2010 Fourth of July

Since my parents bought a house at deep creek lake, we've been celebrating the 4th of July there (about 4 yrs now). Always a lot of fun with our family and fireworks from the boat (and my brothers who like to blow up things and fire a bit too much. I'll say it again... has no one read, Follow My Leader?!)
Anyways... this year was no exception to the fun. It was beautiful weather with my parents, brother Brian, the Harris clan and ourselves. We went boating, tubing, fishing and had plenty of time to swim in their pool and hot tub. We made fires, roasted s'mores, and took the boat for ice cream at least once or twice.
It was so much fun, I decided to stay and have a friend come up and meet me for another few days and Brady went home with Brian and my parents.
Perfect way to spend our last days with the Harris family who went from there to Hawaii for 3 years. We miss them already!

Looking for "sea glass"- broken bottles smoothed over the boys think is treasure.

Bryce loves to fish

Fireworks from the boat

Watching Uncle Brian's fireworks

Table Manners

For some reason, table manners is this unobtainable goal that we've had going on now FOREVER! Between getting up and down, laughing, touching, burping, passing gas, telling jokes that make no sense, feet on the chair, heads not over plates, spilled milk/water/juice/chocolate milk... it's enough to make me batty.
BUT...




...sometimes kids just gotta be kids. We'll try again tomorrow at breakfast.

Sillybanz craze

So, this is the new hype here in Maryland... sillybanz. Little rubber bracelets in different shapes. Example- you can buy a packet of "animal" or "vehicles" and inside will be a bunch of different rubber shaped animals or cars/trucks, etc. A package of 12 is 1.99 and a package of 24 is 4.99.
Anyways, it's was the craze at Carter's school so he did some jobs, saved his money, paid his tithing and off to Hallmark we went to buy some. Bryce of course jumped right on board and did the same. Here are the boys showing off their purchase. Bryce chose zoo animals and Carter chose cowboy. Each came with 4 of each shape. Example: cowboy hat, horseshoe, bucking bronco, star...
They come that way so kids can trade and get some of each "theme."
After a "juice stand"(b/c I don't buy lemonade), the boys had enough to buy more. Carter bought Disney characters and Bryce chose glow in the dark (oooo-ahhhh) summer theme. Suns, sandcastles, etc...
They like to trade them with friends- or just give them away- or just accept from those who are giving to them. Very fun and luckily this fad is cheap. :)
From April, Carter is beginning to lose interest a little bit (we'll see when school starts up again in the fall), and Bryce is still really into them and likes to play the "sillyband game" that he made up with a friend. Apparently you roll it up and each guess what it is.
Silly little pieces of shaped rubber. What a genius idea...

Pumping Power

Carter is so thrilled he finally learned how to do this...

...no, not kick you in the face, but pump his legs!!!
Suddenly swinging is something he LOVES to do and feels so proud doing it.
Someone was giving away swings, so you know me, a sucker for free stuff decided it would be fun to hang them under our deck. The kids love em.


However take note of Carters helmet. Although wearing it b/c just finished riding his bike, turns out itcan come in handy... we found out the hard way that getting too excited pumping can result in a too close encounter with the bottom of the deck resulting in a headache and goose-egg.
No worries, he just faces the opposite direction now and pushes off the deck bottom with his feet and his head flies high the other direction looking at the deck.

Biking boy

I just have to say how impressed I am with Bryce. Not many 3 year olds I know can do this....

Ok, they can stand there straddling a 2 wheeler without training wheels... but he can ride one too. :)
He has been bugging me for months to teach him to ride, but I thought he was too young and told him when he was four he could learn. I decided just to take off the training wheels in June one afternoon while Aubryn was sleeping and Carter was riding his 2 wheeler and he would see how hard it was and try later when Brady got home. (I think it's a 'dad job' to teach their children how to ride a bike and since my mom basically taught Carter, I wanted Brady to have the chance with Bryce).
Anyways, he did not see how hard it was. In fact after about 5 peddles he told me to let go and that's the end of that. Brady drives up to Bryce hopping the neighbors curb (it's rounded so nothing crazy) and his mouth drops. I look at him and start apologizing and explaining the story. He replies, "well, maybe at least I'll get to teach Aubryn how to paint her nails." He was actually really happy for Bryce and super impressed- as we all were. Carter was excited to show Bryce how to start on his own and took great pride when Bryce told Brady that Carter taught him how to start on his own. Since then, we've switched him from his Thomas bike to a bigger one so his feet aren't so flat on the ground and he makes more distance with less effort. However... the bigger the bike... the bigger the fall.
To be continued(dah, dah, dum...)- in a scary, low pitch sounding voice.
biking buddies