A Visit from Aunt Tissue

Let's start with the name. My sister Kasey was dubbed Aunt Tissue by Colin when she came to stay with us after Eli was born. At the time, Colin pronounced his hard "C" sounds like "T" and it seemed particularly cute because she was just getting over a cold and always seemed to have a tissue in her hand. Since then, Colin has started pronouncing his hard C's correctly and calls my sister Aunt Kasey or my particular favorite, Aunt Kase. The funny thing is that during Kasey's recent visit, Eli started saying her name. And what did he call her? Aunt Tissue. I don't know where my boys get the "u" sound, but I laughed tears everytime he said it.

On to the visit. Aunt Kase came to visit us for a few days last week and the boys and I had a blast with her. We played in our new baby pool (aka the large dog bowl, because apparently regular sized baby pools are all sold out by mid-July), went to the park, visited the zoo, ate a disgusting amount of rocky road (thanks again for the recipe, Mom!), and laughed. A lot. She's off to Guatemala for now, but we get to see her again for a couple days before she heads back to North Carolina. I wish my sisters didn't live across the country from me.

Handy Colin

Last Christmas, Grammy and Poppy got Colin a Handy Manny workbench. And although he has always enjoyed playing with it, he has recently become more interested in actually helping to make some of the projects that came along with it. Here he is showing off a race car and a birdhouse. Thanks again Grammy and Poppy for the fun toy!

Annual SBI Summer Picnic

Last week the kids and I joined Chris for the Annual Service Brands International Summer Picnic. It was nice to have the opportunity to meet so many of the people Chris is now working with and to put faces with some of the names. Although it was a little rainy, the kids had fun running around and the water even provided some extra entertainment for Colin who worked on scooping it off the tables to fill his little bucket. It was a nice change of pace to be able to spend an afternoon with Chris in the middle of the week, especially with all the traveling he's been doing.

Day Trip

A recent trip to the beach seemed to epitomize the polar differences in our sons' personalities at these ages. It was the first time at a beach for both of them. Upon approaching the water, Colin started yelling for me to hold his hand before he would even put a toe in while simultaneously Eli started squealing with delight as he ran to dive into the waves. Of course, I ran after Eli and grabbed his hand at which point the squeals of delight turned to a crying scream as he tried to push me off and Colin was still on land crying that he wanted me to hold *his* hand so he could come in too. Thankfully I no longer care when both my kids are screaming in public plus Chris was not far behind so soon both kids were happy again. After their initial encounter, Colin seemed to prefer playing on the beach and occasionally walking into the water (with an adult) while Eli was occasionally placated with playing in the sand but preferred to run into the water (without an adult). My kids crack me up.

One thing that they both seemed to enjoy equally however, was the slip 'n slide. After the beach we headed to a friend's vacation rental for a little backyard fun in the sun. At first the kids didn't quite understand the concept of running and sliding down the slide, but after a couple hours (hee hee!), they finally got it. In the meantime, they found it fun to just cool off in the water and drink from the spray. I think we may need to get one for our backyard. It will be a good way for us to unofficially water the lawn and maybe beat the heat on these 90 degree days.

Jungle Garden

I don't know if it's the super hot days, the torrential rain we had a couple weeks ago, or my awesome compost (wink!), but my garden is out of control. I seriously don't have enough space for all my plants and will definitely have to expand next year. I already had to pot all my herbs and cucmbers this year. Thankfully I have a backyard neighbor who also enjoys gardening and has given me the go-ahead to plant some of my spreaders like pumpkins and watermelons down by the fence we share. I do realize that my biggest problem is that dang raspberry plant that is officially taller than me and has taken up more than half my garden space. That and my gi-normous watermelon plants that look like aliens. One of them is the beast you may have noticed in the left-hand corner in the picture below. As for the raspberry plant, I just can't bring myself to pull out all the baby-suckers. I've tried transplanting them to give to neighbors and friends, but they keep dying. I think they want to live in my garden. I can't blame them, they get a lot of attetion from Colin and some seriously yummy compost.

Happy 4th of July!

We had a fun 4th of July this year. We joined some friends for swimming and a BBQ on Saturday (unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures of that), Chris and I watched fireworks from our roof that night after the kids went to bed, and then we had Grammy and Poppy over for a BBQ at our house on Sunday. We are back to the daily grind today since Chris had to work, but we enjoyed our little holiday. Yay for freedom!

This may look like a regular, ole flag cake, but it's actually a Tres Leche cake which may very well be one of my new favorites. Yum!!