Work, Work, Work

Being summer, Brian is on a very relaxed schedule at the University, which leaves him open for home improvement work.  At this point, I am sure that he is anxiously awaiting the fall sememster.  But for now he is stuck working at home.  Right now, along with some smaller projects, we are working on the living room.  We had to have a plasterer come in and fix a number of areas that had been damaged by water in the past, including a big section of a living room wall, which opens up the opportunity for painting.  Our living room is pretty big and has some built in cabinets and quite a bit of molding and window sashing.  So the process of cleaning, sanding, priming and painting has been long and tedious.  We are making great headway though and I am confident we will be done with the painting at the end of this week.  Then we can shop for carpet.  Fun, fun, fun.

Here is a shot of Mackenzie helping prime the built-ins:

We have managed to have some fun in the meantime though.  My parents were here a couple weekends ago.  Mom and I took the kids to the 577 Foundation and the kids loved showing Grandma around.  We went to Cirque de Soleil Quidam on Sunday.  It was very good and I think my parents enjoyed it.  However it was much darker and slower than the other Cirque shows that Brian and I have seen and the kids really lost interest in it.  Here is a shot of Isaac napping, which he did for a pretty good portion of the show.

Mackenzie really did not enjoy most of the show and we ended up leaving a little before the end of the show.  It is unfortunate because I think they really would have loved the earlier Cirque de Soleil show that I saw that was really colorful and fun and exciting.  I will have to do better research before we take the kids to another show.

We took the kids to Madagascar 3 yesterday for Father's Day and it went much better.  They both got a little scared, but Isaac sat for the whole show. 

Prior to going to the movie, Mackenzie had wanted to go shopping. She had $8.57 in change in her purse. I had told her that she could buy herself something to eat at the movie. So she bought a box of Starburst before the show.  She got scared by the "bad lady" in the movie.  She covered up her ears and then asked (very loudly since she couldn't hear) to leave the theatre.  So I took her out (a bit begrudgingly).  While we were sitting on the bench outside the theatre she asked me, "Did you really want to see the movie?"  I told her that I had paid $7 for a ticket to see the movie. She then reached into her purse and took out a penny (all she knows currently is that it is a piece of money, she doesn't know how it all works quite yet) and held it out to me with a sad look on her face. Of course I felt like the meanest Mom on the planet at that point.  I told her that she did not need to give me the money for the ticket and then I suggested that we try to go back in and watch the movie from right inside the door so we could leave easily if she wanted to.  She agreed (a bit begrudgingly) to go back in and watch from the ramp headed into the theatre. When she got scared she would run down the ramp to where she couldn't see the screen and when it sounded better she would head back up. Since the theatre was really empty (we went to a 10 am show), I figured this was okay and it worked for her.

Given the active way Mackenzie watched the movie, she didn't eat a lot of her Starburst. At the end of the show we saw a friend of Brian's and her two little girls. Mackenzie gave each of the girls (and Isaac) each 3 of her Starbursts, which I was very proud of.  Isaac pretty much ran up and down the hallway of the theatre and then found the arcade and the photo booth.  He did say thank you to his sister for the Starburst, which I was also proud of. 

Disconnected

When we returned from vacation we had no phone connection and therefore no DSL connection so my last vacation post is a bit delayed. 

Our last day in North Carolina we took the kids to the Children's Museum in Winston Salem.  The kids had visited the museum the last time we were in North Carolina and Mackenzie remembered the beanstalk that she got to climb.  The kids really enjoyed their time there and I think they got to see pretty much everything.  I love the picture below of Mackenzie reading to a baby doll.  It is really the perfect shot of Mackenzie.  She is going to be a great mom one day.

After the museum we took the kids to McDonald's and we got a huge compliment from a father of four who told us the kids were behaving very well and that we were very brave to take 4 preschoolers to McDonald's.  The kids really did behave very well.  We then took them to the set of the movie Tina was working on and they all got ice cream (sorbet for Isaac).

Saturday morning the Phillips family headed home. The kids did really well during the long drive home, thanks in many ways to the DVD players.  We stopped for a potty and lunch break at Tamarack in West Virginia.  I had stopped there with Tina and the boys when we drove up earlier this year.  They have a small playground outside with cement cheese.  When I was a kid we played on cement cheese, so it was very nostalgic for me.

There were other cement climbing items there as well and Mackenzie thought that this one was pretty cool as well:

The kids have had a blast being home.  They have spent a lot of time in the yard and in the play room. 

On Sunday we had dinner at Linda and Butch's with the Ohio cousins and the kids had their first floats (Isaac's made with Tofutti). 

They also played ball with their cousins.  All of the kids except Isaac were playing a form of tag/dodge ball combo where the goal was to stay away from the ball.  Isaac was playing take away where his goal was to get the ball.  It was quite humorous until Isaac finally stopped playing, crossed his arms and said, "They're not sharing".