Almost silent videos

Here is a rather amateur tribute to Charlie Chaplin done by my less than professional offspring:

Barrettes

Barrettes go in the hair.
Dead batteries go in the garbage.
Mommy Roze should go to bed.
But maybe the kids should go first.

Party park protest

There was a park redone a little farther away from "our" park. It's handicap accessible, it has a splash pad, and it's got brand new play equipment. It used to be the park where the teenagers hung out, smoked, and had an occasional drink. Now they've moved to our park, since it's less popular and more isolated.

"OK kids,
keep your shoes on so you don't get glass cuts on your feet.
Don't pick up the broken bottles so you don't cut your fingers.
Don't touch those cigarette buds so you don't get sick.
Have fun!"

(You can see an empty 24 box of Lakeport beer sticking out of the garbage can. It's a shame that only 3 or 4 of the empty bottles made it in the garbage too.)

The kids still have fun





but I think I might contact the city parks dudes and complain...see if there's anything they can do to make sure it doesn't get worse, or perhaps prevent further partying. Or just promote responsible partying.

Mommy monster

Run while you can!

Another summer sick day

Isn't summer the time to be healthy and energetic, and when you get stuff done? Too bad for us if it is...we're not with the times. Matthew has a bad cough and is rather lethargic again today. Sometimes he has trouble getting all the phlegm out of the way. Poor guy. I'm sure I'd feel MUCH MUCH more sorry for him if he hadn't woken me up so much last night for the same complaint. After all, I have the same ailments as him, and no one is catering to me!

Melanie was willing to dote on him for a while though...so I at least got my morning vacuum done. (We won't have to pick rice, playdough, and other unrecognizable items off of the bottoms of our feet every few seconds.)

Hopefully he has a super dooper long nap this afternoon and wakes up feeling chipper again. If he woke up at 5, or 6 even, when Daddy gets home, I won't get upset. ;)

Two by to

Now you can Mommy Roze's waking-up-from-naptime face too!

Aren't I cute?

Two weeks and Matthew and I will be sitting in a plane and leaving my other two munchkins and hubby behind! It's kind of a scary thought. But I'm in a daze this week, so it's not scaring or exciting me at the moment--and that is DEFINATELY a good thing, since I'm emotionally unstable enough these days without anything exciting going on. Maybe I'll be able to stay stable for a while, and have dry eyes for a few weeks...MAYBE.

These two weeks, I thought, would be really really long. So I've booked a few social get togethers...maybe that'll pass the time. Maybe I can see a close friend again, who will be back next week!! Would be great to have a good chat with her too--I've been missing a good chat with her and my sis-in-law gone...and everyone else being ever so far away. You'd think I'd just pick up the phone...but I only do that rarely these days 'cause it just isn't the same and it's lost a bit of its glow on me...not sure why. Maybe these two weeks will fly by though, since, after all, when did time go slow? Always I'm going "It's Friday already? What about all these (here I should add a list of thirty seven thousand and twelve or so) things I was planning to get done this week?" I don't take the kids grocery shopping anymore either. I gave up. It was too hard. I quit. They were getting too hyper and uncontrollable. So now I go by myself in the evening, which only adds to my feeling of distance and helps me loose my feeling of understanding how the schedule of time passing. Is it really July already? It must still be May...or June. We've only had one killer hot week, so my body, I guess, doesn't believe it's midsummer already. Oh well...maybe I'll step outside and mindlessly pick some mulberries. That's so much easier than trying to figure out which of my thirty seven thousand and eleven or so remaining things is the most important to do just now.

Life with your arm around me

That's Melanie's waking-up-from-naptime face.


Nathan's goofball-fooling-around-when-I-have-the-camera face.


"It's okay if I wear my fire shirt now 'cause it's summer this year now, right?"


"Peanut butter." (That one is really really getting old now.)


Beautiful mulberry toes. I guess I could wash their feet everytime they come in from playing outside...but they'd still have a purple tinge to them...so I don't bother. :o

"I can put my arm around Melanie just like you put your arm around Daddy at church, right Mom?"

"Why do you put your arm around Daddy?"

"Because I love him."

"You don't mind if I put my arm around you, right Melanie? Is it okay?"

(she nods)

Park day

After such a busy week, it's time we took a day to relax at the park. They never seem to object to that...

It's sure nice having a giant sandbox as part of the park!

I did have to break up three fights over Nathan's special big shovel, though. Too bad for them we don't have three of them...but hey, learning to share is something that might just maybe possibly perhaps come in handy one day in the distant future for them. Either way, it's banned from coming next time. Poor shovel.



Maybe I can retire from swing pushing permanently? Too bad he can't lift her up onto it too!


Since our camping trip, Matthew's been much more willing to walk on "rugged" terrain. That is, on anything that isn't perfectly flat. He does the sand in the park fantastically now!

And he loves the hill! It actually has a pretty good incline--which the photo doesn't capture. He knows how to do the up and the down. What a big boy! (sniff sniff)


It is so much fun to run!