For All You Seconds in the World

Take a close look. Who is that?



Yep, it's Robyn. She is riding with NO training wheels. She is so proud, but doubly so because June has yet to learn. She mentions this every time we go riding. I am sure she will remember this for the rest of her life. Let's just hope she doesn't remind June too often.

To be fair to June, I have not been the best about getting out there to teach them. And June would rather do this.



She is my little artist at heart. She is actually getting pretty good at riding without training wheels, but she didn't have the same motivation as Robyn.

In the meantime, Robyn has this short time to be the only two-wheel rider.



We took a ride together through the neighborhood. It was so nice. I should take her on one of the river trails soon (just the two of us). For the record, she does have shorts on; it's just that her shirt is too long, and well...her shorts are too short.

One Remote to Rule Them All

Tyler and I have noticed this problem for the last couple of years. Hollywood has forgotten how to make movies. See, they make these great movies and then they make the sound track so loud that you can't actually hear any dialogue. This is very frustrating, especially if you watch movies in hopes of following the story line and enjoying the one-liners and witty repertoire.

So we have settled into a system at our house. We watch movies with remote in hand. That way we can turn it up loud when we want to hear the people speaking, but turn it back down when it switches back to solely music so we don't shatter windows and wake every child in the house. As it is, the TV usually vibrates and the house shakes as we try to pick up small conversations amid epic concertos. Seriously, so annoying.

We have done this for years and then one day we were griping to someone* and they said, "Oh, we have the same problem. Your TV is set up for surround sound, and without it, the soundtrack often drowns out dialogue." WHAT?!? It's our TV? I guess that does make a little more sense...maybe.

And yet, we still didn't do anything about it. We continued to watch movies holding on to the remote and grumbling under our breath (except while people talked, because then you didn't make any noise in hopes of hearing what they said).

Last night was the final straw. We were watching Lord of the Rings and it was like a volume tango.

Music: down, down, down, down.

Speaking: up, up, (quickly, what did he say?) up, up.

Rewind: Listen intently.

More music: down, down, down, down etc.

You get the picture. Even with the volume turned up enough that June was complaining that she was never going to get to sleep, it was still difficult to hear all the dialogue.

Tyler grumbled some more and I mentioned the information we had received about the surround sound TV issue. I even said that maybe there was some way to turn it off. Thirty minutes later, Tyler was finally annoyed enough that he paused the movie, examined the remote again (since he was still holding it) and went to the menu option. There it was; ***surround sound with the option to turn it OFF!!*** Hallelujah. I think about the years of movies we have sat through holding the remote. How dumb are we?

It was such a marked change after we turned the surround sound off that we contemplated watching the first half of Lord of the Rings again so we could hear it, but come on, that movie is three hours long, so we skipped it. But believe you me, we are going to enjoy watching movies from now and we will only use the remote to pause for chocolate breaks.

*I don't even remember who told us about the TV, but I owe them big time.

Waterlogged

We did swimming lessons for the kids a few weeks ago. See, my plan was to take pictures the last day. Uh, that sorta fell through.

June was such a trooper and she tried so hard to learn to swim this year, but she wasn't so great at combining her arms with her legs and that led to a lot of floundering. A. LOT. I watched her the last day and bless her heart, she would throw herself into the water with the other kids and they would move forward and she would resurface in the same spot. I wish I could have passed along some stellar swimming genes to her, but if my daughters are anything like me, they will be lucky to learn to swim before they are twenty (which may be when I finally learned—NO SNIDE REMARKS—that really is a story for another day). But because of her whole-hearted efforts, she probably consumed more water than is recommended because by the end of the two weeks, she had swimmer's ear, a sore throat, and pink eye.

I think Thursday night (the last day of swimming) was when her eye started to gunk up (lest you think I was letting my infected daughter go back in the water with other germ free children), so our free swim day (and picture day) was spent taking her to the doctor instead.

I do have some proof of swimming lessons.



And I do let them play in the water at other times, although the promised trip back to the pool has not yet taken place...I need to get my act in gear. Just today we were trying out a contraption put together by our very own neighbor, Randy. I am amazed what this guy can come up with in his head and because Tyler let him borrow some PVC cutters, he built this for us. (That middle sprinkler rotates back and forth)



The girls loved it and I felt that I could get a 'good mother' check for today (seeing that outdoor activities are still not high on my to-do list). Now I just need to put 'mow lawn' on Tyler's to-do list. I promise I am not giving him a hard time; it's not like I EVER mow the lawn.

One Small Step for Daisy...

One giant leap for Cazier's.

Yes, that is right. We are all freestanding and mobile in the household again. Granted, Daisy does still prefer the crawl, but she spent all day trying out her new trick and taking tentative steps. She is up to about six at a time.

I decided to document; hence all the pictures.



Daisy is our slowest walker to date (not that it matters in the least). June started walking the day she turned nine months, Robyn at nine and a half months, Ivory at ten and Daisy brings up the rear at 11 months.



It matters not to take first place.
It matters that you end the race.



She is a stunt baby as well. It is not enough that she can stand...no...she must stand on things. Here is something simple like a toy, which I can easily take a picture of.



When she stands on things like the couch, boxes, stools, the counter she climbed on from the stool, I tend to run hastily to extract her (thus the lack of pictures of these daring stunts).

Golly, I can just not get enough of this cute baby. It makes me happy that her favorite thing to walk toward is ME (followed closely by her Daddy).

Have Flour, Will Bake

I guess this is what happens when you read a book about cake.



Truthfully, I asked June what she wanted for FHE treat (her turn to pick) and when she said cake, my heart leaped and did a little dance. I gave her all the suggestions featured at the back of the book (yep, the book came with recipes) and we whipped up the above.

Looks good enough to eat, huh? Except the flowers...those are fake.

The Fourth

We had such a fun Fourth of July this year.

Here's the gang.



I really like to get pictures after the water games at the park, but I didn't want to get the new camera anywhere near the water and when I was finally ready, too many kids had scattered to the park. So, you just have to imagine how much fun we had soaking each other.

We barbequed, feasted,



talked, played. My baby was a great eater with her ONE TOOTH now (yeah Daisy). She wins the award for most festive attire.



We did fireworks in the evening and I gave the girls some sparklers early on. They didn't really get into the idea of swinging them around; they were too busy holding them tentatively at arms length. That's okay with me.



Happy Fourth of July! I hope you all had a great time. May freedom wave!

Let's Be Honest

So, I am not the queen of working out. By any means.

But I am always looking for something to motivate me.

Mudpies and Mary Janes is having a EA SPORTS ACTIVE giveaway. It looks very cool and it has volleyball which makes me a tad more interested.



It looks like something that would be fun to do when it gets too hot to go outside...like next week.