Poor Netta

After all my talk about how hot it is and how my kids are never fully clothed, it may seem strange that I dressed Netta in this pretty thick tights for church. Well that is because of this . . .

Poor Netta was the first person in our house to fall victim to a notorious fire ant attack. We have all had a bite here or there, but nothing like this. It's been so hot that we haven't spent much time in the backyard, but just this past week it has started to cool off enough at night that I let the kids play on the back patio on Saturday. Netta has never ventured into the grass before, so I thought I was safe letting them play outside while I did some things in the kitchen. Well it didn't occur to me that the recent storm had blown one of her favorite toys into the grass and that she would go for it. I just heard this crying coming from outside and there was Netta standing in the middle of the yard with fire ants all over her legs. I felt so bad. Of course I got them off as quickly as I could, but it was too late. Luckily, the bites don't seem to bother her like they would an older child or adult. She doesn't even seem to notice them. It's just gross because they fill with puss and look like huge zits. The pictures don't truly convey how sick they look. My poor baby has deformed legs so she had to wear tights to Church and I have been putting her in pants as well. First because the bites are ugly and second because I don't want them to get scratched open by her crawling around. So as soon as John gets home, which is tonight thank goodness, he gets to tackle the ant problem in the back yard. Yippy.

John Irving Eckerson

My dad's dad, John Irving Eckerson aka Grandpa E., passed away this morning, so I wanted to give a little tribute to him. My husband John is out of town and he called to see if I was ok and I am because I know that he lived a long full live to the age of 87 and he is in a better place. His mind had started to go a while ago and now his body finally gave up as well. Now he is isn't bogged down by a failing mind and a slow body and he is reunited with his wife and I am sure he is loving every minute of it. Here are some pics with him and EZ taken over the last 3 years and some thoughts about my Grandpa to go along with them. This first picture was taking when EZ was just 3 months old. We were visiting NY and went with my grandpa to see the local band play. They always play patriotic songs and the audience sings along. My grandpa sang loud and proud. He had an amazing voice and was very involved with his church and their choir. I was just so amazed that no matter how weak his body was his voice was still so strong and beautiful.

This next picture was taken when EZ was a year old. I think it is so cute the way he is looking at my grandpa. Grandpa E. loved EZ and whenever we would visit he would want to make sure he got pictures and that they were labeled with names and dates. He was very into keeping track of photos and family history. He did an amazing amount of genealogy work and even with his failing mind, he knew it was really important to keep track of names and dates for the benefit of himself and his posterity.

Here is 18 month old EZ with Granpda and Helen at the Candy Apply my grandpa's favorite restaurant. One of the things I actually remembered most about him was that he never cooked and we always went out or ordered in. I mean who can blame him. My Grandpa passed way over 20 years ago so he was living like a bachelor for quite some time.

Finally, the last picture I have of my Granpda is from last summer right after Netta was born. I am glad I got this one of him, my dad and EZ. My grandpa loved his family and would do anything for them. He will be missed, but I know he's got a bunch of family greeting him in heaven.

EZ's Reward

EZ has been really good about going potty all by himself and has even gone quite a few nights without peeing, so we decided to celebrate his freedom from diapers by letting him beat the crap out of a pinata all by himself. That and I found this 4th of July pinata on clearance at Walmart and I wanted a reason to buy it. EZ absolutely loves pinatas and whenever there is one at a party he never wants to let anyone else take a turn so I figured this was the perfect reward. John is a brave man and agreed to hold it while EZ attempted to hit it.

His hits didn't do much damage, so John decided to start swinging the pinata into EZ'z bat while he hit it to give it some extra force.

When that didn't do much damage we finally gave up and just put it on the floor so EZ could really go at it.

After a good 20 minutes EZ finally busted it open. Here he is making sure he got every last tootsie pop out of there.

And here he is enjoying the spoils.

Of course Netta got in on the tootsie pop action as well. She was sitting in my lap while I was loading these pictures and when she saw this one of her with the lollipop she pointed and said "Mmmmm".

The pinata still had some life in it so EZ continued to beat on it periodically over the next couple of days. Honestly, my favorite part about this whole activity was EZ's pronunciation of pinata. He insists on calling it a peeyata no matter how many times we say it correctly and it just cracks me up.
PS. My sister likes to point out that EZ is never wearing pants in pictures and well who can blame him when it's 105 degrees outside.

The Past Month Part 4: Visiting California

So after visiting my family I flew across the country by myself with the kiddies to meet up with John in California so we could visit his siblings that live there. Of course it sucked. After eating some lunch at the Pittsburgh airport we got to the gate 20 minutes before the flight took off, which is usually around when Southwest boards and they had already boarded the whole plane! I couldn't believe it. Then they kept yelling at me to hurry up, but I wasn't late. In fact they boarded so quickly that we had to sit on the plane waiting for the luggage to load before we could even take off. Of course it was a full flight so when we got on there weren't any seats together and it took over 5 minutes and the promise of lots of free alcohol to finally get someone to move so I could sit with my kids. Then EZ threw a royal tantrum and laid down in the middle of the aisle and refused to move. Oh the joy of traveling with kids. Luckily, God is merciful and EZ fell asleep right after take off and slept for over half of the 4 hour flight. That helped a lot and gave me a chance to regain my sanity. Initially, I was supposed to arrive 4 hours before John and somehow entertain the kids till he got there, but in a last minute justified panic, I had John change his ticket so he got in 4 hours before me. That was definitely inspired because when we got there they had lost our luggage and John was able to entertain the kids while I waited in line to get that taken care of. I already have plans to travel by myself with the kids at Christmas, but then after that I think I am done for a while.

Anyway, once we got settled we had a blast. Who couldn't have a blast when you live 5 minutes from the beach? EZ was a little more timid when it came to the beach and the water, which came as no surprise. Of course Netta just dove right in.

She loved it so much that she probably ate a couple pounds worth of sand every time we went. It was disgusting.

Like I said, EZ was a bit timid, but once he got warmed up to things he had a blast.

John's brother in law Casey plays pro beach volleyball and we were lucky enough to be there for one of his tournaments and it was awesome! Here are some pics from the first game. They won the match, but only after the second game went to 38-36 which is insane since beach volleyball usually only goes to 21, but you have to win by 2. It was really intense.

The next game, they got to play on the main court and we got to sit in the VIP section right up front.

The amazing part was that their second game went long again and this time they won 40-38, tying the record for the longest men's' game ever. Pretty impressive. We definitely got our moneys worth!

We also got to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach and it was amazing! EZ and Netta love animals so we try to go to zoos/aquariums whenever we can. However as you can tell in this picture they are not as fond of ginormous stuffed animals.

One more highlight of the trip that I don't have pictures of unfortunately was a surprise visit from John's dad. Well it wasn't a surprise to everyone else there, but we didn't realize he was making the trip down for John's nephew's baby blessing, so we were so excited to see him there. Living in Texas is awesome, but it does kind of isolate us from everyone so the more chances we have to see family the better.

The Past Month Part 3: Visiting Pittsburgh

After my niece's visit she flew with me back to Pittsburgh to visit my family. I was so glad we could have Sharon's visit right before this trip so she could fly back with me and the kids since John couldn't come. By some miracle all of my siblings managed to make their way to Pittsburgh at the same time, so it was like a mini family reunion. We were able to do all the Pittsburgh stuff like Kennywood and the zoo. We actually did both of those in the same day, which made for quite a fun, but exhausting time. We went to the zoo with all the kids in the afternoon and then all of us adult siblings took off for an evening at Kennywood. (For those of you that don't know Kennywood is an amusement park by my house). The weather was a little rainy, but that didn't stop us. In fact it was actually nice because the park was kind of empty and we basically could just walk on to every ride. The only downside was that since we didn't have any downtime between rides one person in our party got a bit ill. Oops.

It was great to spend so much time with my family and even better because me kids achieved some firsts on the trip. After almost 5 months of successfully peeing on the potty EZ finally decided it would be a good idea to poo there as well. Hallelujah. And, drum roll please, lazy Miss Netta finally started taking some steps. I wouldn't say she is "walking", but she can walk across the room if she feels so inclined. EZ also rekindled his love with Wii Sports. Just as with guitar hero in the past, when EZ likes a game he really likes it and insists on playing it 24/7. He was so obsessed that he would sit and play by himself for literally 4 hour blocks at a time and after about 2 days of that the batteries died and we opted not to replace them so he wouldn't be able to play anymore. We will not be getting a Wii anytime soon.

Here are some pics from the trip. The first 3 are of the random places EZ passed out around the house. While at my parents' house EZ never wants to nap or go to bed so we just let him play till he can't play anymore.

You will notice that these next 2 pictures are in the same chair. That is because this is the chair in front of the tv with the Wii and he when he got too tired to stand he would sit in it and play golf from there till he passed out.

And finally passed out at my sister's pool.

Here are some of the pics from our trip to the zoo, starting with me, Netta and my niece Ellie

Then grandpa and Netta

EZ and Carol

And last, but not least, Grace and EZ. The best part about this picture is that she is 2 1/2 years older than him, but almost the same size.

The Past Month Part 2: Saying Goodbye

Before we took off for two weeks of traveling, we had to say goodbye to our friends Sarah and Aaron Adams and their kids Claire and Noel. These are the friends I have posted about before that we knew in Michigan and then got lucky enough to have move down here when we came down for John's internship. Having them here has been such a blessing. It made the transition so much easier and Sarah is one of my best friends. I was really bummed to see them go, but I am excited for their family and Aaron's chance to get his masters. Luckily they are moving to Phoenix, a place where John has family and where you can find cheap airfares to, so we will definitely be seeing them again. Evening knowing that, I still get a little teary-eyed thinking about them being gone. Anyway, here are some pics from our farewell dinner, starting with Sarah and I. . .

Then EZ and Claire. I just realized I didn't get one of Noel and Netta, which makes me sad. I am also sad that these next two super cute pictures are marred by the presence of my camera strap.

The amazing part of this last picture is that it was totally a spontaneous hug and despite not always getting along swimmingly in the past, EZ and Claire actually played really well together that night. Of course they wait till she is moving to start getting along.

The Past Month Part 1: Visitors

So I have kind of gone m.i.a. the last month, but for good reason. We had two weeks of visitors followed by two weeks of traveling, so now I will do my best to catch up on everything. We were kind of running a bed and breakfast here for a while. One weekend we had some friends spend Saturday night here and then a different set of friends spent Sunday night here and then that Wednesday my niece Sharon flew in to town to spend 2 weeks with us. That Saturday we moved EZ into our room to make room for our friends' kids and at one point we walked in our room to find that EZ and Netta had made themselves comfortable together in EZ's bed. I really hope they always get along this well.

Having my niece Sharon here was a blast. She got to come for her 13th birthday and it was just so nice to have another almost adult in the house. Thanks to her helping with the kids I was able to go to the dentist and hang out with my friend Sarah without our kids, but no worries I did not abuse her babysitting skills. We were able to do a ton of fun stuff. Sharon loves to read so there were lots of trips to the library and used bookstore. One of the main highlights was going to see the Round Rock Express, the minor league baseball team that plays in the Dell stadium. John gets tickets half off since he works for Dell and the lawn seats are only $6 to begin with so its quite the steal. Also on Monday, which is when we went, they have dollar drinks and dollar hot dogs. You can't beat that! Plus the kids had a blast. I couldn't believe how excited EZ was about watching the game. Now he talks about baseball all the time. Anyway, here are some pics from the game. Sharon and Netta hanging out.

Netta trying desperately to get something out of an empty cup.

EZ with a bright light above his head. I thought it was cool.