Lucas happy to help with the corn!

Matthew helping, but not liking how it feels. He's a bit on the sensitive side when it comes to weird feeling objects.

One of our favorite things about summer is sweet corn. After dinner at my parents last week, we came home with a large amount of produce from their and a neighboring farmer's garden. Lucas was more than excited-he asks for sweet corn frequently in the summer, and so he and Matthew set to shucking the corn and getting it ready to eat. Then, while they were outside helping Derrick, Natalie spent most of her time at the sliding glass door, banging on it because she was missing the fun!

Letters for Uncle Daniel

Since Uncle Daniel is in Ft. Benning, GA, at basic training, the boys decided to write him some letters and draw him some pictures. I think they turned out great.

Matthew's letter: "I love and like you. You are awesome." His picture has a cross, a rocket, a snake, and a cat.




Lucas's letter says: "I love you. You are nice. What kind of gun are you going to use?" His picture includes a cross, a rocket, and a laser gun.

A Hurst Family Summer Night in Pictures

Matthew, Lucas, Derrick, and Natalie enjoying popsicles on the porch.
Matthew showing his "Boom, boom..Firepower!" pose.
Lucas and his silly bands.
Natalie splashing in the sprinkler.
Matthew and Lucas at the sprinkler again.


Matthew running through the sprinkler.
Lucas running through the sprinkler.

I Guess Under the Table is Better Than on the Table

The walking around....


The graceful lowering to the ground...


The exit...

Natalie's newest location to play is under the kitchen table. Let's just say that I sweep under there more often than I used to...stray food from dinner isn't something she needs to be digesting. So, she's been pulling up for a few weeks now. Now she's pretty much mastered the skill, and has gotten extremely comfortable moving from one piece of furniture-within a short distance-to the next. That's where the table comes in. She crawls into the kitchen from the living room, and makes her way under the table. She then proceeds to pull up on a chair, and walk her way around from chair to chair. After a few minutes, she decides she's done with that, so she carefully makes her way down and tries to crawl out. Inevitably, she squawks on her way out because she is "stuck"..aka she's going out between two chairs and needs someone to move them apart so she can get out. She's also developed quite the sassy attitude..as seen in the foot propped up on the high chair tray in the picture below!

As far as the boys go, their reading is growing by leaps and bounds! I make them have about 20 minutes of quiet reading time everyday. They have to choose two books to read, an activity book (of which they do 5 pages), and can do a puzzle or word search book, too. Last night, Matthew was engrossed in his LEGO Star Wars Visual Encyclopedia-compliments of Grandma Patty-and I was able to tear it away from him so we could read together. He and Lucas both read a lot of what I think are huge words for second graders-dehumanization, concussion, etc.

In other news, Lucas is becoming quite the logical little thing. While driving by the dry cleaners the other day, here is our conversation:
Lucas: "Mommy, what is that place?"
Me: "The dry cleaners. Why?"
Lucas: "Because we haven't been there in a long time. Why do we go there?"
Me: "That's the place we take our fragile clothes that I can't put in the washer. We don't have a lot of fragile summer clothes."
Lucas: "Maybe we should take Daddy's work jeans there. They are very fragile."
NOTE: Derrick's work jeans have huge holes in the knees, rips in the back pockets, and paint and grass stains all over them.
As if that wasn't logical enough, while I was on the computer he was in the office with me and observing two clocks we have in here. One is a standard wall clock, with regular numbers. The other is a small decorative clock with Roman numerals.
Lucas: "Mommy, this clock must be really old." (the small one with the Roman numerals.)
Me: "Why do you say that?"
Lucas: "Because it has old fashioned numbers on it. The other one has real numbers on it."
Pretty logical, isn't it?

Too Big for Her Own Good

She's at it again..moving more swiftly. Yep, the nine month old is getting big for her britches. She's catching on so quickly, I can't keep up with writing it all down..This week she's mastered pulling up on the couch-rather gracefully I might add-and scootching her way from one end to the other. She even tried to let go of the couch to transfer to the coffee table yesterday.
Wednesday I found her pulled up at the potty in the boys' bathroom..good thing the lid was closed. Anything she can pull up on, she does..including in the bathtub. She's a wild child. I also gave her graham crackers last week, which she's all about when she needs a snack. Her new sound sounds like she's saying "ok, ok, ok" really fast, or "go, go, go" really fast. Too funny. Too big...she's into EVERYTHING, and her crawling speed is growing rapidly. She's getting too big too fast..

We LOVE the Spray Park!

When we moved back to Marysville about five years ago, we were invited by another mom/preschoolers group to go to the Dublin Spray Park. Ever since, we go several times during the summer. We love this place. First, it's free. Second, there's a huge lawn and we like to take picnics, or snacks, and spend a whole morning or afternoon there. Also, it's not a very far drive, and the kids can run around and play, and stay cool at the same time. It's a win-win. The boys were old enough last summer that I don't have to watch them every second, and as long as I can see them, we're all fine. Yesterday was our first time there this summer. It was a super hot day, and I took my chances it wouldn't be too busy in the afternoon-assuming other, more sensible mothers had taken their kids home for lunch, naps, etc. So, we headed out around 2:30. It wasn't crowded at all, and the boys LOVE when all the water turns on full blast and they stand under the waterfalls. Natalie and I sat contentedly at one of the fountains and watched it shoot up and she splashed around in it. Great fun!

VBS and the Zoo

Vacation Bible School was last week, and it was quite the success. This is Lucas modeling his craft from the first night. The best part of it, was that Matthew and Lucas were able to put their faith into action. They had invited four friends-two from school and two from the neighborhood, and all four of them came! It was so exciting to see the boys excited about sharing church with their school friends. The theme was Joseph this year, and we had a huge tent up in the worship area for the "marketplace", opportunities to create things with hieroglyphics, and they even made bricks from mud and straw for an activity on one of the evenings.

Since we've moved into our new house, we've done a lot of entertaining...more so than we used to. We had the Hurst side over for grilled pizza last Saturday. It was possibly the BEST grilled pizza Derrick's made, yet. While they were here, we had the sprinklers going, so the boys took full advantage of running through them and getting as soaked as possible. Not to mention the pop up thunderstorm we had, which of course Auntie Darragh took them running through puddles afterwards.
Natalie also had her feet in the grass for the first time. She loved it! She sat so nicely, for quite a little while, watching the sprinklers and the boys ride their bikes.



Today was our first zoo trip of the year. We went to check out the polar bear exhibit, and it was very cool..very crowded, but there is an area where you can walk down a ramp, and see them swimming from underneath. There were two of them swimming around, and it was very fun to watch. Of course, we had to go to the snake house, touch pool, and see the Asia Quest exhibit. They even found a little kid to trade silly bands with..only my kids!

Last night, it was very cute..Natalie has an interest in Lucas lately. She wanted up on the couch with him, because he was sucking his fingers. She pulled his fingers out of his mouth, and put them in her own...She is getting so big. She's pulling up on furniture, she wants everything the boys have (including their toys which drives them crazy), and she wants to sit with them.