In defense for my "yelling up the stairs instead of going upstairs" behavior, I didn't feel well during this conversation, and I didn't want to move!

"Girls, please brush your teeth. Hurry."

Nothing but giggles and sounds of playing at the top of the stairs.

"Girls, are you brushing your teeth?"

"Can anyone hear me?"

Louder. "Girls. It's time for bed. Please brush your teeth."

I try another tactic.

"Melissa, please help your sisters get their toothbrushes ready."

Still nothing but sounds of continued playing--definitely close enough to be able to hear me.

I hear Megan on the stairs.

"Megan. Please go brush your teeth."

Nothing.

"Megan . . . Elizabeth . . . Fowler . . . can you hear a word I'm saying?"

"No."

Hmmm.

I finally figured out why sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a wall when I ask my kids to do things. It's because we are speaking two different languages. I'm speaking English, but my kids only speak Whine-ese!

They're such fluent speakers, that each child has been able to teach her younger sister Whine-ese without any help from textbooks or foreign language tapes and videos. My kids are brilliant!

*Note added 7/30/09.
If you are just now reading this, you should check out the comments, too. They are pretty funny and shed a lot of light on communication!

Who knew that moving to our new home would mean that we would get so many visitors. June was full of visits from family and friends. We seem to be in a perfect location for a stop-off on the way to other locations, or for a quick trip to get out of the bigger cities. We had a constant stream of welcome guests.

My cousin Noni (with whom Steve and I shared many group dates when we first got married) visited with part of her family--including her infant twins. We had fun learning why we have only one child at a time at our house! Boy were they busy (the twins and the parents).

Next, we hosted our good friends from Maryland--the Smith family. For a long time, they were our upstairs neighbors when we were "humble" apartment dwellers. We didn't exactly live in the best part of town, but we were very happy. One of my favorite memories of the Smiths is a very cheap double date. We went to Costco for pizza, and then to a sporting goods store to explore and watch the fish in the giant tank. Sounds silly, but it was really fun.

When they came to visit, it was like we had never left Maryland (except that both our families had grown considerably). We had so much fun together. I wish we were still neighbors. I hope we don't have to wait another six years to see them again. Here are some highlights from our adventures with the Smiths:

We took them to some of our favorite places.

The kids all picked up enough "Fairy Crystals" to add to their collections.

And Lacie and Megan shared some girl talk.

Megan and Lacie have coined some cute new terms at our house.

Megan, what's that stuff you squirt on your hands to kill the germs? "Hanitizer."

Lacie, what do you call dinosaur-shaped vitamins? "Dinamins."

Pretty logical names if you ask me. Maybe I should start my own brands.

To add to the fun, tonight they serenaded me with a chorus of "Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star." (I know, I know. Everyone's kids sing it that way, but it's still cute!)

It happened. I forgot to finish posting about our San Diego trip, and now I have forgotten a lot of the funny things that happened! Here is a marathon attempt to finish the trip!

While Daddy went back to his conference, the girls and I swam at the hotel. I was quite nervous to take all three by myself, but it went well.


Megan learned to float by herself in her special swimsuit, and Lacie learned to float a little by herself, too. (She thinks she knows how to swim. She doesn't care if she sinks or not.) While I worked with Megan, we stuffed Lacie -- with her life vest -- into Melissa's innertube, and Melissa dragged her around the pool.

Here's Megan floating by herself for the first time:




I thought I got a video of Lacie, too, but I guess I didn't do it right.

Thankfully, Steve swam with the girls later that night, so I didn't have to get in the cold water again. Here are some examples of why it's more fun to swim with Daddy than with Mommy:


The next day, we planned to attend LegoLand again (for a reduced, second-day ticket price). On the way, we decided to stop and visit the San Diego temple. Since San Diego is the first temple I ever attended, it was fun to show the girls "my temple." It was a little cold, so if Megan seems purple, that's why.


After a quick lunch in the car, we headed to the park for another day of fun.

Here are a couple of *quickpages from our adventures.

Of course we redid everything we did the first day--with a little more fun added in. This time we got to see the Bob the Builder 3D movie. The movie was a huge hit with everyone except Melissa. She isn't a big fan of 3D. She was a good sport, anyway.

We also tried a fairytale boat ride. Here are some of the Lego creations we enjoyed:

To end our trip, we headed to my sister Jenny's house to visit her family. We all had a nice time relaxing and visiting. The kids love jumping on Jenny's trampoline. (Every time we come home from a visit, I hear "I wish we had a trampoline" for at least a week or two.) Normally my kids play with the girls' toys at Jenny's house, but this time, they were drawn to the boy toys. I assure you, they played with them in ways they have never been played with before!

If you had no brothers and no gun/weapon experience, what would you have done with the same toy? Look out Rapunzel!

After a great adventure, we finally headed back home and back to real life. It was a great trip.


*Quickpages by Anny-Libelle from the Kit "On the Go," by Ziggle Designs. San Diego page created from July desktop freebie found on the Shabby Princess blog. What's a quickpage? That means that the page design was done by someone else, and I just dropped in my own pictures.

Saturday was spent at a park behind a local church. I mentioned in my last post that the train was my kids' favorite part of the reunion. I'll have to amend that. I forgot about the slip-and-slide and the talent show.

Thanks to Zane and Brianna for organizing the water activities.

Due to the fact that our lawn is a giant pile of sand, our kids have never been on a slip-and-slide. I think they are hooked (especially Lacie)! If you could see all of the pictures taken of this activity, you'd notice that Lacie is in almost every single one. She doesn't really get the taking turns thing, but she really gets the "this is fun" thing. She almost got creamed by other kids and adults several times.

(Isn't it handy that I found a slip-n-slide template online just in time to scrap these pics? The template is by simplysarahdesigns.)

Zane and Brianna squirted dish soap on the slide, so it was extra slippery.

This video was taken with my regular camera, so it's not great. Sorry, but you get the idea.



Notice Lacie's technique. Thanks Drew! She also got lots of rides from Brianna. It was so fun to see her play with everyone. Megan was a little nervous at first, but she got the hang of it. Melissa didn't need any training. She just jumped right in!

You would think Lacie wore herself out enough to take a nap, but I'm afraid there is only one person sleeping in this picture.


(Random picture of my cute nieces and their second cousins.)

We ended the day with the "Nielson Family Talent Show." Boy are we one talented family! It was fun to watch everyone's talents--some serious, some goofy.

For you Nielson fans, here are clips from the entire show. (Sorry if it's a little Fowler heavy. I'm a mom. How can I resist?)



For those of you who have no idea who the Nielson family is, you might want to just catch my kids' act. I love to watch this clip--just to hear my sister giggling in the background. It cracks me up every time.



Since video doesn't really transfer into a scrapbook well, here are some shots of the girls' doing their gymnastics:

For the remainder of the talent show, I had to repeatedly drag Lacie off the stairs to the stage. She and Megan wanted to perform again and again. Megan still talks about it!

To show that I can laugh at myself (trust me, there's usually a lot to laugh at), here is a lovely shot of me leading the family in "The Princess Pat." (Notice that Lacie has sneaked back onto the stage in the background.) I was secretly hoping that Haley would try this song/dance, and that it would send her into labor. She remained in her seat, though, so I didn't get to test it.

Here's a shot of Haley's belly that might illustrate why she didn't want to try "The Princess Pat!" There are 14 lbs and 6 oz of baby in there! Doesn't she look great?

Thanks to everyone who made the reunion so much fun! We're excited for the next one!

So, are you ready to see the coolest train ever? Here it is--designed and built by my Uncle Stan.

A brief note about Drew's face paint in this picture. He washed it off for family pictures and had tan lines to match the war paint!

I'm sure that this train was my kids' favorite part of the reunion. I mean, seriously, what could possibly beat riding in your own private mini airplane or fire truck? Honestly, I would have given it a try if I thought I would be able to get my legs through those tiny holes!

After our day at the park, we all headed to my Aunt Donna and Uncle Stan's house for train rides and family movie night. My cousin Wendy put together a fun slide show of pictures from each family, complete with a baby picture of every member of our clan! What a lot of work! Thanks again, Wendy. (We had a contest to see who could correctly name the baby in each picture. I didn't win.)

After the show, we watched Bolt on the "Big Screen" (a sheet stretched tight and hung from the balcony.) So much fun! My girls actually watched most of the show from the train. Did I mention that they liked the train?

Stay tuned for the final day of the reunion, complete with a video of the most talented family ever.

Sunday was a "One Black Shoe/One Brown Shoe" kind of day--literally.


Steve's Sunday nap.
Doesn't it look restful?

(Yes, the girls are faking.)

Last weekend we attended a family reunion in Sandy, Utah. We had a great time.

I have tons of pictures, but I'll just post the highlights. We missed the first day, so we'll start with Friday.

We spent the day at the park with good food, socializing, and activities for the kids. Here are the kids doing a balloon blowing contest (you have to eat a cracker first). I don't know who won, but it looked like a lot of fun!

There was also face painting. My kids opted out of that activity. I enjoyed seeing the kids' faces painted, but I'm glad I didn't have to clean up the mess!

And there were rockets . . .

And volleyball . . .


But, I think my kids most enjoyed playing with Drew on the playground and running around on the big lawn.

As for me, I also enjoyed Drew playing with the kids on the playground! I spent my time socializing and holding babies.

Steve spent his time behind the camera, but my cousin Marci took this great picture of him. I love it!

We also went on a very small "Temple Quarry" hike. Haley joined us to try to send herself into labor, but it didn't work. I've never seen a pregnant woman look more uncomfortable! Kudos to her for being such a good sport while trying to speed things up!

Here are the second cousins posing at the beginning of the hike:

Melissa spent the hike answering the trivia questions Marci wrote for the hike; Megan ran around with Daddy; and Lacie spent the whole time trying to do whatever the big kids were doing. I had to pull her down from the sides of boulders more than once.

It was a great afternoon.

Stay tuned for pictures of the greatest lawn-mower-engine-powered train in existence!