Bathtime!

Royal has been working a lot over the past couple weeks, which in turn means I am working a lot here at home, if you call what I do working. :) And I have been really sick and am just starting to feel better. So, those are my reasons for my lack of pictures of the kids recently. Tonight, I decided I’d just take some pictures of the kids in the bath and post some of those, just so you had something new to look at. I got one picture snapped and then my battery went dead. It’s like it’s just not meant to be. So, here’s the picture. It cracks me up, because Willow just starts smiling whenever I bring the camera out, and Jayden pretty much tries to not look at me as much as possible.



Oh! and one other thing I thought I’d share. I have made a few things on the sewing machine I got for my birthday. One of them is this sunhat! And even if the hat is pretty shoddy workmanship, the kid wearing it is pretty cute!

Sparklers and Hiking

Jayden loved lighting sparklers last night! We totally kept him up WAY past his bedtime so he could watch the fireworks with us, and I wish my video camera was working because he was hilarious. He got so excited he couldn’t sit still and I figure he was channeling his grandpa Fireball (or his mom) because he was talking a million miles an hour.







Even though the weather wasn’t the greatest this morning, we decided to go hike around El Dorado State Park anyway. Everything was so green, which we wanted to take advantage of, because in a month or so everything around here will be nice and brown!





Royal, the ever tracker, spotted deer tracks the minute we got on the trail. And once he showed Jayden what they looked like, Jayden was tracking them too. And then we (by we, I mean Royal) spotted them.
See the deer?


There it is!

4th of July

The holidays make it so much harder to live so far away from our family. I really hadn’t thought about it before, but the 4th of July really seems to be a family holiday. I mean, we always spent lots of weekends, not just holidays, with our families, but the 3rd and 4th of July we were always out at the lake - good ole Mason Lake…oh, how I miss the northwest… We’d spend the weekend eating, swimming, floating, eating, boating, eating, swimming, watching all the huge fireworks go off, swimming later in the dark, sometimes “sneaking” out on the seadoo in the middle of the night. Sitting underneath my mom’s homemade quilts, fighting over who was going to go get the s’mores stuff, complaining that the smoke from the fire was always blowing in my face, getting holes burned in my pants from sparklers, melting my shoes on the fire because the log botherers made the dagum thing so hot…. This is my 2nd 4th of July out here in Wichita, and I just can’t believe I’m missing all the parties again, and it feels so weird to just be hangin’ out at home. I love hangin’ out with my little family, but it just feels like we’re missing something. If, I mean, when :) we move back to Washington, I swear I am going to go out of my way to find the people I know who have no family in the area and invite them to our family gatherings. Now that I am an outsider, with no family or longtime friends in the area, I know how lonely even these small holidays can be. Anyway, boo hoo, poor me…it’s really not that bad. We have had a bunch of fun today. Our original plan was to go out to El Dorado State Park in the morning, before all the heat hit, and hike around on some trails there with the kids, but since it POURED down rain last night, we figured the trails were going to be mostly mud, so we scratched that plan. After I fixed breakfast and got Willow down for a nap, I strapped on my shoes and pounded out some pavement. After being somewhat quarantined in the house last week with the kids being so sick with colds, it felt so good to get out of the house by myself, even though it was muggy beyond belief thanks to the rain and my head is still quite plugged up from my cold…man, am I complainy or what???? Good grief! Changing topics already!

We got Jayden some fireworks this year, because well, they are just so fun. Jayden helped me pick some out for him and the one he was most excited about, even though he had no idea what it was going to do, was these racing cars. You lit them on fire and they were suppose to race down the street.



The first one was a bust. It’s back wheels melted off before it went anywhere. Thank goodness for the second one that did what it was suppose to!





And then there were the snaps! I think I still love playing with snaps! These were by far Jayden’s favorite. Although, we haven’t busted out the sparklers yet.



And smoke bombs!





We spent some time playing in the back yard too. Our neighbors down the street came and gave Jayden some more toys for his sandbox, so we had to try those out!



And while Willow has no idea what is going on, we decked her out in a patriotic outfit!





Royal took a picture of me, just so you could all see I was around too! :)



When Willow went down for another nap, Royal had some stuff for work he needed to work on, so Jayden and I decided to go wash the cars. After Jayden sprayed me twice in the face with the hose set on the power washer setting, that responsibility got taken away. So, he got demoted to just washing. Which as it turns out, he didn’t think was that much fun. He started just playing with the bucket of suds, throwing all the bubbles out, then he decided to get in the bucket.





As it turns out, the bucket had bubbles, so that means it was perfect for a bubble bath. Bye-bye clothes.




Now we’re just waiting for the sun to go down so we can bust out some sparklers and then we’re going to sit on the porch and watch everybody else to shoot off their fireworks!

Kid Quote :: 2

Really, this is a movie quote, but I think it’s hilarious! The first movie Jayden ever quoted was Charlie Brown. He ran around the house saying “good grief!” all the time.

Jayden usually gets stuck on a movie and chooses to watch the same one over and over and over. The most recent movie has been Ice Age:The Meltdown, which is the movie that the follow quote came from.

At dinner a few nights ago, Jayden and Royal were discussing the monsters in the basement and Jayden told Royal he wanted to go “sneak” after dinner.

Royal: “Are you afraid of the monsters?”

Jayden (all matter-of-factly): “Dad, fear is for prey”

So it is…..so it is.

“RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

Sick

We are sick here in the Lovingfoss house with a real nasty summer cold. Well, all of us except Royal. Royal hardly EVER gets sick. Me, Jayden, and Willow, well we hang out together too much, so if one of us gets sick, the others aren’t too far behind. When we are sick like this, I really miss living close to family. It would be so nice to have someone come over who could take care of the kiddos for a few hours so I could take a nap! :) Oh well, we’ll make it through the day. The kids are relatively happy despite the nasty bug we’re dealing with. It’s still real hot outside and while we tried to play out in the backyard for awhile this morning, Jayden just didn’t have the energy to stay out there and wanted to go back inside. So, what do we do? We hang out in the cool basement and I take pictures of my poor sick kids.













This last picture of Jayden looks strangely familiar. I think I’ve seen this face on both of my brothers….there must be something wrong with the guys in this family…I think Jayden’s going to fit in just fine… :)

Big Crash and Bugs

**sorry no pics of the kids in this post. feel free to leave nasty comments or skip reading altogether**

Jayden and I were very close witnesses to a car accident that happened the other day. So close, that if the car would of swerved to miss the car that turned into it’s lane, they would of swerved into us. It was pretty scary to watch. I sat there with my hands over my mouth going, “oh my gosh, oh my gosh”, watching it all happen in slow motion. Then the cars smashed into each other and people’s airbags popped out, it was quite the event. Everybody in the other cars were ok, but I have been fielding questions about the accident for the past week, pretty much every time we get in the car. “Hey mom, why did those cars crash?” “Hey mom, why was there an accident?” “Hey mom, were we in the accident?” “Hey mom, those cars crashed right?” “Why would they do that?” “Are they broken?” “Do they need some glue?” “Hey mom, drive careful. Don’t get in an accident.” We stayed at the scene until the police and firetrucks arrived, which Jayden thought was awesome, because he got to see the firetruck up close with “it’s lights on!” and a fireman came over to Jayden’s window (which he had me roll down) to make sure he was ok. And once Jayden told him he was ok, the fireman told Jayden to come down to the station sometime and he’d show him the firetruck up close and let him drive it. I’m not sure that guy knew what he was promising because now Jayden wants to actually drive the firetruck. Anyway, it’s been obvious that Jayden has been processing the whole thing. This was the scene in the kitchen the other day. Jayden told me there was an accident.



And some accident it was. Flipped over semi trucks, farm animals in the road, crashed airplanes, upside down tractors. When I told Jayden later that he had to help me clean it up. He said that I couldn’t touch it and that he couldn’t help me pick it up. When I asked why. He said, “Because mom, those guys have to wait for the firetruck to show up. The firetruck is going to clean up the mess” And then he turned and walked out of the room.

In other completely unrelated news, Royal found this on the stairs last night. I had walked right by it a few minutes earlier and didn’t really notice it. Good thing too, because I would of screamed and ran back down the stairs.



I am SOOOOOO grateful I do not have to be the bug catcher in the family. Royal was just gonna smash it on the stairs, but then I said it would just leave blood and guts everywhere because it was so big, so I convince Royal to catch it in the cup.



Plus, by catching it in a cup, I could take these pictures of it, so all of you can see what it really looked like. Kansas has some nasty critters!!! Try not to scream. :)

Monsters!

Jayden and Royal have this game they play. There are monsters hiding downstairs in the basement. According to Jayden, there is one in the bathroom (the monster lives in the bathtub), one in the guest room (under the bed), and one in the office. Often times in the morning if there is a toy downstairs and he wants to get it, after he begs me to go down and get it and I tell him he can go get it himself, he asks me, “There’s no monsters, right?” And I have to reassure him that they are either sleeping, at work, or have been kicked out of the house. And even then, most the time he wants me to stand at the top of the stairs and wait for him to come back. Imaginary or not, they kinda freak him out, yet he still goes down there. I think he’s going to like watching scary movies. Anyways, when Royal is home, Jayden is always begging Royal to “go downstairs and sneak”. They have to “sneak up on the monsters”. “Come on, Dad, it’s time to sneak. Let’s go”

It always starts out on the jumper - the upside down jumper. The jumper becomes a boat or an airplane (or sometimes a place to put dad in time out under it, but that’s a different game) that is the safe place from the monsters. Royal and Jayden huddle together and discuss if they have heard a monster and if they have, where it’s hiding.



Then they very quietly get off the jumper and “sneak” (Jayden will even whisper so that the monsters don’t hear him) towards the hiding place.



Tonight, they were hunting the monster hiding in the bathtub.



Once they take a quick look behind the shower curtain in the bathtub, the whispering stops and top-of-the-lung yelling ensues, as well as, bat-out-of-hell running. “AHHHHH! MONSTERS! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! HURRY DAD! MONSTERS! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!! QUICK, BACK TO THE JUMPER!”





Willow pretty much just chills and watches the madness.


I’m sure soon enough, she will be yelling at the top of her lungs too and running from the monsters. I’m sure Jayden will love having someone in the house who will play this game with him all day long, because he is always asking me when Royal will be home from work because he needs to sneak. What? You’re asking why I don’t play this game with him all day long? I’ll tell you. Because, as it turns out, Jayden has labeled me as the monster who hides in the kitchen. I get snuck up on and then once I turn around and see him, he runs screams bloody murder and sprints out of the kitchen. Awesome.