Scissors (again). And, you know, kid stuff....

Nuala decided, early one Sunday morning before church, that she DID, in fact want bangs again.  So, she gave herself some. Kinda.  That little patch of hair that looks fuzzy straight up between her eyes? About an inch long now.  And then she made "long" bangs next to the fuzz patch.  I was quite surprised when I went to put in her barrette and was met with the fuzz.  And then... THEN, the next morning she trimmed a bit more. Apparently I didn't express enough displeasure on Sunday.  Oh well, she's five.  Honestly I thought we had passed the hair cutting stage, and passed with flying colors, because we'd never had an "incident" before! Go us!  But, never mind.

And Maeve, being cute.  By some flowers on our front porch. In Nuala's old rainboots that are still miles too big but make her very, very happy.

And, finally, the little man of the house.  This is him trying to smile because I said, "Smile!" when really he's ticked off that just before this I said, "Hey! Are you trying to sharpen that (very dull decorative) knife on that rock?! (He was.)  Do NOT!"  Also, that scab on his chin?  It was pretty big. About the size of a penny.  It started coming off one night, but only on the edge. In the morning, as he was waking up in our bed, he said, "My scab fell off!"  And, it DID!  I keep forgetting to search our bed, actually, but I'm pretty convinced it's lurking in there somewhere. At least he was on Z's side, since this happened while he was in Okinawa...

 And the three, together.  This week has actually been really rainy, but LAST week, when I took these pictures, it was BEEEAUTIFUL weather.  We've been out in the yard lots. Trying to use and love it as much as possible before we leave it (sob!) next month.  One of their favorite games on the trampoline is "Mummy, mummy, come alive!" where someone lies down in the middle and is the mummy.  Everyone else jumps around and chants, "One, two, three, four, five! Mummy, mummy, come alive!" Then the mummy hops up and tries to catch someone with their eyes closed.  Except they never really close their eyes.  And when I'm the mummy everyone has to count to 65.  It's a nice little rest... ;)  They came up with this game themselves. As far as I know. Maybe they got it from an older friend... I'll hafta ask... I just know I came out one day and they were playing it... It's like Blind Man's Bluff from back when we were kids, but with a net around the trampoline so slightly safer. Of course. They also love "the Tripping Game."  I like this one, too, because I (get to) sit on the trampoline, kinda near the net but with a little space behind me.  The kiddos have to try to run/sneak past me and I stick my arms out and try to trip them.  It's pretty fun, and they're actually pretty good at getting past a lot of the time. Except Nuala shrieks as soon as she starts making a break for it, so she gives herself away, but manages to power through most of the time anyway. She's really good and fast. Every now and then I feel like my arm's gonna pop out of its socket, but so far so good... Bran's quick, too, and gets his little leap timed just perfectly to make it over my arm and barely out of reach.  Maeve is not quite so good at getting past, but we'll give her the "my two!" excuse.  The "bombing game" is another we play.  You know. You try to bomb each other by jumping up and landing on your bums next to the other people, making them fall down, hopefully.  And of course, Bran especially loves to play any sort of fight/ninja/fight games.  So there we have it!  A record of our favorite trampoline pasttimes in the year 2012.

 Sappy as it sounds, I must say that I know these are going to be (and already are) some of my very favorite memories. Being home with my three preschool kids, just hanging out and having fun.  And yeah, sometimes it's not-so-fun, and ooooh, there's some...disagreeing, shall we call it?... involved, but overall, I can't imagine anything better!  (Is it obvious that I've been thinking a bit about N&B starting FULL-DAY kindergarten in September? Sigh.)