Honestly, I just don’t know where my time goes. I think I know why all the "seasoned" moms I know are always telling me to enjoy my kids now because time flies!

OK, here are my recent katy-isms:
*Her big toe nails are always splitting out, and the other day it had traces of blood under the torn nail. I don't do blood so Peter clipped the split nail and pronounced it "fixed". Katy pointed out that her toe was still "muddy" instead of bloody. Also, this is a great place to mention that bandaids seem to have magical healing powers that immediately stop pain from all sorts of owies.
*Medusa (lady with snakes for hair) is also the name for the mean lady in Disney's "The Rescuers". Katy wakes up with wild hair every day now, and we call it her Medusa hair. This translates to "adusa" for Katy. Also, McDonalds has been called "EatDonalds" lately, with similar Katy logic applied.
*We were helping Katy practice saying our full names for each member of the family the other day. My morbid reasoning is that if Katy is ever lost she can tell people who her parents are. She nailed both her parents' first names, and even gave her middle name, but Allen gets called "Juice McGoose" so much that she said his name was Allen Agoose".
*We often watch squirrels and birds outside and talk about what they're doing and why they're doing it. Usually squirrels are looking for nuts and birds are looking for worms. Katy can't remember the worm part and she insists the birds are looking for germs.
*Tonight we were playing Simon Says, which tickles Katy to no end but she doesn't really get it. Each time she fell for it, I would say, "Simon didn't say!" and she would mimic me by laughing and saying, "Simon can't say!"

Allen had two more teeth break through last week...poor little Juicer. That means he has four up top and four down below. My former co-workers call him "Porkchop" and now he has enough teeth to chew up his namesake!

He and Katybird are loving their swim lessons! Mom might be joining us in our swim efforts tomorrow. I guess I've just made them sound like so much fun. Thursday is our final day so I'll be allowed to watch Katy's class that day. Until now, parents have been banned from class. She doesn't seem to mind one bit. She and her friend Sage wave bye bye to me and don't look back. Allen and I are stuck together like glue for our lesson, though. He loves when we sing songs and he gets lifted up into the air lots of times. I think I'm building muscles on top of my muscles. Today he put his face in the water at least 20 times so I guess it's working.

Here are some fun shots of our past couple of weeks. The house gets demolished daily. And Allen loves the drawer on the new oven. Peter was playing with Allen's birthday present from Jim & Tara. It's a baseball toy and the kids can't give enough of it.

The week before last Mom had the great idea of heading out to the movie theatre. Warren and Marjean sat on the Big Juice for us and we whisked Katy off to see Kung Fu Panda. She was glued to the screen and Mom and I kept laughing over our popcorn at her reactions. She was completely exhausted after all that fun.

Then Peter and some of his co-workers decided to head over to a community baseball game. There were games for kids and yummy hot dogs and all the drinks we wanted. Dr. Pepper sure tastes good on a hot summer day. Katy was initially afraid of the mascot named "Kaboom" but she eventually realized he wasn't out to kill or maim her and she warmed up to him. Allen was the man of the hour and he was passed throughout the bleachers. Everyone had to have a little of the Juice Man. It was a total blast and much more fun than I thought it would be!

This Sunday while Peter was getting Allen ready for church I snapped a couple of Bird pics. She was suprisingly cooperative. Those shoes made her look about 27 or 28 years old. Speaking of Sunday, she really likes her church nursery now. We can't believe Allen will join her there in November!

Tonight I caught Peter teaching Katy how to play some card game on the laptop. He made all the decisions and she got to push the buttons. It was so cute to listen to them!

OK, guess that catches me up again. The story of my life is that I'm always behind, but I think I'm in pretty good company back here!

Happy Father's Day! This is what I came up with for part of Peter's gift. It's not perfect but doing a photo shoot on my own with these two hooligans is hard to do!

I have a week worth of fun stuff to blog, but I'm too tired to do it. Swim lessons start tomorrow and last for two weeks. Yuck!

Nevah, Nevah, Evah...That's what Katy has been saying lately for some reason. She uses it indiscriminately for any and all occasions. "Mommy, nevah, nevah, evah do dat" and Allen gets his verbal beatings it even harsher than me. He just laughs, though.

I have quite a bit to catch up on, so this is going to be a longer post. First I’ll share some quick Katy-isms:
* “Mommy, dat bird is eating germs” when she meant to say “worms” – in her Brooklyn accent
* Laying down for naptime “Mommy, ewww…you smell like chips” after we had Doritos for lunch
* “Mommy, I want a apple with the crust cut off” – meaning skin peeled off
* “Mommy, I not shary-ing my toy wid Allen” – the concept of self-tattle
* “Wherza mole, wherza mole?” – trying to find the mole on my arm to pinch while she goes to sleep – gross! Sometimes now I say it to her while I feel all over her arms and she dies laughing!

OK, Allen is now stomping all over the house and doesn’t crawl anymore. He can do everything except get to a standing position without pulling up on something. He laughs at anything and everything, and is a good sport about Katy picking on him more lately. We’re about to transition him off bottles to sippy cups…sad times. I think he’ll do ok since he’s so easy going. And he’s getting another bottom tooth, so he’ll soon have four up top and three below.

Here are Katy’s pictures for her flapper skirt costume.

And here are the pics from her official recital. She really hammed it up and had a ball!

We celebrated Memorial Day at Jerry & Kathy’s house with yummy steaks. Allen had a blast! My nephew Jake caught one huge bullfrog which Katy loved…from a distance. She’s sporting a dress the Mom delivered from my sister Laura. It came with a matching dress for a dolly…adorable! After the frog incident Aunt Kathy pulled out her baby possum and Katy fell in love!

Katy’s dance class met up for their big celebration at The Bounce and Katy rode that huge slide again…but never alone. My friend Holly helped her each time while Allen made goo goo eyes at Holly’s little daughter. He also played ball, which he loves!

For my sister Amy’s birthday we all went to Keith & Sarah’s place and had a swim-tastic time!! The Wii was a huge hit, especially the Mario Kart driving game for Katy and Mimsy. I caught tons of cute pictures that weekend and even Laura let me shoot her! I love the lighting in Sarah’s bathroom. She should open a portrait studio in there.

On

Friday the kids and I were getting cabin fever so I told Katy we were going to do something fun after we cleaned up the house. Well, it was somewhat clean when I decided to take them to Gattiland for the first time. Peter met us there, but I was feeling pretty brave being there for the first 20 minutes with just me to wrangle those hoodlums. The food was disgusting and Katy didn’t eat anything but some jello, but Allen loved it all! After we ate I took Katy to the bathroom and she finally was the game room. Her face looked like she was seeing Disney World for the first time! It was all I could do to drag her into the restroom and take care of her business. Our most fun ride we did as a family. It had two seats that reclined like dental chairs, and you were tilted all over on a virtual roller coaster ride. Allen didn’t like the shaking too much, but once I faced him away from the screen he was ok. Katy screamed for the full two minutes of the ride, as if she really thought she was on a coaster. People were walking by laughing at her and I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe!

And finally, yesterday Peter went out to water the lawn with his little buddy trailing behind in a swimsuit. She put her new swim goggles on and played in the sprinkler, rode the wet slide and blew bubbles with her daddy. Allen really wanted to join them but he is so allergic to mosquito bites that I didn’t dare let him. It was dusk and that’s the worst time for bugs. Instead he was stuck inside with me and I gave him his all-time favorite delight – a bath!!

With all these photos in one post my blog might blow up. I can’t believe how much we seem to do every week. I think we need a vacation from our vacations!