scared but brave

Lizzie just came upstairs from the playroom to tell me that something was making her sad. When I asked what it was, she said she couldn't tell me, but that I could guess.

When I asked her about kindergarten she started to hold back tears (which always breaks my heart) and told me that she was scared about several things.

We had a nice long chat about the future and why it's important to change and how much fun she'll have.

She thought about it for a long time and then said, "Okay. I'll be brave. I guess it's time for me to grow up."

She went back downstairs to share these insights with Hannah (who can't wait for everyone in kindergarten to meet HER) while I was left to think, "well, that makes ONE of us."

If you're so inclined, please say a little prayer for my sweet, sensitive Little Bit, that she not worry about kindergarten too much, since I know she'll love it the minute she steps into the classroom.

Artsy photos

I'm bored and I miss my car (and the Dunkin' Donuts Iced Decaf with cream and two splendas that my car takes me to every morning...) My car has been in the shop since Monday morning to get the bumper fixed (that I smashed) and we ALL want to go to the park. Or the store. Or even church. ANYWHERE!!!

But instead we spent the morning making mud soup in the backyard.

However, I did manage to eke out some artsy photos, thanks to PS Elements.

First is this painting I created of my father. This picture is not amazing because of the paint overlays that I created, but because my father is actually SMILING in this photo. I have two photos (including this one) of my father smiling in a picture. He's just got something against it. But WHY is he smiling? See below:

Wouldn't you be smiling if this little cutie-pie was laughing? (I'm talking about Brenna, but Ann is pretty cute, too!)And speaking of Brenna, here she is in black and white with just a little color in her lips and eyes. Gorgeous, isn't she?:Here's a painting of Hannah and Lizzie. This was taken outside the golf club in the Poconos. It looks more like a painting when it's enlarged.And finally, here's a picture I took as the sun was setting over Lake Harmony. All I did to this one was crop it and adjust the colors slightly to make up for the flash that I couldn't get to turn off. And what better photo than a sunset to close the book on this vacation?

But wait, there's more!!

Here are a few more pictures of us all having fun:

These pictures were taken at the Lagoon. The water wasn't too deep and they didn't allow swimmies (or any sort of floatation stuff except for a life jacket type thing) so the girls did their best to swim:

This is Lizzie's Bay Watch photo:

Lizzie and Tommy playing in the water:Hannah taking a break from the action. You can see how pretty the resort is this picture:Hannah playing on the sand:Lizzie at the end of the day -- you can bet that no one had trouble sleeping throughout the entire vacation!!

I interuppt the fun pictures to post a picture depicting why you should NEVER wait until the last day of vacation to try and get family portraits. Trust me, this was the best one and it doesn't even include half the people there!Okay, back to the fun. Last year Rob got the girls interested in card games (because it rained every single day) so they wanted to play again this year. I have no idea what game this is -- he just makes them up as he goes along:And of course, it's just not a vacation without ice cream. Here are the kids at Hog Heaven on the last night of our vacation.

And here is Lizzie REALLY enjoying her ice cream. In addition to the ice cream goatee, she also has a rainbow sprinkle under her left eye.

Mountains of Fun

We returned from the Poconos on Saturday with lots of crying and whining (and the girls weren't happy about being home either... !)

It was a wonderful vacation with absolutely stunning weather. It totally makes up for last year's weather when the temp never went about 57 and it rained. This past week the weather was pretty much in the 70s with no humidity. There was talk of rain one day, but it never happened. And that day was the day we spent at the outlets so a little rain wouldn't have bothered me one bit, anyway.

So what did we do?

We swam in the lake (okay, I didn't swim in the lake, but I waded in up to my knees at least twice).

We ate lunch at Piggy's. (The girls love this place because they make pancakes in the shape of Minnie Mouse's head.)

We ate at Hog Heaven. (HH opens when Piggy's closes so you can continue to eat. It's an ice cream joint with HUGE sundae's -- hence the HOG part of the name.)

The girls played and played and played with Tommy (their cousin). Then they played some more. Everytime we did something that did not involve Tommy (like take a bath) the girls would say, "Is Tommy taking a bath?" It was cute for about 2 days. Then, not so much.

We played dominoes and cards.

We played on several playgrounds.

Bob went kayaking.

Tracy went shopping.

Hannah won 9 bucks at the turtle races.

Lizzie's potato car won its first heat before losing.

I'm sure there was much more (I know there was much more eating.)

Here are pictures of us all having a good time.

Brenna was too little last year to really enjoy the trip, but she more than made up for it this year. Here she is at the lagoon:
Hannah is showing off the turtle bucks she won. Tina also won six bucks but the rest of us were losers. Hannah, however is NOT a gracious winner. She kept asking her sister, "How come my turtle won?"

Here are Lizzie, Tommy and Hannah pretending to be super heroes. Clearly, Tommy was the winner here.

Bob and the girls at the Francis Walter Dam. It's got a nice view, even if there aren't cute kids and husband in the picture.

This is a different view of the same spot (oh, and that's me behind the shades!):Getting ready for the Potato Car Races to start. Each kit contained a russet potato, four nails and four wheels. The kids had to decorate their cars and put them together and then the staff at Split Rock had them race down a 15-foot incline.This is Tommy's potato car winning its heat.Here's the gang after Tommy's car KEPT winning and it got hotter and hotter in the sun. Tommy abandoned the races after the first or second win to jump in the lake. Aunt Terry still looks happy here and Grandma is mustering a smile (although she appears to be coveting Grandpa's cold drink). Tommy's car ended up coming in fourth or fifth overall, out of 27 cars. Which is pretty good for a potato.

Here's Lizzie's car beating some pickle car:Here are the girls with their losing (but awfully cute) Heart Racers. When you put them side-by-side, the cut outs make a heart.
And here's Tommy with his almost winning "Spud Warrior:"

Free Bracelet

I'm taking a break from all the vacation fun to bring you news of this very important contest!

My friend Carrie makes beautiful jewelry and she's looking to give some of it away. You read that right. GIVEAWAY. As in free!

All you have to do is to look at her etsy shop and then leave a message on her blog.

So first, go to her store at http://www.carriegrab419.etsy.com/ and look at the jewelry. Pick out your favorite item, which will be tough because everything is so nice. My personal favorite is the chocolate chunk trust in your dreams bracelet:

Then travel over to Carrie's blog, http://www.hammijammijewelry.blogspot.com/ and leave her a comment telling her your favorite piece of jewelry AND your email address. At the end of the month, Carrie will randomly select someone to win a bracelet.

How easy is that?

And how COOL is that?

So... why are you still reading this? Get over to http://www.carriegrab419.etsy.com/ and then to http://www.hammijammijewelry.blogspot.com/ and try and win something!!

Good luck!!

K-Camp!

Our school district does this really cool thing called Kindergarten Camp to get the children ready for the big day when they start school. They get to play and meet the teachers and do crafts, and no one EVER mentions that their lives will be completely RULED by school for (at least) the next 12 years. :) I'll let Hannah and Lizzie tell you what it's like:

Girls of Summer

Things have been pretty busy around here for the past week or so. Grandma and Grandpa visited last week (which meant much house cleaning prior to their visit) and then Uncle Dude visited on Sunday (we didn't clean the house for him) and then Aunt Louise and Uncle Mike (and their dog Dixie) visited on Monday (again, more house cleaning). It was fun seeing all these people and I didn't even mind cleaning the house. I know. It surprised me, too.

In between all the visiting we managed to get to a few outings and start kindergarten camp. I'll let the girls tell you about K-camp later, but here are some pictures from some of what we did.

Hannah went for her first trip on the bike path in Pottstown. Lizzie has gone before with Rob, but Hannah didn't go because of the training wheels on her bike. Rob decided to see if she could keep up with the training wheels, or if she'd want to take the trainers off. Here they are getting started:

And here is Rob trying to teach Hannah to ride without training wheels. She looks like she's having fun, but this lasted all of about 20 seconds. Then she was done:

So here she is tossing rocks into the Schuylkill River, where she spent the rest of the bike-riding time (with me). She DID have a good time doing this. She said that maybe someday she'll ride without training wheels but for now it's "too boring."

Here we are at Terry's pool. Hannah and Lizzie both have their own personal diving board styles, don't you think? Lizzie prefers the element of surprise...

Hannah, on the other hand, just prefers to jump as nuttily as she can:Hannah practicing her kicking:Lizzie paddling around without her swimmies on!

Blogger bummer

Blogger didn't like me for awhile. I have no idea why. There was something about not being able to find cookies, so I'm assuming it has to do with the new diet I've been on. :)

Anyway, I'm back now, and I think I have solved the problem. In fact, I have solved several computer issues over the past week. How cool am I? I managed to reinstall Microsoft Office on my new laptop, even though I couldn't find my product key. Product keys, in case you care, which I know you don't but I'm going to tell you anyway, are stored on your computer somewhere, but they are cleverly disguised as something else. I managed to find a program that would search my old computer and find the product code, which I could then use on my new laptop.

Please hold your applause until the end. There is more.

I also managed to uninstall Norton security and install the (free for me) McAfee.

Then I dealt successfully with the Blogger glitch.

Seriously, I am thinking of switching careers to computer whiz.

However, my computer expertise is not what this is about. It IS about windows, but not about Windows.

Hannah and Lizzie decided to clean the deck last week because, as Lizzie so appropriately described it: "It looks like a bird poop museum."

So here they are cleaning the windows. (I believe they are available for hire, if you, too, have a bird poop museum on your deck.)

Then I decided to give them a manicure to thank them for cleaning the deck.

As you can see, these are really bad manicures. Their nails are very tiny and my eyes are very old. But, luckily, 5 year olds don't really know what a good manicure looks like, so they were thrilled.