Wednesday, July 30, 2014

A Quick Little Trip and Some Highlights of the Week

Triple digits continues in these parts. Can anyone tell me what it has to be this hot? I mean what is wrong with 85 or 90? ALL winter we wait and dream for sunshine. When it finally arrives, it is SO hot you can't even go outside. Frustrating.

On the rare morning it isn't 90 by 9 am, the girls and I usually go for a walk. They enjoy throwing rocks in the winding canals and the dogs like taking a dip to cool off.



The refrigerator door finally broke. I was on the phone when this occurred and I literally screamed because shards of glass - teeny tiny shards of glass - went flying everywhere. An unopened bottle of sauvignon blanc was lost in the tragedy.


While I cleaned up the white wine/soy sauce/glass shard concoction, I told the girls to go upstairs and play. When it was finally safe for them to return to the kitchen, this is how Charlotte reappeared. 




She thought she was SOO funny!


Grace quickly got involved and Charlotte's "one-man" chicken show quickly turned into this...


a reenactment of the Halloween card we sent out in 2010 - just a month after Charlotte was born!

Look how little they were? How was that possible? How are this big now?!


It is all going by too fast!

On a different note, Court was able to sneak away at the last minute on Saturday. We headed to Seattle for a good steak dinner…and bottle of wine. Afterwards, we ran into the Seafair parade by complete accident. It was huge very lively, lasted a long time but was fun! 


The original plan was to head back home the next morning but we talked ourselves into staying just a bit longer. Long enough to watch America's favorite past time…Mariner's baseball!

It was a sunny Seattle day and we had seats high on the third baseline.
In the sun.
The girls got hot pretty quick so we tried settling them into the game with a tub of cotton candy.


Believe it or not, they are the only girls on Earth that don't like cotton candy. 

Back to the concession stand we went…this time for dots. (fancy baseball stadium ice cream)


I got hot too and cooled down with this gem.


The ice cream bought us some time but we were in the direct sun and the girls were hot. 
Already having been up and down three times for snacks, sunscreen and a bathroom break, I decided to  pull out the big guns.


New Mariner's paraphernalia bought us silence - and stillness - for over two hours!
Worth every over priced penny if you ask me!
Plus, they looked pretty darn cute if you ask me.  





After the game, it was back to reality and for the girls, back to tennis!


They just love it and come out so proud of themselves!


Hard to believe another month is coming to a close. Grace officially starts kindergarten in 27 days…but who's counting?!

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Getting Into the Routine of Summer

Four more weeks. Is it really possible that there are only four more weeks left of summer?!? 
I'm juuust now starting to settle into our summer routine. Our routine this last week has been busy and full but the best kind of busy and full. 

We kicked things off with a visit from Auntie Molly and Chance.


It's not a secret we like dogs around here but Grace needed to shout it from the rooftops…or spell it out in yarn that she carefully and intricately cut.

I'm thinking this might be adapted into our next craft project!

Tennis continues but I have yet to upload the videos. It is awesome and they love it and 
I love watching them love it!

Then there was the swimming. 



Lots and lots of swimming.



Both girls are swimming sans me these days!
Hallelujah!
I just have to standby and sort out who gets what pool toy. 


Behold. My little mermaids swimming with their tails!



Grace had a pool party to celebrate the end of t-ball season. She was SO excited! Unfortunately, she was only able to swim for a few minutes because there was an "incident" in the pool - if you catch my drift - and the whole thing was cleared. She was beyond disappointed. Reason #2,594 why we need a pool!


Awards were handed out.


We celebrated with pizza! 


My mother's intuition told me a few months back that we were going to be broaching a very important topic in the near future. I stocked up on a bunch of books just to be prepared.
It was a good thing because this past week they came in useful.
Grace and Charlotte peppered me with questions.
We read. We talked.
We are good.
For the moment.


We did a fun project.
Highly recommend. You can find it here.

A break in the weather - only in the mid 90s as opposed to three digits - led us outside to do some blueberry picking. 


We tickled the ivories a bit. 


Grace proudly assembled her Lincoln Log set all by herself. 


And we ended the week with a much needed dinner out.


Grace invented the french fry glove and we ended the night with chocolate cake!


The perfect way to end the week and prepare for the next!
Viva la summer!

Monday, July 14, 2014

It's Hot Outside. Got AC?

Unlike most of the female gender, I am not a hair person. I've never put a ton of time, effort or thought into my hair. Most of my "big" hair decisions in my life have been made by my mother because she is a hair person! My hair could be green and I probably wouldn't care. A few weeks ago, I went out on a limb and made a hair decision on my own. 

I got bangs. BANGS! 

I haven't had bangs since I was eight and if anyone out there is considering this drastic change - a word to the wise….DON'T DO IT! 

Let me clarify that a bit. Don't do it under the following conditions.

1. Your children are still at the age which require you to join them in the swimming pool - every afternoon.

2. You have a hate relationship with a round brush - or any brush for that matter. 

3. The temperatures outside are competing with those on the surface of the sun. 

Consider yourself warned. 

Speaking of warm weather, it is SO hot here. We tried to go for a walk the other morning but had to turn around after just a few minutes. Our yard has no shade - and no pool - so as crazy as it sounds, we are spending most of summer indoors!


We do make it to Manna and Boppa's pool a few times a week! Grace was pretty excited that she was able to touch the deep end after a 'pencil dive.' Just last night, we tried a real dive (head first) and she was able to retrieve a ring off the bottom of the deep end! Way to go Grace!

We had friends over for dinner on Friday so that meant LOTS of trips to the grocery store - including Costco. Flat bed cart no so much fun. 


The good news is that our dinner was lots of fun! Our guests brought the girls shrinky dinks which they LOVED!! It was the first thing they wanted to do bright and early the next morning!


All the playing indoors, thanks to the AC, has sprung a new interest in some 'old' toys! Recently, Legos have entered the Barbie Dream House!


Necessity is the mother of invention and Graced needed a high chair for her Barbie baby! 

Finally, I came across this little blurb in Cosmo a few days ago and it really resonated with me. 


 "Small omissions" speak very loudly. 

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

4th of Puke-ly!

Last Thursday, I HAD to drive to Yakima just to pick up my new contacts. It was urgent as I had no backup contacts left and the contacts I was currently wearing were starting to tear. Like I said, it was urgent especially since their office would be closed Friday for 4th of July. 

As it is summer and it is boiling hot, I figured some time spent in the air conditioned car would be a pleasant reprieve. So I loaded up the girls and drove 45 minutes to Tri-Cities to the gym. My plan being that post work out we would drive the 45 minutes back home plus another hour to Yakima, get my contacts, maybe grab lunch and then drive home. For those of you slow at math, that is 1.5 hours in the car post workout and then another hour post-contact-pickup for a grand total of 2.5 hours…just to pick up a box of contacts mind you!

Feeling grand after my workout, I went to pick up the girls from the Little Gym (what we call the gym's play center) and the "babysitter" told me Grace had been complaining of a stomach ache and that they were just about to come get me because she was asking to go home.

Hmmm….

Now it isn't that I didn't believe Grace that her stomach hurt, but I often find myself over-sympathizing with their ailments - keeping them home to rest, etc. only to find that they have miraculously been cured 30 minutes later. I figured a snack and a little "rest" in the car would be just what the doctor ordered!

So into the car we pile and start heading "upstream." Grace complains and refuses all of her favorite snacks. At about an hour and 20 minutes into the drive - well past the turnoff for home - she starts requesting that we go home RIGHT NOW and is squealing from time to time in pain. 

Pushing the speed limit, I told Grace to hang on, that we were almost there and that we would be out of the car in no time. Just as I pulled into the parking lot of the eye clinic, she told me to hurry and I ran around to her side, opened her car door to her PUKING all over. Luckily, she is beyond awesome and managed to get all the puke outside the car!! 

We sat outside a bit, drank some water and collected ourselves before going in grabbing the contacts and heading home. In hind sight, riding in the car with a child with a stomach issue was probably not my best decision. 


This is where Grace posted up for the remainder of the day. I figured it would be a 24 hour thing like usual and we'd be up and at em the next day for the fourth of July.

No such luck. 
All day. All night. 
Then Charlotte came down with it too.


Mid-afternoon they seemed miraculously better. They were up and chatty so I figured the worst was over! We went swimming at Manna and Boppas house before a Family Fourth of July Feast!


These poses say it all! Cracks. Me. Up!!


Should have gotten pics of them BEFORE they swam in their blueberry dresses but once again 
hindsight got the best of me. 

Upon our return from our 4th of July evening, this guy showed up at our house!


He seemed starving, scared but so sweet. Of course no collar. People can really suck when it comes to caring for animals. Being a holiday weekend, there wasn't much we could do to help him other than give him a bit of food and water. Stranger and Hiccup took to him and kept his busy and 'Brown Dog' was my entertainment for the weekend as I watched him come and go through the windows…
but as of 2 in the morning on July 5…we were back in Flu-ville.

Both girls sick with "the throw-ups."


Saturday and Sunday. All day. This is where they were - the couch.
They slept on and off which was good but it meant they were really sick because they never sleep when the sun is up. Never!
They colored a bit. I once looked over and saw Charlotte doodling her name - all nine letters of it! She'd never done the whole thing without help before so that was the highlight of my 48 hours spent indoors cycling through laundry, dishes, blankets and sheets - you get the drift.
They watched E.T. for the first time which was a kick for me seeing Drew Barrymore at Charlotte's current age! Grace kept calling E.T. 'the robot' instead of an alien or an extra-terrestrial. 

Finally, FINALLY, Monday rolled around and so did some stronger stomachs and some smiles. Our big outing of the day was grocery shopping. 


They LOVED having their own carts. I was a bit worried that each of them in control of their own cart was going to be a recipe for disaster but it was actually awesome! All I kept thinking to myself was grocery shopping in just a few short years is going to be SO boring! I will most certainly miss these golden nugget moments throughout the day.

As it is pushing towards triple digits every afternoon, I took the girls swimming on Monday. I don't know what came over Charlotte but she just decided she was going to swim and that was that. She threw some rings in the pool and dove down and got them. Boom! Swam from one side of the pool to the other. Boom! She even jumped into the deep in and swam to edge without help! Check and mate! Fingers crossed I am laying pool side by the end of the summer - book in hand - and that my having-to-go-in-freezing-cold-public-pools-in-the-dead-of-winter days are over! Swim lessons start next week so things are looking pretty good in the recreational swimming department!


Ugh but back to reality. Woke up to this guy still here this morning. It was time to take some action. By days end, he was taken to a safe place that will try to reconnect him with his family or find him a new family. It was super said but I am so grateful that there are people and organizations dedicated to caring for animals in tough situations.

With that downer of a post ending, I will sign off wishing and hoping that this next week brings more laughter and smiles and less 'throw-ups!'