Someone lost a tooth.

And she’s pretty pleased about it!

Some chilly swimming

Our neighbor behind us owns a pool, and though he gives us a free invitation all summer long, we only ever seem to make it over once a year. I don’t know quite what’s wrong with us!

His pool is chilly, but it does have a cool slide.

I don’t often use the action setting on my camera, but it is awfully handy for water slide pictures.

Lisey, shivering.

Zoe was smart enough to realize that the pool was too cold for anything but dipping her feet.

The most wonderful thing about swimming at this pool is that all we have to do is take a walk through our yard, and we’re home.  Easy-peasy.  Remind me why I don’t do this more often??

I will do better next summer.

Mmmm….soft serve.

Due to her propensity for dropping ice cream cones onto the sidewalk, Zoe had her ice cream in a cup.

And so did Sonia.

Joshua and Lisey can easily handle cones.

Have I mentioned that I feel really fortunate to have two blue-eyed subjects that live with me? My husband and I both have brown eyes, so having two blue-eyed children was a nice surprise!

I like my brown-eyed ones too, though.

Zoe’s First Movie

Yesterday we did something uncharacteric for our frugal family…all six of us went to the theater to see the movie “Up”. We did go to a matinee showing, but it was still pretty pricy. We had something to celebrate, though (my husband got a new job), so we decided to splurge a bit.

The light in the movie theater was, um, less than delightful, so like my Fourth of July pictures, these are on the grainy end of things.

This was the first time Zoe had been to a theater.

Actually, it was Sonia’s first time too!

Lisey’s last trip to a theater was in 2002.

I think Joshua’s last one might have been slightly more recent.

Oh, hey…I was there too! The last time I darkened the door of a theater was in December of 2005. Quite obviously my husband was there too…he took this picture. And you can see a very blurry version of him behind Joshua in the photo above. I would have taken an actual picture of him but he is awfully camera shy. So, he hides in the bokeh.

The Most Beautiful Batman Ever.

We went over to my sister’s house today so I could take some more photos of my nephew, and while we were there, Zoe decided to try on the Batman mask that belongs to my nephew’s older brothers.

Somehow, it doesn’t quite go with her braids and pink shirt.

o my

Yesterday was the 4th of July, so we set off some fireworks for the kids.

True to form, I mostly took pictures of the kids. Fireworks don’t inspire me that much. Fireworks + a kid = inspiration, however.

Or a sparkler and a kid.

Sonia enjoyed planting her sparklers in the ground.

Sparklers actually give off enough light to take a no-flash picture. A grainy picture, but a picture nonetheless.

It was interesting to try to take pictures with such non-ideal light.

I’m pretty happy with this one, though.

I did take a few pictures of the actual fireworks. Ground-based fireworks are tricky, though, because the smoke gets so intermingled with the lights.

This one is pretty strange.

And for some reason, I think this picture is super cute.

Fish Puzzles

Zoe’s been quite the puzzle gal lately. She started out with some wooden chunky puzzles, and she’s now graduated to the large floor puzzles with big pieces. She can actually do these almost entirely by herself, and I love how they keep her entertained so well.

As an aside, can you imagine comfortably sitting like this??

Naturally, most of the puzzles she does have a fish theme.

Face Painting

I took Sonia and Zoe along with me to the rally during set-up because I knew they’d both want their faces painted(and don’t worry, I took them back home before any motorcycles showed up!).

Zoe went first.

Naturally, she picked a sea creature.

She kept coming back to pick up the mirror so she could admire her cheek.

Sonia picked a sparkly butterfly.

“Are they all yours?”

This is, without a doubt, the most common thing I hear when I go out with my kids. I’m a little amused at how noteworthy four children seems to be…I grew up in a family of four, so four seems nothing but normal to me.

I always smile and say that yes, they are indeed all mine. Most people are very nice about it(I hear a lot of the “Bless your heart!” type of thing), and there have only been a few rude comments(one so crass that I can’t even repeat it here!).

At any rate, Miss Difficult-to-Photograph has been with us the last three times we’ve gone grocery shopping…

and when she’s with us, for once, I can say “No, they are NOT all mine. Only four of them.”

Eggs!

On Sunday afternoon, we hid eggs for the kids at my in-law’s house. Unfortunately, we did this mid-afternoon, when the light was definitely not ideal.

I coaxed Sonia into the shade at one point.

But not Joshua.

Ooh, there’s some shade again.

This is definitely my favorite. I love the backlighting on her hair.

And here’s bit of Zoe’s bounty.