E.T., "POW" and the Blueberry Bandit

So far this summer, we have been pretty busy. In fact, I was shocked when I counted how many weeks were left of summer and realized that four weeks have gone by. Man!

E.T.

The first week, we went to East Texas (E.T.). Let me back up just a smidge.......


I was the fifth to last person on the planet to join Facebook. When I did finally join (at the prodding by my dear Missy), I found my 5th grade teacher, the fabulous Cindy Best! I contacted her to say "hello" and tell her who I was, sure that she wouldn't remember me......I wasn't *ahem* "memorable" until my high school years.....but she DID remember me. She even had an Annie Oakley postcard that I sent her from our summer vaca to the Grand Canyon. AND, she came to see us last October. See, fabulous!





So, the first weekend of Ben's summer vacation, we went to East Texas to spend the weekend with her. It was the 3rd time that I've seen her and her sweet hubby, Shane, since we reconnected.


We did the normal things that you would expect to do with your former teacher.

We climbed in their treehouse.







Went to an AMAZING park.











Played Rock Band, Beatles.







And Just Dance.





She even made me chocolate covered bacon.




Look, people, her name isn't "Best" for nothing.


It was a LOT of fun and I'm looking forward to the next visit. Planning will commence soon.




Then we went to Henderson to see Wade's grandmother and my grandmother.


This is Wade's Mammaw.






And Wade's Aunt Diane. Toward the end of the trip, Oliver was DONE with pictures.




Nope, there's no picture of my grandmother. Please, you didn't think Dixie was willing to pose for a picture?! Something about "permanents". I don't know. But it was soooooooo good to see her!!!


It's so crazy because my grandmother has lived her whole life in Henderson. When I was a kid and went to see my grandparents, I went to Henderson. I had no idea who Wade was way out there in West Texas...where all his family was. But about a year ago, Wade's grandmother moved from West Texas to Henderson. CRAZY! Of all places!

"POW"

I have no amazing news to share about the 4th of July, other than everytime Oliver heard a firecracker or pop or dog park he said: *gasp* "POW".

There's almost no point in taking pictures on the 4th because a lot of them are aimed blindly in the dark and turn out like this:

We had some kiddie fun in the kiddie pool. Here's our cabana boy/pool maintenance man.

The rest of the pics are of the after-dark crowd and will be found on the non-kid blog.

The Blueberry Bandit

I do have photos of our 5th of July adventures. We went blueberry picking! It was pretty cool...and hot.

Most of my pictures of Oliver are him with his hand to his mouth. He would pick one, show it to me and say, "I eat?" or he would pick one for the bucket, put it in there, and then take one out and eat it.

Eating....



Eating....



Oh, hey, he's picking one....



Oh, he ate it....



We were all in on the pickin' (and snacking)...





What surprised me is that Ben really liked the blueberries. He's not a huge fan of the ones that I get at the store. I guess that's a testiment to how good the fresh stuff is. He would find a big fat juicy one on the plant, pluck it and eat it. He ate a ton of them that evening, too.



They gave us a gallon bucket and we filled it to the top. It doesn't look like as many as it is when it's in the bucket. When you put them in a plastic bag to take them home, it looks like a trillion blueberries.




I have made blueberry jam and blueberry muffins so far. I think I'm going to try to make a blueberry poppyseed salad dressing and who knows what else.

Very soon, we will look like Violet Beauregarde!




Wanna know how our three day weekend ended?

A little homeade icecream....





...and this.....





No lie.

Warms the Heart

Ben went into his room and shut the door, so Oliver went into his room and shut the door.

Then this.....

Muffled, through one door: "Bennnnnn, I love you Bennnnn."

Muffled, but ever so clear through the other door: "I love you, too, Oliver."

Sweeter than candy.

Riddle Me This

Let me give you the "need to know" background information, first.

Thing one: Ben is taking a week long mosaics art class in the mornings this week.

Thing two: I'm trying to keep frogs away from the pool.

Ok, here are the two conversations Ben and I had this morning during the same 10 minute car ride.

Conversation #1:

Me: Did you start the mosaic or are you still planning it?
Ben: Uh, I don't remember.
Me: But it was, like, 10 minutes ago.

Silence for about 3 minutes, and then......

Conversation #2:

Me: Hey, do you remember where that big rubber snake is?
Ben: The one I got from the Tulsa zoo the first time we went?
Me: Ben! That was six years ago!!

We've been here, where have you been?

What do you even say after being absent from the blogosphere for 9 months? Sorry?

Look, it's not my fault. It's these kids, these CRAZY Esty kids! They kick me, scream at me, take my car for joy rides. What? I'm not making this up. If I take one step away from the carton of goldfish crackers, they put me in timeout. If I don't serve juice on demand, Ben does his best Karate Kid (original, if you please) crane kick stance and it scares me back in the kitchen. So, I do what they say. Can you blame me? Now how am I supposed to update a blog whilst (like that?) dealing with that?!



Ok, MAYBE I'm stretching the truth JUST a little here. Maybe it's not so much their fault that I haven't been posting on the blog.

Ya know, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, really, for buying into that lie I was trying to feed you about how bad my kids are...sheesh.

Let me do my best to catch you up.........

Oliver looked like this last fall.....



He was finally getting some hair, which was good because we thought it would never grow!! Super cute little chubby bubby.

Almost a year later, he looks like this....





And sometimes, this....



Oliver started preschool last September. He absolutely LOVES it! He was about to be too old to stay with his previous sitter, Ms. Jan....I was heartbroken. Ms. Jan is the BEST. The preschool we wanted him to go to had a waiting list...much like the iPad waiting list except completely different. Anyway, the next person on the list didn't want the spot and BAM, we were in. It all came together. And look who his teacher is!!



Just kidding.

You always worry that you are going to have the kid that doesn't sleep at nap time (he was that one at Ms. Jan's) and doesn't want to play with the other kids (he was that one at Ms. Jan's) or bites and throws poo...wait, that's monkeys...anyway, he jumped right in to their routine. He has taken his naps from day one. He even fell asleep in his spaghetti one day at lunch. Hmmm, maybe there's something in the lunch.



Oliver is also talking A LOT and you can understand him most of the time. He can count to ten, sorta. He can say his ABC's, kinda. He calls them the ABCDEFG's. He can also sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider, almost. What I'm saying is that he can sorta do a lot of stuff and he's kind of a genius!!



My Ben.



Man, this kid is smart. A little too smart, but in a good way.....I think.



He ended his 3rd grade year with a bang and got on the Principal's Honor Roll. Not his first appearance in that club, either. He did great on his Benchmarks and did really well in his GT class, too! More importantly, he has successfully beaten Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Legos Batman (Wii) and is on world 10 in Scribblenauts. A lot of blood, sweat and tears has gone into that stuff. It doesn't just happen, ya know!!



Ben is also a green belt. HIYA!



Sorry, the pic is from a couple of belts ago. Yep, he's been taking taekwondo since last September and he's pretty good. Of course I'm going to say that, I don't want to get throat chopped!



He really is good, though. He can "paint the fence" and "wax on, wax off". I kid, I kid. I couldn't resist one more Karate Kid (origianl, please) reference, grasshoppah. Ooooh, I'm good. I even slipped the old Kung Fu in there.

He has a belt testing later on this week, so I'll keep ya posted on how he does.



Ben and Ollie are pretty crazy about each other most of the time...MOST of the time.

Usually, it's Oliver doing whatever Ben is doing. If Ben runs screaming through the backyard, so does Oliver.

If Ben is rolling down the hill....



Oliver is too...

If Ben kicks his shoes off and gets on his bed, Oliver kicks his shoes off and is right behind him.



Oliver will drive Ben a little batty from time to time, but Ben can do the same to him. There have been many times when I hear Ben yell, "no, OLIVER!" and just as many that I have heard a little voice very seriously saying, "no. ben. stop."

Most of the time, though, they are really pretty sweet to each other.

Ben is usually with me when we drop Oliver off at preschool and Oliver turns back to Ben and waves and says, "Bye, Ben, see you later". Ben always asks for a hug from Oliver before Oliver goes to bed. They do different things, but they are both very aware that the other is there...or not there. It's really cool to watch. They are total opposites that are exactly the same. That's the best way I know to put it.



Alright, look. Now that I have you all smiling and saying "awwwwww" at my cute kids, maybe you've THOUGHT about forgiving me for my absence from the blogosphere? I'm not promising daily, weekly or monthly, but I will do this blog. For us and for you. This world needs a little more cute, and I intend to provide it.

There is one other little thing I've done to make sure that I'm keeping our public updated on the daily doings of my guys. My guys now have their own [tada] Twitter page. Before you roll your eyes, hear me out.



Look in the right hand column of this page. You will see a section that says "Twitter Updates". When I update their Twitter account (which is @crazyestykids, btw), it automatically feeds to the blog. So, maybe one day you're checking to see if there is an updated blog post and you see that there isn't [insert joke here], so you look at the Twitter feed instead to see what we've been up to. Then you check back later...please check back later.

There's also an option to click under the Twitter posting to follow them on Twitter. This not only links them to your own Twitter page, it officially kicks off the campaign to see if I can get 'ol Sharon to tweet. I'm not holding my breath on the ladder.

Thanks for coming back. We'll be here.