Anatomy of a Pool

Many of you know that we had to replace our swimming pool liner this season. The old one was really worn out, sunbleached, and had some small tears in it. We thought you might like to see a series of photos of the process of replacing a pool liner. It was really quite interesting.

Step 1: Suck all of the water out of the pool. You can see a lovely ring of algae on the old cover since our pool sat all winter with only about 1/4 of the pool full.

Step 2: Cut out all of the old liner in pieces and fold neatly for the trash man.

Another photo of part of the liner cut out. I didn't get one of the pool when it was completely bare and all cement-exposed, but you get the idea. See all of the water in the bottom? It took a week to get rid of enough of it to put the new liner in. Because of our ground being so saturated from all of the rain, water kept seeping back into the pool. Looks kind of like the pool has a bad wedgie.

Step 3: Affix new liner under the rims and trim. Don't fall in.

Step 4: Suck all of the air out from under the liner. See the vacuum-like machine next to the diving board? It sucked the air, causing the liner to get pulled toward the walls--it's all very much like those space bags on TV.

Step 5: Add water. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Keep adding water, maybe go grab a beer. We might be here awhile.
Step 6: Go grab a raft and then think twice about getting into the newly lined pool. It's freezing in there! Dear Santa, please buy us a pool heater for Christmas. Love, The Smiths

Gay Rights

Tonight we played a few rounds of "Red Light, Green Light" before bedtime. Gabby has been learning this game in her soccer class, so we thought we would do a little reinforcement of the game at home. She understands green and yellow lights great, but is horrible at stopping for red.

After the game, Kenton took Gabby upstairs to change her diaper and I was downstairs listening to them over the monitor. I heard Gabby saying something, but I couldn't understand it. I went upstairs and said to Kenton, "What does she keep saying?" He responds, "Gay Rights. I swear she keeps saying Gay Rights." Gabby then says, "Gee Yites." I go, "She is saying green lights, not gay rights!" We got a good chuckle out of it all. We're glad our daughter has such progressive thoughts for her age.

Happy Father's Day! (belated)

I didn't really get to post a great oration to how wonderful of a father Kenton is yesterday. Basically, I feel like most people know that about him. He has been working his hiney off recently to keep us afloat. I know I tell him, but I really hope he knows how much we appreciate all of his hard work and can't wait for the next year to go by so we can regain some of our lives back. Graduate school just stinks!

My friend Jessica posted some of her favorite photos of her husband and daughter for Father's Day, so I thought I would do the same. These were the early days...

(Photos compliments of Taylor Made Memories)

Gabby-isms

Just a few new Gabby-isms...

1. Whenever she gets undressed or out of the bath, she yells "Naked Butt!" I keep trying to teach her "Naked Bottom" but it isn't sticking long-term yet.

2. When Gabby opens any Blues Clues book up, it always begins with "Hi! It's me, Steve." Gabby always opens up her Blues Clues books and says, "Hi, I Blue." Tonight I told her it was Steve, not Blue so she said, "Hi. Steve." I thought that was good enough.

3. If Gabby gets put in "time out" for hitting (which is pretty much every day), I tell her that hitting is NOT NICE. I must use this phrase too much because she now says it WITH me when I tell that to her in her post time-out talk and shakes her head back and forth.

4. Gabby got a new shapes puzzle that says the name of the shape when she gets the piece in the correct spot. She has a little trouble pronouncing a few. Octagon="ock-a-don" and Pentagon="penta-don." Triangle to most people is pronounced TRI-angle. Gabby places the stress at the end and makes it tri-ANgle.

5. Apparently the fourth line of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" is now "Like a Mommy in the sky" instead of "Like a Diamond in the sky." "Happy Birthday to you" is "Happy doo-doo Daddy."

6. Whenever anyone sneezes, Gabby says, "Bless You, Jackie" since we always say "bless you" to the dog when he sneezes. I am working on teaching her that you should only say "Jackie" when the dog sneezes. She hasn't quite grasped this yet.

7. Gabrielle doesn't just say "thank you" when you give her something. She says, "Thank you. Welcome."

8. Gabby has two dolls named "Katie" and "Molly." She has since joined their names into one big name of "KatieMolly." She runs around the house looking for her dolls before naptime yelling, "KatieMolly! KatieMolly! KatieMolly!"

9. We must have gone to Kohl's too much the past few weeks because today when we pulled in the parking lot, Gabby yelled, "KOHL's!" Whenever we pass McDonald's, she will say, "Hambiger! Hambiger!" I've created a monster...on a sesame seed bun.

So You Never Lose Your Shoes...

When good shorts go bad...

National Spelling Bee Foul Up

Kenton and I watched about an hour of the National Spelling Bee a week ago and somehow missed Sameer Mishra (from West Lafayette, IN) mishearing his final word, which was NOT "numnut." Check it out for a good laugh. I sure hope Gabby is a good speller, but even moreso, not a numnut.

I Burped and "Hola, me llamo Sr. Schenher"

Gabby and I took two very humorous videos this afternoon. In the first one, I was asking Gabby to identify some of her favorite friends from Kelly's blog photos. Most of them are the Schenher sisters. In the second, you can observe Gabby's mad singing skills.

Pool Party

Since it is over 90 degrees in Indiana today, I decided to set up Gabby's swimming pool her Papaw brought over for her this week. We invited Grace and Clare to come swim for an hour this morning. Clare wasn't so happy with the water, but Grace and Gabby were swimming queens! Gabby continued to swim after Grace left and then threw a fit when I finally had to pull her out of the pool. She had no desire to leave her wonderful play spot!

So we haven't updated our blog in a week, but all of today's photos will make up for that. I got so many cute photos of the girls this morning, I really couldn't pick and choose which to put up on the blog, so get ready for a barrage of photos. I'm sure you just love looking at photos of my kid as much as I do...ahem. Oh, and Grace didn't mean to flip the bird at everyone. She just has a special fondness of her middle finger.