lap), taking away his pants, but nothing works. Maybe they have a spray for that.

My black thumb has finally turned green!

I have always been known in this family as the Grimm Reaper of Plants. Nothing escaped my attention and always bit the dust shortly after being planted. Here, in Connecticut, I'm a genius! (Okay, I may have noticed that anyone with at least half a brain can make anything grow here, but I have to make myself feel better every once in a while.)
Pay no attention to the multitude of substances on Miles. It was the end of a long day, and I said I was good at gardening, not keeping children clean.



I can even grow lots of yummy things to eat. We have a giant blonde rabbit that is especially fond of my lettuce and chives. I haven't found a good rodent spray to keep her away yet, but yelling out my window, "Brianna, knock it off!" seems to work.
Miles likes to help clean up all the pots by taking out the dirt. What a big help.



In Texas, we tried for two years to have grass that even resembled green. After a little hard work (and help from Katherine and the blonde rabbit), our lawn here is starting to really look good.



I'm really good at growing other plants in the lawn too. Dandilions are one of my specialties as well as these little purple flowers. Jake calls them weeds, but I just count them as part of my new-found talent.

Blogger stinks

I know, I know, most of you can't look at these pictures some of the time. If I go in and reload each picture, they show up, so I did that, but again this morning they're gone. I'm sorry. Everyone tell blogger about it.

I just remembered why I love living here!

Okay, I'll admit it, the winter was crummy. Sure we had our good moments of sledding and hot chocolate, but by the time Easter rolled around and we were getting snowed on during our egg hunt, I was ready to move. Then magically, the sun came back and I forgot how rotten we all felt trapped in the house. This is in no way a "ha-ha, neener neener neener" to any of our Arizona friends, but boy am I glad to be here right now. Here's a couple of recent reasons I'm reminded to love summer.

Water parties in our backyard are a very common occurance. They HAVE to include popsicles.


Miley's showing us his muscles.


We don't have a great yard for riding bikes, so we head over to the church parking lot for practice with friends.


Miles has the right idea. Get some strong woman to pull your chariot around. Notice she has bare feet and isn't screaming in pain. I remember lawn-hopping to get to La Casita, the public pool, when I was a kid. I got major burns on my feet each year.


Dandylions are not high on his "favorite food" list.


Our favorite store, Stew Leonard's, has a petting zoo outside, lots of samples inside, and hand sanitizer dispensers everywhere.


We can enjoy our ice cream OUTSIDE and not have to drink it. Unless of course, you're Lucy and you take 6 hours to eat one cone.


Bat-super girl visits us regularly to save the day.


Every afternoon is a good one to have a barbeque out in the backyard.


Lucy has such attractive friends who encourage her more ladylike side.


14 people, a drum, and a flag can be a parade even if there's only one family up that early to celebrate Memorial Day.


Tag in the park doesn't bring on heat stroke.


Oh yeah, that's why I like summer here.

Slip and Slide and Fall

Jenny (fantastic friend next door) took some convincing but turned out to be one of our top sliders.


Lucy was a bit apprehensive about sliding. First she practiced on the grass.


Then she tried to convince us she could have just as much fun without getting on.


Then she ran for the swing and held on for dear life.






She had to have a little "encouragement" from her daddy.






I think she liked it.


The kids also tried it the lazy way. Make somebody else do all the running and just enjoy the sliding.




Jake's sore today but just can't figure out why.



This whole thing was Katherine's idea and she broke the record for farthest kid slide. Thanks for the great afternoon!













Tate must have slid 30 times. He went down very easily at bed time. Hmm, maybe this needs to be a daily thing.


Brianna was very enthusiastic about the idea before we started, but I think we harassed her too much to not be a big chicken. "Your stomach hits first, not your knees!" Sorry.




It got a little chilly toward the end.

Last day of school

School is dragged out FOREVER here!! They make you stick around until summer's almost over! We just got out this last week and boy are we glad it's summer vacation.
Before they got out, they had "Donuts for Dad" day in honor of Father's day. Almost every dad was there, and each kid got to read a tribute to their dad. Tate was thrilled to have Jake come to his class.

Mrs. M only had to help him a little.


The other room moms and I had all the kids decorate a square in permanent marker. I took all those squares and turned them into a quilt for their teacher. I hope my m-i-l doesn't look too closely (she's my sewing teacher) because most of the seams don't match up, but I was in a hurry!


I loved Tate's teacher this year. She was absolutely fantastic and she swears she'll keep teaching until all my kids are through Kindergarten. Thanks Holly!
I sent this in with Tate for her:



Good bye Kindergarten! We'll miss you.