Who clipped my fingernails?

I think I forgot to mention that Andrew now knows how to draw stars.  We were at the meeting and he usually wants to sit on my lap. I tried showing him how by holding his hand and going over the same star over and over and over again.  It didn't help. I finally wrote numbers so he had to connect the 1 to the 2, etc.  THAT worked.  He only had to follow the numbers once and for some reason it all made sense to him.  He loves to draw stars on everything now.

I also found it impressive that he recently drew a picture of an airplane (a really good one) and when he tried to write plane - he recognized that it was wrong and corrected it.  He started with palan before he realized it has no a there and corrected it all on his own writing Plane.

He asked me when he can go play golf again. When he described the experience he remembered and "statues that made noise" and some of those statues "moo-ed" - I realized he was talking about the first time we took him to Gatlinburg!  Wow!  He was only 23 months old then!

Saturday morning mommy had an upset stomach from the movie jaunt, and daddy had to work. Andrew was still up by 6am. He is much more comfortable with the puppies now. All morning he's been picking the puppies up and walking around with them, and then forcing them to sit in his lap. Amazingly, I think they're actually bonding with him and they are being so tolerant.

He has been interested in learning how to make paper airplanes.  Daddy is trying to help him think about the steps involved. I'm personally not very good at it.

 Monday morning Andrew said, "I know how to make carrot cake. First you get some of the brown stuff and mix it up, then put carrots on top with candles. but it's not really a birthday cake."
Monday evening, Ted called me to the back door while holding a drippy Andrew. He said that Andrew jumped in the pool before Daddy realized he wasn't wearing a life jacket.  Turns out - Andrew jumped in and then doggie paddled about 5-6 feet to the steps! Whew!  He did it again to show me, and then I asked him to see how far he could swim from the steps to daddy. He swam several feet and then stopped trying and turned to look at me and started to sink and daddy had to rescue him. Silly boy.

Tuesday morning we were off to the park before the heat set in. He had a lovely time with another young boy and his dad chasing them around.  The boy was just slightly bigger than him, 6 years old, and wanted to go down the firepole but was scared. Andrew said, "I'll show you how! I'll teach you!" Andrew explained that you grab hold of the pole, then wrap one foot around the side and then grab on with the other foot and slide down.
Later in the afternoon, Andrew came in the house screaming "I think I got stung by a bee"  Sure enough, he had a large stinger sticking out of his foot. I used a piece of paper to scrape it off and a thin wire-like piece still stuck behind. I finally pulled that out, then had daddy hold cold to it while I soaked a cotton ball in Roman Chamomile to add to it.  Once I got a cotton ball soaked in epsom salt, baking soda, and essential oil - then daddy wrapped his foot and ankle in an ace bandage to hold the cotton and some fake ice cubes on the area.  Two hours later and it just looks like he'd had a splinter in his foot. 

Wednesday evening on the way to Kingdom Hall, Andrew decided to open a thermos that has been sitting in the hot car for days. It had fermented and exploded fruit/veggie juice the deep color of beets all over his face, his body and the seats around him. I saw a towel lying under the seat and threw that for him to wipe his face and mouth off. We hustled home and while I cleaned up the car, daddy cleaned up Andrew and got him changed. We got back to the hall with just three minutes to spare!

Thursday afternoon he was excited to go back out to the farm to return a few of Kaleb's things. He got to swim in their pool for a bit. Then Kaleb, Katara, and Andrew went into the woods to a deer stand. Later we had dinner with everyone including uncle David who came by.
I brought my massage chair for anyone interested. The kids wanted to try it and play on it and of course don't fit. Andrew asked me, "how do you work that head to foot thing?" 

Friday daddy was home for July 4th and started early trimming trees and clearing brush at the back fence of our lot. We think one of the trees will be good for Andrew to try climbing, but hopefully it will also cut down on the ticks the puppies keep getting.  Our neighbor Amber came to play for a while too and they kept going back and forth between the houses finding things to do.
After it got dark and right after we put Andrew to bed, the fireworks outside started. So Ted got the ladder and hustled Andrew up to the roof where they could watch a bunch of fireworks easily. Andrew thought it was awesome but he said he was scared of being up on the roof and wished he could just watch from the ground. We have too many trees in the way though.

Saturday evening daddy set up the camping tent in the back yard. Andrew was SO excited his feet barely hit the ground as he bounced and ran from the house to the tent.  They let the puppies in the tent with them and apparently are very tired Sunday morning because of it.  Overnight, Andrew seemed obsessed about having his ladybug nightlight on in the tent, until daddy showed him the real stars above them and his eyes adjusted to see in the dark. The puppies enjoyed sleeping on Andrew.

Sunday morning daddy started trimming the privot trees and Andrew was hauling them to the brush pile. I came with the wagon and a rake to speed up that process. We all worked hard and it was H-O-T outside.  It took several wagon loads to get the job done.  They went swimming for a bit afterwards where he got to try out the new inflatable alligator, and went to Lowes to buy a dog house to put together (save time on building one). The boys decided to listen in to the meeting with me (we're the third meeting, it's pretty perfumey in the hall by then) By the time the watchtower started Andrew was out cold on the couch. Nothing woke him up. We used that opportunity to red light him and clip his long fingernails!  We woke him up to feed him dinner and give him a bath. The first thing he asked is "who clipped my fingernails?!"

I bought him a new water mask and snorkel which he has been so obsessed with he wants to wear them even out of water. I caught him earlier climbing on the brush pile and trying to put them back on. Then he wanted to wear them in the bathtub too.