when you’re 200 yards from your house?

This weekend was our last weekend before Zach officially starts camp season. This Friday the counselors come, next Monday the kids come. Zach is no longer Zach, he’s Maverick (his camp name). He’s no longer daddy, he’s boss. We’re happy to share him, because he’s great at what he does and we believe in getting kids away from the gameboys and into nature, but we miss him…lots. So we celebrated Father’s Day and went camping last night.

Truth be told hotflawedmama is never excited about camping. Zach asked how I could know I don’t like it since I haven’t gone in, oh, 10 years. It’s simple. I like sleeping in my own bed, I hate bugs, I love uninterrupted sleep and I like having something more than a glorified sheet between me and hungry animals. But, since I love that guy so much I agreed.

And it turned out fun (except for the sleep thing). After a yummy cookout, some games, and some books we tucked the kids in. They wanted to sleep in the same tent together so we let them try. After an hour of their precious giggles coming from the tent we separated them. Dailah and hotflawedmama in one tent, the boys in the other. Which basically means Dailah and I froze with 0 body heat and Zach woke up dripping in sweat. Anywho, worth the memories. And the pictures.

What Zach did when we first got out to the site.

What I did..indulged.

The moment the tent was up, the kids were playing some UNO.

Doozie during gametime.

After books and before all the giggling. Pardon the shot of my legs (seriously?) but they looked so excited to sleep together.

How they were “sleeping” originally.

It was cooooold in the morning.

But warm with lots of love.

Just my lovies.

Not bad for our first ever family camping experience.

I need to take blogging breaks more often. I received a number of emails, comments and facebook messages asking where I went and why I’m not telling you about our days anymore. I really felt the love, people, and appreciate that! So mostly just enjoying life over here in flawedmama land. Here are a few reasons why.

1) Baseball. Though the coaches leave a little to be desired, Trysten is having a hoot of a time. And look how precious he looks in his little uniform.

2) More baseball. Trysten loves playing catch with his dad. His dad loves playing catch with his son. Dad often gets a face that exudes more pride than a man his age should ever show. Though we’re trying very hard not to put all of our passions on our children, when a kid has this arm it’s hard not to. 🙂

3) Wedding receptions. Had one for a high school friend of mine last Saturday. I hadn’t seen her or a few of the other girls there in a LONG time. I’m one of those women who believes very strongly in the power of females and specifically, the power of female friendships. I didn’t know I was missing something in my life but after having spent some time with these girls I realized I missed them more than I thought. My cup runneth over. (sorry bad picture, it was from my phone)

4) The lake. Last weekend after said wedding reception we went to my parents’ lakehouse. Decent weather, lots of fun. Proof is, as they say, in the pudding. Thus, the pudding:

5) Dailah got a hair cut. It was traumatic (for me, not her) but it’s oh so cute. There’s a decent chance it’ll be grown back by tomorrow morning with her hair’s tenacity but I must say she’s cute regardless. And the girl simply loves to be doted on.

What else? Oh yes…

6) Celebrating Julie’s referral for her precious little boy and girl. As you can see from her 126 comments (seriously, 126! If you lined everyone I’ve ever known up, it might reach to 126!) the adoption (and entire cyber) world celebrated with her.

That’s it in a nutshell. Still loving life over here, even more so because the sun is out. The sun is out, I have a husband with the sweetest butt in the world who I happen to love more than anything, kids who could win best children ever and 2 four legged friends who are presently begging for some lovin’. Not a bad life indeed.

I don’t know if you all have seen this or not but just watch it. Brings it all home for a lot of us. Why water matters. Why people, regardless of where they live, matter. Why Christmas is just 7 months away and there are already people gearing up for the next Water for Christmas season. Why we need you and everyone else to “get” this. Because it’s not about us, it’s about them. And they are so worth it.

Today Trysten and Tariku were playing with some figurines while I was coloring with Dailah. I hear “gunshots” during their game and just kind of watch them. All of a sudden Trysten yells,

YOU JUST SPANKED ME IN THE NUTS!

Which is hilarious for a girl like me but I felt I owed it to my future self to nip this one in the bud, so to speak. Not knowing how he would even talk about spanking (we’re not a spanking family) or nuts (we typically refer to them in their real term “testicles” or “testies” sometimes a mishap happens and it’s “tesi” which is slightly offensive to me but, I digress). Trysten goes on to explain that nuts were what squirrels ate, obviously. Why didn’t I think of that? I offered that perhaps we just shouldn’t talk about spanking things and leave the nuts to the squirrels.

After baseball practice Trysten was feeling like some catch with daddy. I tagged along for the fun of it. Both Zach and I were athletes, I even played softball for a time so the last week or so I have been interjecting with my own words of wisdom. Typically he looked at Zach with his big doe eyes all lovey and looked at me with as close to an eye roll as I allow.

When it came time to practice hitting off the tee, I just said, “Remember, keep your eye on the ball the whole time.” (See, mom, I was listening too!) He turns to me and says, “I know mom, it’s not how hard you swing but how well you swing.” I was impressed! I ask, “Who told you that? Your dad?” “No mom, you did.”

I’m so good I don’t even remember how brilliant I am sometimes.

It’s pretty easy loving this kid.

for the lack of pictures is because the camera is getting fixed. Nothing big, warranty will cover it, but it was a sad day handing it over nonetheless. (Note: The camera I use is actually property of Camp’s so it disappears during camp season to its rightful owner).

I know you guys are just here for the pictures so here’s one before Dailah got her stitches out.

We have our old camera as well but it is dying a slow, painful death. I have money saved for a new one since my old new one broke (my parents and sister were generous people) so will be looking into a new camera.

Any recommendations? I know you bloggers love cameras, if you love yours or have heard of good ones, leave a comment or shoot me an email. Always open to suggestions! Oh, but it must be digital and must not take a large learning curve, it also must take pictures of my “good angle” only, whatever that is).

That’s how I would describe today. We didn’t do much at all, but got some time outside and the whole day was spent as a family, my kind of day. We are quickly approaching summer camp season and thus less daddy time so getting to spend an entire day with him felt like Christmas!

In other news, we are enjoying our cable. The day it was getting installed I picked Trysten up from school and told him the news. His reaction was hilarious.

Trysten: Now we can be a real family!

Hotflawedmama: What do you mean a real family? What do real families do that we don’t?

Trysten: Well every family I know, the kids wake up early and turn on cartoons and the adults sleep later.

That is just funny to me. And, sounds like something I’d be interested in. Between that, and the other fun things he’s brought home from school. Small and incomplete list below:

–Talk to the hand (though he doesn’t quite know how/when to say that)
–What in the heck?
–Butthead
–You’re stupid (though those last two he’s never actually said to anyone, he just told me someone said something mean to him and that’s what it was).
–Mom you can’t beat up that kid (to be fair, he said that AFTER I asked him who called him stupid and then TRIED to say under my breath, “I’m going to hit that kid.”)

There are many more. My kids are all at hilarious wording phases. Dailah because she’s just learning the english language. So she seems to say “penis” a lot but it’s rarely exactly what she wants to say. Tariku because he also is learning the english language. Trysten because he is learning the somewhat adult version of the language.

Good stuff this parenting.

Do you guys know on the news sometimes how they do the “Around the World in 60 seconds.” bit? Well here’s my version..

AROUND THE KLIPSCHS IN (SLIGHTLY MORE THAN) 60 SECONDS!!!!!!!

–Trysten had his first baseball practice yesterday. Before practice he told me he was a little excited and a little nervous. He didn’t know if he could hit it that hard. Thought it was pretty cute. Came home to find out his jersey number was 15. This was both Zach and my numbers throughout our lives in sports. Could it be fate? Seriously.

–Taught Tariku how to tell a joke. The best joke, really. The one about tickets to the gun show. After he tells it he throws his hands in the air and says, “hey yo”. Kind of makes me pee my pants a little bit every time.

–We broke down and bought cable for our television. We recently paid off a few bills and found just enough spare change in the couch to work it out. They come today. Zach woke up early to break in the new horses out at camp (so he says) but I happen to think he couldn’t sleep with all the excitement and promise of watching the Cubs play in our own home.

–Dailah bumped her head again IN THE SAME FLIPPIN’ SPOT. It got a nice goose egg and probably ruined her chances at those little kid beauty pageants. Lucky for her we had no intention of entering her in one but since she keeps hitting her head we are thinking of outfitting her with a snazzy helmet, which I’m sure is second best to beauty pageants.

I’m sure there is more but it finally stopped raining outside and the kids’ giggles are beckoning me to join them. Hope your day is tops!

To my Abe. Our “baby”. He turns 1 today. Hard to believe this guy is only 1-years-old.

He is a full head taller than me when we dance. He is 36″ at his shoulders. He is lovable and hilarious. He is also quite a little speedster when an animal crosses his path. Most of the time he seems like a wise soul (very Abe of him) but once in awhile he’ll get his puppy streak and it looks simply hilarious on a 200lb dog.

Love him. Look how much he’s grown!

Around the house (some pre and some post stitches)…

Here is a link to a woman on the news. Her group is Project Hopeful and she is just one awesome lady!

Here is a link to Julie’s article. Great rebuttal to another woman’s article that is referenced in Julie’s. Confusing enough?

Enjoy!