Newman Lake 2014

We had two amazing weeks at the lake this year.  (By the way, I looked it up and there does not appear to be a naming convention for lakes:  no idea why the Lake is in front or behind the proper name.)  The hardest part for me was that my seven year old desperately wants to be independent and so he was often off with other kids, eating their food and drinking their soda.  Tommy has long hated to see me drink the occasional diet coke, so we now have a deal:  neither of us will drink soda.  It seems to be working for now, and it makes me feel very virtuous (though it's not like I ever drank that much diet coke).

These little girls got a lot of reading time.

Much to Lizzie's delight, they also got a lot of iPad time.

At the carousel in Spokane.  Tommy is finally tall enough to grab the rings!

This was an ambitious activity on Brett's part.

Aren't you impressed that Lizzie didn't lose that paddle?

Tubing!

That bench at the end of the dock is the best part of the lake.

I think it's possible that these two weeks were the best of Tommy's year.

Tommy and Millie were the only kids who wanted to go for a hike at Mt. Spokane.

I think she likes Uncle Andy more than she likes me.

An ice cream cone as big as her face.

Tommy goes all in for fun public fountains.

The annual "push Grandpa into the lake" event.  Here it is obvious that Grandpa was ready for it, as he crouches into a dive.

Lexy is the acknowledged BEST log-walker.  Tommy got into a fight after Lexy had left (and was therefore unable to defend her position) about whether some other little girl was better (she was not, Tommy insisted).

Guess who celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary at Newman Lake?  Here they are atop Mt Spokane.

Bird watching.

We celebrated Blue Baby's third birthday!  It was thrilling for all of us (that quinoa applesauce cake tasted better than it looks).  See the balloons in the background?  Millie did a great job decorating and planning.

Lexy attempting a handstand as she walks the logs.

This is how kids start to learn to waterski these days.  Much better than the hours I spent eating it as I tried to get up.

I promised Adeline would be the star of the lake photos, back in my Atlanta post, but I forgot to tell that to the photographer.  Luckily, he came through with this gorgeous one of her!  It might be my favorite photo from the lake this year

I have some more photos from this trip, as we got to see the house (er, foundation) where Grandpa Ollie grew up.  But this was enough photos for one day! xo

Two funny ones

We are working hard on personal responsibility in our house, and yesterday I forced the children to clean up the living room before we went to have Lizzie's stitches removed.  They tried once to get the couches all put together, and they did a horrible job so I demanded they keep working on it.  Tommy found the critique of his original effort to be hurtful, and at one point yelled, "YOU'RE TREATING ME LIKE A CASTLE SERVANT!"

And I said, "no, actually, when you don't clean up the messes you make, you're treating me like a castle servant."

***
A couple of days ago he exclaimed, "Mom, what this family needs is a back scratcher!"

Remember when he used to be a baby?

First day of school!!

Tuesday was the first day back for Tommy; Lizzie wasn't supposed to go to school but I took her for the first hour and hovered to make sure she wasn't smacked in the face.  Tommy breezed in after the bus dropped him off and said, "Ms. Kriefall is a blast.  I had such a great day, I don't even know how to talk about it."

I think we are all feeling excited for second grade and EC2 (preschool).  Yay!!

A close up so you can see her mouth a bit.

A quick update on Lizzie:  I took her to the dentist on Monday and her tooth had chipped a bit and needed to be smoothed.  Otherwise, the dentist was very reassuring that things looked good.  She went back to the doctor who did the stitches last night and he said things look good and he anticipates removing the stitches on Saturday.  So she'll be back to school on Sunday!  Yay!

And then this happened.

Yesterday was busy, but in a bad way, and at five pm there were still AC guys at my house (oh, hadn't I mentioned that the kids' AC and our AC are broken? And our freezer too?) and I was frustrated and grumpy.  So when they left, I announced that we were going for a quick swim before I made dinner.  The kids were happy because they hadn't had much exercise at all during the day.  They were having a great time playing when I looked up and saw Lizzie jump off the edge of the pool right at the corner, and bonk her face on the side.  I grabbed her immediately and could see that her face below her lip was bleeding, so I pressed the towel on it and gathered our stuff and tried to get Tommy to come out of the water and tried to get my phone to work but my hands were wet so I couldn't get it to unlock and tried to pretend to be calm so that she wouldn't scream any louder or be any more freaked out than she already was.

Eli rushed home, we packed everyone in the car and drove to Muscat Private Hospital.  It was tough to decide where to take her and I'm embarrassed to admit that from the very moment I realized she had a cut on her face, I was fixated on whether she will have a scar.  The doctor who treated Lizzie seemed great to us but of course we have no freaking idea.  She has a huge cut inside her mouth as well as the one outside, so she required two stitches inside, and four outside.

Despite a confident doctor with a kind-if-matter-of-fact bedside manner, it was a horrible parenting experience from start to finish because she was furious and kept screaming "NEVER DO THAT AGAIN EVER TO ME" whenever the doctor touched her.  Eli and I were assisting: he held her down and I held the iPad so that she could watch 'Tangled' in her (few and far between) calm moments.

And when it was all over, she just looked at us with huge eyes, like she just couldn't believe what had happened.  (I am choosing not to read any blame into her expressive eyes.)

Her doctor didn't want her to go to school today but I took her for the first hour because I didn't want her to miss the entire first day.  She woke up this morning in a great mood and feeling very normal.  She is proud to be on a liquid diet for two days (she's having a milkshake for lunch) and is pleased to be having some television time this morning.  I have no idea when I will recover, however.

I'm back!

I know I owe you a lake post but there are so many good photos that it's a daunting task.  (A proper blogger would be energized by the possibilities, that's how we know I'm not a proper blogger.  Oh, and my infrequent posting.)

Isn't this a sweet one???

We made it back to Muscat. The kids were PERFECT on the journey home, which was truly a miracle given that they had been horrendous from the moment they said good bye to their Daddy on Wednesday night until we arrived at the airport the following Monday.  My children have suddenly decided that their best entertainment is irritating each other and it is my dearest hope that this will end once they are back in school (one more day!) and properly stimulated.

Since arriving back very early on Wednesday morning, Lizzie has slept beautifully, Tommy not so much. He has been up between 3 and 4 each day until this morning when he slept until 7:30 (a whopping 13 hours of sleep).  I am pleased that things are normalizing for the kids (knock on wood) but unfortunately I am still rather discombobulated.  OH WELL.

Until this morning (Sunday), I had not driven or left the Wave complex (where we live).  (This is in part due to the fact that a newly developed mall opened while we were away and there is a decent grocery store there as well as many more restaurants than there were, yay!) I finally got into my car and ventured onto the road and only had one near miss (in a traffic circle of course) so all in all, driving is feeling good.  I also like my car a bit better than I had remembered over the summer.

So that's the Muscat report.  We're doing alright, excited for school to begin and looking forward to a nice cozy school year routine wherein I get a bit of time away from my littles.

Lake Teaser

COUSINS!  How cute are they??  And those Atlanta girls just have killer smiles, don't they?

Soccer camp

Hi, there.

I have a million posts to catch up on but today was the last day of Tommy's soccer camp and I wanted to tell you all about it.  It's a camp taught by a bunch of guys from the UK and they are serious about soccer (football).

First:  I think Tommy got better at this camp.  He learned a lot and I think it's great.  And, when I propose playing with the soccer ball outside, he is up for it.

Second:  Here is Tommy at his match today.

Sadly, that shot shows far more engagement in the match than the reality, which was more like this:(I'm totally signing him up for a soccer class when we get back to Muscat.  Ugh.)