St. Ambrose Fair

The Porecs invited us to the St. Ambrose (Catholic~yes, we cheated on our Lutheran religion!) Church fair. It was fun but kind of expensive and you had to pay for games, food , everything with tickets~no cash accepted. We had to go back to the ticket booth like 5-6 times!



Jungle Terry did a show for the kids. see the snake head in the middle? I touched it and was sooo grossed out. Bella refused to touch it which surprised me...

the girls and I on a 'train' ride

Skinny Daddy and Gwen

Here's a surprise: Gwen loves her Daddy!
I am so proud and in awe of Paul who has worked his butt off (literally!) to lose 55 pounds...and counting!

Minnie and her new BFF

A few summers back we had a skunk living under the shed which sprayed the dogs one nice summer night around 11pm. Sore subject with me; don't want to discuss that any further. The dogs continue to run back behind the shed every single time they go out so we just assumed it was by habit/remembering the skunk. Lo and behold, one day Minnie was barking her head off and refused to come in the house and this is why~see pics below.

baby possum

almost nose to nose with baby possum who was hissing at her (she did not care!)

Bella's Dance Recital

Bella had her 1st Dance Recital with Dance Dimensions on June 10-11. She did so good and was so excited to be 'up on the stage like a rock star' (as she put it!).
Paul and I were quite upset about their choice of costumes for her class who are all ONLY 4-5 year olds. Of course I did not have to put the make-up on her but I was fine with it~Paul was not. After seeing the whole (3 hour) show, I realized their class was the only class who I thought the costumes were inappropriate. The first night My mom, Mandy and I went and the second night Paul, Nonny and Opa went. We knew Gwen would not sit OR be quiet for a 3 hour anything so we took turns going.
I was so proud of Bella. They danced to 'Hit the Road Jack' by Ray Charles.

Bella is 2nd from left

2nd from left really bending!

Gwen got dirty!

The kids were playing out in the yard and Gwen fell face first out by the swingset (the muddy area) and was hysterical~she hates being dirty! I KNOW, she gets it from me!

BFFs

We were sitting here eating lunch one day and out of the blue Olivia says to Bella "you are my best friend." It was so freakin' cute so I had to take a pic of them together that very same day.
I am praying they do not move away, we will all be heart-broken, including Gwen. She loves 'Yi-yee-ah' as she says it.

Messy fun with cousins!

To my utter dismay, Bella and Aidan made a swimming pool out of the boat sandbox. All under the wrong pre-tenses. First, it was only 65 degrees out. 2nd, they asked if they could take their clothes off to play in the sand and I said fine. Finally, I hear the water running and I was hitting the 'oh sh*t button.' What a mess!


Gwen looking on not knowing what to make of it after she woke up from her nap...

Yes, Aidan was jumping off the top into the 'pool'

Busy Weekend

Although I have no pictures to show of it, we had a busy, fun, productive weekend. Paul and I restained the deck and almost the whole fence. He worked me like a dog!
Yesterday I went to Stacie Higg's baby shower and then to Drew Harvey's 4th birthday party @ Bounce City. The kids had a ball!
On another note, this weekend Gwen started to potty train herself. She has been wanting to sit on the potty for a few months now and occassionally would go pee I think only by chance/default that she just happened to be sitting on the potty at that very moment. She has been telling me for months when she pooped by pointing to her butt and going "Mommy, poop." She has been taking her diaper off all weekend. Since Saturday, she has pooped on the baby potty 4 times~all on her own! She is not quite getting all the pee into the potty yet though. She sometimes makes it and other times just stood outside on the deck and peed right where she was standing! Her sister struggled with the pee training too and the #2s were a piece of cake for her also!
Also this weekend, actually the last 4 days Gwen has not napped. On Saturday she actually slept until 1130 am! We kept going in there and checking on her to make sure she was ok! But 15 hours of sleep is what she gets on any given day between night sleep and a nap sooo....I am not ready for her to give up her naps just yet though! I don't know where my baby has gone! She is not even 2 yet!

Bella loves dead things, Part II

Bella was at Nonny and Opa's swimming and there is a garden snake there sunbathing by the pool. So Nonny tells Bella the next time it is out sunbathing she is going to have Opa kill it. Bella says 'with what?' Nonny says 'probably a shovel.' Bella says 'why don't you use a saw blade, it's sharper!' Then proceeds to ask her if she will save it for her to see (dead!).

Bella loves dead things!

Aunty Mandy took a picture of a dead, smooshed frog on her cell phone and sent it to my cell to show to Bella!

She also taught her how to salt the slugs so they curl up and die.

She loves seeing blood when someone gets hurt.

She loves watching Opa kill all the huge wood bees by the barn.

There was a whole dead deer carcass (skeleton only) on the PA property and she spotted it while her and Paul were driving around. She insisted on taking me back there to see it and told EVERYONE about it when we got home and is still talking about it to this day!

I told Paul maybe she is going to be a coroner when she grows up. He said no way and i said why not? they make good $!

PA trip

We went to our property in PA for the long Memorial Day weekend. I had the intent to stay from Friday until Monday. That did not happen. Here's how it went. the 3 hour drive there was painless, the kids had so much fun the first day, the girls slept like angels the first night too. On Saturday, either Paul or I 4-wheeled with Bella the entire day and I even got Gwen to take a nap!
We took the kids in for a bath around 830 and good thing we did cuz we lost power at 900. If there is no electricity= no water pressure. Paul then informs me that when they loose power here in Cook's Forest, it is usually out for weeks!!! In the middle of the forest, it gets so dark you cannot even see the finger in front of your face. So Paul finally got Bella to fall asleep and Gwen on the other hand, was up the entire night talking to me. We don't have a crib there for her so I had to sleep in the bed with her. The power came back on at some point and all the lights we had on, came on, the washing machine resumed it's cycle. At some point in the night, Bella woke up Paul and said she had wet the bed and I somehow did not take enough pull-ups for her and no extra jammies (since we had a washing machine to use if needed) so he ended up wrapping her in a blanket naked and she went back to sleep. We got up the next day, ready to come home. So we cleaned, packed up, fed everyone breakfast, got the car packed to head home. We all get in the car (that has no working air) and the car is dead. Paul walked over to the one neighbor who we sort of knew and she was not home. By this point, Gwen is screaming uncontrollably (she was assumingly hot, tired, etc.) It took us an hour to flag someone down who would first of all stop, who 2nd, had jumper cables. Some nice man and his Dad stopped and jumped us. So we were finally on our way home. It was in the 80s with no air in the car. The dogs were panting uncontrollably and Gwen screamed the ENTIRE WAY HOME. Don't know why so by the time we got home, Paul and I were at our wit's end!




Gwen saw Bella squat and pee in the grass so she was pulling her pants/diaper down for over 2 hours and did not pee except for in her pants after she screamed until I took her diaper off of her!

Bella has graduated and is now driving the 4-wheeler (controlling the gas, brake and handlebars ) with us on the back. That is kind of hard for me to do....I don't like not having control.

Fishing in the Krenz pond

Cuddles loves swimming in the pond! can you see her tiny body in the water? Paul threw Minnie in and she completely went under and swam to the shore and ran the hell away!

Minnie after along day running the whole property..she found a blankie in a corner and curled up and went to sleep.

Me on the roof of the trailer cuz Paul flew the plane and it landed on the roof and he is afraid of heights...It was not so bad

Gwen and Daddy with the Airhog plane sitting by the fire.

Bella and I on the 4-wheeler

End of year party at school

So Bella had her official last day of school on Friday, May 15th. They had a party outside. It was actually miserable. It was in the 80s that day and we were all sweating out butt off! I got really choked up seeing her in her classroom with her classmates for the last time EVER at Royal Redeemer.
Bella was stuck up my butt as usual like she usually is for field trips, parties, etc.