Dog Days of Summer

Father's Day dinner at my in-laws was a Hot Dog Extravaganza.  Seriously.  Six different types of 'dogs.

 And then a zillion and a half different toppings.  My mother-in-law found this article in a cooking magazine for different toppings that you might find in different places around the world.  (Do you suppose they have hot dogs in Greece?)

We had toppings for Greek, Thai, Mexican, German, American, Chicago and Chili dogs.

Chicago style

American- bbq pork and coleslaw.  Actually pretty tasty.

These were Ryan's German (except he used French's mustard instead of the German mustard) and Mexican-style hot dogs.

We ate through all the hot dog buns, and started getting creative with bread and tortillas.  I suppose a tortilla would make the Mexican 'dog even more authentic? :)  It was a fun evening, with a yummy chocolate cake that Emma and Elizabeth helped their Grandma make for dessert.

Over the mountain, and through the woods....

For Father's Day weekend, we took a trip over the mountains to visit family after Emma and Elizabeth had their Little Mermaid performance on Friday.  We were able to visit my dad that evening before heading to Ryan's parents.

Saturday morning found us at Krispy Kreme's for breakfast with Ryan's parents.  We had a good time pressing sticky finger prints all over the glass surfaces and enjoying the time with Rick and Kim.  In the afternoon I got to escape and get my hair cut and highlighted.  So nice!  And then we took little drive Saturday evening to go a park.

(Beware- picture overload here)

Over-looking the valley.

This little girl didn't particularly like the idea of getting her picture taken. 

So then she started making faces at me.  Nice.  (Isn't that the cutest little naughty face ever?)

Annie was equally excited about the camera.  At least I have Ryan being able to smile on cue.  Sometimes...

Jump!  (Look what a nice husband- smiling for the camera!)

Me, not so much.  I was concentrating on not crashing, or hurting myself.

Drama Queens

Last week Emma and Elizabeth went to Drama Camp, hosted by the local high school drama club.  School is out, so what's the first thing I sign them up to do?  Go back to school for a week. ;)  They sang, danced, did crafts (made their "costumes"), and ran around doing crazy things. 

Friday was their performance- their edition of The Little Mermaid.

 Elizabeth's group (gonna-be 1st graders) got to sing, "Under the Sea."  They made their fish from paper plates, streamers and foam stickers. 

Emma's group were frogs and birds who sang, "Kiss The Girl."

Mr. M, the high school drama teacher, said there were roughly 140 kids.  It was tricky finding the girls amidst the sea of blue shirts and decorated visors.  I used some major zoom on the camera to find them.

I think the twins want to be like their big sisters.

New Vinyl

On Monday Ryan attacked our house.  Quite literally.

 Took out the window, then attacked it some more.

 And installed a brand spankin' new vinyl window.  Yay! 

Our new window puts the old aluminum one to shame.  We love it.  As Ryan was able to install one, he is feeling confident that he can do one more. :)

Dinner Special

Sunday night Emma and Elizabeth made dinner.

(Yes, all the splatters were on purpose.  They wanted lots and lots of small pancakes.)

Bon Appetit!

All Done

All right.  Annie and Maddie are 2 1/2 years old and still use a binky at bedtime.  And any time they can push their bed over so they can reach on top of their dresser to grab a binky.

We decided it was probably time for the binkies to go away.

It took a lot of convincing to get them to throw the binkies away.  First we had a conversation about how they are big girls, and only babies use binkies.  (Maddie said she was a baby.) 

So we used the big guns.  Ice cream.

Worked like a charm- up until bed time.  It's been an hour since we put them to bed, and one is still crying.

Why didn't we do this before? 

Oh yah, because I was dreading the crying.  :(

Nature

The other night, we went for a walk after dinner.  We live close enough to the edge of town that we can see horses, goats, a donkey and some chickens at large when we walk.  We stopped to see and talk to the horses, to see if we could coax one close enough to pet.  One horse chose this particular moment to relieve his bladder.  He went, and went, and went, which drew our attention.

One of my verbal children took a good look and then said, "That horse looks like Daddy!"

Ryan got a big grin. 

(Let's just say that Ryan doesn't always lock the bathroom door, and my kids have absolutely no respect for privacy.  If they want to tell you something, they barge right in.)

Bath Time Fun

Emma and Elizabeth were entertaining me the other night while the twins were taking their baths.  Forgive the less-than-stellar video- I have a 30 second limit on my cell phone.

Memorial Day

I'm a little behind in getting these pictures posted.  On Memorial Day we took advantage of the lack of school and work, packed a picnic lunch and went for a drive.

 The seagulls thought our lunch looked appetizing.  First we had one wanna-be moocher, then two, three, four...  When we were done eating, we let the girls have some uneaten crusts to entice more seagulls over.  Then the girls were able to chase seagulls to their hearts content.

Then we went to a park.

Happy Memorial Day.

Parseltongue

Tonight Elizabeth started hissing.  But then, it started sounding like hissing gibberish.  I looked at Ryan and he looked at me.  I could see he was thinking the same thing as me- What on earth is she doing?

But then I figured it out.  She was speaking Parseltongue.  (If you aren't familiar with this term- here's a clip on You Tube of Harry Potter speaking the language of snakes.)  It was hysterical!  She had the inflections down, and we haven't seen HP2 in a couple weeks.

What have you done, Emma?  Your love of all things Harry Potter has led to Elizabeth trying to call all the local snakes, and to our 2-year-olds recognising pictures of Harry Potter (aka "Arry Popper") at the store.

Mommy's Vice

When the kids find your chocolate stash and you discover there is no more chocolate in the house after a hard day, it's time for desperate measures.

(For the record, Ryan messed up my hair and made me turn the can around so you could see what it was.  This isn't precisely what I looked like when Ryan found me.)