My narrow child and her friend Sadie

I love it when kids are learning new words and they get them all mixed up.  The other day Sadie came to me and said "Mommy, I am being very narrow."  I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but usually I don't associate 'Sadie' with 'narrow'.
Later on she surprised me by cleaning up her room very well without being asked.   After showing me her fine job she asked "Mommy, aren't I being narrow?"  After probing a little bit I realized what she meant to say was "Aren't I being thorough?"

 Sadie is super-duper, over-the-top excited about starting preschool next week.  On Monday we went to see her classroom and meet her teacher.  It all looks wonderful and very fun.  When we looked at all the name tags we were surprised to see another Sadie in the class.  (so much for trying to pick uncommon names).  The other Sadie was there meeting the teacher too, so we met her and the 2 Sadie's played together for a little while.  Now Sadie is even MORE excited about preschool because she has a friend...but she keeps forgetting her name.  Seriously.  She keeps calling her Grace.  She'll have to get more 'narrow' about that.

2nd Grade

Today is Noelle's first day of 2nd grade.  She was very excited to start and that makes it great for all of us.

Deep Creek Lake Vacation 2011

 The Spence Family on their annual lake vacation.  From Left to right:  'Great' Judy, Dave, Noah, Elizabeth, Ethan, Janelle, Sadie, Brad, Noelle, 'Grandma/Mom' and 'Grandpa/Dad'

 Sweet, sisterly moment (still working on some teeth for Noelle :)

 The 4 cousins (next year there will be another baby boy cousin!)

 fireworks one night

 water balloon fight one evening

 a flower picking walk one afternoon

 on the flower picking walk

 boating and tubing

Brad and Noelle

 Grandpa with Sadie and Noelle

 a little visitor for Sadie

 a trip up a chairlift to wonderful mountain views

 Grandma and Sadie

 The kids with their 'binoculars' made from toilet paper rolls

 cooling off in the lake

Cow Appreciation Day

Dress like a cow; get free food.  Sounds good to us! Friday, July 8th was Cow Appreciation Day.

Spence Happenings

Over the 4th of July Brad taught Noelle how to light a match and set off fireworks.  I guess now that she's 7, that's a normal thing.  So on Tuesday I taught Noelle the basics of sewing... a little blowing up...a little homemaking...it's all a balance.

We're making a patchwork 'quilt' (I use that term loosely) for her American Girl Doll (I use that term loosely too)

In other news, Sadie enjoyed one of her favorite pastimes, "Water on the Deck" today.  This includes various size containers, a few kitchen utensils and a hose.  During some point of this playtime the hose nozzle usually gets wedged between the frame and webbing of a patio chair so that the water can sprinkle down like a shower.  At one point Sadie came inside to "get something".  When she reappeared she was holding a bath scrubbie (that ball of webbing used to scrub yourself with body wash).  She said she was going to wash herself out on the deck.

I thought that was taking "water on the deck" a little too far so I asked her to put it back.  In the time it took her to return the said scrubbie I reevaluation my decision.  1)She's already wet 2) today is bath day and 3)there's an equivalent to a toddler shower spraying on our deck right now...maybe her idea isn't so bad.   So when she returned I sent her back to the bathroom to get the shampoo. 

Don't drive by our house too slow, you might see all 4 of us out there one day!