The Things You Do When You Don't Have a Pool

It was really hot on Saturday and Alyssa was watching the kids across the street have a water fight. She wanted to go play with them. Instead, we set up our sprinkler that attaches to our hose. I've been thinking about doing it all week because it has been so hot and it hasn't rained in awhile. It was an even better idea on Saturday since Danny had pulled some weeds and mowed the lawn in the front on Friday. Alyssa had a blast playing in the sprinkler. Here are some of my favorite pictures.She has asked us four times a day every day since to let her play in the sprinkler. Unfortunately for her, we have had rain since Sunday night.

Our Block Party

Some of our neighbors threw a block party on Saturday. It is the third year in a row that they have done it. When we got the invite, the time said from 2pm-11pm and we thought "what are they going to do for 9 hours?" Around 2pm, we looked up our street and saw a fire truck parked there and some firemen standing around it. Danny took Alyssa up to check it out.
We don't know who had the connections, but it was there for maybe an hour for the kids to come and sit in and talk to the firemen.

Alyssa loved being able to sit inside of it and pretend she was driving it.

They also rented one of those inflatable bounce houses for the kids that was up starting around 2. They had food, music, some lawn games and I think someone put together a mini obstacle course for the kids but we missed that. We went up around 5:30 and stayed till about 8. It was a nice chance to meet some of our neighbors. Danny even got an invite to watch the UFC fights that night at one of the houses. This is just one of the many reasons why we love our neighborhood, especially our street.

Twins

On Sunday, after Church, I noticed that Danny was wearing the same outfit as Alyssa. We took some pictures of them while we were out on our walk that evening.

The funniest part about it is that they aren't even common colors to wear, especially together.
I also liked that they both had navy blue flip flops on.

Random Pictures

We felt bad about the lack of pictures to post last week, so we tried to take some pictures of our uneventful week and here is the result. We use the little basket pictured below to store books on our main level. Ashley's favorite activity is to empty it out as soon as I put the books away. One day, I looked over and saw her emptying the basket and then work very hard to climb into the basket (another favorite thing to do) while is was still on the lower level of our endtable. She sat in there for a good 5 minutes and when I finally decided to take a picture, she climbed out just before I could get a shot. Alyssa, as usual, is happy to do anything that her sister does that we see as funny or picture worthy. So she climbed into the basket so we could get a picture of her. I think she was disappointed to discover that she didn't fit in that position as well as Ashley.
Here is Ashley on a different day sitting in her favorite basket. I'm not sure why Alyssa has that facial expression because I didn't take this picture.
I just liked this picture of Ashley because it shows that she really does have hair. In addition, that hair is also showing signs of being curly. She also just looks very happy.

Here is Alyssa with her breakfast of choice. She wants me to buy these every time we go to the grocery store and I finally got to the point of being sick of eating them. On this particular day, I let her pick out one donut and her choice was this blue sprinkle one.

I didn't take this picture either, but it made me laugh because Alyssa looks like a little tiger in it.

On a side note, in case anyone has noticed the condition of Alyssa's legs, don't be alarmed. She seems to take after me and bruise very easily. And she is still learning how to walk in her summer sandals.

Alyssa Goes to the Dentist

This is actually Alyssa's second trip to the Dentist, but we didn't take the camera the first time. We spent a few days talking up her upcoming trip to the dentist. We recently got a Dora book from the library where she went to the dentist and kept telling her she was going to the dentist like Dora. That got her excited. Here she is in front of the Dentists Office.

Somehow, she remembered the bib from her last Dentist trip and talked about how she would have to lift up her hair so that they could put the bib on her. Here she is with her bib.

Danny is the one that took her and he said that she did very well. She let the hygenist look at and clean all of her teeth, but she wouldn't let her polish them. And she let the Dentist look at them too.

Here she is after they are done looking in her mouth. She is glad that that part is over with.And here is the best part about the whole trip...a new toothbrush and a toy airplane.

What's new with the Wheelers

Sorry that I haven't updated in awhile. I have been traveling and I'm just now recovering from it. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to post so this may be boring.
Three days after Danny got back from his trip to Utah for Brian's Graduation, I made almost the exact same trip to meet my sisters and my mom for BYU Women's Conference. I was out there Wednesday afternoon through Saturday afternoon and it was such a refreshing getaway. It was so nice to be with my mom and sisters without any of us having to worry about kids. We got to sit around and talk, eat a lot, and go to the different classes for the conference. I'm so happy that Danny was willing to stay with the girls so I could get away.
As I said above, I got back late Saturday afternoon and we left Sunday morning for Des Moines. Danny had a conference that he needed to attend and we went along. We figured Des Moines was an easy trip to tag along on since we still have a lot of friends up there. We had three busy days of running around Des Moines trying to see everyone that we wanted to see, swimming in the Hotel pool, and getting things done in order to finalize our move (closing our bank account, picking stuff up that we left at the house, etc). Danny spent this time at his conference and visiting with people that he used to work with. When we had Danny with us, we all enjoyed eating at restaurants that we have missed since we moved. Most people that read our blog already know this, but we closed on our townhouse in Norwalk two weeks ago, so the trip up there helped us to make our move final. Now we will just have to see if this makes O'Fallon feel more like home to us.
After returning from Des Moines, we got busy doing laundry, cleaning, and making our backyard presentable for the BBQ that we are having here tonight.
I had an awesome Mothers Day thanks to my wonderful husband and kids. I will try to be better at taking pictures this week and make our posts a little more interesting for you next week.