Sara's Dressing Up

Sara is my girl who loves to dress up. When she was 3, all she would wear was her Cinderella dress--everywhere we went, every single day.




Now it's my earrings. She loves them! She drapes them over the top of her ears, paints her lips up real shiny with her chapstick, and parades around the house just waiting for someone to notice how pretty she looks. Sara definitely loves being a girl! (Notice how she even dressed her bears up with bows on their ears.)

Busy Little Owen

These days, this kid keeps me hopping. (He crawled under this stool by himself and got trapped.)




Owen is into everything. The other day he discovered that the kitchen cupboards open up and that the stuff inside can come out. He has also discovered that he can go up the stairs (although he usually only makes it to the second or third stair before he tumbles back down and bumps his head on the hardwood). He loves to pull himself up to stand next to things, but when he loses his balance, he bumps his head on the way down. Everything goes in his mouth. I have to watch him constantly! It's a fun age, but SOOOOOO busy!

Eagle Island Again

Last week I followed through on my promise to the kids that we could go back to Eagle Island to swim. We went last Tuesday morning, and it was wonderfully deserted--only a handful of other people were there. The kids swam and dug in the sand for hours. It was such a great way to spend one of our last free days of summer.











Owen slept in the stroller a good part of the time.

When it came time to leave, the kids played on the play set to get dried off.





Because the kids had been so good (and since our $5 parking pass was good for all day), I promised the kids that after we went home and had lunch and let Owen have a nap, that we would come back. Because Owen had napped a bit in the stroller, he ended up taking a late afternoon nap. He didn't wake up till it was time for Scott to come home from work. So, we took Dad along with us, picked up Dominoes Pizza on the way, and went back to Eagle Island for the rest of the day (we stayed till the mosquitoes started to come out). It was a great day!

Eagle Island State Park

Last Saturday we took the kids to Eagle Island State Park. It's only 2 or 3 miles from our house, but in all the 6 years we've lived here, we've never gone. It's only $5 for entry, and we had a coupon for free entry, so we didn't have to pay that. When we got there and headed over to the water, we instantly regretted coming on a Saturday. It was packed with people everywhere. I was really worried about trying to keep an eye on all 5 kids in the water, so we skipped the whole beach thing and headed over to the water slide. We had a coupon for 10 free rides, and then we bought 10 more, so each of the 4 older kids got 5 rides on the slide.













Nate wasn't tall enough to go on the slide, and he was really not happy about that. Here he is showing me just how tall he is.


To try and make Nate feel better, Scott bought him a snow cone to eat while the older kids were doing the water slide. It definitely made Nate happy.





Owen wasn't so sure about the snow cone--it was COLD!





After the kids used up the 20 rides, they were begging for more. Nate was begging Scott to let the kids go on more rides, too (which I thought was odd, because he had been so upset that he didn't get to go on the slide in the beginning). Scott gave in and bought 20 more rides for the kids to share.


The kids headed off up the hill to the top of the slide....


And then Nate turned to Scott and said quite emphatically, "Now lets go buy me more treats!!!". Scott agreed, and they headed off to the concession stand. This time they came back with Air Heads.

By the time the kids had used up the second set of tickets (they each ended up getting to go 10 times), we decided it was time to head home. The kids didn't want to leave, but I promised them I'd bring them back to play in the water during the week when it wasn't so busy.