A Little Dancing and Jumping on the Dock

We got invited to a friend's house at the Lake of the Ozarks for the weekend. So much fun!!!!! The girls even all water skiied. Yep! You heard me right, even Hadley water skiied. No pictures of it though because it took all the adults to make it happen.

But here is a video of dancing on the dock and of course jumping off.

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

More Lake Fun - Dock Jumping

Brianna's 4th Barbie Birthday Bash

Brianna turned 4 on July 15th and we had her Barbie Birthday Bash on Sunday the 17th (2 days after getting her staple in her head and returning from vacation).

Brianna was given the choice of celebrating her birthday while on vacation with her family and cousins or having a "friend" party at home. She requested a friend party and listed off each friend that she wanted to invite. Thank you friends for coming. It was a blast and Brianna was smiling and squealing the entire time.

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

oh yeah.

Airborne!

Road Tripping Lessons Learned

We discovered the following things about long road trips:

1. Family time - Good
2. Lots of adult conversation time - Good
3. Car DVD player - Very Good
4. Repeatedly climbing to back of van - Bad
5. Rest stops with playgrounds - Good
6. McPlaylands - Good for Dad, Freak out for Mom
7. Comfort Inn - Good place to stop and have some nebs
8. Quality Inn - Very Very BAD
9. Picking Hotel sight unseen from Internet - BAD
10. Fairfield Inn (downtown Louisville, KY) - GOOD
11. Taking Hadley potty - VERY VERY VERY BAD
12. Cracker Barrel instead of McDonalds - Very Good
13. Being home for 30 minutes then going to Children's Mercy Hospital - Bad
14. Staple in Brianna's head - Not So Bad!
15. Children's Mercy Hospital staff - Amazing!!!
16. Going to bed at midnight after travelling all day - Exhausting!!

Flips

Hadley:

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Brianna:

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Mia's gone awry:

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Chilling!

Tubing

Family Vacation

We just got back from an amazing 8 day (4 days driving and 4 days there) family vacation in Virginia. It is so fun to take my (Elise) children to my grandmother's lake house that I grew up going to.

My grandfather built the original rustic 5 room house when my mother was in high school. Over the years it has been added on to at least 3 times with the last one a monster major remodel and addition. I have been almost every summer since I was born.

The girls just fell in love with the Lake. Dan and I couldn't be prouder of them. They were fearless, daring, wild, well behaved and slept really, really well. While walking up from the water one day, Mia said to me "Mom, I wish we had a lake house. I just love swimming."

What cracks me up the most is that my siblings and I still carry our childhood phobias of the lake while our kids have none. The phobia list includes the following: NEVER EVER swim on the left side of the dock, NEVER swim under a boat or the dock, touch the bottom with your feet ONLY when extremely necessary, keep your eyes out for snakes at all times, never go outside after dark due to monster spiders and moths.....and the list goes on.

Dan and I approached the vacation with some trepidation due to the following reasons:

• Drive Time to Lake: 18 hours (stops not included)
• Total Headcount at Lake House: 37 people and 1 dog
• Total Bedrooms at Lake House: 7
• Total Bathrooms at Lake House: 3
• Total Ovens at Lake House: 1
• Total Family Blow-Ups in Past Years: too many to count

But thankfully the family drama was just ending when we arrived, due to kids we got our own room, my aunt planned and prepared AMAZING meals and you would NEVER EVER know that there were 35-37 people there. It truly is an amazing place. So beautiful and so relaxing.

Here is the matriach of the family. My (Elise's) grandmother. She is a strong woman, so wise and so brave and to this day I love nothing more than to sit on her bed with her and talk for hours. I love you Granny! (My grandfather, who was just as loved, is no longer with us).

Flying Deebles

Mia:

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Brianna, and let me say this one was painful!!!

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Daring Deebles

Remember what I said about NEVER going under the boat:

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Trampoline

The girls had a ball jumping off of the trampoline that was located on the infamous LEFT side of the dock. They could literally do this for an hour straight.

One More Chance

Hadley has been on a really well behaved streak so I (Elise) thought maybe we could take off the childproof doorknob thing that was duct taped on the doorknob inside her bedroom. Yes, duct taped.

Yesterday at the end of naptime, I was greeted by "Hi, mom!". There was Hadley on the stairway. Then last night Hadley made an appearance outside her door after being put down.

Well the kicker was today at naptime. I was stupidly out in the backyard in the 100 degree weather putting a soaker hose and some mulch on some wilting plants with the monitor clipped on my shorts. Maybe 30 minutes into naptime, I turned around and started walking back to the house when I hear a little voice and look up to see a little body walking down the steps on the deck. After a calm but firm scolding her response was "But Mommy I wanted to be with you because I like you so much". She started bawling heartbroken, went back into the house, took off her sandals (yes, she had put them on) and walked all the way to her bed crying with her head held down.

This coming from the girl who had been on a daddy kick for the last 6 months and has wanted nothing to do with me. After all that cuteness I didn't have the heart to put the knob back on. I told her she gets "ONE more chance".