Happy Father's Day

Last year I dressed the kids up in Lance's clothes and took a picture of them. So, I'm making it a tradition. A rather odd one, I suppose, but the kids love it. They picked out their own clothes (can you tell?) and posed for the picture. Rowan also wrote the cutest book ever for Lance--one that will most certainly be put into the little box of things I actually keep and plan on keeping forever. It's all about why she loves her daddy.

We had a low-key day, went cherry picking and just before we were going to leave to go out to dinner, Tate got sick. So, we altered our plans and stayed in. I have to say I'm pretty thankful for a great husband who is such a wonderful dad to our kids, who really embraces what it is to be a dad, who makes the kids feel extra-special all the time, who rushes to me with towels after I've been thrown up on, who is fine with eating pizza for dinner on Father's Day instead of a nice dinner out (of course it helps when it's goat cheese and pine nut pizza--our fave) and who gets a little teary-eyed when Rowan reads her book to him.

It's my fifth (!) Father's Day without my dad and the first I've managed to not cry. I'm sure part of that is because we skipped the church service and didn't have to sing sappy dad songs, part of it is because I know my dad would want me to cherish this day (and every other day, too) and part of it is because I'm able to sit back and enjoy life's blessings with Lance.

Cherry Picking

For Father's Day, Lance wanted to go cherry picking. Never mind that he doesn't actually like fruit, cherries included, this is what he wanted to do. So we went. We picked lots of cherries. Obviously a few ended up on Rowan's shirt. And this is a very random video of her afterward. I'm not sure what that dance is, but she's clearly excited about the disaster she made of her shirt.

Last Day of Ballet

6 weeks flew by and Rowan's last day of her little ballet class was last night. She chose to wear a fancy dress from her dress-up bin and is doing a little curtsy in this picture. She LOVED ballet and we will be signing her up again and again, I think.

Butterflies are Blooming

I decided to get Lily a butterfly kit for her birthday and went ahead and ordered one for Rowan, too. The caterpillars came in the mail about a week ago and, as you can tell, she was pretty excited. We decided to keep a butterfly journal as we watch them grow and change. I'm letting her complete it with invented spelling
(which I love) and we're checking on our little "pets" every day.

Day 1 of her journal reads: Today the Painted Ladies look like cadpilrs (caterpillars). Their colors were black. They were about (less than) 1" long. They were: 1 is moviig, 4 r slepig (1 is moving, 4 are sleeping).

She has since named her caterpillars: Anu (Anna), Lideu (Lydia), Avu (Ava), Case (Cassie)and Dorau (Dora) and they are now becoming pupa and making their chrysalides. I think it's so cute how she writes all of the names (except Cassie, of course) ending in a u because "U says 'uh', Mommy".

Tate's liking this little project, too, since he loves all bugs and all things nature. I think I can see a few little lightning bugs flying around outside and I'm pretty sure we'll have to keep the kids up late one night (since it doesn't get dark until around 10) so they can catch them, put them in their little bug jars and then let them go.

I took the kids to the Grand Rapids Art Museum for the first time, expecting it to be a bit of a disaster. But, they did pretty well. Though I kind of wanted to just stare at Open Water for a while, they were pretty into Andy Warhol--especially his endangered animal prints. But they were really into the fountain out front.

Adios (for now), El Puente

Somehow, though it was pretty important in the life of a 4-year-old, I haven't yet written about Rowan's last day of preschool. Possibly because, while I thought it would be rather emotional for her (and I wasn't really sure which kind of emotion--extreme excitement for summertime fun or extreme sadness at not seeing her school friends all summer), it was sort of just another day. While I felt a twinge of sadness watching her pass yet another milestone, she was pretty much oblivious to it all. She just knew they got to eat popsicles on the playground.

A few of Tate's latest obsessions

1. Happy Birthday--still. Many times a day, Tate sings "Happy Birthday" VERY loudly and presents me with a present. I think I wrote about this once before. It's been going strong since his birthday in February. I'm thinking he's hoping for a real birthday present or cake or something.

2. His penis. He just loves it. The obsession really does start young. He has lately been very concerned about where his penis is when I get his diaper on. It was just there and now, all of a sudden, IT'S GONE! Today there was a luncheon after church. Tate was successfully flirting with an older (MUCH older, dare I say, elderly) woman--playing hide and seek, talking to her with that adorable voice of his. Soon enough, she asked "Where is your belly button?" As soon as the question came out of her mouth, I knew what was coming. Sure enough, Tate's reply, after showing her his belly button: "But where's my penis?" I couldn't help but laugh and, thankfully, so did she.

3. Being called Tate. Example: When I call Tate "sweet", "adorable", "little monkey", etc. he will say. "I'm not sweet! I'm Tate!"

4. The "hot dog dance" diapers. The giant packs of Huggies have two designs. One is Mickey and Minnie dancing. The other is Mickey with a bluebird. Despite my pathetic attempts singing "Zipadee Doo Da", I have not been able to convince him that the bluebird diapers are wearable. I do lots of sneaking around, getting out one diaper to put the other on, etc. as it's getting a bit out of control.

5. Nature, in general. On every walk, Tate has to stop to pick every flower or weed, collect more rocks, move any and all dead and dried up worms to a safer place in the grass. He really is a sweet, very inquisitive kid and I'm kind of wishing there was a farm preschool closer to us because I think he'd love it.

The things he comes up with are hysterical.