So much fun!

I had so much fun with my kids today. I post enough about the crazy and awful things they do, I thought I should make sure and capture what a fun time we had tonight.

After dinner, they all went outside in their nightgowns to play before bedtime. They rode bikes, rode trikes, rode scooters, pushed babies in strollers, jumped on the trampoline, collected rocks, collected flowers... all the stuff that kids love to do outside! There was a time when I thought my kids would NEVER just "go outside and play!" But today, they did.

About 10 minutes into it, I decided to pour myself a Coke and join them. My first Coke I left on the stoop while I started cleaning out the Suburban, and Seamus drank the whole dang thing! I did manage to get insurance cards printed and put into all of our 4 vehicles (not one of the four had a current insurance card, d'oh!).

Then I poured myself a second Coke, and that one got dumped out inside the Suburban when I reached for a piece of paper under one of the seats. Oops!

My third one is waiting for me in the kitchen.

Anyway, after we played outside for about an hour or so, we went inside and the four of us put together the 50 states puzzle on the floor in the kitchen. The girls have been asking a lot of questions about places, so it was fun to put it together and point out different places that are important to our family's story.

K-Wiggles is looking like she'll be as good at puzzles as Miss-D. M-Moo was no slouch either. And Miss-D could read a lot of the state names on the pieces.

We looked at Utah, where we live, and Texas, where my sister and her four kids live. Then we saw Montana and Washington, where G'ma Libby lives. And Michigan, where Daddy-J grew up and G'Ma Jan still lives (and where M-Moo will be going in June!). We saw Florida, where Daddy-J was born (and where we've visited), and Maine, where Mama went to school.

Then there were a bunch of others we want to go to. The girls have been studying the Grand Canyon at school lately, so it looks like we'll be planning a trip there... maybe in the fall or next spring?!

We saw Wyoming, where we'll be camping in July. And New York, where Mama and Daddy went, twice, last fall.

Anyway, it was a really fun evening, and the kids even went to bed happy, which is a major accomplishment lately!

I want to make sure I (1) take time to do these things with them that are so simple and yet so fun and (2) write them down and remember them.

(Oh, and I found a power cord and connector cord for the monitor Daddy-J brought home a few weeks ago and said he didn't have a power cord for, so now I have a monitor on my photo-editing computer and just need to find a few minutes to sit down and fire it all up! So maybe more pictures soon?! -- no promises).

Flip Flop Shopping!

I must need to have my head examined! I took all three girls shopping with me today to get flip flops. I started out looking just for a pair of "sparkle" flip flops for Miss D, 'cuz she's mentioned a few times that she'd like some.

I banned flip flops about two years ago when Miss D tried walking in them and mostly did faceplants every time. The littles have never had a pair of flip flops.

Of course, flip flops is pretty much all I wear all summer (that and bike shoes!).

And of course, once we found some sparkle flip flops for Miss D, the littles wanted some flip flops too.

Thankfully, they didn't have the sparkle flip flops in the littles' sizes, so we headed off to Osh Kosh where I had seen a rack of $5 flip flops for them to try.

Of course, again, Osh Kosh had nothing in the littles' sizes either. So the next store up the road is Gymboree, which had some really cute red cherry and pink flower flips flops.

And of course they had the right sizes, and they were the kind with the adjustable heel strap so the littles have a prayer of walking in the darned things.

So anyway, turns out we all got new flip flops ('cuz the ones I bought Miss D were "buy one/get one half off -- so I had to buy some cute ones for me too!).

Here's the SOOC photo. Daddy J still hasn't got me a monitor for my fancy new photo-editing computer, and my poor old laptop just can't fire up Photoshop Elements anymore. The pic's a little gray, but I don't quite know how to fix that in my camera (actually, now that I'm done shooting, I thought of one more adjustment I should have tried -- oh well!).

New photos of the Casa Llamedos girls...

A photoshoot of me, my girls, my sister, and her daughter (she also has three boys, but this was a "girls only" shoot!

http://www.natalielaytonphotography.com

Go to "proofing" and the password is Vicky (case sensitive).

I think they turned out pretty good! She did a good job of capturing the goofy faces the kids like to make!