Stars of the 4th of July Parade

Emmie, Clay and their friend Madelyn proudly road their bikes down the middle of Main Street. The crowds cheered and clapped. Madelyn came prepared and even lead the way throwing out candy. After the kids made it to the end of the parade they doubled back and filled their pockets and baskets with candy. Candy littered the streets since all the kids were in the parade and not watching it from the sidewalks. They spent the next half hour riding up and down the streets, in and out of the rest of the parade collecting candy.

Our Golden Star Student

Emmie earned this at the end of the school year along with a free ticket to the fair. I thought it would be cute to put all the kids' honor roll bumper stickers on the tractor. How many can we have on the van? This is the first one so far but we are expecting more. Do you hear that kiddoes? Emmie is demanding we show it off on the van and on Scott's commuter car. Why else would they have given her 2? Certainly it was not by accident!

Happy Birthday to Emmie

Santa Clay

El Dorado County Fair

El Dorado County Fair

The kids had fun at the fair as always. It's the best part of summer as far as they are concerned.

Shower Time

The best part of taking a shower for Clay is the chance to be a goof. Yeah, that's my favorite part too.

A Day in Old Sacramento

After hanging around Old Sacramento chasing Clay on his bike we headed for Ikea. That really makes for a fun day for the parents and the kids. A bit of free baby-sitting in the Smaland and chocolate cake in the food court and everyone is smiling.

Methods for NOT Catching Fish

Best Friends on the Merry-Go-Round

Ollie's Bargain Yard

I called Lowe's looking for sod and they had half a pallet they needed to get rid of for $15. I threw the kids in the monster truck and we grabbed it. It looks just horrible here. The nice thing was that is was dried up and not heavy so the kids were able to lay out most of it. Anything is better than rocks and sticker burrs. We just need to score about 5 more of those deals and we'll have Ollie's yard complete.

After a month of watering and mild weather it's not looking so bad now.

This is Harvey

Harvey is very old and grouchy unless he's sleeping. If he's sleeping and soaking up the heat of the sun then he's the best cat ever because he's in his little bit of paradise.

Clay Graduates Preschool

Miss Tamara held a wonderful luau for the preschoolers and their parents. There was a formal ceremony, a treasure hunt in the sand box for shells (Clay found a real penny!), lunch and lots of other games. Clay loves his preschool friends and is so excited to be a real kindergartner. He's an official school kid now!

Smart Little Em

I went to the awards assemble mostly because we had time to kill in between dropping Emmie off at school and going to Clay's preschool graduation on the last day of school. To our surprise Emmie and her best friend Chloe were both presented with Awards for Personal Excellence and free fair tickets. Those were the only awards given at the kindergarten level.

Here is Emmie's class marching back to class, Emmie with her award in hand in the center of the line.

Here's Mrs. Nicholson's kindergarten class of 2008-2009.

Miss Emmie and Mrs. Nicholson.

Ollie Bending the Rules

This is Oliver NOT laying on the couch. He's such a smart naughty dog!

Label Overload

I bought a few simple square cushions for our deck chairs from Ikea. We do love Ikea. But look at the tags on this thing. It's ridiculous! Since when does a little fabric and foam warrant all these warnings and directions? There is more information here than you would find on a "put it together yourself bookshelf" from Ikea. With that you get a picture of a guy with a question mark over his head with a phone number. I see why they had to stop giving away free bags... they needed the plastic for their labels!

Santa Clay

Clay found a rip in his pillow and decided to pull out the stuffing. We figured out what he was doing when we heard the ho-ho-hoeing.

Bestest of Friends Forever

People ask us on a regular basis if the kids are twins. They don't really look alike to me but maybe if I didn't know them so well I might suspect they are closer in age than they already are. Today they were having so much fun. Clay let Emmie dress in his clothes so they could match. What you can't see is that they have matching briefs on under their shorts too. They were also in such good moods they gave each other kisses on the cheeks and more than that they even let me try to catch a picture of it. They weren't going to pose but they weren't goingto hide either.

Fishing Time

Emmie is getting ready to go for some big fish. She's showing off her extra smelly super magic fish bait.

This is how Clay prepares to go fishing. It didn't take long for him to get bored.

I'll give you one guess as to how many fish they caught this day. We had pizza for dinner!

Chatty Friends

It's summer vacation and the little girls are missing each other. Emmie's friend Chloe called and the girls chatted for half an hour. They talked about all sort so important things and both decided they were going to be vets when they grow up. I tried not to eaves drop too much but it was so cute. They both have such tiny high pitched voices that they had trouble understanding each other at first. Once they got into the groove it was impossible to pry them away from the phone. I could hear Chloe and her mom on the other end arguing about it being time to say goodbye. I told Em it was time to get off and she argued with me. Then I heard a beep and Em looked up at me confused. She had accidentally pushed the off button with her cheek. Poor sad girls but they would have been on all night giggling and chatting.

Planting Bushes

Emmie and Clay helped me plant a bush at the end of our planter box. They dug out the whole and had it ready for me to drop in the bush. It's nice that they get along so well and like to do everything together.