"I think I need a bath!"

I may look sweet and innocent, but I'm am completely filthy!
This picture doesn't even do justice for showing how dirty Carter truly is. Our back yard is finally getting landscaped, but right now it is complete dirt. When we had a backyard of weeds, the kids stayed a lot cleaner as they ran through it to the park. Now the weeds are gone, and it is a child's dream come true. It is also a mother's nightmare. I don't even bother keeping up on the kitchen floor. It constantly has dirt footprints everywhere.
Olivia asked me why I was taking a picture of Carter's feet. I told her it was because his feet were so dirty. I then saw her run outside and tell Eric that she had to get her feet really dirty so I would take a picture of her. When I didn't, she quickly put on her goggles and told me to take a picture of her "stylings."
This picture was my attempt to take a picture of how dirty Carter's hands were. He did not like it very much as you can see. Carter and Olivia turned the bath water completely brown, so I had to rinse and drain the water before I washed them. After soaking my entire bathroom with his splashing, Carter made his escape and ran around the house and jumped up on my bed.
Carter is finally starting to really talk. His vocabulary has expanded by 1000% in the last 3 weeks. His favorite words to yell around the house are Hanen (Hayden), wiby (Livy), Ovia (Olivia), Iwandat (I want that), Elmo and NO! He leaves the last sound off of lots of words like baa (bath), baa (ball), and boo (book). He is so cute all the time that he just melts my heart. I don't want him to grow up. Don't get me wrong. He is a stinker and a crazy monkey, but for some reason I find it more endearing with my last kid. We went to Silverwood yesterday, and he had the best time. He loved the bumper boats and the wave pool the most. Everytime I picked him up to leave the water, he would squirm and jump back in. He has no fear yet, and somehow thinks he can swim.

Olivia is being her typical self. She has finally figured out how to buckle herself in her carseat and will not let me do it. Sometimes she will not do it and she will tell me she is not buckled. I tell her to hurry up and get buckled. She matter of factly tells me she doesn't want to. I tell her that if I get in an accident she will die and we will miss her so much. She didn't seem to care until today she said, "oh, all my boyfriends would really miss me!" Then she decided to buckle herself. She is completely boy crazy. I don't know what to do with her. She likes to add the word up to most anything. She loves to use her watering can to water the flowers on the back porch. She says, "I really need to water up the flowers." Or she will say, "I'm really starving. I need to eat up." "I'm tired, I need to sleep up." "I don't want to get burned. I better sunblock up." The list goes on. She also told me today that I would be so happy, because she was going to be really reverent in Target. I told her she didn't need to be reverent in target, just obedient. She was annoyed with me and told me that she wanted to be reverent in Target. Why can she not have that same enthusiasm in church? When she was putting on her swimming suit today she said, "look, I have hippers like you. They are my hippy hippers." I figured out she was talking about her chest. She is so random. She makes up words all the time. At first I told her that wasn't what they were called. She asked me what they were called. I couldn't think of a good word that I wanted her to use so I said, "sure, you can call them that." Later she was calling them that again. Maybe we will just keep it that way for a few years.

She made her dancing debut at her recital last Saturday night. Unfortunately she loves her fans much more than dancing. She could see us on the front row and just kept on waving the whole time. Occasionally she would do a little bit of the dance and then get distracted again. At one point she was at the back of the stage when the rest of the class was in a line at the front. The teacher had to run back and grab her. Then she started smiling and waving again. At the end when her teacher was talking to the audience and thanking everyone, Olivia made her way to the front and was dancing around and waving at everyone again. When someone told her after that she stole the show, she asked them, "how did I steal the show?"

Anyway, I do have other children. Jackson and Hayden have had an action packed summer so far. They have done soccer camp, Shock football camp, and track camp. Jackson had scout day camp, and they slaughtered a buffalo in front of the boys. I was so disturbed. I thought Jackson would have nightmares, but he thought it was so cool. He has his summer sun bleached hair. I don't love how long it is, but I think he is so cute when he gets all tan with bleached out hair. Hayden is almost as tall as Jackson. It will be a very sad day when Hayden passes up Jackson. I'm trying to get them to not be so competetive, but it is not working. When I picked them up from soccer today, Jackson came to the car proudly waving a dollar that he had won in a header game. Hayden came looking grumpy. I asked him how he was doing, and he told me, "not that good." It turns out he was just mad, because Jackson got a dollar and he didn't. If I ask one of them to do something for me they say something like, "but where is Hayden?" Heaven forbid they do the slightest amount more work than the other. Hayden's front tooth is still dangling. It has been 3 weeks, and he still won't let me touch it. I might have to go yank it out when he is asleep.