A sunny, summerish day

It was so beautiful today - seventy something degrees and sunny. We took a walk downtown and enjoyed story time at the library and then spent the afternoon outside. The kids loved being outside in summer clothes (although Camille insisted it was very, very cold and kept her sweater on for most of the afternoon). Here are some action shots.

Camille took a minute to pose for the camera before pouting because I wouldn't let her dig in the dirt to play her new favorite game: Poop stick.

How do you play poop stick? Good question. I'll give it to you in Camille's words. "First you get a stick and stick it in the dirt. Then you chase people with it and say 'Poop stick! Poop stick!' and you try to get them with the poop stick." When I asked Caleb, he gave me a similar explanation. This is a game they doubtless invented together.





Chloe spent the afternoon playing outside as well. She crawled across the grass, found lots of random bits of nature to snack on and had a grand time when the kids pushed her on this ride-on toy that banned from the house because it was too loud and annoying and the kids fought over it. (It's the corn popper ride on toy...like the one that you push only you sit on it and the things pop while the wheels turn.) I should have gotten some pictures of that.

I know these pictures are all kind of the same, but I couldn't decide which one I liked the best.




And here's a sad picture of Caleb who was either pouting because he didn't get his way or because Camille whacked him in the head with the broom handle when they were playing swordfighting. I can't remember which time this was.


In other exciting news, Rob got word today that he passed his nursing exam and he is now a licensed, registered nurse in the state of Connecticut! Now we just have to sell our house so we can move there...

Which reminds me...some things I've learned over the past few weeks...
1. When you are selling a house for sale by owner, be prepared for all kinds of people to stop by and look, even if they're not in the market to buy a house. It is okay to make people have an appointment. You do not need to drop what you're doing and let people in just because they ring your doorbell. You can have them set up an appointment to come back and look. If they don't bother setting up the appointment, you didn't waste your time on someone who wasn't going to buy your house anyway. Also, if people ask you questions such as "So how does this work? Do you finance?" or "Which mortgage company are you going to go with?" they don't know what they are doing and will likely not buy your house. It is okay to only show your house to people who are preapproved for a mortgage (read: who are interested enough in buying a house that they have found out how much money the bank will lend to buy a house).

2. When you make corned beef (totally off topic, I know), know that the little spice packet they include is enough for the meat. If you want to boil veggies with the meat, you may want to add some extra pickling spice. Otherwise your corned beef will taste very not very corned beef like.

3. When you are in the middle of a blog post and realize there's a major thunder storm, listen to the mother's voice in your head and turn off the computer so it won't get zapped while you type, especially when all of your photos are on your computer and you haven't backed them up yet. Gotta go!