A new tradition has developed recently since Dalton never makes it in time to breakfast in the cafe anymore. Every morning they want me to lift them onto the windowsill and take their picture. For some reason - known only to them - I also have to name off different foods while I'm taking the pictures. Very little of what I do nowadays makes any sense.
Tuesday night we played a little "superheroes" and did some breakdancing/gymnastics. Just an average night.
Wednesday morning they were still feeling a bit extra-spunky, so they went to school in their super-hero capes. Sometimes you've just got to let your freak flag fly.
Thursday was diving board day at swim class. Dalton has gone off the diving board at our house, but he almost drowned my Dad in the process. I kind of wondered how they did it in swim class. It's a much more controlled method than our impromptu - "Hey Dalton - jump to Pa!" He went off twice though, no problem, so it seems like a good one.
Late in the week Amazon blessed us with 2 very large boxes. I really can't fathom why we bought them beds. The were infinitely happier going to bed in a box in the hall than they have ever been going to sleep in their own beds. At some point the boxes are going to have to go bye-bye - so people can get in the front door - but for now they are a constant source of amusement.
So, following our surprisingly successful sleepover, Mr. Jeremiah came over so we could play with the kids in the pool. Dalton continues to be a force of aquatic nature. It is entirely possible he will start to grow gills. From the second he leaps with abandon into the pool he is going full throttle. Someone has to be assigned to him at all times because he is like a gif - just a continuous loop of jumping in, swimming back to the step and jumping again. We were constantly having to force him to take breaks to catch his breath. He has also now discovered Darby's goggles, which he enjoys a lot but which make him look like a crazed supervillain. Who was Aquaman's arch enemy?
Darby continues to be more hesitant. She doesn't like to put her head underwater, Not that that's such a bad thing right now as she has a torn eardrum and has to wear a special ear-plug when she swims. She too was in a continuous loop of jumping in and "swimming" to me, but comparing it to Dalton is like comparing The Queen drinking tea to a frat boy drinking beer at a kegger.
Dalton rounded out the rest of the afternoon playing golf. I didn't get good video of it, but Little Man has quite a good swing. He seems to favor what I'm assuming is the 9 iron. Once I got him going with the driver he lost some of his follow-through.
He also got in a little Rock Star practice. He had thrown his guitar down on stage just before this picture was taken. He was having trouble wrestling both it and the diva mic.
For dinner we went to my parents'. After years of having my father literally steal food off my plate, it was amusing to see Darby school him on etiquette. Little Girl was not putting up with his crap. When I told her she needed to protect her food from him, she told me she was "On it." He even got sent to Time Out at one point.
After baths we headed home, stopping for a quick photo opp on their favorite piece of construction equipment - the Excavator. They did get a bit scared standing there though. Darby was afraid that the "driver" might drive off with them on there.
It began with everyone applying a thick coat of bug spray so the kids could ride bikes around the cul-de-sac - only to the tree on that side and not past the silver car on the other... Darby stepped up their game this time, and declared a race. She insisted on having a flag drop to start the race. We didn't have a checkered one, but she was satisfied with the "America one". The big one. As you can tell by the photo, little girl is not to be messed with. Side note, I do not like one bit how grown up he looks in this first picture...
Next we moved on to viewings of Lip Sync Battle followed by The Lego Movie. Because of which episode of LSB it was, that turned into a full immersion into the song "Everything is Awesome!". That has emerged as a current favorite song - topped only by Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" (our dance party song), "The Quack Quack Song" (aka "Six Little Ducks"), and "Lollipop" by the Chordettes (circa 1950-something). Dalton does like to customize "Everything is Awesome!" though. I prefer the Kiss version over the Doodie Butt one, but Stella seems to disagree. To each their own I guess.
Saturday morning began ridiculously early as usual. I attempted to claim a few more minutes of sleep between fetching endless bowls of cereal and waffles (I believe they sampled every single kind of cereal in the cupboard) before they finally finished the job by jumping on my head and pronouncing it "Coronation Day!" Now there does not appear to be an consistency concerning what Coronation Day involves, other than there is a always a lot of running and the repeated shouting of "It's Coronation Day! It's Coronation Day!" (for those who are not in the know, this comes from the movie Frozen). Often we have to pack a lot of bags - usually of toys and often plastic food. Sometimes we all have to pile into the imaginary car to drive to the Coronation - although we have never actually gotten there and there has never actually been any kind of coronation ceremony. Saturday the Coronation Day festivities involved us having to make a cake - a real one. Since I was clearly not getting any more sleep, I said - what the hell, let's make a cake. The only mix I had was an old Pink Lemonade flavored one, but pink cake seemed appropriate for Coronation Day anyway.
As the cake was baking, they moved on to new adventures - namely playing hide and seek inside the clothes hamper. Dalton spent a decent chunk of the weekend in there. He took it from hide and seek to his being a Monster in the Box. Sunday they proclaimed themselves a Talking Trash Can.
After a nap taken under duress, we finished up the cake. It's a long, complicated story, but the finished cake was pretty impressive. It had 3 layers - 2 chocolate and 1 pink lemonade. There was blue and yellow icing on the inside and pink lemonade icing on the outside. And butterfly sprinkles. It was worthy of a Coronation Day cake for sure.
Luckily we had people to share our cake with. Ms. Jamie brought Jordan & Bailey over, and Ms. Elizabeth brought Eva. There was more bike racing to be had, with an increased field of racers and Darby playing the role of Flag Girl.
Dalton remains terrified that the garbage truck is going to steal the bikes and scooters. He wanted to go in at one point but got hysterical when I refused to bring the bikes in, since others were still using them. Despite a complete lack of garbage truck sightings, my promises to protect them fell on deaf ears, and eventually we all just decided to throw in the towel and go in. He was in a frenzied panic until they were all safely inside.
The night ended in a sleepover for Ms. Jamie, Jordan and Bailey. Darby has been wanting one for weeks now and it went shockingly well. Jordan & Darby slept in Darby's bed, and Dalton & Bailey slept in Dalton's bed and everyone slept through the night in the beds where they started. The last time they slept over it was like a big game of nocturnal musical chairs.
So the 4th was pretty low-key during the day. First we held the First Annual Running of the Flags, followed by the First Annual Placing of the Flags at the Curb, followed by swimming w/ Nana in the pool. It was totally epic.
In the late afternoon we made our way to Castle Hills, which I hold is the perfect 4th of July celebration. Big enough to have great fireworks over a lake and small enough that they have free bounce houses, kids' activities and food trucks. Added bonus is that we have a bunch of great friends there. We'd be crazy to go somewhere else. The kids had a blast.
After this year we have learned the secret of how to become a 4th of July Rock Star - Bubble guns.
The Pied Piper has nothing on the bubble gun. Note the 2 year-old holding court w/ tweens by holding the bubble gun. That's no accident.
The fireworks themselves were awesome. I was a little concerned that Dalton might get spooked, but he could not have loved it more. He sat on my lap and clapped for every single one. And he kept prompting me to clap each time too. It was greatness.
The week after the holiday weekend is always a let-down. Back to work and school is never popular, and bedtime is the worst. For some unknown reason, Darby wanted to lie on the floor to go to sleep. It may have to do w/ a recent camping obsession of hers. I'm good w/ it, but I'm pretty sure Daddy would be willing to pay his weight in money to get out of actually camping. Anyway, we started the evening last night w/ the 2 of them laying down on her floor to sleep. That quickly disintegrated w/ various potty breaks/ways to get out of actually going to bed.
My big shock came when I went to check on Darby before going to bed. I was expecting to find her alone in her bed, but to my surprise, this is what I found on the floor:
It's basically impossible to do anything but love this...
