Let the Summer Begin!

Last night the boys, Jack, Will, and Karsten, were playing outside and decided to shake the lilac bushes to try and knock out some baby birds. Well, sadly two fell out. We had a lengthy discussion about caring for God's creatures and eventually Jack felt remorse. The boys went out to check on the birds twice before bed. They had managed to snuggle in some branches and leaves, but didn't make it through the night. Jack had to double check on them this morning. Yup, they are dead. If you know anything about me, I'm not a fan of birds, and the baby ones without hair are just discusting. So there they sit, under the bushes. After we got home from our Downtown family summer kick off celebration (more to come on that), the boys wanted to stay outside, I was more than happy to let them run. About 20 minutes later I hear Jack scream at Will so of course I ran outside to check on them. Jack told me they had found a nest for the birds and put them in it. I asked them if they touched the birds, "No I didn't! Will did! And he gave the birds a ride on his motorcycle". Will added "when they come alive, I'm going to teach them to fly".

Well, as I said above tonight was our Downtown Family Summer Kick-Off Celebration! I decided every year on the last day of school we will have a family fun night to celebrate the beginning of summer. So tonight we decided to go downtown. We parked at Falls Park, rode the Trolley to downtown, and strolled through the new toy store and candy store and checked out the new sculptures. All the boys picked out a special treat from the candy store, and Jack had Cotton Candy for the first time. When he said it was his first time eating it, I was almost surprised, how can a kid live for 6 years without eating cotton candy? Well, I guess it must be my fault. Then we stopped at the Dinner and the boys shared a purple cow, and me and Ella shared a banana split. Ella mostly at the banana, with a little whip cream. She wasn't complaining. We had planned on riding the Trolley back to the Falls to pick up the van, but it only comes around every half hour, and we didn't want to wait. It was a great evening for a walk with the family and we all had a great time making memories.

Success!

Ella has finally gotten all four appendages to work together to create foward movement. For the last two months I've been preparing the boys for what would come; and now the tiny marbles, cars, and G.I. Joes are banished from the living room. Jack is excited that she is on the move, however, Will is home all day and its cutting into his playtime routine. We have sectioned off a "safe zone" where the boys can keep a few things and Ella would have,for now, a hard time getting into. But the freedom of laying things down and walking away is now gone. But its so fun to watch her lift up and move, I purposly put her in the middle of the floor so she will have to crawl to whatever she wants. She mostly uses this new skill to get to the nearest object she can pull herself to standing on. She really loves to stand and has even began cruising around the couches. She is still very slow at all these new tasks, but she will get faster and will soon there will be no more "safe zone".

Oh Yuck!

So Ella has been getting around, in the non-floozy way. She isn't crawling yet, but she is starting go get on all fours and scoots her knees forward, so she isn't far off. But she does roll around and bottom scoots.

Well, this afternoon after a healthy lunch, she was rolling around with a toy, talking away and just plain happy. I was cleaning her lunch off the floor, when I walked back in the living room she had gotten herself back into the sitting position and was putting something in her mouth from off the floor. "What are you eating?" I asked her, I had just vacuumed so it should have been cleaned. I noticed some green on the floor, I figured she had just spit up some of her peas and had eaten some of her puke. But then I noticed some poop creeping from out of the back of her pants! Oh NO!!! She was rolling around, poop got on the floor, and she had picked out some half digested green beans! Yuck! Well, I guess Jack had his poop ALL over his face as a baby and he survived. Its still gross.