Thump, Thump, THUMP!

Do you hear that sound? "Thump, thump, THUMP!" That is me. Banging my head against a wall. OMG, Natalia is driving me CRAZY! She is such a pest right now. All she does is bug Emma. I swear she knows every button to push to get a reaction out of her and she uses them over and over again all day. She will sprint into Emma's room, grab the nearest item and run, while Emma just stands there and screams. OMG, I am so tired of it. You have no idea. If Natalia knows Emma is about to sit somewhere or do something she takes off running like a bat out of hell and makes sure she gets there first. Of course this leads to more screaming and crying from Emma. If Emma finally stands up to Natalia or we catch her in the act and give her shit Natalia will throw herself of the nearest piece of furniture and scream and cry into it. Is there a crime against having your child's voice box removed? Because right now I would happily sign her up for that. Or better yet, some sort of sound barrier between me and the kids. One that I could turn on and off as needed. Something like the Muffliato spell in Harry Potter. Oh how I wish I had something like that.

Tonight was one of those classic bratty little sister moments. Emma was sitting on the floor listening to her mp3 player and not bothering anyone. Natalia leaned over and yank the headphone out of Emma's ear. Just to be a brat. No other reason. URG!! Luckily Daddy caught her and she got in trouble.

In Natalia's defence, it's got to be tough when you receive mixed messages like this from your big sister.



It's not much of a "Happy Party" when you are constantly being told to "Stay Out" of the venue, aka Emma's Room.

To add to the frustrations around this house is this awful summer weather. It's so wet,yucky,cold and very unpredictable that it's tough to do anything with the kids. They are bored of being stuck in the house. They want to get out and do stuff but it always seems to be storming. This was the weather around here the other day.



Hail stones, the size of cherry pits, pelting our house. Not to mention the crazy thunderstorms. Just this morning we had one that took out the sensor in one of Gerben's coolers at work.

At least on Monday we did get out of the house for a bit. I took both the kids to Burford to meet up with some friends at the local splash pad and playground. It's awesome and the kids had a blast. Seeing this new splash pad and playground does make me miss a little bit of Burford. It would be fabulous to have this close to home but them again, it makes a great day trip.







Today, Emma had a classmate over to play. It was nice because adding one extra kid to the house cuts down on the fighting significantly plus gives the girls something different to do. They spent some time in the pool but the majority of the day was spent crafting. We did tons and tons of shrinky dinks and of course make beaded necklaces to hang them home.

Tomorrow, Emma has 2 more classmates coming for a visit. I am hoping that goes as smoothly as today does. Then on Monday, she starts 2 weeks of summer camp. It is going to be so good for her to get out of the house but I will need to find things for Natalia to do as well.

On a final note, I just have to share these pics with you. They are of a very cool leaf that was on my patio step this morning. It had really weird furry water drops on it. I strongly recommend clicking on the image for a larger view. It's cool.