Lately

We've been living the life here lately, engaging in a wide range of activities. Natalie is really into her babies, so they got to go the park one day.

babies were carried

babies did the slide

babies had to see how big their hands are

babies used the swings

babies had to sit in time out for a little bit

on another day, babies were fed in the kitchen

and babies are always given lots of love.

Then there's Wyatt, and his ever-loving engineeringish brain. I was called to his room one day in a voice that suggested something might be wrong ("Mom! You have to come see this!") but this is all I saw when I arrived on the scene:

I was perplexed. When I asked exactly what I was looking at, he explained it to me. There were moving parts, etc. and I'm still not sure what it was BUT I do know that in his brain, it was something. So there's that. Besides, it's inherently cool because it involves a light saber and a tape measure.

A couple of weekends ago, we made a family outing to the Congaree National Park. It was pretty cool; a great diversion from our normal routine and a great chance to be in nature. That said, I'm not sure you could pay me enough to go there on a hot, humid day. It's definitely a fall/winter/spring kind of place!

Then there was our annual round of croup; this one took Wyatt out of school for four days - the first two days it was kind of nice to have him around, days three and four were less enjoyable for all of us. In the midst of it, we realized the seal bark was not going down without a fight, so we paid a visit to our doctor for a breathing treatment. Even in this get-up, he was smiling. In that moment, I was reminded that he's  a pretty great kid. He was also given a dose of prednisone in the office and when I asked him if it tasted like grapes he cracked up and said, "No! It tasted like rotten cherries!"

Last weekend, I had the great pleasure of taking a day trip with a couple of friends. It involved lots of shopping (really more looking than shopping, but it's the thrill of the hunt), some good food that we can't get around here and lots of laughing. The kids were thrilled to have an entire day with "just daddy!" They squeezed a lot into their day, including the purchase and assembly of some new rockets. Jeff then had to work on Sunday, but rockets were on Wyatt's mind. He spent a fair amount of time making his own, including a launch system. Again with that brain that's so different than mine. I love it.

rockets all lined up, ready for launch

this is his "launch system" but then post-countdown, he hopped up and tossed
the rocket toward the ceiling.

And lastly, we experienced local culture at its finest by attending the Sumter County fair yesterday. Whoo, boy, that was some people-watching. More importantly, though, it was a Saturday afternoon together.

ferris wheel - much speedier than the ones in Japan!

little drivers

they would've done this on eternal repeat if we'd let them

she couldn't wait to get in the purple car - before the ride started, another little girl
joined her and they spent the whole ride grinning at each other as they 'drove'

this ride was awesome - it flung them around the ovals of the track
and my little thrill-seekers loved it!

Of course no fair is complete without games, so both kids played the 'ping pong toss for fish' game. In all truth, Natalie and I were on a ride when Jeff agreed to let Wyatt try. He says he didn't think Wyatt would win, but as I was spinning around on a bumblebee, I looked down to see that indeed, Wyatt's ping pong ball was in a container. Of course Natalie needed to try, too. She wasn't as lucky skilled, so we cut our losses after one round and told her we'd take her to Petco to buy a fish. Well, you know one thing leads to another so now we're proud owners of a two-gallon tank complete with fake plant, tiki mask and two goldfish. Their names are Orange Flipper (Wyatt's - and he doesn't look as though he's long for this world, as most fair fish aren't) and Natalie's Fish (it's had multiple names so far: Kangaroo, Fish, Natalie and Sarah. I'm not sure what its name was at bedtime).

And now you're kind of caught up - that's life around here!