Kilgore Falls, Take Two

We headed to Kilgore Falls again on Monday with our friends, Krissy and her boys, after our swim test. I think the Falls have become my favorite place in Harford County.

What's not to love?

There's water (ice cold on Monday)...

there are rocks to climb and scare Mommy half to death...

there's the waterfall to play under (Caden thinks it's better if you wear your goggles)...

there are dams to build (we finished our rock dam we started last time and made the water gush down in a different spot)...

there's a slow moving, shallow stream to take a walk in (I'm a sucker for this pose and I'm not above staging it)...

there's the beauty of God's creation everywhere you look...

there's "golden rocks" to find (and bring home to treasure forever)...

there's pictureque spots for the occasional photo op, which as you know, I love...

and if you are lucky, there's a show every now and then...

Signing Up for the Insanity

I think I'm crazy. Actually I know I'm crazy. I've prided myself on not being one of those crazy moms who has their kids involved in everything. This year is going to be insane. I've signed Caden up to play soccer on his best buddy from preschool's team. His dad coaches and it'll be a lot of fun, but the field is not nearby...1 night a week practice (Tuesday) and Saturday games until mid November. He started last night and LOVED LOVED LOVED it. You should have seen him running after the ball. He's so tiny that I had to buy him pee wee shin guards and a friend gave us soccer short and socks because I could not find socks small enough to fit his feet. They are still big, but he didn't seem to care. He just wanted his shoes on so he could go play. I think he's going to have a lot of fun and it's going to be even more fun with Nathan and Mr. Ben.

The girls have Brownies two Thursdays a month and I'm signing them back up for gymnastics at the same gym as the spring on Friday nights. Add in homework and dinner and I'm going to go insane and the sad thing is, I've done it to myself, but I think it's time for my kids to be more involved in "stuff." And when you think about it, it's only 3 activities and I do have 3 kids which fits my rule I said I would follow long ago: one activity per child at a time.

My Little Fish

My 3 little fish had their last swim test of the summer today. Caden had to repeat level 3 because he couldn't do the elementary backstroke without going underwater during the last test. Today, he totally rocked his backstroke halfway across the pool. I'm so proud. He'll start out in level 4 next summer. Jaelyn did awesome. She passed her test and will move on to level 5 next summer. For someone who wouldn't put her face in the water 14 months ago, she's come a long way. Allie had the hardest test to pass level 5. She had to do every stroke 25 meters (1 length of the pool) and do her front crawl 50 metes (down, flip turn and back). She also had to tread water for 2 minutes. She did everything perfectly and then fizzled out on her front crawl. She made it 25 meters and stopped. She was exhausted and wouldn't push herself to finish, which is fine. I'm really proud of how well she's done.

We have 2 weeks left to enjoy the pool before summer ends!

Jaelyn's Blog

Jaelyn has been working on her blog. She wants to expand it from just pictures and add more content. I've decided to make it invitation only for security reasons. If you want to read it, send me a comment, an email or a PM with your email address and I'll send you an invitation.

THE Letter

We've been waiting for this letter all summer...the letter telling us which teacher Caden will have for Kindergarten. I'm relatively happy. We didn't get our 1st choices, but Miss K was an aide for a special education student in Jaelyn's 2nd grade class. It's her second year as a kindergarten teacher, as far as I know. Jaelyn says she's very nice and every time I've seen her, she's always had a smile on her face. She looks young and fun. Her classroom is Jaelyn's old kindergarten classroom. Caden liked hearing he'll be in his sister's old room. Both girls say they will walk him to his room everyday. They might just smother him with mothering, but I'm glad he has someone to watch out for him.

We also found out our bus number and bus stop have changed. This year, I think I'll be able to sit on our front steps to wait for the kids! We have 2 more weeks left to cram as much summer in as we can!!!!

I'm a SUCKA, as a Friend Said

Jaelyn brought Moe (the fish) home about 3 weeks ago and we've kept him alive the whole time! That's quite the accomplishment. Well, Allie and Caden have been begging for their own fish. Grandpop gave them money the other day so I took them to Petsmart and let them pick out their own betas and tanks. This is where you should be yelling "Sucka" at me.

Introducting Allie's fish, Duckie...

Caden's fish, Chomper...

And Moe when he was introducted to Duckie. Duckie has so far totally ignored Moe, but Moe has definitely noticed Duckie in the tank next to him.

Bonus points to whoever can tell me where our fishie names came from!

My General's Chicken

I made General Kelly's Chicken tonight! It was good. Really, Really good! I loved that I had all the ingredients in my kitchen to make it.

(there's no sugar in the recipe...ignore the canister of sugar in the picture)

I also loved that Kendra said to "buzz the onions." I have this handy dandy "buzzer" that I got with a new immersion blender and haven't had an opportunity to use it. Yea! It worked great.

Ignore my dirty oven...as soon as the temps are below 50, I plan on running the cleaning setting!

The finished dinner was as pretty as it was good and it was super easy to make. Thank you Kendra! I'm so proud of you, but I have a question. Which recipe will you be using for General's Chicken from now on....yours or mine???

Visiting Family

We had such a nice day today. My Grandpa and Doris are visiting my Aunt and Uncle in West Chester, PA. The kids and I drove up for lunch. We ate at Allie's favorite place, Panera, and the kids kept everybody laughing with their jokes and riddles. Of course, the first 3 or 4 were actually funny. The rest were just made up and made no sense whatsoever, which is what made them so funny. Memaw laughed the whole way through lunch. We stopped at Rita's for dessert before heading back to visit with Sandy and Larry where we were entertained with a game of charades. My favorite was when the kids were "fruit." The grown-ups, obviously, didn't guess right, but in our defense, the kids were sitting like Humptey Dumptey (my guess) in little balls next to each other doing nothing. You should have heard Caden, "We are fruit." Like, DUH!

Tomorrow, we have swim lessons and then we'll be staying for a picnic and swim date with friends. We are taking our 2 foster kitties to Petsmart in the evening to hopefully be adopted and are picking up 3 new little girls.

Containing Polly

I am in a constant struggle to contain Polly. She likes to spread her things out. She has a huge house, yet prefers to store her clothing in her yard. She has more outfits than Dan, the kids and I do combined. I won't even discuss her shoe collection. It's astronomical and she can never find a matching pair. Polly also has a ton of friends who are always at her house, even though they have perfectly nice houses next door. They like to park their cars and boat in the middle of the floor. It's a hazard, I tell you.

I've tried everything I can think of to contain Polly: open bins, closed bins, sorters with little slots for each accessory. Nothing has worked. The last time I went into the basement, Polly and her stuff was taking up a 5 x 5 foot section of the floor and quickly spreading out further. I decided something needed to be done.

Polly backed me into a corner. I had no choice left...so I backed her into a corner!! Ha, take that Polly! No more sprawling suburbs for Pollyville!



Next up, drawers! I don't know if Polly will stay, but we'll see. There's now a drawer for Polly, for her clothes and for her shoes, accessories and little friends. (BTW - that's only half the Polly collection. The rest is in a big bucket in the storage closet)

I did some furniture reorganization in Polly's house so she can find everything.

The finished results...Polly's Puppet Master is very Happy!!!

Triplets???

When we first adopted Jaelyn and Allie, people would ask us if they were twins. It wasn't an isolated incident. It happened all the time. Jaelyn was obviously a toddler and Allie was obviously a baby. And lets not forget the 8 pound difference between them. I thought it was the oddest question.

Fast forward 6 1/2 years and Jaelyn and Allie are the same size (well, actually Allie is an inch or so taller and 6 pounds heavier.) Caden is sprouting up quickly doing his best to catch up. I was wondering if I'd start getting "the question" again and last week it happened...."Are they triplets???" I got a good laugh at it because they really don't look like the stair steps they used to.

And so you can see how much Caden has indeed grown...here's a picture from when the kids would have been 2, 4 and 5. (please excuse the fact it's a picture of a picture)

Gettsyburg, Pennsylvania

We took a day trip to Pennsylvania today. The last time we toured Gettysburg was in 2000 when Dan was at Aberdeen for his Officer Basic Course. We decided the kids are old enough to start learning some history and enjoy the museum rather then whining and complaining about being bored. And enjoy it, they did.

This museum wasn't here 10 years ago, or if it was, I don't remember it. The tour starts with a movie about the basic history of the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg. Then they take you to see the Cyclorama of the battle field. The only other Cyclorama I've seen is the one in Atlanta and this one was equally as impressive and amazing.


I knew the kids would get a kick out of seeing the guns and the cannons, but they really took their time and read the displays. Jaelyn loved seeing the different flags. We learned about the importance of the flag bearer and why it was so important to protect your flag and capture the enemies flag. Caden enjoyed playing with all the touch computer screens where he could see maps of the battlefield. I don't know that he really "got" what it was all about, but that's okay. Allie was drawn to the more household items. There was several displays of furniture with bullet holes and displays of camp life for the soldiers. Allie's favorite thing, she said, was a table runner that had been made out of an old hospital canvas tent. Someone had crocheted lace around the edge and embroidered flowers on it.

I was captivated by the stories and the pictures. Over 600,000 men died fighting the civil war. I can't fathom that number. There was one wall of just pictures of soldiers who were killed at Gettsyburg. It reminded me of a staircase at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. I read one story of a dead soldier. The only identifying thing on him was a picture of 3 children. The story and description of the children circulated through newspapers. Eventually, his wife heard the story and was able to claim his body. How sad it must have been to live in those days, which of course leads me to think about today and Iraq and Afganistan. I won't go there, but in my opinion, it's time to bring our soldiers home.

After the museum, we had a picnic and then did part of the auto tour through the battlefiled.

The view from one of the observation towers

Big Round Top

The view from the ground below one of the observation towers

After the seriousness of the day, it was time for some sillyness. We headed to Bear Country...Boyd Bear Country, that is! 4 Stories (if you count the basement, and I do) of fluff and figurine fun!

Would it be horrible for our Christmas picture to be filled with sun tanned, tank top wearing kids???

The kids wanted to adopt a baby animal out of the adoption center, but for $49.99, I don't think so. Instead, we found the Christmas in July sale in their barn and found these cuddly, cute animals for $5 each. I bought Christmas presents for the kids and teachers too!

Dinner's on the Grill after a Fun Day

What a fun filled day we had today! Dan had an "organization day" at work. We've only been to a handful of them and usually they aren't very fun. I don't know any of the wives, the kids don't know any of the kids and there's usually not a lot to entertain us. Well, today was different. It seems lately I've met several ladies whose husbands work with Dan and they were all there; so I had someone to chat with and the kids had friends to play with. I loved watching Allie and her girl scout buddy, Macy, run to each other and hug like they hadn't been together for months (well I guess it has been a few months). The fire department was there with their "smoke house" and a bounce house. I've never been inside a smoke house before, but they took the kids through and talked about fire safety, then they filled the house with smoke and the kids had to practice getting out safely through a window. It was very educational and very fun. The highlight of the day had to be the tattooer (is that a word?). They had an air brush tattoo booth. The kids' arms and legs were covered by the time we left.






We came home and I put dinner on the grill. I loved having no pots and pans to clean up afterwards.

Pool Day

We spent most of the day at the swimming pool. We started swimming lessons in the rain. Rain or shine, as long as there's no thunder, swimming lessons don't stop. The kids love swimming when it's raining. Funny! It's not like they aren't already wet. The wind blew the clouds away so we were able to go on adventure after lessons. We found a hidden walkway along the water. We walked quite a long way, dodging seaweed, goose poop (ew), and dead crabs (double ew). We had a good storm last night and it blew all kinds of things up on shore. We ended at the boat dock.

Then we walked back via a section of base housing. I would love to live in one of these houses. They are big and old, but they have so much character and they are sitting right on the water. All the name plates had the rank of Colonel so I don't think we'll ever see the inside. We had a picnic under the gazebo and were back at the pool when it officially opened at 11:30. Some kids from swim lessons also stuck around so we had playmates. Between them and Mr. Lee (who hopped in the pool for a quick game of tag - he's the lifeguard from last year the kids loved), I hardly had to get in the pool!

Wordless Wednesday

Her Beautiful Smile

A year ago, Jaelyn had finally gotten enough of her permanent teeth so we could find an orthodontist and fix her cross bite.

It only took about 4 weeks with "Cranky" the expander in her mouth to expand her arch and line her teeth up.



Finally, Dr. G declared her teeth perfect last month and scheduled her debanding for today!



I took a picture of Cranky to show you what's been in her mouth, but it was kind of gross so I won't be posting it. They offered to let us take it home, but "no, that's okay." Apparently, some of their patients do things like put them in baby boxes and make Christmas ornaments out of them. Now, I'm into teeth, but that's a little too far, even for me.

Here's Jaelyn this afternoon. She has a clear retainer that you can't even see. She'll get her permanent one that fits into the roof of her mouth next month.




She's always had a beautiful smile that lights up a room, but now, wow! Gorgeous!

PS If anyone in my area is hunting an orthodontist, Dr. Godwin has an amazing practice. I wish we were going to be here for the long haul so he could fix everyone's teeth!

I'm Not Going on a Bike Ride Again

This afternoon seemed the perfect afternoon for a bike ride. It was cooler and overcast; so I asked the kids if they wanted to ride to the library after lunch and check out new movies. What was I thinking??? I really need my head examined. We live in a hilly area. To get out of our neighborhood, it's all downhill, but then you have to go up a big steep hill on the main road, down another hill and up yet another hill to get to the library. The kids finally gave up riding up the hills and walked. The down hills weren't any better because Allie and Caden are scared and ride their bikes at a snail's pace while Jaelyn flies. Talk about stress to keep everyone together on the sidewalk next to a main road. We actually did make it to the library just as the clouds disappeared and the sun came out (it's been overcast all day, mind you). It went from 80 to 95 in a matter of minutes, it seemed. After the library, we spotted turtles and frogs in the pond and played at the school playground before heading home. Just past the school, Allie got ahead of me and went flying down the boardwalk towards the pond. Thankfully, the railing stopped her since she couldn't seem to find her brakes. I didn't actually see the crash because of a curve and a clump of bushes, but I sure heard her cries afterwards. Her chin connected with the railing or maybe her handle bars that were bent totally forward. Poor Allie, but I made her get back on her bike and ride it again after I used brute force to fix the handlebars. She made it down the next big hill and then we cut through some houses instead of tackling the second hill. Ugghhhh!

To quote from Going on a Bear Hunt, I'm not going on a bike ride again...at least not until we find some level paths!

Try My recipe

My friend Kendra and I have a private joke going about her General Tso's Chicken recipe. Well, she's having a blog contest this week and she posted a recipe just for me: General Kelly's Chicken. I like the ring of that. Go check it out. If you make it, leave her a comment. I want to win the prize!

More Jam

I've gone jam crazy. I never made it to the orchard to pick peaches so I had to buy them at the store. I canned 7 half pints of peach jam yesterday and it is DELICIOUS - would have been even better with fresh picked, ripened on the tree peaches, though. I don't think I'm ever buying store bought jam again.