Is hair allowed to do that?

Until 2 months ago, I would have sworn that Parker would grow up with stick-straight hair. But something happened over the summer: his hair started to curl! It started at his crown in the back and is slowly progressing around the sides of his head to the front. I'd been letting him sport the shaggy surfer look but after his bath tonight I decided to get down to business. Snipping here and there resulted in a much better haircut even if it does make him look a bit feminine. He has already being called a girl by 50% of the people we interact with at the store so I figured this couldn't hurt his ego too much. Justin says the wings have to go; we'll see when I get brave enough again to cut around his ears with sharp scissors.

Lawn ornament

One of our toilets sat in the front yard for an hour Saturday morning. The unanticipated chore of taking out a toilet was put on Justin's to-do list midweek when I discovered that the kids had clogged it by flushing two of Parker's pacifiers. Only upon disassembling the toilet did we find out the biggest culprit: a pen! What were they thinking?!? Fortunately all were easily removed and Justin got everything put back together quickly. I wonder what they'll try to flush next...

Flying, sorting, dancing, crashing, drawing

Carol wasn't lying when she told me Minneapolis had more playgrounds than any other city she's been to. Here's the one in the airport! We were lucky enough to go past it on our first day of flying. It's dedicated to Charles Schultz and since Madeleine loves Snoopy we had to take a picture with him. Unfortunately this playground had some glass walls that Parker apparently didn't see so he got a black eye by trying to run through one! I'd suggest all kid play-spaces steer away from glass because Parker can't have been the first to try that.

Staring out the windows. It never gets old watching airplanes take off and land. At Nanna and Pappy's house. JoAnn brought out some shells from the Outer Banks and let Madeleine play with them on the deck while we waited for George's grandkids to come over to play. It quickly became Madeleine's favorite activity, outside of playing with Buoy the puppy (those pictures are on Nanna's camera).

After the wedding, the grandkids took to the floor to show off their moves. Okay, it was only ring around the rosie but still they were quite the entertainment! Madeleine and Parker ran around with their new cousins all night and were disappointed to find out they wouldn't be coming to Montana with us (their family lives in Florida).

Downtown Phillipsburg (where the reception was) and rolling PA hills

Being supervised by JoAnn's dear friend Audrey (Hi Audrey! I know you're reading this :)

Wedding cake eating. Both of the kids managed to stick their fingers in the cake before it was cut and served. What can I say? My kids know a good thing when they see it!

Flying home. There was a lot of eating, a lot of sleeping, and a lot of goofing off.

Best buy ever! A last minute find on clearance at Target last week: Crayola wipe off drawing pad. Entertained Madeleine for hours. We flew both directions without a portable DVD player. I think we deserve gold medals.

This is just a smattering of what happened. Most of the events were captured on JoAnn's camera so hopefully I'll find a way to get a hold of those and share some time soon.

Cauliflower anyone?

Here's one of 3 enormous heads of cauliflower I harvested from the garden earlier this month. Big, right? I still have one more growing that I'll probably pick next week. That's a lot of blanching!

Three weeks late

Madeleine's been in school for three weeks now. I'm so proud of how well she's doing and how much she loves it! I had to uphold the long-standing tradition of taking her picture the first day and here it is. So cute and excited!

Home again

We had a whirlwind of a trip to PA. Flying out Thursday and back on Sunday made it a quick trip jam packed with family time. Despite all of us being sick, we had a lot of fun. We spent as much time as possible playing with Uncle Bubba (Justin's brother Aaron), his girlfriend Jess, his new puppy Buoy, the kids' new cousins Ella and Brooke, and of course Nanna and Pappy (JoAnn and George). We have some pictures and videos that I will try to download over the next couple of days. Thanks for a great time and congratulations again Nanna and Pappy!!!

Reasonable? Ha!

Forget getting to bed at a sensible hour. It's already 1:30am, I have to be up by 6am, and I still have tons to clean up. Ugh. The kids are both sick (runny noses, dry cough, P's sounds like croup...) and my throat hurts. We'll be "that family" on the planes tomorrow. Prayers and positive thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I'm a little airplane now

We'll be little airplanes tomorrow as we head to PA for JoAnn and George's big day on Saturday. Today is full of errands, laundry, last minute food preserving, and hopefully a reasonable bedtime. We'll be back on Sunday so you'll have to wait until next week to hear from us again. Have a great weekend!

Success!

She did it! Madeleine completed her first day of preschool :) Despite Ms. Nancy having to pull a screaming Madeleine off Justin, Madeleine had a great day at school and wasn't too thrilled to come home with Parker and me, especially when she found out she'd have to wait until Friday to go back. I was told she cried and whined for 2 minutes, said she was all finished, and wanted to go do some art. That was it. Unbelievable, right? Sometimes Justin and I doubt the way we've parented her because of her ability to "freak out" for extended periods of time but it seems like we're doing a relatively okay job. I'm sure Friday morning will have another short meltdown but that's to be expected. As long as she loves being there and says she wants to go back I'm happy.

Countdown to school...

Madeleine will go to her first day of preschool tomorrow. Yikes! Justin's agreed to take her--I can do shots and the like but saying goodbye on the first day of school would wreck me. We've casually talked about school over the last few days but hopefully not enough to get her too nervous. She has been telling us she's nervous because she will miss us but she understands that there will be lots of other kids there who will want to play with her and that makes her excited. She also gets that I'll pick her up before lunch so she doesn't have to spend that much time there. I think Parker's going to feel short-changed because he's stuck with ol' mom while Maddie gets to play with tons of other kids; I'm curious about the kids' reaction when they see each other tomorrow afternoon.

One thing that has permanently changed: remember this kid?

Madeleine can now attend school without the crazy halo of fuzz surrounding her head. On my last trip to see Katt, my hairdresser, she recommended a product called Deva curl to help control Madeleine's curls. She told me to fore go shampoo and simply rinse her hair with water, use the Deva conditioner, only rinse some of it out, and let it air dry. Here's the result:

Two little bobby pins to hold her bangs back and she's good to go! I'll keep working on figuring out how to style it but it is pretty hard to get a 3-year old to stay still for mom to "fix" her hair. In her mind it doesn't much matter because she'll be wearing a bike helmet most of the afternoon to ride her bike :) How time flies...

Telling me off

After a slightly rough evening, Madeleine sat me down on her bed this evening saying, "We need to have a talk Momma. Sometimes when you make me mad I don't want to listen to you. I understand that you have to take special things away when I don't listen but I'm just a little girl and sometimes I'm a big girl and I'm okay with that." Despite the slight lapse in linear thinking, she constantly impresses me with her ability to articulate her feelings and the reasons behind them. She is one cool kid who knows how to knock my socks off.

The hunt is on

Labor Day weekend doesn't just signal the end of summer; it ushers in hunting season. Justin has spent the last month practicing shooting his bow, preparing for this day. Although he intended on going out last night, he delayed until after dinner this evening because we're just too much fun to leave :) He'll hunt tonight, tomorrow and through the afternoon on Monday in the same place where he saw a grizzly last year. He's much more brave than I could ever be, however, we did buy him new bear spray this year which provides some comfort. There's always hope he'll bag something opening weekend but it's probably just the first of many outings. I'm hoping to use the unsupervised time to wreak temporary havoc on the house doing lots of laundry, cleaning, and canning while, of course playing with the kids. We'll do our best to have lots of fun...it's the last weekend before preschool! Yikes!

Family "hike"

Justin took a long lunch Monday so we could hang out on Waterworks Hill, the hiking area I frequented when we lived on the north side of town. I used to hike this area with Madeleine and Maggie a lot shortly after we found out we were pregnant with Parker and I quit working, beginning my quest to find all of the wildflowers in my Montana wildflower book. Waterworks Hill is home to the elusive bitterroot, a favorite, and this gully is covered with yellow balsamroot and purple lupine at the beginning of summer. All that to say, I really like this spot.

Despite our efforts to entice the kids to hike, we ended up dragging/carrying/distracting them with "how many grasshoppers can you chase" most of the way. At least it was sunny and Justin could be there with us.

Distracted again. This time they found sagebrush. Sometimes it'd be nice to be that short and see the world in it's grandeur.

Then again, sometimes we'd just like to get a little exercise. *sigh* There's always tomorrow...