Yep, that was us!

Bike ride anyone? If you are an almost five year old who has just learned to ride without training wheels this might sound like a grand idea! However, an hour long bike ride for a new rider without training wheels seemed a little daunting to me. BUT Brayden was raring to go and I didn't want to discourage him. Off we go, the girls in the double jogger and B cruisin' on his bike. Before we left B let me know,

"The weee hill is cancelled."

I said, "That would be nice, but that's not a choice, we don't have any other way to go." I convinced him to push his bike up the hill and walk beside me, he did great! However, after smooth sailing for a while, he crashed right before an intersection. I tell ya, if my boy knew bad words, he would have been using them! He was stomping, screaming, crying and yelling. Of course he thought it was my fault that he crashed. One of my neighbors actually stopped and asked if we wanted a ride home! I said, "Oh no, this is so normal we'll be fine, but thanks." (This wasn't even 1/4 of the way into our walk, but I was determined). We cruised along for a long time, we only had three minor crashes, and he was able to hold himself together. Finally we neared the end of our walk and B was so glad to be close to home. He took off, with me yelling after him, "SLOW DOWN, PUT YOUR BRAKES ON!" He was long gone, cruising down the weeee hill, and I saw it all coming in slow motion...... he swerved a little and went head over handle bars and bit it HARD on the pavement. I ran down the weee hill with the girls, I got to him just in time after he stood up and I could see scrapes, scratches and blood everywhere. It was so sad! Honestly, I am so surprised this hadn't happened sooner. He hobbled over to me and the first words out of his mouth were, "I'm never going for a walk with you again, I am staying home!"

I couldn't blame him, he was a mess! At this point it was good we were close to home, because B had to sit in the stroller, Dani walked and I pushed and dragged B's bike the rest of the way home. Neighbors stopped and stared, people looked out their windows (not kidding) to see what in the hell was going on, a screaming banshee, and a lady just trying to get home!

I tell ya, we used almost every band-aid in the box, two different types of medicine, and lots of frozen vegetable bags to make the boy feel better. After an hour he went to bed and was fine. He woke up the next morning, got dressed in a polo and khaki shorts and I had to laugh out loud. He has scabs all over his face, looking like a tough guy, but still dressed preppy!

Here's my boy after medicine, shower, band-aids, and ice.

So if you heard someone screaming bloody murder, that was just us having a pleasant, evening bike ride/walk.

Kid happenings

I forgot to put these happenings in the synopsis of my last post. My favorite interaction was when I was sitting on the couch with Dani in my lap reading a book in the morning. She turned around to me and said, "OOO, stinky pee-yooo! Go away!" I said, "What's stinky?" She said, "Your mouth mommy, pee-you." I guess she's not a big fan of morning coffee breath, I'm lucky she didn't keel over. :)

While I was talking to my mom on the phone complaining about Kent being gone and me going nuts, I couldn't find the girls. I eventually found Ellie in the bathroom shoving handfuls of q-tips down the sink and Dani squirting a brand new bottle of Elmer's glue all over the kitchen floor. Good times, I love my children!

errr, FRUSTRATION!

I got a new, bigger flashcard for my camera, BUT I can't get the pics. off of it onto my computer. ERR, I am so annoyed. I was able to print them out at Fred Meyer, but that doesn't help you folks. Here's some of what we've been up to:

Auntie Sandy visited from Denver! We got to have a wonderful party/picnic in Liberty Lake park for her Birthday, it was the highlight of our week! I have super-cute pics. of Sandy with the kids...when I figure it out, I will send them to you Auntie Sandy.

Kent started traveling again! This has made for a long week, and we're starting the beginning of another!

I took James, a client that I've been seeing for 9 years, on our annual Summer bowling outing. I have great pics., but I can't upload them, so sad. I will tell you how it went though:

We bowled a few frames, and neither one of us was doing too well. I said, "Man, this ball I am using is crooked, I think I need to try a different one!" James thought that was a great idea, but when we didn't do any better he suggested we try a different lane because the floor was crooked, causing our balls to go into the gutter! I pulled out a win, 57 to 56, I think it's one of the worst games in history, but we had a great time!

The best part of the week was a Mom's getaway weekend at Steph's lake cabin! Six of us left at 3 p.m. on Friday and didn't return home until Saturday at 1:30 p.m. Almost 24 hours of no kids, just friends! It was a much needed break for all of us! We went for a boat ride, ate and drank to our hearts content (on our own time schedule) and talked as long and as much as we wanted, with NO interruptions! It was truly heaven. I did miss my family though, it was nice to return to all of the hugs and kisses and my husband who I didn't get to see all week! I have lots of great pics. from this too....maybe someday they will be posted. :)

Now our Monday is almost through, just three more days until Daddy is back!

It's all about B!!

Last weekend while we were driving through our neighborhood, Kent spotted two bikes in our neighbors yard with a "free" sign. SCORE! I jumped out of the van and hauled them back to our house. They will be perfect for the girls in a while! However, Brayden decided he wanted to try them out now. Kent pumped up the tires and B hopped on. After a few circles in the driveway Kent decided to flip the training wheels up. (These are so cool, I've never seen anything like it). It was amazing, Kent held Brayden's seat for 10 seconds, then he was off on his own! It didn't take him long to master it. We couldn't have been more proud. Through all of this he had to maneuver around his sisters who were dashing in front of him. He did great!

It made both of us feel like horrible parents because we waited so long to try this! Now he is off and riding and loving it!

A little crash, but he got right back on. I couldn't believe it!

Over the past few days Brayden has come up with some hilarious statements/questions.

Me: "Brayden can you please watch out, I don't want to step on you."

Brayden: "But don't your feet not go that high?"

We went to a friend's house in Hayden, ID. While we were all eating lunch, Annika asked Brayden, "Where is your house?"

Brayden said, "It's at the bottom of the weeee hill."

For those of you who don't know, we have to go down a huge hill to get to our house. Grandma Phillips started to say, "Weeee" every time we rode down it. Thus, it is now the "weee hill."

When I followed up by asking Brayden what city we lived in, he said, "Washington, Spokane, Greenacres." We're getting there.....

Last night as I was putting Brayden to bed, he became very anxious. He said, "We have family that lives in a different country."

I said, "Yes, Auntie Lyse, Uncle Dale and Uncle Wayne live in England."

He said, "Yeah and Eli lives far away too, is he on a different planet?"

I said, "No, Eli lives far away in a different country, but he lives on the same planet we do."

B: "Are lions going to eat Eli?"

(Elijah lives in Uganda, my friend Kym's son. I don't know where B is getting all these ideas/thoughts right now, it may be from Dora's world adventure where she visits Africa. But he was almost near tears worried about lions eating him).

B: "Why did God make lions to eat people? Does Eli feed the monkeys in his backyard? Does he have fruit trees in his backyard that the monkeys like? Does he play with the monkeys.....?"

Kym if you are reading this, I would love to know all of these things. I told B we would write to E and ask him all these ???s, so be prepared on Facebook.

Yay for Grandma!

Yay! My mom is in town for the weekend! We love it when Grandma comes to visit, we've been counting down the days for over a week. I just snapped this pic. of my mom last night while she was reading to the girls. Brayden was at VBS (vacation bible school), he has been missing in the last few posts, he has been busy. Side note: Brayden was so proud last night when he won the "most Christ like award." This means he was nice to his friends and did a good job at camp. My mom and I just laughed because he almost didn't get to go the last night because he has been SO tired and crabby. The camp was from 6-8:30. His bedtime is 8 and this week has caught up with him. Anyway, he got the award and I was shocked, but I think he used all of his "niceness" and "goodness" at camp. :)

The girls were showing Grandma their fancy tricks. Kent thinks this is the funniest thing, so the girls do it quite often to get Dad to laugh! I know most kids can do this, but it does look funny.

This morning the girls got a shower! Yay! I actually took the time to put their hair in pig-tails! I know all of you moms out there who have girls don't think this is a big deal, BUT my girls are almost 2 1/2 and their hair is FINALLY long enough for this! It didn't last long though, they yanked them out within an hour. Any suggestions for this??

Ellie sitting pretty.

Dani and Ellie

They were pretty proud of their two "pretties."

With their beloved baby dolls.

Really?!?....hhhmm, I'm not surprised!

Tonight after dinner, I was a little bit grumpy, which may have been due to the fact that it is so freakin' hot here, I don't want to venture outside of the AC. (I know I shouldn't complain, we are lucky to have AC). But I was lying on the couch and Kent screamed, "No way!" He then proceeded to yank out a nice long white/gray hair from my head. I started to feel a little sad/bad, but then I thought, 'I should have way more than that!' Just from the past few days, my whole head should be full of them, maybe I need to dye my hair red again......moving on....

I decided to snap a few updated pics. of the girls brushing their teeth tonight. They happened to be wearing matching pajamas, and they were in good moods! After looking at these pics. I am realizing more and more that they are such GIRLS!! They admired themselves and each other in the mirror for quite some time. The teen age years are fast approaching, I will be lucky to have ANY hair by then, let alone gray or red or brown.

More mommy moments for the list...

A few mommy moments...I forgot to write about this one in my beach posting. During nap time one day we decided we wanted to go on a bike ride. The house had tons of bikes and it looked like fun. The kid bike was just a little too big for Brayden as were all of the helmets. (He has a peanut head, he has been in the 10th percentile his whole life, I'm not complaining, it worked out well for me). Anyway..... We figured he could hold on for dear life while Kent peddled. I was riding next to them and B looks over and says, "Mom, do you know that we are riding fast and I'm not wearing a helmet?" I was thinking, 'Yeah, sorry little boy, hopefully you don't sway to one side and get a major head injury. I just really wanted to get some exercise and ride bikes.' What I said was, "Yes, isn't this silly? Make sure you hold on really tight and don't move." All ended well and there were no crashes. Notice how far he has to lean over and stretch to reach the handle bars. What?!? Are you saying we're bad parents? He was totally fine. :)

I have to make a note of this from last night to add to the list of naughty things my kids do.....

I was standing in the kitchen trying to have a conversation with Kent that lasted more than 30 seconds.....we did (maybe 2 minutes tops) when I realized there were no girls running around the house. I took four steps and saw them in the bathroom, NEVER a good thing. Ellie quickly scurried out when she saw me walking down the hall. Dani stood on the stool, frozen, with a worried look on her face. GREAT.... I walked in and both of her hands were covered in goo. She somehow managed to find squeezable vaseline (I am thinking it came from the hospital when they were born, I didn't even know it was in the drawer). She managed to squeeze over half of the tube out onto herself and the rest into a bottle of baby lotion that she had taken the lid off of. WTH??? How does she come up with these things? Kent walked in, looked, and turned around and went downstairs, leaving the two other kids to bounce around me and give me some great cleaning and parenting advice. Dani just stood there, silent, she knew she was busted. Ahhh, another peaceful evening with the Phillips.