Fantastic vomitous contraption

After swimming lessons one day, we went over to Mill Creek Park for storytime. It was before the weather decided to turn into the blazing fires of Hades, and so we really enjoyed it. The storyteller was a guy that spoke loudly, showed the pictures, and knew his way around a guitar sing along. It was one of those things that makes you feel like a good parent just being there.

The other great thing was that we discovered that Mill Creek Park has one of those merry-go-round thingies.

You know.

The one that you spin around and around and around until you feel like you might throw up the graham crackers you just begged off your baby sister? The one where you either stand in the middle, straddle a pole and hold on for dear life, or take your turn spinning the rest of those poor suckers until they beg for mercy?

That's the one.

And it's SO awesome.

Night games

Let's face it.

Bedtime has flown right out the window.

I used to be able to maintain a fairly rigorous schedule, even through the summertime. But these days I am hardpressed to sell a 7:30 bedtime to the residents of my household. The sun simply refuses to go down before 9 pm and it seems that is just when the party is getting started.

When everyone is around and the parents are feeling amiable, the kids of the cul de sac like to congregate and have a good time together.

Having a good time means different things to different people, it seems.

For Megan, it means stealthily stalking fireflies with Charlie from down the street.

Surprisingly, she even likes to catch them and hold them in her hands. I wouldn't have guessed this about her. She strikes me as a "GET IT OFF ME!" kind of gal.

Not so.

But I do believe it helps that they "sparkle".


Check out this picture:


The way I see it, there are three distinct groups:

1. Girls standing in a group giggling and hanging out in there short shorts and tank tops. There was extensive texting and picture taking and a general air of flirtiness about them. It brought back alot of memories just watching it from the porch.

2. The Older Boys standing a few feet away staring in admiration while thinking up new ways to tease and get the girls' attention.

3. The "little kids" playing with their army guys and completely oblivious to the fact that hormones were flying willy nilly from the prepubescents all around them. They were clueless.

And don't think for a second that I wasn't FLAT OUT THRILLED that my two boys were knee-deep in army guys.

I will sleep well tonight.

Swimming lessons

We joined the "Optimist Swim Club" for lessons. I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean, other than we are feeling optimistic about learning not to drown. If that's it, then we picked the right place to take our lessons. Mostly I chose them because they held their classes at the Middle School around the corner and we can walk there. I'm a big fan of walking. It builds character and reduces my bickie size (bickie is Huffordspeak for BUTT). And, by the way, since when do Middle Schools have pools?

So we took two rounds of lessons, which comes out to 4 weeks of going Mon-Thurs, 9-9:45 am.

And get this: Parents aren't allowed to watch. The first two days I sat out in the hall like an idiot. Then I got wise and started making little mini-trips to get a bagel or a juice and I soaked in the kid-freeness of it all. Realistically, it really only comes to about 38 minutes, because I have to get them in there and get back a little early so the other mom's don't judge me.

But I'll take my 38 minutes and make the most out of it. You won't catch me walking around the Middle School track. I'm no fool.

A classic

To kick off the ridiculous amount of photos I will be sharing with you all (hi Mom!), concerning our Hufford Summer Adventures (hitherto referred to as HSA), I'd like to start with a classic.

Putting the sprinkler under the trampoline.

When I suggested this to my kids, they gasped with delight and verbally praised me for my fun and inventive idea. Like I had made it up. I had just gone up a few rungs on the "fun parent ladder". I didn't feel the need to disillusion them. The view is way better up here.

So we started with the sprinkler. The first sprinkler head I tried was LAME-O. It couldn't muster the pressure to get anything through the trampoline fabric (is it fabric?). You know what I mean. I went inside for a minute to make lunch and the kids dug out a much better sprinkler head and swapped it out. They're getting so old and capable. It's weird and awesome.

This was super fun for a little while and then they started to get a little bored. Meg went down to investigate and consider their options.


They called for help. From DAD. "Hey! Dad!......DAD!....We need your fun expertise!"

He's the actual fun parent. His fun rung is substantially higher than mine. So naturally he "rigged it up".


Then he backed up, ran full speed and dove in.



And did fantastical flips


Don't worry honey, I know your not supposed to climb to the very top of a ladder, but it's okay because I'm way down here on the bottom keeping it from falling over and holding the camera. And the baby. And the sunscreen. And graham crackers (in case someone gets hungry).

I know....I should have dove in too.

Wednesday.

I come to the end of this day and I feel like I must be crazy for staying up and surfing around the web. A few hours ago I would've given anything to speed up the bedtime shenanigans just to get a little peace and quiet and slip into a semi-coma.

But now the house is quiet, except for the heavy breathing of my fat little baby girl laying in between me and Mark. He's the smart one and he's already out. I really should gently move her into her own crib/room, but somehow I just don't really feel that push to get her to move on to that level of independence. She's so sweet and squishy and fat fat fatty. And she needs me. She is a professional spooner.

Besides, who am I kidding? I have yet to get a child of mine to sleep through the night until precisely 14 months of age when I just happen to slip to the brink of insanity because I am still nursing them on demand throughout the night...or as one pediatrician put it, "He is living his nutritional life at night. It's like an all you can eat midnight buffet." I stressed over the situation with the first 4. Now, I'm just spooning and I figure I'll stress at 13 months 3 weeks and 6 days.