Eyes and Pig Latin

Natalie:

What a cutie.  She uses the term "eyes" for lots of things:  Sunglasses, lights in the ceiling, hand-held mirrors, actual eyes...  You have to interpret when she asks for "eyes" what she means.  It's really cute, and neat to see her associate the word "eyes" with all things that make you see/see better.


Alli:

Alli has gotten so good at spelling and reading that Kim and I used Pig Latin at the dinner table this evening.  I wonder how long *that* will last!  And let me tell you how rusty I am on hearing pig latin and then being able to figure out what is said.  Good thing we only have to use it for a few words here and there!!

4th of July - 2014 Style

This year was the first time in about a decade that Fountain Hills put on its own fireworks display.  We decided to spend the afternoon at the Belt's house so the kids could play and swim, and since they live closer to the Fountain than we do, watch the fireworks from their house.

The kids had a blast playing all day together.  Alli, Gage, and Reegan were in the pool until we made them get out (at almost 9pm) to change so we could watch the fireworks.  What Marcie didn't tell me was that the plan was to sit on their roof to watch!!  They have a small, flat roof at the front of their house, and so they popped out the screen of one of the front windows from an upstairs bedroom and we all climbed through to watch.  All adults made sure kids got out there and sat down immediately - there wasn't much of a barrier at the edge, and we didn't want anyone to accidentally fall over!

All the bigger girls watched the fireworks through their phones, videotaping it.  We thought that was strange - it was LIVE!  Watch it live we kept saying!  Whatever.  And then the little ones kept saying "that's it?"  It was past their bedtime, and they were tired, and I guess the repetitive fireworks exploding just wasn't exciting enough for them.  :)

Natalie slept through that part of the visit, but I'm pretty sure she had fun with all the kids and swimming before that!

Here's Alli, all decked out and showing off her 4th of July spirit.

Pumpkin Patch

As much as I would like a garden, it seems like too big a task to tackle at this point in time.  We have to clear room in the back of the yard, level it out, raise the beds (preferable for critter control), add irrigation, and then finally, we get to plan a garden.  Oh, and figure out what other critter control is needed.

But we heard pumpkins grow quickly and decided to try to at least grow our own pumpkins for carving this October.  To help in all the above-mentioned problems, we decided to put them at the side of the house, near a tree whose irrigation lines we had plugged, and in pots.  So we now have 3 pots, with irrigation, and pumpkin seeds in them.  Fingers crossed - we hopefully will have a pumpkin patch!