A picture of my dad

By Caroline...

I asked her who it was and she said, "It's Papalu.  See how he only has hair on the sides?"

Catching up (in pics)

Thank goodness last week is over!! I'm ready to get back to a normal summer pace of life.

I have a lot of catching up to do, but I thought I'd catch up via a small photo dump of phone pics.

Here we go....

Nice photo bomb, Jack.

This is a follow-up from [this post].  Just wanting to document that she wore the mittens to Sarah's softball game.  It was 95 degrees.

I couldn't convince her to leave them at home.

As soon as we sat down, she took them off and put them in my purse. 

They're still in there.  My purse is a black hole of trash and kid junk... as you may remember from [this post].


..........................

Jack loves to read to Caroline.  Here he's reading her a bedtime story.  So sweet!

BUT it's also sweet that she lets him read to her.  Most of the time he's asking comprehension questions as he reads.   That's probably why she has that look of concentration on her face.

She wants to get 100 on the quiz.

..........................

My niece, Kate, turned 3 on Wednesday the 19th.  We went to my sister's house for pizza and cake on Father's Day to celebrate. 

The cousins had a great time together!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATE!

............................

Friday night we went to church to watch the Fine Arts Camp production of "Colossal Coaster World".  It was our VBS theme.  Over 200 kids performed.  They did a great job!

(Sarah's front row, yellow Tshirt, purple headband, purple skirt)

.........................

Today is Dad's 65th birthday.  The kids made him a dog at Build A Bear workshop and recorded messages for him. 

Although I have NO idea what Dad's going to do with a stuffed dog, they sure had fun making it for him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!

..................


Ok, that pretty much gets us caught up.  We did go to a small family reunion today at my grandmother's assisted living home.  I'll upload pics of that some time soon.  I saw cousins and great aunts and uncles that I hadn't seen in a long time.

Aaaannnnd we had lunch at Luby's.  You're jealous.  You know you are.

Three cards

I let the kids pick out their own cards for Dad today.

Sarah read at least 6 cards and picked out this one...



It says something on the inside to the effect of "You're the greatest grandpa in the world!" It said exactly what she wanted it to say.

And it was perfectly suited for her to give.

.............


Caroline picked out this one.




Sure, it says "Hola Birthday Girl", but she doesn't know that. She wanted the dancing Dora card.

So she gave it to my dad.


..............


Then Jack saw this one...




It was the word "fart" that caught his eye. Then he read it and laughed so hard I worried he was going to stop breathing.

I told him the card was disgusting. We're not buying it. I don't like that word. (And I really don't. I can't believe I typed it to be honest with you.) And, really, you should read the inside. It includes many descriptions of various types of.... [that word].

But Jack insisted that THAT was the one he had to give to my dad. "Please, Mom. I want to give him the one about farts."

And then I remembered that the poor kid is drowning in estrogen over here, and I had to let him be a boy. I don't have to understand the humor. Maybe it's a guy thing.

.............

Three cards. From three very different kids. And all very fitting.

Happy Birthday, Dad!!

I couldn't decide between these 2 cards...

This one sounds like a card I would pick out.



But this one reminds me of you, Dad. It reminds me of something YOU'D say to me while trying to make me feel better about turning 30 or someday 40.



But then I saw this one. And I thought, "From the girl who-- on June 23rd every year-- shouted, 'MY BIRTHDAY'S NEXT!! WOOOOO HOOOOO!!!' maybe this is the way to go."



So this is your blog "Happy birthday" shoutout, which means I publicly remembered the big day.... and it's highly unlikely that I'll remember to call or go over to your house today with a present.

;)

Learning to ride a bike

My dad started helping Sarah learn how to ride a bike without training wheels last week. I have to remember that she's only 6. So even though it may seem like she should have been riding her bike without training wheels a long time ago, she's just now giving it a shot.

When I feel like my kids are behind on these kinds of things, then I tell myself-- Some kids are swimming and bike riding by age 3 and don't really start reading until age 6. My kids' brains work the exact opposite way. Reading was easy. We're just now growing into the whole coordination stuff.

Dad ran...

And ran...

And ran some more with her.

I was just standing around taking pictures, but it looked exhausting. I had sympathy sweat.

While they worked on the bike, I had these tagalongs.

This one who can reach her pedals now and really fights me on the steering. Luckily I'm slightly stronger than her.

And this one who was so proud of himself to be pedaling so well. It really has been a struggle for him to use his left leg on the bike. That calf is a lot smaller than the other one. But-- hey-- biking is a great way to build calf muscles, right?! :)