The Brimer Family: Daredevils, VBS & Dollywood

I've always known that this age was a difficult age. I get that. I remember spending many days preventing Jack from eating dirt, choking on toys that claimed they weren't choking hazards, and trying to keep him from tripping over his own feet to prevent him from skinning his knees (he still does this...) But Lucy is another story. I've started calling her Lucy Knievel. She is doing everything and anything to test the limits of her 18 month old body to the point where people have started giving me questioning looks in Target - "Oh that poor baby! She's just full of scrapes!" Or "Bless her heart, those bruises. You really have to watch them at this age." Or my favorite (which isn't relevant but reflects on my parenting) "Wow she's a tan baby. She must spend a ton of time in the sun." Translation: I'm giving my daughter skin cancer - what's wrong with me? Sorry folks. Lucy is a daredevil. She leaps off of concrete steps - as seen above - falls off of decks, trips over her own feet and skins her knee. And to top it off, yes she can tan. Even through multiple layers of sunscreen. Lucy continues to defy science and gravity with her injuries and her skin tone. Sorry people. (This is hilarious but a cashier in Walmart asked me if her father was Italian or Spanish since her skin is so dark. I quickly looked from my pale redheaded son to her and said, "Um...no.")

She may be a daredevil but she is also a badass. True story. She walked off of Melissa's porch, landed on the concrete with her forehead, scrapped half her forehead off, and cried for MAYBE 30 seconds. Then she was good. Meanwhile Melissa and I are panicking about concussions and pain and poor Lucy's well being. To top it off, immediately after she stops crying, Anderson, Jack, and Max all have meltdowns that continue for 20 minutes until we leave. Meanwhile, the Goose is playing it cool. You know why? BECAUSE SHE'S THE GIRL! Why must women always hold the world together? Civilization needs us in more ways than one.

Because her godmother felt bad about the fall (which is silly b/c she was halfway across the yard when it happened and I was 3 feet from Lucy) she brought Lucy a Minnie Mouse pillow. Lucy now sleeps with it. The fact that she can say "Minnie Mouse" makes it better :)

The next week we immersed ourselves in the most awesome religion ever - Catholicism (duh) - by doing Vacation Bible School! This was the first year Jack has qualified for it so of course we brought the Glovers along to make it even more awesome.

Seeing him sitting there ready to learn is the cutest ever. He spent the rest of the week singing songs about Jesus (none of which he learned from me) and bringing home crafts about weird animals.

Jack in the end of the day sing along. I love how awesome he is :)

VBS lasted from 9-12 so after I picked him up we'd do a nice afternoon park visit or slip n slide fun in the backyard. Before Andy came home though I would need to get dinner going. So at one point i turned on the tv and let them watch together. This lasted about 45 seconds but seeing these two heads together for 45 seconds did make my heart melt a bit.

On Tuesday I got some adult time to hang with friends and met up with Melissa and Chelsea for Painting with a Twist! It was so fun and our paintings actually look somewhat believable!

This is random but Lucy tried helping me out with dinner by picking out recipes (aka shredding my Julia Child cookbook.)

Jack has almost mastered this whole "dressing himself" thing.

Wrap up day at VBS. Hands down, my favorite part of the day came when I got to see the end of day performance that they did each day where kids would sing songs and talk about how Jesus loved them. Jack would come in with his little class and I could see him searching the crowd for me each day. Once he spotted me, I got a huge smile, a frantic wave, and then a big show of "check out how well I know this song and how well I can do the sign language!" He really is an awesome kid.

His crafts. I learned a lot about Jesus that week...and moles...

We rounded out the week after VBS ended with a trip to Dollywood! This was Widdi's last time to go this summer since she's leaving for Greece - again! - and it was Rachel's first time EVER. When we arrived I immediately sent them on the river raft ride with Jack while Lucy and I had a snack and waited for them.

I seriously think if Dollywood made Cheetos a ride she'd be all over it.

I got so many cute ones of them.

But the one where Rachel is rejoicing and Lizzi's is giving a "what the heck, you didn't get drenched?" look is my favorite. All the while the little red head sits there enjoying everything.