While both our neighbors have pools...

...this is what we do for fun on hot summer days. This isn't until 6:30, but it was still 98 degrees outside!! We barely even venture out of doors during the day anymore! While poor Jay is working outside for the majority of 12-hour work days! One of the guys who works for him got sick from working too hard in the heat today. Poor Juan!

Anyway, this evening, Anna and I sat in the shade and blew bubbles for Claire while she went crazy. She was out like a light at 9 p.m., did not get out of bed a single time after I put her down--we'll have to start doing this every night! We had a really fun summer day today: Tyler came and stayed at our house for a couple hours while Mom and Grant went to a funeral, and we made Play-Doh and played games. Then this afternoon we did the letter E; Claire is learning how to write her letters this summer, and we're doing a big alphabet wall project. I'll post a pic when it's finished!



This is Anna doing her new funny sound, zerbets! She makes very few noises except laughing and crying, and now these spitting noises! It's funny. She's also becoming very mobile, scooting all over the place, and is very close to sitting up on her own!

Mom and I went and saw Wicked the musical in Dallas Sunday night, and unfortunately had to take Anna with us! She is adamantly refusing the bottle! We've tried everything; it is so frustrating! The really frustrating thing is that Diane got her to drink about 4 oz from a bottle back during the school year ONE TIME, but we haven't been able to get her to drink anything since! Anyway, the musical was awesome, but Mom and I had to take turns watching it in the lobby on the screen, b/c Anna would not go to sleep inside; it was too loud--even louder than Iron Man 2!

Celebrating Six Years!

Last night, Jay and I went out for our six-year anniversary to the steakhouse in the Choctaw Casino--it is so fancy and delicious! Great fun to get dressed up and then go to a great restaurant only 10 minutes from our house! My mom came to our house and kept the girls--we love Grandmom! By the way, see any resemblance between Jay and his namesake girl? Their baby pics look very much alike, and people have told us a lot that Anna favors her daddy.

Of course, I had to do something celebrating our relationship, even though six isn't really much of a milestone, and I wanted to prove to Jay that I'm not all about material gifts, so I wrote a poem! Don't think this was any kind of exercise in rhythm, scansion, or even rhyme--I wrote it as a spinoff of the poem that Jay wrote me to propose, back in 2002! Except this time, I made it a metaphor between the challenges and rewards of fishing and hunting, and the challenges and rewards of marriage (or I tried to anyway)! I clipped out phrases from Jay's Bassmasters and Outdoor Oklahoma magazines, and cut out pics, and made it a collage. It was so fun, and it was funny to compare the ways we were romantic as a dating couple to how it is as a married couple with two young kids.

Here are the words (the bolded ones are the ones I clipped from magazines):

June 12, 2010, with the Bassmaster who reeled me in
A night we've been flippin' and pitchin' since last night after we tucked the girls in.

Many times I've asked God why this crankbait comes in so late,
Then he blesses me with an unplanned family swim or a yummy breakfast date.

It can be tough, getting to church on time, or connecting at the dinner table,
But if we work as a team, we can tackle anything, I know we are able.

My favorite times are the ones we share together,
A Day on the Lake with my hubby is as good as a Collectible Bass Lure.

I made it through so many deer seasons and spring spawns,
I'll make it through many more, even though I hate when you're gone.

A lot has changed since you wrote me that sweet poem that changed my world,
You've bought tons of New Lures, but stuck with the same girl.

You're my Biggest Bass, the best lure in my Tacklebox,
Eight years after you saw that girl in red, I hope you can still say I knock of your socks!

My Oklahoma hunter takes aim at projects all over southern Oklahoma,
You work hard, and I get to take care of our beautiful girls and manage our home-a.

Fishing and huntin' are always a challenge--try different Lures and Reels, trees or arrows,
Our marriage is a challenge, too, but it's worth the trophy moments we share like pros.

Doggerel, I know, but from the heart! I also had us write down six things we love about each other, and two things for both of us to work on to make our relationship better. We wrote them on these little door-hanger things I scrapbooked, and hung them on our closet doors.

Summertime is Sleepover Time!

We're just finishing up another weekend with another sleepover for Claire! She is loving spending the night with Mamaw and Papaw and with Grandmom and Papa. Her cousins Zach and Abby are down for a few days, so she was thrilled to get to spend some extra time with them and Mamaw and Papaw last night. She also spent the night with Grandmom last week when my cousins Holly, Jenny, and Mattie were in--you may have seen pics of that sleepover on Facebook. She's had at least a sleepover a week for the past three weeks!

The pic above is from yesterday morning; Claire and I had a lazy morning in our pj's, and she wrote her name all by herself for the first time!

My goal this week for Anna is to give her a bottle a day--she's not so into taking them when Mamaw gives them to her, and mine and Jay's six-year anniversary is this weekend, and we don't want to have to rush home b/c Anna won't take her bottle! That little girl is rolling and scooting all over the place--she'll cross the living room in just a few minutes, by doing a combination of lifting her bottom with her feet and shoving her nose into the carpet, and rolling. She's about to start sitting up on her own, too--so fun to watch her grow!

Recent Claire Quotes

Claire said she was going to tell Daddy she was sorry for...(some long made-up story about daddy leaving Pony outside). My response: "You're going to tell him you're sorry for that?" Claire: "I'm sorry is French for thank you!"

She now has an imaginary friend, Pony, a little girl. She was playing with her friend Sam, and asked me, "Can you open the garage door?" Me: "Why?" C: "Sam and me need to go save Pony!" I told her no one could go outside with them right then, so she'd have to pretend Pony was inside. She said, "No, Pony is outside! I don't know what to do now." Then she looked down at Sam's shoes--Crocs--and said, "I guess I need to put my Crocs on." Reset inside playing!

While we're eating lunch together: Claire: "While you were vacuuming, I said, 'I don't like you.'" Me: "That hurts my feelings, Claire! I like you very much!" Puts her foot on the table, and says, "This toe likes you." Me: "I want all you to like me, not just your smelly toe!" C: "Just this toe!"

Me: "Your teacher Miss Erron is going to have a baby!" Claire (half stricken, half sulky): "I don't want Miss Erron to have a baby!" Me: "Why not?" C: "Because she lives at Thursday School!"