Who can believe it?

It's almost August! I can't figure out where the summer has gone!! When I last looked, it seemed that June was just starting and we had a whole summer ahead of us to have fun and relax. We have had a fun time and gotten lots done, but it's gone way, way too quickly. August mean my birthday (which is NO fun since my age begins with a 3), the Boone County Fair next week and AGH! back to school soon after that.

I am frantically trying to update the girl's scrapbooks before going back to school which I do every summer. This year I got a late start between the garage sale my mom and I had last weekend and the teacher workshop I put together and taught the week before. I also have many, many books left unread that I had hoped to get through this summer. Oh yeah, and I should probably think a little about how I'm going to run my reading program at school this year.

Enough about my to-do list...the girls are great. I have days with them when I wonder if I can go back to school tomorrow. Take this morning for instance...I was putting away the groceries and heard a funny noise coming from the living room so I went to check and found Shelby jumping from the coffee table onto the couch while Sarah looked on, laughed and then started to climb onto the table to give this little trick a try herself! I lost it for a minute on Shelby! After a few minutes to "think about what she had done" we talked about how while that might be a fun trick, it is also dangerous. Shelby has been "thinking about it" quite a bit lately come to think of it. She is all about impulse right now and not thinking before she acts or speaks. Hmm...come to think of it she reminds me of another member of this family who shall remain nameless but his name does rhyme with 'gate'.

Sarah is still picking up new words like mad and is putting them together in longer and longer phrases and sentences. She likes to label and then put it in a phrase. Like this "need it" followed by "I need some milk please." She has me a little worried about colors though. She just doesn't seem to get them. She can name a bunch (incorrectly) so I started to think about color blindness and I gave her a little test from Parents magazine where you find a yellow circle and red square in a green background. She pointed to them, but I think I'll keep checking her and working on her colors. I wanted to see if she could do it because I would feel awful if she were colorblind and I kept asking her "What color is..." when she really couldn't tell. I keep reading that not getting colors until closer to 3 is normal (she's 2 yrs., 2 months) but it seems like Shelby got it sooner than 3. She is so quick to pick up on most things that it surprises me that this would give her so much trouble. Mom friends of mine...anyone else remember when you darlings learned their colors and if they had similar troubles?
The new favorite treat in the Hansen house...suckers. I have a very, very strict sitting down only rule for them but the girls follow it well. They now love going to the bank where suckers are in abundance!
Sarah is so darn cute in a hat! Never mind that she wore this one from Great-Grandma Hansen all morning long to the store and library on an 85 degree day. Too funny!

Are we there yet??

We just returned (a couple of hours ago) from spending the weekend with Nate's family for his Grandma Hansen's "damn near 75" party. She'll really be 75 in November.

After enduring about 150 "Are we there yet?" questions from Shelby just on the 3 hour trip up, we were ready to tape her mouth shut I think. Where did she learn that annoying little phrase anyway?

We went to Cashton, Wisconsin to Nate's Aunt Roach and Uncle Al's hobby farm, Odyssey Ridge, which is just a beautiful place. Really peaceful and fun for all as you'll see in my pics. The girls really enjoyed their time there and the new friends they made in their second cousins Taylor, Tyson, and little Tucker. The farm is on a ridge in a secluded area in a small town so it really helped us slow down from our normal go, go, go pace and appreciate the nature and family all around us.

Thanks for being such great hosts,Roach and Al if you're reading this! We hope to come up and visit again sometime not too long from now. :-)

And now, I'll describe the pics for you...

"Where's my boyfriend?"

These were the first words out of Shelby's mouth Sunday morning once she got into the shed. You should have seen Nate's response to that one! Surprising language from a 3 1/2 year old to her daddy!! These two were inseperable all weekend. Ty just turned 5 so they are fairly close in age, and they had a blast together. Here they are playing on the swing set (Tyson very patiently pushed her for quite a long while), wearing their silly glasses while taking a ride, and eating breakfast with Sarah.

Our little future horsewomen...Aunt Roach has horses on the ranch and the girls got a kick out of riding the 'mini' named Bear. I was very proud of Shelby since she would have no part of the horse ride at the fair just last summer. Both girls loved it! They rode both Saturday and Sunday.

I have got to find one of these! This was a bubble wand and it made the coolest big bubbles. Shelby enjoyed making them and chasing after them as you can see.

Bored and tired girls on the road. Are we there yet???

Randomness

I know that "randomness" isn't a word, but I didn't know what else to call this mish-mosh of stories...

Shelby enjoyed her first Fourth of July fireworks on the 4th this year. We thought she was ready to stay up finally and she did a great job, running strong until about 10:45 that night until she just zonked out in the backseat on the way home and then slept until 9 the next morning. Unheard of! She of course loved the *pink* ones most of all!

Speaking of sleep...Shelby is giving us fits with naps and falling asleep at night. I think that we need to greatly shorten her nap, but she's just not ready to give it up completely. She is also having a tough time going to sleep at night. She finds every excuse in the book to get up at least 10 times a night before going to sleep. I have to go potty...I'm thirsty...Is it storming?...It's too light/dark in my room...the list goes on and on.

The girls are doing lots of fighting lately. Shelby takes things away from Sarah or hits/pinches her to get what she wants. Sarah yells, "Belby don't!" or comes to me crying and says "Belby hit me." I know that sibling arguments are normal but they are also exhausting

I painted Shelby's room this week. Guess what color... could it be pink? She loves it and came home that day, went straight to her room and yelled, "My room is so cool!" Where did she learn 'cool' anyway? I will post some pics of it once we have the new pictures, curtains, etc. up and it looks more complete, but it is definitely a girl's room!

Does this thing have an OFF button?!?

I'm talking about Shelby, not some toy by the way. I swear that child never quits talking.
Don't get me wrong, I am (mostly) glad that she is so verbal and can really sit and have a conversation with you, but really can she just give it a rest? Please? It starts from the second she wakes up til the second she goes to bed. I think what really wears me out are the questions. Why....? Why...? I sometimes just tell her I don't know!

Another thing, I think she is getting ready to shorten or (gasp) give up her nap. She is having a lot of trouble falling asleep at night so I've been shortening her afternoon nap little by little to try and help that, but so far it hasn't helped. My next course of action is to get her outside all the time to just try and exhaust her. Nice plan, right?

Sorry for the complaining post, but I just had to get it out of my system. Happy Fourth all. Shelby is going to fireworks for the first time this year. We hope she likes it and isn't too big a grump from the late night.

sick-o's, siding and summer stuff

Summer is flying by...where did June go? I flipped the calendar yesterday and couldn't believe it. And we had the whole month of June off which we usually don't! August and back to school will be here before I know it. I have to admit that summer always makes me feel grateful for the extra time with the girls, but there are definitely days when I wonder, "Can we go back to school tomorrow, please?" They can be exhausting at times. I think it doesn't help that this is Nate's busy time of year so it's just Shelby, Sarah and I much of the time.

The pool is finally open and we spent some time in it last week which was a blast and both girls remembered their swimming lesson teachings pretty quickly. I posted some pics of the girls outside.

We have been fighting mystery flu bugs for the past week. It started with Shelby throwing up all over Nate Friday night with Uncle Brandon and soon-to-be Aunt Deanna looking on just as we were getting ready to eat dinner. She hadn't been herself all afternoon and that let us know why pretty quickly. It passed quickly and she was fine by Saturday. Then, Sarah woke up with it Tuesday morning all - over - her - bed! Yuck! This is not good stuff for the mommy with a strong gag reflex, but I made it through. Sarah's poor Dora and Diego that she sleeps with suffered too, but washed up well. She spend much of yesterday snuggled up with me and we missed our Tuesday play date which was no good, but what do you do? Hopefully the mystery flu will leave our home soon.

The house is finally done! It took about 2 weeks and some complaining on our part and re-doing on the part of the siders, but it's done now. I have included a before, a couple of during and an after pic. Shelby would have preferred that we left it pink (the insulation) forever. The day they put that up, we pulled in the driveway and she said, "Oh wow! We have a pink house. Can we keep it pink mommy?" Umm, I don't think so Shelby, but thanks for asking. The house is actually village green which is a pale sage green color. I don't know how well you can tell in the picture. You might notice that the front porch is missing. The old one was trashed and we want a new one that runs the length of the front of the house and is large enough for a swing or glider. That probably won't happen for a year or 2. The good thing is we don 't use the front porch. ever. The not so good is it looks sorta funny.

Now I'm off to get myself ready and be useful. Hopefully, I will get some new and fun pics soon to share.