30 questions for a 4 year old

lyla turns 4 today.  4 YEARS old. a resounding NOOOOOOO! creeps up in my chest as i write that. but it’s true.  so instead of just not telling her and keeping her 3 until she knows better,  we celebrated.  just our little family.  dinner at home, then out to ice cream after.  pojo’s bumper cars and noisy games end the night.  oh, the fun of turning 4!
her 4 year interview went a little something like this…
1. What do you think the best thing about being 4 will be? That next I’ll be 5..and then 6…and then 7….
2. Why do you like being a kid? Because we can do more stuff, like bounce on the trampoline...like a little bit or a lot more.
3. One word to describe you would be ___Fast!____.
4. What is the grossest thing you can think of? Blood.
5. If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why? A puppy. Because I like puppies.
6. What do you like to do for fun? Play tricks. Silly tricks
7. Tell about a funny time in your life. When we went to the baseball game and the people were doing funny things on the big tv.
8. What is your favorite thing to do? Why? Go to Chuck E. Cheese because there is lot's of fun things there.
9. What is your favorite thing to do with your friends? Play puppies.
10. What do you love most about Eli? That he takes care of me.
11. What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now? Going to bed.
12. What do you think makes a person good-looking? When they dress up.
13. How old is your Mom? 51.
14. What is your Mom's favorite color? Pink!  Blue!
15. What is your Mom's favorite food? Meat.
16. How tall is your Mom? 81.
17. What shoe size does she wear? 80.
18. What time does your Mom wake up in the morning? When it's time.
19. What do you like best about your mom? That you take care of me. 20. How old is your dad? 52
21. What do you like best about your Dad? That he wrestles with us and I like it when we don't know he's going to play with us and he sneaks up to us and whacks me on the booty.
22. What is Dad's favorite food? Meat.
23. How strong is your Dad? 100.
24. Where does your Dad work? In Boise, over where the trees are.
25. How tall is your Dad? 89.
26. What is your favorite thing to do with Dad? Wrestle.
27. What do you want to be when you grow up? A mommy.  So Eli has two mommies then.
28. How many kids are you going to have when you become a mommy? 100.
29. How old do you think you'll be when you get married? 24. I'm going to marry daddy.
30. If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Hailey's house.

thing we love about her.  she…

giggles hardily.

hugs abundantly. 

laughs liberally. 

loves deeply. 

jokes freely. 

lives fully. 

dances crazily. 

runs, runs, runs swiftly. 

plays constantly. 

cares continually…for everyone. 

thanks perpetually…for everything.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET LYLA!

grandma hussmann

we were able to see adam’s grandma today in her place.  she’s comfortable there and it was great seeing her doing so well…

lyla was in a silly mood…

wilderness park

the gang feeding the koi and turtles…

grandma and her silly girls…

grandma caught the first turtle…

shane caught many turtles and we all had a good time watching them run back into the water.  judging by their chosen routes, turtles don’t have very good eyesight:(

lyla really loved this log.  i KNOW she felt like super women up there with the wind blowing in her face. 

the four…

L.A. summer

we’ve had a great trip so far.  the camps were gracious hosts as always and showed us a good time.  a summery of our week goes like this…awesome extreme slip n slide…

LOTS of cuzie time for lyla…

some crazy bounce time…

a tour of the battleship USS IOWA.

there’s always time to play in a fountain…

an angles game…first major league game for both of the kiddos…the baseball was okay…the cotton candy was AWESOME!!!

eli making an “A” showing off his true fanhood…

the beach…i love it. 

the kiddos with shane and hailey’s new chicks…

Some good ol' backyard fun

summer rocks…

the 4th

i love the 4th of july:)

eli pretty much spend the entire afternoon/evening doing one of two things…the dunk tank and lighting fireworks…

adrian and eli waiting to get dunked…

them again in the water balloon toss…

andrea, jen and me, enjoying the party

adam and eli participating in the forehead cookie eating contest…you have to get the cookie from you’re forehead to your mouth without using your hands.  adam and eli shared the same technique…

kristin and me…

this picture sequence depicts lyla’s feelings about fireworks perfectly. from little smile…to “i'm not so sure about this”…to frown.  maybe next year.

she’s happier with her ear protection and watching them from a safe distance…

eli loving every second of the pyrotechnics…

light and RUN!

Happy IndependenceDay!!!

in times past…

lyla just drew me this picture.  “this is  me when i was in your tummy…that’s why you’re a little fat.”  love that girl.

When in the Course of human events…

…it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.


--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.