Sometimes it's hard to see the other side.

The Blind Men and The Elephant

Once upon a time there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "There is an elephant in the village today." They had no idea what an elephant was, so they decided, "Even though we cannot see it, let us go feel the elephant." And each of them went and touched the elephant.

The first man, who touched the elephant's leg, declared, "The elephant is a pillar."

The second man touched the tail and said, "The elephant is like a rope."

"Oh no," the third man said, touching its trunk, "It is like the thick branch of a tree."

The fourth man touched the elephant's ear and said, "It is like a large hand fan," while the fifth man felt the belly of the elephant and added, "It is like a huge wall."

Finally the sixth man touched the tusk of the elephant and said, "It is like a solid pipe."

The six men began to argue about the elephant and every one of them insisted that he was right. They were becoming quite agitated. Just then a wise man was passing by, and witnessing the dispute he asked, "What is the matter?"

"We cannot agree to what the elephant is like," they replied, and in turn each man told what he had experienced of the elephant. "Which of us is correct?" they asked.

"All of you are right," the wise man explained, "for it has all of the features that you have described. And if you put your partial views together, you will have the idea for what a whole elephant looks like."

"Oh!" exclaimed the six blind men, and each of them were happy within their experience.

The moral of the story is that each of us sees things through the eyes of our own experiences and points of view. We can gain perspective by understanding and respecting the experiences and beliefs of others, so rather than arguing like blind men we could simply say, "Maybe you have your reasons."

--Indian Teaching Story

I love this! I think it is so easy for all of us to judge (and of course, I am guilty of this also). The truth is, everything seems so easy from the outside looking in. You can never truly know what another person is going thru or what they are thinking or feeling unless you have been there before. We all think we have the answers, we all think what we know or feel is the RIGHT way....we might think it is the right way, but that doesn't mean it is the ONLY way.

Mr. Boston

or Bossy, as Presley calls him. They LOVE each other! It is adorable to watch them together. Presley loves helping to take care of him and loves even more to boss him around...ironic that she calls him Bossy!
Isn't he just adorable!

Boat, boats and more boats!

Today we headed up to Ankeny for Summerfest! Steve was participating in the cardboard boats races in the company division with some of his coworkers! It was hot and it was a blast! The creativity was awesome in some of these boats! I highly recommend going to watch these races!

The Des Moines Register staged a waterproof camera on the top of this boat to record the race!

I loved this Candy Land boat!

And this was the Edge Commercial boat....with Iowa and Iowa State painted on the back. So Steve refused to sit on the side that had Iowa State on it! LOL!

The Football Diva boat with the daughter of Steve's coworker...they came in 2nd place in their division.

Not sure what these guys were thinking with the design of their boat?!

A convertible car, paddled by ping-pong paddles!

The guys didn't sink, like I thought they would. They were so tired before they even got to the half way mark! They did a good job and came in 2nd place in their division (but out of 4 boats, the other 2 boats didn't finish the race!)

Of course, not all of the boats stayed afloat....and they were actually more fun to watch!

I'm pretty sure they finished this race in 1st place! With half the boat under water!

Notice the 4th guy in the back of the boat.....sinking out of the back of the boat!

and lastly...the Big Red Nebraska boat, that barely made it off the starting line before flipping on it's side. The waves carried this boat out of the race, without a chance to win.....just how we like Nebraska to be!

After the races all the boats were allowed to go back into the water for a little extra time to have fun. Of course, the boys decided to try to sink their boat. They broke it in half and Presley DID NOT like it! She was very worried seeing her daddy sink into the water! People turned around looking at the screaming, crying kid! It was so sad to see her that way! (if he didn't have a life jacket on, I might have been a little worried too!)

401

I just realized this is my 401st post on this blog! Crazy!

- My sister and dad are in Peru for 10 days! Jealous but I know they will have a blast and enjoy every minute of it! I'm sure hundreds of pictures will be taken

- Presley and I were playing, she stands up and says 'I poop' and runs to her room. I asked if she wanted to go on the potty and then heard her closet door slam shut (her personal pooping hiding spot)....guess that's a no. Though she did just walk out of her room with a diaper and wipes though, guess that is sign she is done.

- Presley was singing Barney so I started singing along with her. Here is how the rest of the conversation went...
P - mommy, not sing (which really meant....mommy, you have a great singing voice but please don't sing right now)....So I stopped singing.
P - mommy, cose eyes (which really meant...mommy, please close your eyes. B/c she really is that polite!)....So I closed my eyes
P - nigh nigh

- She is getting better a counting too, we now include 4 and she is slowing learning up to 15. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15

- Whenever P leaves the door open to the deck we always tell her she is going to let bugs inside and let her know the bugs need to stay outside. We had a fly in the house a couple days ago, a big horse fly that was buzzing around my head and driving me crazy! I folded up a newspaper and was on a mission to kill the fly! She followed me around saying 'fly, where are you?' Too cute! Well, today there was a fly buzzing around her head. She said 'bug stay outside!', then she looked at me and said 'mommy kill!' Hmmm...guess I really need to watch what I say ALL of the time!

- We've been working on her hide and seek skills recently. She occasionally will be quiet under the blanket now....but now if she is hiding and you find her, she'll come out and say 'I found you!' She is confused with this process.

- Another conversation P and I are having right now.....
P - daddy not home?
me - nope daddy is on his way home
P - why?
me - b/c he went to get something to eat
P - why?
me - b/c he is hungry
P - why?.......Yep, I'm done responding

Red, White and Blue

The Fourth of July! My favorite holiday to live in Urbandale, we live 3 blocks from the parade and we have a good hook up for watching the parade from our friend Eric's house who lives on the parade route! Presley was not so excited about the parade or the candy, but she was excited about the banana she got. Figures. (I'm not sure she is my kid!)
Then we walked up to the carnival and had some lunch and Steve took P down the big slide! She liked it, but didn't want to do it a second time!

We were exhausted by Monday evening, we popped in a movie and hung out. They moved the fireworks to another location an about 8:30 we decided we'd try to go watch them. We went and got ice cream and found the perfect location. Another great end to a great night!

Attack of the little girls!

So we had our annual party Sunday evening, the weather actually cooperated! No 90 degrees or rain! We had a great turn out and we realized the amount of little girls Presley's age was a little out of control. Her 'boy' friends that we invited weren't able to come but the girls pulled threw!
Here is Presley and her bff Amelia (who is 2 1/2 years old). They don't get to see each other very often any more, but they get along so good! Presley really looks up to Amelia, even though she is only 3 months older!
Here is Sadie (who turned 2 in May) and Boston.

Miss Breanna (who was 1 in December)

Cousin Ava (who turned 2 in May)

and last but not least, Bridget (who turned 4 in March)

Don't get me wrong, we had plenty of other kids around too. A lot of little boys 1 year and younger (Boston, Brody, Conor and Isaac) and some of Presley's older cousins too (but I didn't get pictures of everyone!). It was like a daycare in our backyard for a couple hours!

It was fun and nice to see everyone. The good thing about having people over is that we clean our house...the bad part, we have to clean the house again the next day! ha!

The swing set was a hit, bubbles were blown, lots of food inhaled, it was a good night!

Loving summer

We started off the weekend doing a little of nothing but a little of everything. I will admit, Steve got a lot more done around this place than I did. But he doesn't like to sit still, so he doesn't mind! Right?
Saturday Steve went to the Good Guys car show with my dad, Samantha and Boston. Presley and I went to a baby shower for a family friend. She was pretty good despite the large crowd of people she didn't know, she had fruit and cookies to make her happy!
Of course, we had a lot of play time outside too.

Saturday night and Sunday during the day we spent cleaning, shopping and trying to get organized since we were having a bunch of friends over on Sunday for our annual party. Of course, Steve was busy, busy doing a lot more than I did (including an 8pm trip to Home Depot for something he needed (wanted). I was trying to NOT fall asleep before 9 pm!