Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails..... Oh Wait, for us that's "Camps and Slugs and Potty Tales"

Camps

OK, let's start with camps. Jordan went to the three week residential camp he won a huge scholarship for, but was only there for a week. I won't get in to the depressing details, but anyway, he was happy in his first day pictures. Mikailey just finished her Excursions in Learning day camp at MCC and had a blast learning about ancient Egypt and "Math that Isn't" ( as opposed to, uh, math that IS of course, right?) She came home with a pretty cool mummy from the Egypt class today!

Jordan getting dropped off (OK, I want to pout a little... I wish some things were easier for him even though he's lucky in so many ways)


Ms. Mikailey, always a happy (and hyper) camper
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SLUGS

Our garden became infested with slugs!!! They were all creeping on to our sidewalk and deck and the side of our house every wet night and it was just really skeevy. Most were normal sized, but some were as long as a pencil, like nasty, slimy, little, goopy, oozing snakes. eeeew. We started by just plucking them and putting them somewhere else (OK, I won't lie... it wasn't a nice "somewhere else," like a slug utopia, it was the sewer at the end of the driveway). I read on the internet that the easiest way to kill them is to leave out a pie plate of beer. I guess they are attracted to the smell and then drown themselves in it - it's probably not a bad way to go, as far as drowning goes. That worked, and there were like 100 in our pie plate after one night, but there were too many to catch with beer, unless we wanted to like buy a keg and a million pie plates (ya think the neighbors would think that's weird?) ... plus, why should the slugs get to stay up drinking beer on a school night? Chris eventually bought stuff to get rid of them and our house, deck and garden are no longer crawling with nasty shell-less overgrown snails at night. Anyway, Mikailey being the bug and creature lover she is, had quite a ball slug collecting at night with a flashlight. Not sure that's an activity most kids would beg for, but hey, we're a weird family!

Big gloves and lots of slugs ....she collected about 100 that night in her oversized rubber gloves.

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Potty Time

First of all, this text would be more appropriate in yellow or brown, but those colors aren't fun to read and we didn't accomplish any yellow or brown in the potty anyway. The twinkies are starting to show signs of being ready to potty train, like announcing when they are going to poop or demanding a new diaper immediately, but I guess they're not quite ready yet. I WANT them to be ready so badly! I wonder how many diapers I've changed in my life? The constant diaper cost is one thing I won't miss about their baby days! I realize now that I should have shelled out the cash for the spiffy pottys instead of the $9,99 ones at Wal-mart. Why, you ask? Because they come apart waaaay to easily, and they are nearly impossible to snap back together. I'm not buying new ones, so the cheesy pottys will have to do. Anyway, the end result of our first potty experience ...... after a little sitting, and a lot of playing and exploring, they BOTH peed on the rug:-)

All ready to go... we've got shiney cheap new pottys and fun little undies!!!
Hmmmm, but taking it apart is SO much more fun than sitting on that strange chair, Mom! (If you're wondering... that weird white mark in the air isn't the camera doing something funky, it's a piece of a wipe being thrown by Abby as I took this picture) Look Ma, I took my potty apart too!!! Hey Noah, what was it we were supposed to be doing with these things?

These diapers are complicated!!! I'm DONE pottying on the floor, put this diaper back on for me please!!

It makes a much better hat anyway, don't ya think??