Four!?

We had Dave's side of the family over to the cottage last weekend to celebrate Ally and Luke's birthday.  It seems crazy to me that my babies are FOUR-YEARS-OLD!  I had a bit of a tough time with it.  But everyone had a great time at the party!

We served their favorites,
hotdogs (because Ally loves them), chicken nuggets (the first meat Luke ever ate),
and, of course, watermelon!

These giant frisbees from Aunt Jen were a hit!

Matching dresses for Ally and Baba!

Towels for water fun!

Magnatiles.  Everyone loves magnatiles.

Kate bought Ally she's shoes she had seen at Kohl's and really, really wanted.

And ALL grandma's Geotrax.  Luke thought he might have walked into Heaven.

Ally got very, very mad.
She had requested Sophia and Baba on her cake.  Luke had requested Jake and himself.
Ally was indignant that I hadn't put her picture on the her cake.

SIDE NOTE:  When Luke said he wanted to be on his cake, I'd asked him, "Do you want just your head, or your whole body?"  He said, "Me.  All of me.  My head, my tummy, and my penis."

Cheering Ally up by letting her lick the frosting off his candle.  What a gentleman!

Kate organized party games.

Kaitlyn from next door helped.

Not enough time tonight

The kids and I drove up to the cottage late Friday afternoon.  We were having the twins' birthday party the next day, and we had some cleaning and setting up to do.  I told the kids they could play outside, but there wasn't enough time to put their swimsuits on before dinner.

Luke took that statement very literally.   There wasn't time enough to put their swimsuits on, but this didn't mean they couldn't swim.

Anna found this absolutely hilarious!

This made me laugh and remember that my schedule wasn't always the most important thing.

Alright, guys, just go for it!

Black raspberries

As if we weren't blessed enough to have our cottage, we discovered a wonderful added bonus in the woods behind our garage.  Wild black raspberries!

The mosquitos are a little too bad (well, a lot too bad) to pick them without long sleeves, socks, a high collar, and some repellent, so I went out to pick them myself the other night.  When I was out there, I heard a strange buzzing sound.  It didn't quite sound like a mosquito.  I swatted around my head, and when the sound didn't go away, I thought it might be a motorcycle off in the distance.  Then I looked to my right and saw, just four feet away, a hummingbird also helping herself to a raspberry.

Magnificent.

One of the kids favorite desserts has been plain yogurt drizzled with maple syrup and topped with the berries.

More on the fish emergency

I recently found some notes about what I wanted to write about.  I'd quickly put in my phone the day of the bloated dead fish.

When the kids showed me the fish, the twins asked me if it was an emergency.   I muttered, "I think it is an emergency."  I'd gone to get a rake to try get the fish out, and when I came back and heard Ally asking Anna, "Can I blow it?  Can I blow it?"

I was a bit distracted, and didn't understand what was going on until Anna began to explain, "No, not this kind of emergency.  Only a drowning emergency."

They were talking about the whistle on Anna's life vest.  A few days earlier, Anna had blown the whistle when we were on the boat and Dave told her she could never blow it again, because it was only to be used in an emergency.

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After I'd used the rake to move the fish far away so the kids could swim, Luke told me, "Mommy, you saved the day, because dad's not here."

Moving the fish with the rake was the easiest part of the deal.  I had yet to save the day.

In case any of you were eating while reading this blog, I never went into full details.  But, trust me I was being honest when I said it was the deadest, bloatiest fish I've ever seen and what was supposed to stay inside a fish wasn't.  And, there was an incident when my dad had almost pulled the plastic bag containing the fish out of the water when it burst through the bottom of the bag and flew at me. 

At the end of a the day, I was exhausted.  I got the kids in bed, and when I went to kiss Anna goodnight, she told me, "This was the best day ever!"

Getting that fish out and hauled across the road was one of the grossest things I've done, and I say this after getting four kids through diapers and potty training, but those two things made it almost worth it.

Yeah, I'd probably do it again to have Anna assess the day in such a way... as long as my mom would help me bag it again and my dad would again haul it across the road.

Chinatown

(When Ally says her bottom hurts, I ask her to tell me more specifically if it's the front or the back, and she calls the front a 'gina.)

There's an area across the lake from our cottage is called Chinatown.  Uncertain of the origins or any racial contactions associated with the name, Dave and I never referred to it by its name.  

We were driving around in the area the other day when we saw an official sign reading Chinatown.

I asked Dave to stop so I could snap a picture for his sister, to whom we'd mentioned our hesitation about the name.  

The kids asked why we'd stopped, and when I said I wanted to take a picture of a sign, they asked what the sign said.  I explained, "It's just a sign that says this little town is called Chinatown."

From the back came Ally's voice repeating incredulously, "'Ginatown!?  'Gina!!!"

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Anna later cleared things up for Ally saying China was different, because her bottom was actually a bachina.

Just mom and the kids

The kids and I had our first day at the cottage without Dave on Monday.  

Of course this was they day we found the biggest, deadest, bloatiest fish ever seen under a dock.  

(I won't go into the fact that the internal organs were oozing out where the fish had split open.)

 But, after I gaggingly dealt with that, we had a wonderful day!

 We even made a raft!

Raspberries

Luke noticed that the raspberries were "right"!

Wow.

Just wow.

We got home from running errands yesterday and Ally handed me some "Baba poopy" (stuffing) she'd evidently been holding the entire time we were out and asked me to go put it back in Baba's bottom.

Let's stop here for just a moment and reflect, because such a request is something only a seasoned Mother would ever be asked... shoving a pink bear's poop back into its rectum.

I took a deep breath and, in the interest of preventing another fit, I said, "Okay.  Where is Baba?"

And here's when Ally replied, in her three-year-old lisp, "Upthtairth in my bedroom.  Ithn't that obviouth?"

No.  Nothing about this moment was "obviouth."

Cooking

I was grilling lunch on the deck at the cottage.  

Ally looked at the grill, and then she looked at me, and asked, "Why are you using Daddy's stove?"

I laughed and said, "Good question!  Daddy never uses my stove!"

Fourth of July Cake

The girls made a cake entirely by themselves, except for putting it in and taking it out of the oven.  They even decorated it with only a few minor tips form me!