qotds

The Duke is on a roll!

In the car on the way home from our co-op, Maddie was teaching Duke subtraction.
M: Dukey, let's say that you have 3 doughnuts, but Mommy takes away 2 of your doughnuts. How many doughnuts do you have left?
D: One. And I would be very sad.
M: Now, let's say you have 4 doughnuts, but Mommy takes away 2 of your doughnuts. How many doughnuts do you have now?
D: Two! And I would be very happy!

The other is bathroom humor, so stop reading here if that's not up your alley. :)

At our co-op recently, I was in a brief meeting, so another mom was watching Maisie and Duke for me. She told me afterward that Duke needed to go #2, so she took him to the bathroom to help him. While he was in the stall and she was holding his door, he started talking to her. He told her, quite perky and conversationally, that sometimes going poopy makes him sad because the first poopy is very big and it hurts sometimes so he gets tears in his eyes. She was cracking up.

So today, once again at our co-op, Duke told me he had to go poopy. I took him to the bathroom and he proceeded to stand up. I said, "Duke, I thought you told me you had to go poopy?" While he was going #1 he answered me, "Sometimes when my poopy and peepee aren't coming together, I stand up first and go peepee and then just I sit down and do my poopies. But sometimes when the peepees and poopie are right next to each other, then I sit down and they go into the potty together."

Well, then he sat down to go poopie and I stepped out of the stall. He was sitting there for a bit and then I heard him grunt, so I said, "Buddy, you okay in there?"
He replied, "Yes, Mommy. Remember?"
"Remember what?"
"Sometimes when I go poopy, the first one makes me sad bc sometimes it hurts a little bad...hey, Mommy! Sad and bad, they rhyme! Sad, bad. Sad, bad. They rhyme! Sad, bad..."

qotd

At dinner...

Maddie: I found an old Wii game we had lost, and I played it. It was Mini Golf. It was really fun! We had forgotten we had it. 

Duke, as an aside to me: Mommy, it is called Mini Golf, but there is no one named Minnie in it. 

qotd

Duke said the tag on his shirt was bothering him. Only problem was there was no tag, so I told him he should just change his shirt if it felt uncomfortable.
"But I then I won't match!"
"Buddy, I hate to break it to you, but you don't match right now." (Think: camo shorts, a green & blue striped polo shirt, a brown monkey hat and red spiderman mittens.)
"But I do! My shorts are green, my shirt is green, and my underwear is green."

Father's Day

We celebrated with Daddy. Here he is reading the kids' "cards" that they write in his book every year.

We also celebrated a combo Father's Day and Caleb's birthday with Nonna and FaFa. 

For this party Caleb asked me to make caramel nut bars. 

Auntie Jes and Uncle Dave sent this hot wheels track. 

Maisie & Max

My friend Susan, who let us stay at the house, met up with us one afternoon with her son Max. 

Maisie and Max hit it off. 

Duke joined in a little here and there. 

But it was Maisie and Max who spent the whole afternoon and evening busy busy busy.

They dug, ran, splashed, drew in the sand, sat, dug some more, hauled water, gathered sea grass...and spent a long time crafting this magnificent blob. 

At one point Susan starting throwing the football with Duke. His facial expressions are just perfect. 

It was lovely to see Susan and Max, and we have plans to see each other again. It's fun to have our lives intertwine once again. 

More from the beach! - The Bigs

 You can't really see them, but there they are way out there in the waves having a great time!

 Taking a break

 This guy had fun fishing - never caught anything we could eat, but he still enjoyed himself. 

 Beach Girl

 

End of the day, tide coming in.

 

Sunset football

 Would you believe there is not one single photo of Mommy at the beach? That's kinda sad. Kids, I promise, I was there!

More from the beach! - The Littles

The littles love the beach! They stayed busy busy busy.

Ninja moves!

Duke wasn't a huge fan of the waves and water. He had more fun digging on the shore and meandering along the edge of the ocean.

Our silly girl!

la beach!

In June we got to go to the beach! My friend Susan's godparents have a place on the Isle of Palms. They only live there half the year, so Susan offered us nearly a week there in early June. It was such a blessing! We haven't had a family vacation in 3 years.

I packed the kids their traditional vacation trip bags full of fun surprises for the beach...including sunglasses.

We arrived just in time to sneak in a quick jaunt to the beach before dark.

The kids weren't going to get in of course. What was I thinking?!?

The beach is Maisie's happy place. Sun, sand, water, texture!

The older 3 loved the waves. The duke wasn't too sure about that and hung back with me. I took advantage of that and sat in my beach chair and read a good book!

Braden found a shell fragment and told Duke it was Pop-Pop's toenail. He fell for it hook, line and sinker...he even tried it on for size. 

The big bubbles from their vacation bags were super fun!

Movies and ice cream in the evenings.

Braden casted a few. 

The duke caught his first fish...a shark! Yikes!

And then what would vacation be without another sleeping Duke picture? We found him here one afternoon. He'd gone to the potty...and then we realized after a while that he hadn't reappeared. The funniest part was he was laying their pant-less! I had to cover him before I took the photo, for modesty's sake. 

I could make a whole book of this kid's funny sleeping photos!