The second week of June we went to Branson again for our annual Edward Jones Summer Regional. We stayed at the Chateau on the Lake which has an atrium lobby with a waterfall and fish ponds. The kids had a great time but I wanted to jump off the top of the hotel. I would rather be camping than staying in a nice hotel with my kids any day! Keeping them from disrupting everyone, getting them to sleep and having to feed them in banquet rooms buffet style is not an easy task and four days of it felt like a marathon. I did try to create at least one good memory. Saturday morning while Josh was in his meeting I took them all three out in a canoe on Table Rock Lake. It was so nice, no one fought or disobeyed. We saw a copperhead in the water!!! and I didn't even freak out! The picture below is on the Branson Belle which is a big boat that cruises for a couple of hours while you eat dinner and watch a Branson-style show.
Below is a good picture of everyones personality right now. Polly is the blonde back center. She's the girl we've been babysitting twice a week this summer. She is always smiling. She is very active and if you give her an inch she wants a mile but she fits right in and really doesn't cause any problems. James is a tortured soul. He feels that he cannot let any of the girls do anything without telling them how to do it better. With me, he doesn't want to do anything the way I suggest or require. In the picture below, I was telling him to sit between Kinley and Polly and he insisted that he sit at least 1ft from either of them and then was sad when he wasn't fully in the picture. It makes me tired recounting it. Mallory is miss independent. She will not be told she is too little. She will not be told anything she doesn't want to hear. Her favorite word is of course "no" even through her vocabulary is in the thousands and she is putting three and four words together. Kinley is lazy, defiant, and manipulative and her excuse for everything she does wrong is that she is "too tired" or "too itchy" (she does have bad excema). I am just putting this in here to remember the reality of most days because I know I'm going to look back with rose colored glasses and say they were the most precious of days. And, in spite of their flaws (and mine - which are many) we have a great time together and I am so blessed to have strong, smart, creative, funny, beautiful kids.
Mallory liked to wear her ears upside down, that's how they do it in the hood. She loves to dance right now and Kinley taught her "shake your bon bon" so she runs around singing "shakeee bom bom". She also loves to sing happy birthday. Almost every morning she and Kinley sit at breakfast and sing happy birthday to each other holding up food on their forks like a candle, blowing it out, then feeding it to each other. Mallory's version is "happy to you, happy to you".
One afternoon while James was gone the girls and I were playing in the yard, yes it was 5:30pm and they were still in their pi's, and we heard the ice cream truck. I have never bought the kids anything from the ice cream truck because it is creepy and expensive, but that particular day I was feeling nice. They both picked the cotton candy one and sat on the step together eating it. It was cute and sweet.
The other day we were driving in the car and Kinley said "mom, what would you do if you were in a hot tub getting a bad massage?" I said, "well, I guess I would get out". She said "NOOOO you wouldn't get out because a bad massage in a hot tub feels good!" This is just a sample of the randomness she brings to our conversations. She asks the strangest questions, so often I can't even begin think of a way to answer them. So curious what she'll be when she grows up!
We are currently in the middle of our two weeks of swimming lessons. All three kids are taking them this year and they are loving it. All three are jumping off the low diving board. James is jumping of the high dive and Kinley, by her own decision, climbed the high dive and got halfway out before she decided she wasn't quiet as brave as she thought she was. I am so thankful they aren't fearful of the water but I will be extra thankful when they are all strong swimmers because it is nerve racking taking them all to the pool. Our lessons are at ORU which is across the street from a high rise called City Plex towers. James asked what was in that tall building the first day of lessons. I told him there were a lot of businesses in there but one of them is our therapist. I told him that when mom and dad go to counseling that is where we go. The next day when we drove by the tower he said "man, a lot of people need help today" because there were so many cars in the parking lot. Our therapist got a kick out of that.
A couple from our life group, they are in their late 50's, had us over for swimming and dinner last week. Their pool was amazing as you can see below. We felt so cared for. I left their house praying that when we have people over that they will feel the way I felt leaving their house.
Tuesday June 26 Kinley turned four. We had Polly, swimming lessons, and life group that day so we didn't get to do anything too crazy but we did make it to Cherry Berry after swim lessons. Kinley said "it's the place where you get to put whatever you want on your ice cream!!!"Unfortunately for the most part the day was terrible. Kinley got more spanks that one day than she has ever gotten in any other day. I remember when James turned four his behavior got so much better than it had been at two and three but I'm not sure Kinley is going to follow that same path. "God help me" is my constant prayer!
We made her a princess cake to have at life group which I forgot to take a picture of or put candles on until we had already cut four pieces out.
This morning we went to the zoo so James could take in a birds nest and snake skin for nature points. Once he gets 1000 nature points he is going to be able to buy a deer antler. I personally can't wait to have a deer antler around. Anyway, we stopped by the new sea lion exhibit and let the kids spend some of their piggy bank money in the gift shop.
Below is a video so if you are reading this in an email you will have to go to www.jklmorris.blogspot.com to view the video.
As apparent in the video we haven't done a great job encouraging modest dancing for our girls. As a result we have some back peddling to do in their training. Pray for us in that! On a funny note, we had a conversation about purity rings in the car the other day. James asked what they were (he heard about a 13 year old friend of ours that got one). I explained it and used the M&M commercial that has the song "I'm sexy and I know it" as an example of not being pure. We had previously explained sexy as things God means for a husband and wife to do (touching/holding). So I said being pure is not doing any of those things until you are married and and ring is a symbol of committing to that. Well, Kinley said "so when can I get a sepsy ring?" She meant sexy. I died inside then I said PURITY ring PURITY not SEPSY! We don't get a ring to commit to be sepsy!!! James asked me if I had a purity ring and I said yes then he asked if dad had one and I said no. He said "I guess dad sang 'I'm sexy and I know it' too much when he was a kid so he couldn't get a purity ring. I of course corrected him after I laughed my head off. I know a lot of people will disagree with me on having this conversation with my little kids but I always want to give them answers to their questions. I want to be the one they get their information from. I want them to know that I care enough about them to take the time and energy to explain things on their level. Plus purity is what we are striving for so I'm definitely going to bite on a conversation explaining the do side of sexual stuff instead of the don't side. One big thing I'm scared about with this method is them passing information that we talk about along to other kids so I tell them all the time we only talk about this stuff with mom and dad and I sure do hope they listen and obey or there are going to be some angry parents in our future!!
