What To Do When Auntie Angel Comes To Town

What do you get when you put five small children in one house for a week? A LOT ACTIVITIES (you know, to make sure we keep all five children & don't "accidentally" leave some of them at the park.)

We went to Lake Tahoe on Thursday. And yes, Gretchen is screaming in this picture. It was the end of the day. And I just caught her MID FALL off a huge boulder. Cause I'm an awesome Mom (that puts her small child on large boulders... Poor kid.)



Matia and Gretchen have a love/hate relationship. Especially when Matia decides to "help" Gretchen. I think Gretchen is on time-out #259 for pinching/pulling hair/hitting. Here you see the LOVE part of the love/hate. Check out the sweet blue swim goggles that Gretchen insisted on wearing.



Making sand castles in the sand....



We didn't even need to pull out the Ghetto Pool! Grandma bought this fancy Alligator Pool last year and it only had one hole in it!



We went to Auntie Krista's house some mini-farm fun. What? Gretchen thought riding on a horse 20x her size was fun? How unexpected.






Poor, poor baby chickens. They tried to run, but no one is safe from Matia. Or Gretchen.





Auntie Krista thought it'd be funny to take some naked baby glamour shots. Gretchen thought it'd be funny to crash the party.



We celebrated the Klassier side of Reno by taking the kids out for a photo shoot downtown. We're so proud of our town!












No chickens were harmed in the making of this post.

We're looking forward to seeing Christian & Mom at the reunion next week. Maybe we can show HIM how to catch baby chickens too!

xoxo

Snakes and Nursery! Happy Fathers Day!

Auntie Amber took us to the museum a week ago. It was cool. There was a room full of fake sharks (which the girls refused to enter), a shrunken head (you're right Amber. I shouldn't have gone looking for it. SO CREEPY.) and snakes!!!!

Yup, Ella refused to go in the room with a fake shark, but she held a gigantic albino python.

On Snakes, by Ella Stott
I liked the snake when I held it. It was bumpy. And soft. I would not like to have a snake in my room, but I would hold one again.

Here she is learning about snakes from the super nice museum guy:


Touching the pretty wittle snake...


Holding the SUPER HUGE snake... (Sorry these pics are sideways. I need to fix that...)


So brave, my little girl!


And Happy Fathers Day!

Thoughts About My Dad, by Ella Stott
I love to play with my Dad. Puzzles. I like to play with him a lot.

Oh yeah, and today was Gretchen's first day of nursery at church. (When babies turn 18 months you get to ditch them at the baby Sunday School where they play with toys, eat snacks & sing songs. It's pretty fantastic.) I stayed in nursery too. Not because I was worried about her, per say, more worried for the other children. She only made one boy bleed. He was gettin' all up in her puzzles. She did NOT like that. He got a quick "Gretch Special", a cheek pinch with fingernails. Dude. DUDE! There were four other little boys in Nursery. She's the youngest. And she's a girl. And she had them all running in fear. The oldest kid kept running to the Nursery Leader saying, "Save me! Save me!" and at one point barricaded himself in the corner behind a metal folding chair. Sigh.

But she IS afraid of fake sharks.

A New Baby

Baby Teagan is here! 8 lbs; 19 inches long; sweet as can be.

Blurry close up:

Looking like the doll that she is:

Proud and excited big brother:

Do you think she looks like her grandpa?

Crush

I told Ella that we're going to our friends pool on Thursday. We've been going weekly since it got warm, but she was not excited.

Ella: Why do we always have to go to Kimmy's pool?

Me: Cause it's fun!!!

Ella: I don't want to.

Me: Hank, Ken & Kaylie will be there too! (My friend's elementary age kids, who are out of school for summer. Ella is especially enamored with her 13 year old son, Hank...)

Ella: Will Hank not have his shirt on?

Me: !!!!!!!

Me: How would you feel about that?

Ella: I don't know, I don't want to see him without his shirt on. (Giggles)

Me: Good night.

Ella: (Giggles. Shuts door. Giggles.)

!!!!!!!!!

Anyone? Anyone?

I Wish You Never To Get Sick Whilst Camping

Hello Dear Family & Friends!

Here is Lake Spaulding:



Anita-The-Super-Mother-In-Law planned a wonderful camping trip at Lake Spaulding for Memorial Day. We were only going to spend one night there (because part of my new "enjoying parenting" philosophy is to "know my limits"). We had a lovely time at the lake Saturday. Gretchen, of course, loved the water. She even went on a little jet ski ride! I know! She had a super cute little baby life jacket on. Ella, of course, stayed firmly on land. Though she did stick her toes in. Whoa, Ella. Careful. You might get your knees wet!

After a delicious dinner of fried chicken*, successfully keeping Gretchen from throwing herself into the campfire, and a rousing game of cards (I read my book), we went to bed. I'd bundled the girls up in about 3 layers + stocking caps and felt mildly prepared. BUT THEN. At around 4am, I knew something was wrong. I had the stomach flu. I couldn't get out of my mummy-sleeping-bag fast enough. I spent the rest of the morning shivering in the front seat of my car so that I could avoid the gag-inducing smell of stale campfire smoke and quickly open the door when I needed to puke. It was lovely. When Colby woke with Gretchen at 7am, I said, "Dude, we need to go." And dude, we did. Then I slept 24 hours straight. Then I laid around and felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Then I felt better. Moral of the story: I hope you never get the flu while you're camping.

*How do you make fried chicken while camping??? In your portable gas cooktop, of course! And where do you use the portable gas cooktop? On your CAMPING KITCHEN! The Stotts are serious about their camping accessories.

---

In other, non-whiney news, Ella's new favorite recording artist is Eartha Kitt. Her favorite song is "I Want To Be Evil".

Ella: Mom, why does she want to be evil?

Me: It's just a silly song sweetie. Do you want me to skip it?

Ella: No. Mom, why does she want to shoot the pool?

Me: No, she's not going to shoot a swimming pool, there's a game you play with balls & a table. It's called "pool". And when you play it it's called "Shooting pool".

Ella: Oh. Mom, she said she wants to throw mud pies. That isn't nice.

Me: No, that would not be a good choice. This is just a silly song.

Ella: Yeah. On the muppets they threw pies at Hermit.

Me: Kermit?

Ella: Yeah. Kermit. That was funny. But we don't throw pies.

(pause)

Ella: Mom, why does she want to spit tacks? What are tacks?

Me: Ok, lets listen to something else sweetie....




Yesterday when her friend was over I went up to check on them. They were both dressed in fabulous outfits & Ella was singing, "I want an old fashioned house with an old fashioned fence, and an old fashioned millionaire".

That's right baby.

I think we need to bust out the primary songs again.

What? Where Are The Pictures?

Hello Dear Family & Friends! Guess where my camera is? On the kitchen counter. Guess what it's doing? Drying off. Because Gretchen threw it in the pool.

I hope it still works.



And what is this pool, you may ask? It's a plastic storage container filled with water. I've been cleaning out baby clothes (three big fat boxes shipped back to a friend, another two waiting to be delivered to my sister...) And I noticed on the plastic containers that they had a little sticker with a drowning warning on them. I thought, "Weird, why would you have water in these?" Then I thought, "Hey! That's a great idea! Then I don't have to blow up a stupid blow-up pool only to have it A) Make a huge dead circle in the grass, or B) Pop when we move it to the patio!" Plus it uses less water. And the girls love it. LOVE IT. They splash & play & pour out the water with their little watering cans. And yes, I know it's horrible. Like looking at the tag on the hairdryer and thinking, "Wow! I could get ready so much faster if I used this in the tub! I never thought of that!"



Don't worry, the girls aren't allowed to play out there without me. I know. And we only fill it up a few days a week. And after I found the poop in it last week, I scrubbed it out with Comet. I'm pretty sure it was dog poop. Also, kids are disgusting. Also, apparently I wasn't watching as closely as I should have been, being more worried about hearing drowning sounds while I read my book. Sigh.

Ok, now I'm getting paranoid & I'm going to go dump the water left over from our afternoon frivolities. That Warning Label is just so sad! I promise not to leave even a "small amount of liquid" in the bottom of our Ghetto Pool. I promise, Warning Label! I heed your Warning!

So what have you been up to?