Birthday Fun!

Happy Birthday!
Yesterday was Letty’s fourth Birthday! Every day for the past week she wakes up and asks me if she is four yet? So the heavily awaited day has finally arrived. She has ended up with lots of birthday celebrations since it is a holiday weekend. She had her first friend birthday party on Wednesday; the theme was a swimsuit party. Thursday T-man got off work early and we went to Riverfront Park to experience some of the rides that she has never been on. We all were melting by the end of the day the car thermometer said it was 101. Yesterday we spent the afternoon and evening at a friend’s house where Letty swam for five hours. Later we watch the fireworks from a parking garage downtown. I don’t think we will do that again. It was too far away to really enjoy them like I like. Letty didn’t go to bed until 10:30 and ended up awake at 7:30 which is not early but we thought she would be exhausted. I guess we are more tired than she is from swimming. Kids, they have endless energy! It was the first time she has not clung on to us in the pool. She either wore her life jacket or used a tube and swam independently, it was actually really nice because we didn’t have to be in the pool with her the whole time. Lots of fun!

Sunday we gave Gracie food for the first time. We have only given it to her twice, we keep forgetting. So far she hasn’t thought much of it. She enjoyed being in the pool yesterday and surprised us by fitting in Letty’s 12 month old swimsuit being that she is 5 months old. The water in their pool was set at 90 degrees and felt really comfortable.

I love summertime!

Letty was really disappointed that she couldn't feed Gracie...we told her once she starts to like her food then she can feed her.

Cup cakes all around...the easiest birthday party food ever.
It's sad to be leaving now that Colette is old enough to enjoy the perfect slip n' slide hill.


Letty was pretty proud of herself swimming around in her life jacket.



We are discovering that Gracie doesn't like the heat so she enjoyed chillin' in the pool.

T-man wanted to add his version of an unfortunate event at Letty’s party: What every kid birthday party needs is a Dad present to liven things up. For Letty’s B-day party this week I pulled out some plastic drop cloths and constructed a water slide in our back yard. The slide worked great until an incident occurred and I was subsequently chastised by my wife. Near the bottom of the slide lies a perimeter of sharp rocks (No, thank goodness the rocks had nothing to do with the injury.) In planning for the slide and anticipating the damage the rocks might inflict, my neighbor offered up their large disk inter tube as a cushion against the rocks. The cushion worked just fine, but I found it hard to look at the slide and the inter tube and not wonder how well the two might work together. Only three girls got up the nerve to take the first ride down. The tube was a great success and as a little is good, more is better, right? So the second time around six little girls climbed on board and took off like a rocket. It was that moment when they reached the bottom of the slide and were still accelerating, that I realized, another 25 feet of slide was necessary. Since a video is worth a thousand words, I won’t go into more detail except to warn the mother’s of the children involved that the video is rated PG-13 for violence.

P.S from Shar: For those of you whose kids you entrusted to us, I am deeply sorry. It is rather funny, but I hope you are not appalled thinking we were crazy, stupid or both. Thanks for letting them come...when all is said and done, I think they had a good time.