Wanna see something gross?

Last night I wacked my toe while I was cleaning off the table after dinner. It hurt like crazy. I wake up this morning at it looks like this!! Yikes. Kendall thought I had been coloring on it with an ink pen. I wish! The picture does not do it justice. It is much nastier in person. I have no idea if I broke it. It won't bend yet but it is still awfully swollen. Say a prayer it gets better fast because I have to teacher 1st grade VBS in 4 days and I don't want to be slowed down by my stupid pinky toe.

We're BAACCCKKK!!!!

In order to stay updated on our hillbilly roots, and to see my sister married off; the whole fam spent a few days in our old Kentucky home. The sun did shine bright, just like the songs says. The day I pulled into Owensboro it was almost 100 degrees! The girls and I went a few days early to help with wedding stuff and Byron joined us the night before the wedding via airplane. We all had a hoe down of a time. We got to see lots of family, including my uncle Eric and cousin Kamyrn from CA. I saw Kammy two years ago but I think she's grown a foot since then. Kendall was the flower girl and I must admit was super precious. She was INCREDIBLY nervous. She made it down the aisle and remembered all her jobs. My sister looked gorgeous and had the pleasure of marrying a super guy. Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Richard and Angie Miles!! May you be blessed for many years to come.

I'm not kidding, I just got...

my hand stuck in the diaper pail. Oh my gosh, time for a break!!! How delirious do you have to be to get you hand stuck in a diaper pail, which is basically a trash can on steroids? Recently a friend said there should be award ceremonies for stay-at-home moms. Stuff like: most diapers changed in a day, number of times a sippy cup was retrieved from under the van seat, most times Good Night Moon was read in one year. How about a special award for the mom who gets her hand stuck in the diaper pail? How about one for the mom who puts her kid's diaper on inside out? (Did that one too, Grace was the victim of that). FYI, the diapers don't work was well when they are inside out. That's something you won't see Huggies advertising.

Go forth and pollinate.

How does the saying go? You can take the teacher out of the classroom but you can't take the classroom out of the teacher? I'm not sure that makes much sense. I'm always on the look out for when the kids show interest in a topic and a chance to expand on it. Kendall is fascinated with butterflies so we ordered some caterpillars off the Internet and watched them grow from tiny little caterpillars to beautiful painted lady butterflies. It truly was fascinating. The caterpillars tripled their size in 7 days! They spent 7 days in their cocoons and then hatched. We observed them for about 4 days and then let them go. Yesterday we took a walk and we actually saw one down the road flying around. I know it had to be ours because I've never seen painted ladies in this area. Kendall was their "mommy" and took good care of them. She really enjoyed feeding them the orange slices. (yep, they drink the juice right out of the slices. Cool, huh?) When they flew away she called out "Go to all the flowers and pollinate them!"

Happy 4th!

Grace made a face every time she took a bite but she keep eating!




I hope everyone had a great 4th. We had a good one here. We played outside most of the day. The girls wanted to go swimming but it was a little cool. We compromised with a few runs through the sprinkler. I was trying to explain to Kendall why we were celebrating July 4th. I said it was America's birthday and she was 232 years old. Her reply was "Is that older than Great-Granny?" Yep, by a few years at least. Grace has taken to calling the cat when we're outside. She screams out "da-doh" (shadow). She spent most of her day doing that and blowing kisses; another new thing. Kendall has gone off with Byron to see fireworks in a neighboring town. It's almost 10:30 and they're not back so I'm sure she will be exhausted. She was very excited to go do another big girl activity that the babies couldn't do. Now that the 4th is wrapping up I can totally focus on my sister's wedding. When I told Kendall that we needed to start making a list of things to take to KY, she said "Why are we going to Kentucky?" I said, "because Aunt Angie is getting married." Her response was "I didn't know she was getting married in KY." My bad. I guess I left out that tiny detail.

CORN IS NOT ETERNAL!!

Those are fightin' words if you live here in Iowa. However, those are the exact words Byron uttered last night after we had a heated discussion on how warm the kids' corn should be. I know it sounds dumb now, but in the heat of the moment it seemed really important. Of course after imagining ourselves in heaven still arguing over corn it did seem kind of silly. Kudos to Byron for such words of wisdom. That's why we love him. We also love him because after a busy day at work, he went with Kendall to pick out her first two wheeler. He didn't say a word when she picked the girliest bike they had and a bright pink helmet. He carried that bike to the front of the store with pride. Ahh, to be a dad of all girls. I'm sure it's tough to live in a sea of hair bows, barbies and pink EVERYTHING, but he does it with gusto. Here's some pics of Kendall and her new bike. Grace is happy because she gets Kendall's old bike (trickle down bikenomics) and Madison was pretty cool about sitting outside and watching the chaos.