He said what?!?

Arlo is a talker... nonstop!

SO here are some examples of how his mind is working...

Mom, where is my drill?  I need to screw people.

This is part of a conversation I caught between Arlo and his friend:
G: (while flexing his muscles) My dad gives me power aid so I can have super power!
A: (while flexing his muscles)  Yea, and super, big, mean eyebrows!

A: Mom, I'm going to go get some dollars.
Me: Oh, are you going to work?
A: No, I am going to the dollar store.

G: I see a volcano!!!
A:  That's a hotcano, see it has fire coming out of it.  A volcano (Arlo pronounces it ballcano) has balls coming out of it.

A:  Mom, what's electricity?
Me:  Electricity is a type of power.
A:  Oh, the power to read. COOL!!!!

He cracks me up!!!  I just wish I wrote down everything funny he said!  I could definitely have a book by the time he grows up!

Home Video's

I am not big on taking long home videos.  No offense but those people who stand there at swimming lessons and video tape the entire lesson, even when their kid is on the wall waiting their turn... those are the videos I hated watching as a kid because they were long and boring.  And lets be honest, who has the time to go back and watch all that stuff?  So here are a few short clips of my boys doing what they do best!

This video was at the splash pad.  My boys love playing in the hose/sprinkler at home but when we got to the splash pad, they just stood there.  I will never understand my kids!  Then, when I was about to give up, Arlo got his hands on a water gun and was stationed there for the next 30 minutes spraying everyone who got in his way.  He loved it and cried when it was time to go.

My sister took this video and I am so grateful because this is Arlo through and through!  Loves to do things to make people laugh and then will do the same thing a hundred more times because it made you laugh the first time.

Cohen doing patty cake.  Tow is my sweet boy and most everything he does is exactly what he saw his older brother do, but every once in a while we catch Tow doing something he likes to do and this is one of them.

I have always hated crocs.  I thought they were an ugly trend and it drove me crazy when I saw grown people wearing bright yellow crocs to the grocery store.  So, I swore I would never get crocs for me or my family.  Then I started watching my 3 kids and all of them have crocs.  And they are WONDERFUL!  They are perfect because they slip on and off so easily, they can get wet/dirty and they are easily cleaned without them getting ruined or damaged.  So, I broke down and bought my boys crocs off the internet.  Cohen's crocks came on a monday and Arlo was crushed, he wanted his super hero crocs so badly!  Finally on Friday they came.  When he saw the package on our porch, he knew it was his crocs.  He came in yelling and screaming.  He was singing the entire time his dad opened the package.  Then when he put them on, he danced in them for the first hour.  I wish I would have thought to get my camera out earlier, but I caught the end of his excitement... but he still loves them and I am happy I decided to rethink crocs and get them for my boys.  But, I stick to the judgement that adults should not be wearing brightly colored clogs in public.

I just can't get enough of Cohen's sleeping face.  But that smile, is what kills me!  And it is great because he has that smile (which is his dads smile) whenever he is doing something that he is proud of.

Arlo has to do eeny meeny miney moe every night to decide who ti give goodnight hugs and kisses to first.  It is always me;-) unless I talk him into letting dad go first, which is the case in this video!

Cohen doing eeny, meeny, miney, moe because he has to do everything his big brother does.

Honestly, his voice is too cute right?  Cohen loves his animals and loves to say their sounds.  He is such a smart boy!

And because you won't e able to see any of these videos in my blog book, here are a few pictures as well!

On our way to a water park.

Dad and Arlo playing super heros and bad guys.  Can you tell who is who?

Dinner outside watching fireworks!

Arlo and his new crocs!

No explanation needed!

Arlo with his homemade sucker.

Cohen waiting patiently for his sucker while squishing his face into the glass.

Cohen deciding his bottle was not enough, so he was drinking his water too!

Schools Out For Summer!

Okay, so not for summer because technically Tim is in Summer school, but he has a week break between the two summer semesters and we are partying it up!!!!!

The day of Tim's final, we celebrated by going to the circus with great friends.

So I know it is sideways, but this literally had my heart racing... there are 8, yes EIGHT motorcycles in this little ball, it took more time to get them all in then it took to perform the stunt.  So crazy!

And I know I said this last year when we went to the circus, but we got our tickets on craigslist for cheap!!!!

I love craigslist!

Our next item of fun for having daddy home for a week is goofy golfing!

Arlo Loved It!

Cohen loved the animals.

A great family night!

Hopefully that is enough excitement to last anther 6 weeks of summer school!

Swimming Lessons

This year we put Arlo in Swim lessons at the public pool.  Which is funny because I am a swimmer, I used to be a life guard and swim lesson teacher and swim team coach, but I admit I would rather take my child to lessons than teach him myself.  I do however, reinforce lessons when we are swimming together.

His first lesson he cried and got out of the pool and refused to get back in.  When he did, he cried and screamed.  The second lesson, I put him in with his teacher and left so he could not see me, and again he cried the entire lesson but he did not get out of the pool.  After that I bribed my son an icee and candy if he listened to his teacher and did not cry.  It worked, he did wonderful on the third day and has been doing wonderful ever since.  We are now on our second round of swim lessons and he can swim about 5 feet without help and can swim an entire length (15 feet) with help two times to let him catch his breath.  He is doing wonderful and I am proud of him and I am aiming for an independent swimmer by the end of the summer.

Arlo has learned to snorkle as well, which we are really excited about because we are planning a Hawaii trip next year in May!

To All the AZ Summer H8ers

I know my last post was about all we have done inside the house to stay out of the heat, but I don't want people to think I dislike our summers.  This week our highs have been between 106-111 degrees Fahrenheit, but just because it is hot does not mean you can't have fun outside.

A few weekends ago my boys and I met up with a great friend at Mighty Mud Mania and we played in the mud and water and had a great time.

But, we spend the most time in our own weed overgrown backyard.  The thing about going outside in the summer in Phoenix is like going outside in winter in other parts of the world that receive snow, you have to get ready to go outside.  First, we have to change clothes from our everyday play clothes to rags that can get dirty.  Then we have to spray down our bodies with sunscreen and lotion sunscreen our faces and lastly we put on our outdoor/water shoes.  This may not seem like a big deal, but with 5 kids it takes a good 10-15 minutes.  Once we are outside the fun can begin.

Popsicles are a necessity.

I have had so many sprinklers over the years but this is the one my kids love the best!

And the fake blue turf that we got (okay my mom got it for us... thanks again mom!) is a must!  It does not stop all the mud and grass, but it makes it manageable.

Water tables...

Slides and little pools...

and slides in big pools make our ratty backyard a child's playground.  It is so wonderful because we live in such a little house, and then we go outside where we have 3x's the space as we do inside and I am so grateful that I no longer live in our little condo with no yard.  I don't think I could ever survive living in a house without a yard ever again.

And who can forget the playing power of the hose.  Cohen is obsessed with the hose and will not let anyone come within 5 feet of it.

Arlo and his trucks, he has been playing more and more with cars/truck lately and I love it so much more than super heros:-}

But Cohen knows the importance of staying cool in this weather, so why not add water with trucks???

From the sprinklers to the hoses most of our backyard is dedicated to our kids but...

Tim has been hard at work making it so our backyard is more comfortable by putting up misters... for anybody in AZ thinking about getting misters... DO!!!  They are wonderful!!!!

Shades to give the kids a place to play where their feet won't burn.  I use it more because I can sit in the shade and misters and still see the kids playing in the yard!

And a clothes line to hang the clothes that we play in everyday.

Besides our backyard we have also spent many days at my mom's pool and the public pool where Arlo is taking lessons.  (A blogpost on Arlo's swimming lessons soon to follow.)  So, all of you AZ summer haters look and be jealous of all the fun we can have in our summer and then continue to enjoy our beautifully mild winters as well!!!!  I will chose hot over cold any day!!!

It's a Beautiful Sunny Day

Lately when I tell Arlo that it is too hot outside he tells me "mom, it's a beautiful, sunny day!"  The thing is, he believes it.  I don't think kids have heat sensors.  Out of all 5 kids that I watch throughout the day, only one complains about how hot it is outside.

Well, this post seems like a copy post, of another blogger... so I am sorry, but I copied you.

Because of our beautiful, blistering, hot days, I have had to find many other things to do to keep my kids occupied inside.  So while we do go outside on a daily basis, it is only because outside means misters, shade, baby pools, hoses, water, squirt guns, sprinklers, irrigation and anything else that is water.  I try to stay inside as much as 1 adult with 5 children in a 2 bedroom house can stand to be inside.  But, our time inside is much more productive and filled with 100% more crafts than normal.

The things we have done in the past few weeks are:

Goop

  

Gak

     

Soap Clouds/personal soaps

    

Father's Day Trophies

  

Play dough (salt dough, which we cooked and made into necklaces)

Elephant toothpaste

Noodle pictures, noodle necklaces (they love to use glue!)

Milk color swirl

Fizzy colors

Magic flour dough

Jolly Rancher suckers

I'm really sorry about the lack of pictures... I have been horrible with my camera lately.  But I have made a promise to myself that I will get better.  But most (ok... ALL) of my crafts came off of pinterest!  I honestly do not know what I would do without pinterest, because it is making our summer so much more fun/messy/crazy/interesting.  My only problem is now my kids ask me on a daily basis... "what are we going to do NEW today?  Can we look on the computer?"

So, not only have my kids been busy with fun projects, but I have finished a photo book I made for my boy to take with them to church.  Because lets be honest, what kind of kid does not like to look at themselves????  It only took a few days (because I had to wait for glue to dry) and it turned out pretty cute.  Now all I have to do is work on a few more pages of busy book, make growth boards and make a picture book for Cohen of his birth and then I will be all caught up.?.?.?