Just Call Me "Buzz"

Connor needed a haircut.  He was cute, but a little shaggy.

 

So I decided to give him one yesterday.  It's summer, so I thought it might be a good idea to use the clippers on the back part of his head to get it shorter and keep him cooler, right?

Apparently, he's scared of the clippers.  And when little boys are scared of clippers and mom puts them on the back of their head, they tend to jerk.

Needless to say, I had to call my favorite stylist in the whole wide world to save us.

Thanks so much, Brandi!  We love you!

(And I still don't understand why Connor is scared of me with clippers but not you...)

Better Late Than Never...

What an eventful June we've had!  The last two weeks have been C-R-A-Z-Y.  Fortunately I took a few pics along the way so I haven't completely forgotten what we did.

The biggest deals of the month were Connor's and Olivia's birthdays.  Connor's birthday was the 19th, which this year fell the Saturday before Father's day.  Olivia's was the next day, June 20th, which was actually ON Father's day.  (Coincidentally, Ben proposed to me on Father's Day, June 20th eleven years ago and Olivia was born exactly one year later.)

Needless to say, it was a hectic weekend.  But we managed to celebrate it all...

First I baked Connor a cake and invited some friends and neighbors over to share it with us on Sunday night.
  Unfortunately, I was trying a fancy new icing and it never did thicken up.  And since it was Sunday I wasn't going to the store to buy what I needed for backup, I simply dyed it green and poured it all over his cake anyway.  He didn't mind.

Then he opened a few presents...

...and blew out some candles.

Despite the melting icing the cake tasted pretty good, and I had no qualms about throwing the leftovers away.

Which was good, because on Tuesday we were having more cake and ice cream for Olivia's birthday party.  At least her cake turned out like we planned...

In case you can't tell, it's a pool with a diving board and floaties in it.  It seemed appropriate since she had a small pool party.  Note the wet hair.

They all had a great time, though.  And I must say, I think it's the easiest party I've ever done for her.  Oh, happy day!

Bubba Corn

We were grilling corn for dinner the other night, and when I shucked them I noticed something a little different about one of the ears of corn.

Notice how the outer ears of corn have small, neat, straight kernels.  The one in the middle?  Big and crooked.  Remind you of anything?

I didn't know they grew "Bubba" corn in Oklahoma...

Toenails

Will someone please explain to my husband that it is not a crime to paint your son's toenails?

The poor boy can't understand that it's "just for girls", and when I'm painting mine and his sisters' nails, he is absolutely heartbroken if I don't paint his as well.

Besides, it was only one toe on each foot, and I did it in blue.  Very manly, don't you think?

Flooding and Museums

It's later, so it's time to blog about summer week #3.  This is when I feel like my summer actually began, by the way.  We started off the week with such promise!  Record-setting rainfall in Edmond and Oklahoma City, resulting in a cancellation of our dearly-beloved Swim Monday with the families from church and terrible flooding in areas near our home.  Fortunately for us, we live in a level, well-drained neighborhood, so no damage was done here except for an unexpected delay to the start of our softball season.  However, there are many around us who have suffered unexpected and uninsured losses, so we are counting our blessings!  Here's a couple pics from the local newspaper, the Edmond Sun.

Several roadways were blocked with water, and dozens of people had to be rescued in the OKC area throughout the day.

There were a couple of nicer subdivisions in northern Edmond that were flooded.  This is one of them a couple of days after the flooding.  As you can see, there are a lot of people out there helping clean out, cut out, and throw out.  Many homes had water come up several feet on their first floor.

We also took a day to go to the local (and free!) children's museum at the Edmond Historical Society.  We've been before, but my neighbor and her daughter haven't been there since they re-did it a couple of years ago.  The best thing about going with more kids is that I don't have to be the bank-robber who gets arrested and thrown in jail all the time.  Here's a few pics from our outing.

As soon as we got there, Connor found the trains...

...Kelsey found the grocery store...

...and Olivia found the dress-up clothes.

Connor found the jail a few minutes later and was very excited.

Fortunately, Kelsey showed him how to escape.

Our neighbor's daughter, Eva, also found the dress-up clothes.  But no boyish outfit for her - she's ALL GIRL and needed to look the part.  Don't you love the cat she brought along?

Before long, Kelsey was taking a nap in Eva's house.

Soon Kelsey got up to go to her job at the bank...

...which Eva then robbed.  Fortunately, Sheriff Olivia tracked her down.

She hauled the criminal off to jail...

...and threw her behind bars!

Till Kelsey showed her how to escape, too.

Before long, our reformed bank-robber found her heart's desire: tails.  She loves tails!  And she kept wanting to take one or more home with her.  (She actually does have quite a collection of pretend tails at home that she often wears around the house and in the yard.  She's got quite an imagination and loves pretending to be an animal!  However, she's not allowed to wear them to our house because Trixie loves them, too.)

There were so many to choose from, but alas - not for keeping.

Connor was in heaven once he found the markers.  No crayons for this boy - he likes things he can take apart, and a marker and it's cap are just the thing!

Connor has also started to make-believe that he is eating or drinking from time to time.  I suspect it stems from some of the books we've read together.  Anyway, he found this tin pitcher among the household supplies and pretended he was drinking out of it.  He is so stinkin' adorable!

It was a great way to spend a hot, muggy summer morning!

The "Lazy" Days of Summer

I know it's been over three weeks since I wrote a blog post.  I have no excuse, really, except for the fact that it's summer and I haven't been in the mood.  But while I was boycotting blogging for a couple of weeks, life has still been going on and now I have a lot of catching up to do!

We started our summer off with kind of a bang.  Or, rather, I did.  I went to girls camp with the young women from our church.  Every year they ask a different person to be the "camp leader" for our congregation (which we call a "ward").  We share the camp with the 8 or 9 other wards that make up our "stake".  We had 23 girls go to camp from our ward, and there were approximately 120 girls at camp this year.  And for those of you that AREN'T the daughter of a (now-retired) math teacher like I am, that means almost 20% of the girls at camp came from our ward.  Yep.  We had the biggest group there.  But since I am pregnant they were kind to me by letting me sleep in the "quiet cabin", which meant most people were asleep by midnight or so, rather than 3:00 a.m.  Oh, happy day.  And yes, the cabins were air conditioned, so I froze all night instead of melted.  But I'm not complaining.  Nope, not at all.  If I were going to complain about something it would have been that the bathrooms/showers were not air conditioned, which meant trying to adjust your layers of clothing in sticky, sweltering, unseasonably-hot-in-the-upper-90's-and-really-humid temperatures.  But angels don't complain, right?  And we all know I'm one of those.

So what were the natives (i.e. kids and hubby) doing while I was off partying in the wilds with a bunch of adolescent girls?  Ben was working as usual, and the kids spent their days at various party-houses.  At least, I'm pretty sure they thought they were at a party.  Each day a different family, and a different kind of fun.  They had a blast, and we are so grateful for our friends that let them come over while I was out of town!

I was at the camp Tuesday afternoon through Saturday morning, so once I got back the next week was spent in recovery mode.  For me, not the kids.  And very little that didn't have to be done actually got done.

So that was the first two weeks of our summer. What happened next?  Well, I'll blog about that later...