Barbie and Ken Photoshoot

I came into my bedroom one day to find Barbie and Ken posed and ready for a blog photoshoot, compliments of Morgan and Jacqueline.

Note the tanker in the middle.  My hubby created that once for a men's pinewood derby.
He didn't win for speed, but . . . the coolness factor was high.

Random Conversation

Henry:  "Dad, can we buy a gun?"
Dad:  "What do you want a gun for Henry?"
Henry: "Do you mean a real gun, Dad?"
Dad:  "I don't know.  What are you talking about?"
Henry:  "Well, if I had a space ship, I might go to space all alone, so that would be a bad idea.  So I want a gun."

Rock Climbing

So . . . in all honesty, there is a problem with rock climbing.  Henry, especially, lacks a healthy fear of heights.  Sometimes I walk outside and find him on top of the minivan.  As we left a building the other day, I had a hard time keeping him from climbing the brick columns in front of the building.  He begs to climb trees.  I tell him if he can reach the bottom branch, he can climb it.  He hasn't reached many yet, but I'm sure that's coming.

Nonetheless, we try to fit in a trip to the rock wall as many Saturdays as possible.

Here we all are at  the YMCA 30-foot rock wall:

Jackie and Henry at the top together.

Morgan is still a little afraid of heights.  I'm confident she'll conquer that at some point.  

Maybe then I'll find her  on top of the minivan.  Just kidding.

That's me . . . I recently made it up the third hardest climb.  Like all things, it gets a little better each time.

This is harder than it looks.  When I'm done, my fingers cramp, and my forearms shake.

Web Site I Wish I had Read Before I had Kids

Wow--I wish I had seen something like this website when I first had kids.   It is a slide show of some very obvious childhood diseases, about half of which we have experienced over the last 13 years.  Thankfully, we've avoided the more serious diseases like whopping cough, measles, chicken pox, etc., by vaccinating our children.

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/slideshow-childhood-illnesses-parents-should-know

I'm posting this at 4:30 A.M. after Henry just woke up with a sore throat and a 101 degree under-arm fever.  He's been exposed to at least one other child with strep throat, so I think it might be that, though I got on the internet because he was coughing a bit.   We'll see if he's still coughing when he wakes up, or if that was just because he was upset.  We'll also get out a flashlight tomorrow and look at his throat.

We gave him some Motrin and took his temperature.  I always do it in that order, making sure to take his temperature before the Motrin kicks in so that I can tell the doctor if we go in.  Then I let him suck on a throat lozenge while he cuddled on my lap.  He calmed down and is back in bed.