The Day Before Kyla Turns Five: An Original Song

For those who want to sing along:

One, Two, Three, and Four,

But nothing's better than FIVE.

If you're four, you have to wait 'til you are five.

Five is wonderful, it's very wonderful, very wonderful.

You make a wish upon a star and

Sometimes it comes true.

Oh, Five, Oh, Five,

Oh Five, Five, Five!

Dwayne drew and I colored Kyla's wrapping paper last night. Because I only buy Christmas paper (more out of laziness/forgetfulness than environmental concern), I usually have the girls color old sheets of architect drawings that I have drawn balloons, or robots, or cakes on.

Dwayne is a far superior artist. Though he will be the first to admit tracing the ankylosaurus. Still, pretty cool, huh?

Ballet

The girls have had 4 ballet lessons and finished today. 

 

My studio pictures were lousy—yellow and unfocused, so I snapped a few shots outside.

A pose by Kyla.  A nose-pick by Pipes.

 

Ha Ha!

 

Proper foot gear is very important in ballet.  Clearly.

They Make It Look More Fun Than It Is

It’s no secret I HATE working on the walls and stairs.  Dirt, sweat, hot sun, bricks that weigh 30-80 %$#& pounds, digging endless trenches, forever fiddling to get things perfectly level, blah, blah.  Using up every Saturday and Sunday working on it and never finishing.  Hate it.  (Except working as a team with my husband.  But seriously, I could get that thrill planting a garden with him.) 

But somehow the kids always look like this is fun.

 

I am proud of the “minor” project we just finished, but I don’t have all my pictures of that ready yet.

Best Wesley Shot Ever

Our friend, Anna, had her birthday party at a gymnastics center and all the kids got to play on the equipment.  His feet are probably six inches off the ground.

Road Trip

Piper has buckled in Wesley for the trip to the beach.  Piper will be driving and I was invited to join them if I wanted to, but I had to sit in the back.

The Beast

[Confidential to Gramma K:  skip this post to avoid more gray hairs.  Your grandkids are crazy.]

The beast is a big red Dodge truck that has to be older than Dwayne and I are.  In the five minutes it takes you to get it started and drive it down our driveway, you can’t help but blurt out, “This thing is a beast!”

But the kids like the Beast. 

Kyla can “Daisy Duke” her way from the bed into the cab.

Wesley likes standing on the wheel well and jumping off. The bare chest is a nice touch, oui?

Lighthouse Beach

May I recommend a great spot?  Lighthouse Park is in Mukilteo—just drive down to the water and take a left instead of getting on a ferry.  Our playgroup did a beach day down here.  Best of all worlds—good climbing toys, a great pebble beach, water too cold for the kids to try to drown in, right next to a busy train track (this is good if you are a kid), the ferry left every 30 minutes, and a sea lion actually swam past us not too far off shore.

We’ll be going back.

But I will let the pictures say the thousand words they are supposed to.

 

When we got back, Piper and Nathan (Isaac’s little bro) played “going on vacation to the beach” in the car. 

T.G.F.Grandparents

Gramma and Grandpa are both “Papa” (or is it “Baba”?) in Wesley’s lexicon.  Both read to him and throw him up in the air, so I don’t think he cares too much which one he gets at a time.

Gramma is certainly reading a Bearenstein Bear book,

 

while Grandpa gets to read Goodnight Moon and Peek-A-Who over and over.

 

Wes is certainly saying “Cheese” in this shot.

 

Mama is actually sitting down and reading the newspaper— to  herself — in between shots.

More Trampoline

Dwayne encouraged the girls to get on my back and ride "bronco" while I jumped like a horsie on the trampoline. This is MUCH harder than it looks, and since I will never be doing a repeat performance, he made a video. Next time the girls want to try this, I will just show them this and they can live vicariously through video. That is what their generation needs to learn to do anyway, right?

Church Picnic

We’ve been attending an evening service at a very large church.  Every August, the church brings all three services together at a farm for a 1000+ person BBQ and baptism. There were inflatables for the kids and great music.  Papa Jim joined us and a good time was had by all!

Classic kid-and-watermelon shot.

 

This little girl behind us had two pink rubber ducks.  Wesley quickly made friends and decided her daddy was good enough for him, too.

Saturday Lunch

We spend our weekends working on the (Denise: &^%$#  Dwayne: beautiful) walls and staircases.  Really.  Every single weekend.  Piper has the most endearing self-appointed job of getting Daddy lunch—two yogurts, a spoon, and some fruit.  She takes it very seriously.

If I can take a moment to say that, currently, Piper’s endearing habits are much fewer than her infuriating ones.  That’s neither here nor there for you, the reader, but it’s making a big difference in the pleasantness of my days.

Once he has had his lunch, Daddisaurus needs dessert, preferably a plant-eater.