Just another CarleSpawn weblog

Ezri had a lot of fun having Ivan file her around the playground equipment.

Yesterday was a practically perfect summer day. We went to the park, set up the wading pool in the backyard, and went to an outdoor kids concert at the arboretum in the evening.

Nothing says summer quite like popsicles in the backyard after splashing.

What color is your tongue when you’re done? PURPLE!

Ezri decorates her Grandpa Mark.

It’s a fashion show!

When the Jedi are wounded, Ezri takes them to the hospital where they get tucked into beds made of food. They also get bounced up and down on a row of muffins for exercise until they need to nap and fed plastic strawberries for strength.

I love how kids can make a baby doll of anything. Jedi like bedtime songs when they are hurt. I think my girl may be a Jedi herself.

Darth got a lettuce blanket because he is a bad guy.

I didn’t have the camera out much at reunion. Too busy with good people and running all over with the kids.

Ezri loved that there were bouncy houses, face painting, dancing to a live band, and a lot of new friends right around her age. Ivan was big on the fruit bar at breakfast.

Reuniting with Charlotte Quigley and meeting her sister, Katherine, in person was a special treat. Ezri told us the day after returning that now she is sad because she misses two Charlottes. One Charlotte is in New Zealand and one Charlotte is in San Francisco. Neither is close enough for play dates. Sarah Quigley gave me a lesson in putting hair up in a bun – and the secret tools of hair pins (NOT bobby pins) and a hair net. Our girls still have their buns in this photo of a march to get treats in the Chapel.

Sarah gave me some of my first “Friday Flowers”- a Carleton tradition. So, we had our girls exchange flowers. Our daisies are still looking pretty good in the kitchen many miles and more than a week later.

Oh, there was minigolf set-up too. They didn’t play by the rules but they had a lot of fun.

An all around good trip for Ezri and the whole family.

Here are a couple photos from the Quigley girls’ blog. You can see how much Ezri is loving Charlotte. I love the smiling cheeks of both girls.

It’s the Girl in the Yellow Hat and her monkey. . . and her bear.

What have we been reading?
Tiny Titans collections of comics by Art Balthazar
Dr. Seuss’ ABC Book
I Can Do it Myself (A Sesame Street book highlighting all the things the different muppets can do themselves).
We’ve rediscovered a couple old favorites this week in Naughty Little Monkeys by Aylesworth and Slinky Mailinki Catflaps by Lynley Dodd
Ezri still enjoys reading Babybug Magazines together with her little brother. She often picks one as a bedtime story for Ivan as we read our stories all together these days.

She’s up.

She’s down.

She’s up again.

Repeat.

We also turned upside down buckets into a bed. After a long day of mowing with the toy mower Ezri would wait to hear the owls hooting (that’s me and Ivan making owl noises). Then she would wash her mower in the wading pool before heading to her bucket bed to cuddle under her towel. When she heard me cock-a-doodle doo, she would know it was morning and get up to repeat this cycle. It was fun and I got to practice my cock-a-doodle doo.

Ezri picked out capes for the whole family for Father’s Day from a store on Etsy. We decided to forgo our big E and little e t-shirts and have superhero capes made this year. Ezri’s cape is pink with a crown and a lower case e. She selected for Eric blue with a lightning bolt and upper case E. Ivan and Amanda both got green capes with stars on the back and an “i” and an “A” respectively.

Here’s super E and super e.

Up, up and away. . .

Dad and the kids are all super.

Caped superheros, watch out. I think there’s someone lurking behind you.

There’s nothing like being read to by a professional. Lori also plays a great pretend tiger. I think playing with Lori and Jason was even more fun than the ice cream we all had together and that is saying something.

Here’s another collection of Ezri quotes.

“Stop it, Ivan. Ivan is flattering me!” Ivan was sitting on top of his sister.

“Gardening is hard work. Weeding is hard, but it is our destiny. Weeding is not the fun part of gardening, but it is our destiny. Weeding is taking a long time.” I look at my watch we have been weeding in the garden patch for about a minute and half. I ask, ‘What is the fun part of gardening?” Ezri answers, “The eating.” I suspect she may be confusing “destiny” with “duty.” I agree that fresh grown vegetables and fruits are the best part, but anticipate getting none of our strawberries or tomatoes this year with two pickers here who will pop them right in their mouths.

“Amanda, you are the best mama EVER!” It was said at a moment I hadn’t even done anything AMAZING like given her a cookie. I felt I should write it down to remind her she felt this way once.

As I added dried cranberries to my oatmeal (something Ezri loves to do), “Amanda, you are my kind of mama!”

Ezri was delaying bedtime and said she had to tell us something. Eric said, “Ezri, just spit it out.” She looked puzzled and said, “But, I don’t have anything in my mouth.”

“A hug is what you give when you don’t have a real present.” Her hugs are real presents, she just doesn’t know it.

She also now gives me kisses that are “proof” when I leave for work. I asked what it meant to have a kiss that was proof.
“You know it’s water proof and wind proof. It won’t wash off. Nothing can get it off because it’s proof.”

We were mixing up colors.

Then there was applying the whipped cream from a can and shaking on plenty of purple and pink sprinkles.

Then we needed to reapply additional pink and purple sprinkles once Ezri had eaten all the sprinkles off. Having no sprinkles made her sad.

Ivan preferred his unadorned and favored the green pancakes. He ate three whole pancakes.

Then Ivan grabbed a sprinkle container in each hand and ran through the house shaking them while saying “Happy Hour! Happy Hour!” Nothing like being all sugared up early in the morning.