KISS-ing off the 4th of July

I have to tell you, I'm sad to see the holiday weekend come to a close. It was a really great weekend. Awesome weather, great fun with the family. My only complaint was my work schedule. While the 4th was not one of my holidays I had to work, it was my weekend to work. This meant instead of working my normal Friday and Saturday night, I had to work Thursday night, then Saturday night. Kind of screwed everything up for me and I didn't get to do as much with Adam and the kids as I wanted to. It would have been different if I worked say 1st or 2nd shift but one of the great gifts that comes with working 3rd shift is not only do you have to work, at some point you have to sleep during abnormal hours. So instead of playing at the pool with the fam, I was inside sleeping. Boo!

Adam came home Thursday night and we all went out to dinner before I came home and slept for a whole hour before work. Dinner was nice and you could really tell the kids had been missing Adam and just wanted a big heaping scoop of daddy-time. Adam decided not to work with our brother-in-law over the weekend so he could get in some quality time with the kids.

Friday morning we went to the parade. My favorite part about this picture? My sunglasses. I wore these the ENTIRE DAY on the 4th and never ever saw anyone else with glasses like them. I've had these things sitting on our baker's rack for over a month just WAITING to wear them. Pretty sure they're going to be a part of my ensemble every Memorial Day, Labor Day, Flag Day, Veterans Day and every other holiday that ends in "Day". Yep, I loved them that much. My least favorite part of this picture? Blake and I both have our eyes closed! What's with that??

The parade was fun. Blakey was LOVIN' the antique cars. He waved at everyone. Adam bought the kids two small bottles of bubbles to use before the parade got started. Here you can see how much fun they're having with their bubbles.

And here you can see how really mad they are when Adam made them sit down and then took said bubbles away from them because they were spilling them all over the place. OK, Emily's the only one here that looks really bummed, Blake just looks like a maniac, as usual.

I came home and slept for a few hours while Adam and the kids headed off to the pool. I got up around 5 and started getting ready to head to our town's 4th street fest and the fireworks that night. I got the kid's chairs off the deck and Blake insisted on carrying his around the house. While I was in the kitchen packing up the cooler, Blake brought his chair in the kitchen and sat it down right behind me.

"Mama, I'm just going to sit here and take a little rest, ok?"

"Whatever, buddy."

I gathered up a few more things around the house and as I headed back into the kitchen there sat my exhausted little buddy, fast asleep in his chair, snap-jerking the whole time. I got Emily from the living room and we stood there and giggled at him and then I took these pics.

Poor little peanut was so tired from all the excitement of the day and then the few hours of swimming. We let him sleep and woke him up just as we were ready to head out the door.

We got over to the fest and picked out a spot to watch the fireworks. We set up our chairs then headed over to the fest to get some food. We had yummy burgers, steak sandwiches and butterfly pork chops sandwiches. Both ends of the street had stages set up for bands. As we walked and got our food there was a country cover band just finishing up near the end of the street we were on. Not sure what was going on on the other stage. After we got our food and took our seats in the field a rock cover band took their place. They were decent and the kids enjoyed dancing around to the music. Blake entertained the families around us with his double-jointed hip action. At one point Adam took Blake to the bathroom and while they were gone the band played "Rock and Roll All Nite". When it started up Emily said, "OH! I like this song!" She then sang along during the chorus. It was pretty funny.

My sister, who had been at a family event at my aunt's house then joined us around 7:30 or so and Adam and the kids burned some sparklers and smoke bombs. Here's a lovely picture of Adam holding one of the smoke bombs that seriously went on and on for about 2 minutes straight.

While the rock cover band finished up a KISS cover band started up on the other stage. They're King's KISS. Adam was kind enough to head over there and snap some pictures for me.

Eventually a few parachuters flew in and before we knew it it was dark enough for the fireworks. I was excited to use the "fireworks" setting on my camera and snapped a few pictures of Adam and his sparklers. Then some of the fireworks.

The kids passed out on the way home and my sister, Adam and I ordered a pizza. Adam went to bed around midnight and my sister and I stayed up until around 1am talking. She left and I went to bed and passed out.

Saturday my sister came over and we all went out to lunch then to see WALL-E. We all really liked it even though Blakey fell asleep half-way through. I even made a killer comeback during a game of air hockey against my sister before the movie but still lost in the end. Oh well.

So this upcoming week Adam will head back out of town to work and my sister's on vacation so she's watching the kids for me for a few days so I don't have to pay a sitter. That means I'll be living the single girl in the city lifestyle! It will be so weird. I haven't been home alone for so many days since just before Adam and I got married and he was sent out of town to work for a week. I'm sort of looking forward to it and I'm sort of not. I think the silence is going to kill me. I'm pretty sure I'll have a tv, radio, something on 24/7. I won't miss hollering at Blake every 10 minutes, though. Maybe I'll even be able to get caught up on my soaps and all the other tv shows I love to watch but haven't got to because I've been too busy with the kids. I've had three movies from Blockbuster.com since forever, I might even get a chance to watch one or two of those too. I can hope, anyway...

A Better Wednesday

Well today my dad came over to watch the kids so I could work all day. My supervisor left at 10:30 of course to go to a "meeting" and never came back. Again, already had that one figured out before I even got there since she has tomorrow off for an "Office Day" and the next day is a holiday. I'll say it again, what comes around goes around.

The day at work was pretty busy after that since we were a man down on answering calls. Again, it worked to my advantage since I didn't get to take a lunch and got to leave a half-hour early.

When I got home my dad and I had already made plans to take the kids to Toys 'R Us and then go out to dinner. He wanted to buy Emily something for her good grades on her final 1st grade report card, and because Emily was getting something, Blake was going to get something too. Blake chose a Batman figurine and Emily got two computer games. The whole TRU experience literally lasted about 6 minutes. Done...and...done.

After that we went to Ryan's and had dinner. I had never had dinner with just me and the kids and dad. It was kind of weird, but nice. Blake was even somewhat behaved. Now THAT was really weird.

I was a little scared on the way home because Blake had eaten a lot at the restaurant and, according to my dad, a lot throughout the day at home so I was concerned about what was going on in his tummy. Sure enough my worst fears came to fruition in his pants...and underwear. For all of you new parents, or soon-to-be parents out there...if you think changing a dirty diaper is bad, try changing a shitty pair of underwear, ok?

Had a long talk with Blake about the consequences of being a "big boy" and what it entails, i.e. using a toilet, and not your underwear. The kids actually went to bed at 9:30 and Blake didn't even get up 5 or 6 times like he usually does. Stayed up late and goofed on the computer. Went to bed and passssssssssed ouuuuuuuuut.

Oh, and here are a couple pictures of that TOTALLY AWESOME birthday card I got from the kids. Notice the exclamation mark Emily wrote after her and Blake's name. Totally an Adam thing.

Buggin' Out

Well the kids and I didn't make it to the museum on Tuesday. After my long night listening to the lush next door, and the early hour I had to get up to go to a meeting at work, I opted for a nap in the afternoon. After that I did a little housework and laid Blake down for a nap. Once he fell asleep I played a few board games with Emily, which was a lot of fun. We played a few rounds of Clue Jr., which I won (yay for me!) Once Blake got up I started dinner and had a brainstorm. Let's catch lightening bugs! So I turned the oven down on my meatloaf and au gratin potatoes, loaded the kids in the car and we headed to Dollar General to buy bug houses. We got home, I cranked the oven back up to get the food going again and we ate. Well, it was mostly Emily and I eating, Blake was on a no food diet, apparently.

After dinner it was getting to be dusk so we headed outside with our bug houses, which also came with some tools to catch the bugs. Blake, unfortunately, but not suprisingly, had poked a hole in his bug house before we even got outside. (Check out Blake's Spiderman underoos in this pic!)

Both of the kids were a little afraid at first to even come near the bugs. That changed when Emily caught her first one. She was addicted after that. Blake on the other hand never really changed his feelings about the bugs. They were great to look at in the bug house, not so great when they're flying near his head, lol.

Emily was even catching some and putting them in Blake's bug house so he wouldn't feel left out. Even a neighbor kid got in on the action. At one point Blake held up his house to me and said, "Mama, look, they're getting out." I said, "Yeah, and one is on the handle crawling towards your hand." (which it was) Blake looked, screamed like a girl and threw the bug house. Who's the man now??? I guess I won't be calling on Blake anytime soon to kill spiders in the house. After that we came inside, the kids took a quick bath to wash off the bug spray and it was off to bed. A pretty fun evening.