Gemma

John and were scrambling to make dinner. It is the most stressful time of the day. Kids are crabby and hungry. John and I tag team many days in the kitchen. Someone breaks up a fight and someone else pours milk. Then we switch. Someone cleans up a spilled cup of milk and the other attends to a bathroom emergency. Many nights this goes smoothly, but many more nights it is a frustrating one step forward and two steps back type process.

Last night, Gemma came running in crying. She was holding her arm.

Mama: Gemma! What is the matter?
Gemma: I hurt my arm!
Mama: what happened?
Gemma: I don't know.
Mama: what were you doing?
Gemma: something crazy

I started towards her to check out the injury. Before I took two steps, she spied a toy in the next room and took off to go and play.

Apparently she was just fine?

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Cookies

We bought a cookie to share after lunch.

Gemma ate most of her piece, and then started offering chunks to daddy. Breaking the cookie up was making a huge mess. I grabbed a napkin and started cleaning up the mess.

Which is when Gemma turned to me and said, "I'm saving all these crumbs for a mouse-y. The mouse-y will eat up all these crumbs!

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The wave

We rode the wave ride and then William and Amelia wanted to get drenched on the bridge. Mom and dad weren't interested in getting more wet. Just behind the wave ride is the very intense roller coaster I talked both kids into riding called "boomerang".

6 flags

Here they are on another ride.

William and Amelia

Ride the swings.

We went to 6 flags this last week. The kids were awarded free tickets from school as part of a reading program. William has been asking to go for the last 2 years and we just haven't been able to make it happen. It is expensive, hot, and not really the place you want to bring a baby (Gemma). We also weren't sure how many rides our young kids could ride. This year, we felt like we were in a good place enough where we could go.

At the last minute, our friends offered to watch Gemma and we took them up on their offer.

We had a very fun day. Our big kids were so much fun! They went on many of the little kid rides and several of the more intense rides, including a very intense roller coaster! Mom and dad had fun too, although one of us has a little trouble with rides now. John will just have to take some Dramamine next time we ride rides.

Toad the wet sprocket

One of the bands we heard yesterday at the festival was Toad the Wet Sprocket. The kids liked the music, but none of them enjoyed how loud it was. They were much happier on the other side of the field at the face painting booth.

4th of July parade

Daddy took the girls to watch the parade while mom walked the parade with the Boy Scout float.

Note my adorable girls in their outfits. I told myself I could dress them matching as long as they don't mind. I have to quit if they don't agree. So far, they ADORE matching each other which makes me exceptionally happy.

We ran out of candy twice during the parade and one do the dads ran to a store along the parade route and purchased more candy. Which only lasted a few more blocks. Sweet William knew they were running out of candy, so he put a sucker in his pocket. Not for him. He was saving it for Amelia. The girls were alllllllll the way at the end of the parade route as it is closer to our house and walkable. William waited until he saw his sister and then pitched her the sucker from the float. (I'm going to ignore the fact he didn't save one for Gemma.)

I was pulling a rolling cooler full of freeze pops. I was able to save 2 freeze pops for my girls at the end of the route as well. They were very happy to see us!