In A Nutshell from the Nut house

First, let me start by congratulating all you savvy bloggers who have figured out how to upgrade the look of your blogs. Mine, as you can see, is sporting the same old same old. However, I have a theory that at least Baby Boomers might agree with me on: "Old is the new New." Hmmm, perhaps that will make a good bumper sticker, t-shirt, or greeting card. Or, perhaps I will finally get around to updating my template.

Life has been particularly joyous around here. This morning I discovered that the strange noise coming from my bathroom was truly just a special kind of curiosity in action stemming from a two-year-old's discovery of a plunger, Dad's toothbrush, and undenied access to a toilet. When will Ben ever learn to stop leaving his toothbrush in somewhere so exposed and accessible, like the bathroom vanity drawer? He really should opt for the much wiser and discreet location where my toothbrush now resides...the sock drawer. Yes, the socks are all freshly laundered, so not a big sacrifice. The downside to its relocation is that I now have to walk eight more steps to get from the dresser to the bathroom sink, versus the zero that Ben has to walk to get his toothbrush. The upside, I don't ever find my toothbrush doing the backstroke in the toilet bowl.

Maddie is signed up to play field hockey this fall. I hope she loves it. She went to a field hockey clinic last weekend and had a good time.



So did Zack.

Potty training Zachary is an ongoing process. I will spare you almost all of the details, but will tell you that after days of bribes that failed to spark any desire to poop in the toilet, I got desperate and told him that if he pooped in the toilet we would go to Busch-Gardens. Well, that got him to the toilet quickly to do his stuff. While I was impressed that it worked, every time since then when I asked him to try to poop in the toilet he would say, "I already did reNembuh? I did last week in your bafroom." So, mission not that successful.

We did have a really fun visit to Busch-Gardens. Zack and Maddie both have had growth spurts since our last trip and were able to each ride several new rides. We left Mylie with Josh, then Uncle Sam came to pick her up from Josh and take her to spend the day with Grandma Burton. It was so nice to do Busch-Gardens without a stroller.

One of my favorite moments was slowly riding up the first big hill and Andrew turns to me and says, "Well, there's no turning back now..."

Here they are with their 3-D glasses getting ready to ride 'Curse of DarKastle'.




Brooke and Justin are moving soon to Austin, Texas. We're sad to have them moving so far away. The three boys are all especially sad, look how much the thought of moving has aged them...




Just a little over two weeks until school starts!!!!! I cannot emphasize enough how much I am looking forward to this. This blast from the past pretty much sums up my feelings: YAY!! (Click on this)