{hooky day}

Every year my children get the opportunity to play "hooky" from school. They are not perfect attendance overachievers like I was. I lived for that piece of paper that said I had attended every last stinkin' day of school. But my children? Nope, they have no desire to win the McDonald's gift certificate or be acknowledged in that way. It all started when Jake (of course it was him) was really stressed out in 3rd grade. He was in a 3rd grade gifted class that skipped the 3rd grade material and moved right into 4th grade learning. I thought this was great. He, however, needed a day off. So I gave in. WARNING, WARNING....NEVER EVER GIVE IN!!! Now here we are two years later taking family hooky days. It's become a tradition I know will be passed down for generations and it will at some point be all my fault. But until then, let's enjoy some pictures!

My ami fabuleux, Lori, mentioned she had free passes for Key Lime Cove, the new water park in Gurnee. So we took our very white bodies there and had a great, great time.

I don't know how he's still standing. You can't see her, but Mikayla is hanging on his right arm. I got out of the pool just long enough to take some pictures and lose the game!

I thought this was the funniest picture! Look at the concentration in her eyes. She missed the shot! I think the life guard was wondering why I wasn't in a tanning bed!!

Great fun!

{could it be}

Yes it is!!! A real live post! Fasten your seatbelts, this is an all about boys post. So what have the Taylors/DeCarlos been doing? Well, I've been working on trying to stay sane! I know, I know we all experience that feeling. YOU DO experience that feeling don't YOU????

OK, nevermind, don't tell me.

Let's instead focus on boys.

Lookie here at the handsome firefighter. He just got promoted to lieutenant. I love him in uniform, but me thinks I like the bunker pants better!

While I was in the house searching for my sanity (again), I noticed the boys were missing. Found them on the porch with weapons! Yes, that is a BB gun propped on my lovely southern style porch and yes, they are using pocket knifes to whittle their twigs into sharp spears. I stopped looking for my sanity long enough to ask them what they planned on doing with all their weapons. Jake's response..."world domination mom whaduthink?" Seeing that I don't plan on becoming an NRA member anytime soon, I asked them to put the weapons away then resumed my search for my sanity. About 30 minutes went by and again the house got a little too quiet. Now where are they?

Are you kidding? A fire? Trust me when I say they do own video games. Why do they feel the need to torture me so? They did make me a s'more to schmooze me a little. Who can yell at a boy that brings you gooey chocolatey niceness? I extended their "electronic" time hoping to avoid anymore criminal activity.

Here are the charming little criminals in disguise. They look fairly innocent don't they?