Self Fulfilling Head Injuries

I am baffled. Why do my kids seem prone to accidents that involve head injuries? Maybe it is my clutzy genes. Many of you know about Sarah's scary accident in February falling from a play structure - on her head. That was a nightmare come true and our first 911 call. In the last few weeks, Angela and I have watched Sarah and Natalie doing swimming lessons and cheerleading. (Just a side note: Angela will be doing a fun class in the fall because I feel bad she had to watch her sisters have all the fun this summer) Anyway, in her boredom, Angela would often be goofing off and not playing with the toys I brought to entertain her. She had several accidents - mostly falls with bumps and bruises on her knees. Yesterday, however, she somehow tripped on her own feet (she had flip flops that I told her she shouldn't wear) and flipped over the bottom bench and fell right on her head on the cement. The rest of her body flipped over and her shoes went flying. I threw the magazine I had on the ground and ran over to her in a panic. She gave me quite a scare. One of the life guards brought me an ice pack and another girl made me sign some paper saying exactly what happened - good old liability crap.

I'll get on my soap box for just a minute... It makes me so mad that we have to worry about dumb stuff like that because there are dummies (I have stronger words, but we'll leave it at that) who would actually try to sue an establishment for an accident that was . . . well, an ACCIDENT. So rather than people focusing on helping the child who is hurt and making sure everyone's okay - people automatically go into their "liability"/"someone might sue us" mode. This same exact thing happened when Angela was born and a nurse accidentally cut her tiny wrist while removing the hospital band. It was a dumb accident and she should have been more careful, but rather than apologizing and making sure Angela was okay - she panicked and tried to hide it while she figured out what she should do to protect herself and the hospital in case we wanted to become millionaires based on her little mistake. Meanwhile, Angela is crying and immediately a secondary concern. Pretty sad, I think.

Okay, moving on... So I am baffled why these scary things always happen to my kids. I am one of those moms that is way more strict with my kids - "don't go up there", "hold my hand", "stay right by me", "don't go outside with your shoes off", etc. I think I am a lot more uptight and worried about accidents than a lot of other moms. I see other parents let their kids to things that make my stomach turn with nervousness - and they walk away just fine. Maybe I just don't happen to be around when those kids have accidents. Maybe I am just somehow creating self-fulfilling prophecies by worrying and obsessing over "what if"s that constantly swim around my brain. I think I need to loosen up, but how do I when I've just seen my little sweetie fall head first on concrete? This mom business is so worrisome!

Little Napoleon

This is kind of a funny tidbit about Sarah, that she might not appreciate me sharing, but it is so true.

Sarah is our little Napoleon Dynamite. She can do the best impersonations of him than anyone I know. Well, my sister Chrissy does a pretty goood impression, but Sarah is even better. That is because her impersonations are actually real. When Sarah gets frustrated about something, she doesn't mean to, but she sounds JUST like Napoleon. She'll say things like, "Gosh", "Gross!" or "This piano song is SO hard!", "Natalie is SO annoying", "Sick!", "I hate doing chores." all with such Napoleon-like intonations and sounds of disgust.

For those who don't know the movie that well, Napoleon is just so annoyed at the world sometimes and many comments are made with disgust and big sighs. That's the funniest part - Sarah can do looong drawn out sighs just like in the movie. Like when someone smashes tater tots in Napoleon's pants pocket. Sarah often feels annoyed at the world too. Some of the time she laughs when we point out that she sounds just like Napoleon. Other times it is absolutely not funny or safe to point out.

A Little Christian Shopping

This morning Angela came down the stairs in her pink footy pajamas looking so cute. (How do kids look so cute with messy hair and tired eyes in the morning and at what age does that cuteness turn into "yikes"?) Anyway, I gave her a big hug and snuggled with her on the couch. She laid on my shoulder for a bit and then lifted her head up so we were eye to eye. She told me, "I going shopping today. And I going without you." I repeated what she said to make sure I heard right. It didn't make sense to me - I hadn't said anything about going shopping today any time this week - let alone without me. Maybe she had just woken up from a dream about it.

I continued the conversation. "Well, someone has to take you," I pointed out, being realistic.

"I going shopping with my mudder."

"You're going shopping with your mother?" I asked.

"Yes, with my mudder."

"Well, that's me. I'm your mother."

Angela thought for a minute, like she didn't realize that was the case. We use the term mommy so much maybe she doesn't know what mother means. Then she looked up at a picture on the wall and pointed, "I going shopping with my mudder, Jesus." Then she continued, "He going in a big car and I going in a little car. He have a big car, but my car is little."

Wow! So that is what Angela has on her "to do" list today - big plans.

Pictures, Booster Club and a Book Release

I did a few of my own things in this past week. I had a photo shoot at Cannon Beach with Shannan's family, which was fun. It was a little cooler than we had hoped, but the kids were good sports and tried to "look warm" in the portraits. We did several traditional shots, but the above picture is one of my favorites. After our picture taking, we headed to a fun fish and chips place downtown and our families visited and the kids goofed off together - what a fun night.

Stephanie Meyer and her vampire Twilight series have taken on a "Harry Potter"esque following. So, of course, when my friend Kelly hosted a party for the book release, I was there. She went all out - above you can see the decor she put up on her front porch, she painted that sign! She had her daughter and a friend dressed up as Volturri (an Italian vampire clan for those who might not know) to welcome us. We enjoyed music playing that Meyer herself said inspired the books, played a couple quiz games and watched an interview with Meyer and movie trailers for the Twilight movie coming out this fall. It was fun to just hang out together and talk. We headed to Barnes and Noble, which was just as busy as any of the Harry Potter book releases. Thanks to a friend who thought ahead to get a bracelet, we got a good place in line and counted down and cheered when the clock struck midnight. (mostly cheering because we were all hot and wanted to get outside!)

And as for the other item listed above - a Booster Club meeting. Holy Cow - we're already doing back to school stuff! Shannan and I were voted in as the Volunteer co-chairs at Patterson and we are in charge of recruiting and keeping track of the Booster Club volunteers this year. We are working on getting a computer and software to use at the school which will make our job a LOT easier. It's going to be busy this fall with Booster club, the preschool co-op, young women's and the girls starting Kindergarten and 2nd grade. I don't know if I'm quite ready for the roller coaster ride!

A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village

Sarah trying to make a bubble go all the way around her.


Hula hoops make awesome bubbles.
The girls loved being artistic in the inventor's workshop...
Sarah and Natalie pretending in the China exhibit. Aparently, Sarah thinks Chinese people are very serious.

Last week I felt like the summer was slipping away much too quickly. There were so many things I still wanted to do. I decided to plan for a few extra fun outings before the summer was over. So last week, I took the girls to a place I've always wanted to go. A.C. Gilbert's discovery village is named after the man who invented erector sets. The whole village is dedicated to "exploration, experimentation and learning". (That's from their website - here's a link: http://www.acgilbert.org/ )

We spent the whole day playing in each area - one at a time for as long as the girls wanted. First, we played out in the huge playground maze, a gigantic spider web and gigantic slides. Then we headed inside the Victorian style houses and we found: the bubble room, the body room, a medieval stage with dress ups, an inventor's workshop, a shadow freezing room, an interactive dinosaur exhibit, a room all about life in China (which was cool to learn about with the Olympics going on there right now), a pretend grocery store and a room where the girls danced to music and watched their moving silhouettes morph on a huge screen in all kinds of psychedelic colors. We were all exhausted by the end of the day and agreed it was a fun adventure.

On the way home, we picked up Taco Bell and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. We let the girls stay up late to watch in their jammies. We were in awe of the whole thing - it was so incredibly awesome! It was fun to hear Sarah's exclamations - she is so enthusiastic and really appreciated the huge numbers of performers, their precision in choreography, the costumes and special effects and, of course, the out of this world fireworks. Natalie and Angela loved the fireworks and the part when the little girl sang with all the kids dressed in different costumes.

What a fun and memorable day.

What we've been up to this week...

We've had a very fun week that has flown by... Swimming, cheerleading, piano lessons, birthday parties, young women activities and meetings, and a very fun day trip for the girls and I.

On Tuesday, we attended an awesome birthday party for our cute little friend Lauren who turned two. The party was at Pump it Up - which is a building full of all kinds of inflatable fun. Even the adults got to join in and play too! Angela thought it was funny when I ran up to the slide and went down with her. Besides the super cool inflatables, the girls were spoiled with treats and boxes full of goodies. It was an awesome party!
Here is a picture of our jungle with the girls to put things into perspective. In all our years of growing tomatoes, I have never had them get so huge. And our cucumbers and zucchini are out of control. Other exciting garden news - one of my pepper plants has 7 peppers growing and still more blossoms! My last attempt at growing peppers yielded me ONE pepper. When we moved the garden to the east side of the house, I worried about if there would be enough sunlight for the garden to thrive. I guess that is not a problem.
On Friday, I took the girls to a super cool children's museum called A.C. Gilbert's discovery village. It was clear down in Salem - over an hour away, so it was a special treat. The picture above is the biggest twisty slide I've ever seen. We all went down it, but Natalie. Even Angela went down without any fear. It was completely dark the whole way down and lasted for much longer than a regular slide. I was very surprised that Angela wanted to keep going down it all by herself. Natalie, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with it. Sarah, my newly discovered thrill seeker - LOVED it.
This was a fun exhibit about the body. The girls are all wearing vests with a picture of food on it - they went in the gilrs mouth and then down in her stomach. I didn't realize it, but apparently our stomachs have a whole bunch of multi-colored bouncy balls inside them. (o:

More Fun Pics

Here are a few random pics from the last few weeks...

Angela and her loverly pink, shimmery purse on her birthday. She's not all good looks, she also bowled very well that night! (O;
The pictures above and below are from our Hillsboro stake summer fair. Natalie did the bobbing for apples right after I took the above picture. She got one for her right away and then tried to get one for Angela. She tried and tried and tried - about 10 times to get one for her little sis, but it just wasn't working. Her whole head was soaked, bless her heart. The funny thing is that Angela doesn't even like apples.
A funny picture of Sarah and Natalie doing their favorite cheerleading positions.
Angela with her good friend Chuck during our potty training success celebration.

Swifter, Higher, Stronger, Clutz-ier

In honor of the Olympics . . . well not really, I just happened to start swimming laps this week. Several things prompted this . . . #1 I have quite a few friends who enjoy working out this way and hearing them talk about it made me want to try it. #2 I have an LA Fitness membership that needs to be taken advantage of. #3 We have spent a lot of time in the pool this summer, but with three girls to supervise, I haven't had a chance to swim just for me. #4 I swam quite a bit growing up and was fairly good at it.

So Wednesday of this week I began. I brought my new $3.99 goggles and the swim cap that Sarah and I will take turns using. I looked official. Then I got in the pool and all that changed. I took the last of four lanes available. During my swim, I looked over the other people swimming - fancy girl right next to me swam beautifully, stretched on the side of the pool with flexibility I will never know and looked like she had a very fine-tuned workout with a variety of strokes and paraphernelia. There was an older lady next to her, surely I could do as good as her, I was younger. And some guy on the far end who went back and forth with hardly any breaks. Well, he was a guy, athletics come more naturally to them.

I began my first lap, freestyle. That's a funny word to describe the stroke I was doing. I knew in my mind what freestyle was supposed to look like, but what my body was doing felt like what I imagine a gorilla or a giraffe would look like if they had the misfortune of finding themselves in a large and deep body of water. There was lots of splashing legs and arms everywhere and excessive gasping for air and coughing. I was worried that some of my com padres might worry I was drowning on my first 1/2 lap. I stood up halfway across the pool with a whole new reality. I stink at swimming. I had been so naive thinking I could just hop in the pool, after about 20 years of not swimming any laps, and just take to it like a fish. I had been cocky and thought because I was younger and less overweight (overweight, but less overweight) than many people I'd seen do this sport, I figured it couldn't be that hard. Ha. I was put in my place - swimming is hard work.

I continued to try to save some face - I didn't want to get out after my 1/2 lap of embarrassment, I still had a little bit of pride left. But not to worry, the rest of that was stripped away before I would exit the pool. So I caught my breath and went back to the front crawl. I breathed every other stroke and still felt like I couldn't get enough air. I realized that maybe I had a little bit of fear of being under the water. I panicked a little and I think my nervousness was adding to my breathing problems. At the end of my first lap - yep you heard it right - FIRST lap - uno, one, a single lap - I was coughing and sputtering on the side of the wall. What did I get myself into? And what about all that running I have been doing - hasn't that increased my endurance?

I continued to swim, not noticing much improvement, but switching to strokes where I could keep my head ABOVE water - like the scissor-kick, a personal favorite. (o: Why don't they have that stroke in the Olympics? Probably because it would take an hour to complete a hundred meter event. The stroke I did most of the time though, was the backstroke. I felt the least embarrassed when I did this one. My arms moved around and around like a windmill. I'm pretty good at floating on my back and I could breath except for the occasional times when water splashed over my face. Yes, the backstroke was my stroke of the day! I did have some issues with going straight and imagined myself zigzagging in my lane to the point of going twice the distance in one lap, but it didn't matter. I was getting exercise, not looking as dorky and I wasn't drowning.

Then in walked my new friend. "Hey, can I share the lane?" Oh crap. How could I share a lane when I was barely keeping myself contained in a whole lane with my zigzag backstroke? "Sure." I said - what else was I going to say? Then I admitted that it was my first time trying out swimming (everyone else probably thought, "Really? We couldn't tell") and how do you share a lane? I felt totally dumb asking this, but felt it was better than crashing into the guy. He informed me that we each stayed on one side of the blue line in the water. No problem. He was nice and tried to tell me he was fairly new at swimming too as I looked at him through my new goggles. Later, I discovered that my new goggles still had their film over them that protects them from getting all scratched in the store. Each sticker had a cartoon picture of a hand peeling the film away. So there I was explaining, "This is my first time doing laps here" looking through my goggles with the animated stickers covering my eyes. I'm sure it was all this guy could do to keep from laughing. But I have to say, once I got rid of those annoying stickers I could see a LOT better! Who knew?

So I continued, I didn't give up. I tried doing freestyle again so I could keep track of where I was in the lane better. I went a whole lap this time, but coughed and gagged and burped up air bubbles at the wall. Yeah, I was pretty cool. My survival instinct kicked in and I chose the good old scissor kick going back. That was too exhausting to keep up so I went back to my backstroke routine being careful to hug the wall and control the zigzag effect. I don't know how many laps I did backstroke, but in the half hour of swimming I did this stroke about 2/3 of the time.

I was finished - a half hour was reasonable and I was proud of myself for sticking with it - embarrassments and all. As I went to get out of the pool I had a shocking realization. My legs were jell-o and my arms could not lift up from my sides more than about 5 inches without excruciating pain. Again, to save face, I walked and acted as smoothly as I could without falling on my face. Reaching up to get my towel off the hook I wanted to cry out in pain, but I bit my tongue. What in the heck was wrong with me? My arms hurt like they've never hurt before. I don't remember my anatomy well enough to tell you what exact muscle was in such pain, but it was the underarm muscle that you see flapping around on old ladies (and me too) when their arms are lifted up. I thought all my weight lifting I did with Gilad on FitTV was strengthening these muscles?? I guess not.

Everything hurt that morning - washing my hair, getting peanut butter out of the cupboard, steering the van, everything that required any arm movement. The girls laughed at me when we came home and I tried to stretch out the muscles to relieve the pain. I cried out as I stretched - Oh MAMA it hurt, but it helped.

Later that day, I told a friend about my experience. Through her laughter she offered to meet me the next day and help me out. Thanks Missy! It was a MUCH better experience. For one thing, it was just the two of us in the pool for most of the time. Missy reviewed the breast stroke with me and we talked about breathing. Plus, this time I stretched first. I was not as nervous having a whole lane and a nice friend beside me that would laugh with me and not at me. (o: I coughed and choked just a few times my second day and actually had a good experience. I still have a LONG way to go, but maybe there is a future for me and swimming. Besides falling and slipping on the floor as I got out of the pool - why can't I just be cool for one day??? - day two went a lot better.

My previous thoughts of thinking I was a good swimmer all these years make me laugh. When a friend invited me to participate in a triathlon last month, swimming a mile in a lake didn't scare me at all. The running did. I think of what might have happened if I had been crazy enough to do it. My body would be laying at the bottom of Hagg Lake for sure. How could I have been so naive? Now the swimming part - in an open lake, no less, not a pool with clear, clean water and a bottom and sides - terrifies me. Running - no problem - you have all the air around you that you want. Nobody drowns running. Not that I know of anyway. But if anyone could figure that one out, I bet I could.

Awesome video

Hi all -

Angela and I were just watching this video a friend sent me the link to a couple weeks ago. It is such a fun and uplifting video and amazing to see that Matt (we're on a first name basis now (o:) traveled to all these places - my favorite is the one where he does things a little bit different with some dancers from India. What a cool idea to do this. I LOVE it! Angela wants me to stop typing so she can watch it again.

http://www.vimeo.com/1211060

Takes a Lickin' and Keeps on Tickin'

Here is a picture of Angela with her famous birthday balloon

(story from the Happy Birthday Angela post)

If Angela were an Incredible (you know, on the animated movie The Incredibles?), I think her super power would be fantastic, super-human immunity and resistance to diseases. I really think she possesses this power already. I wonder what kind of super suit Edna would make for her? Anyway, the reason why I say this is because of the things Angela ingests make me want to puke. Sorry to be so graphic, but she seriously licks, tastes and eats/drinks the most disgusting things I would never even think of.

Exhibit A - After swimming lessons today, Sarah and Natalie were rinsing off in the showers. Angela and I were standing in a very high traffic area nearby, where puddles of water collect on the cement floor and hundreds of feet walk through a day. I looked over to check if Angela was staying by me and watched as she dipped her Polly Pocket toy in the bacteria puddles. Then to my horror, she LICKED the water off the Polly Pocket. Where she got this idea, I will never know. It was a very creative means of getting the cesspool water to her mouth, I'll give her that.

Exhibit B - At Chuck E. Cheese's last week, we celebrated Angela's potty training success. It was a lovely evening (really, I can say that - Monday nights are the best time to go.) and after lots of fun and romping around, I guess Angela built up a thirst. She walked right over to some strangers table (they had left to play) - with left over pizza and cups still sitting there - and went to town on some orange soda before we could grab her. YUCK.

Exhibit C - Angela has a fascination with licking things. At the store, if she gets bored and can't think of anything better to do, when I'm not looking she'll lick the handle on the shopping cart. She'll lick stuff I put in the basket, I've seen her lick the outside of our car, all kinds of toys, swing chains on park swingsets, etc. I really think part of the reward of licking things for her is seeing the hilarious freak out that I do when I catch her licking something totally gross.

For a kid who is such a picky eater, I will never understand this strange and dangerous behavior. I mean, who do you know that would choose to lick the outside of a car rather than try a strawberry?

Hold on for the ride...

This picture has nothing to do with this entry, really, except for it conveys the way I feel sometimes when I am going a little out of my comfort zone with this photography stuff. Shooting weddings is definitely not in my comfort zone, but I really enjoy doing it. I so enjoyed getting to be a part of Maquel's big day back in June and was very relieved when things went very smoothly and the pictures turned out good. Everyone was happy - it was ideal. Last week, I had the awesome opportunity to shoot with my cousin-in-law, Eric. He is really naturally gifted at photography and does amazing work. You can see some of his pictures at his website http://www.izlas.com/ (hope you don't mind the publicity Eric (o: ) So of course, I was thrilled for an opportunity to take pictures with him for a wedding here in Portland. Eric really put a lot of trust in me, bless his heart. I was doubly nervous - a wedding, an awesome photographer's reputation on the line. Yikes.

The first night went something like this - Eric came and we talked about his camera equipment, how he does some of his pictures, etc. I could just pick his brain for hours. The bride and groom were to meet us at my house at 6:00 and we were going to head to Cannon beach for a pre-wedding shoot. At 6:45 they arrived, but without any wedding apparel. They didn't realize we were planning to do the pictures in the dress and formalwear. Oops. Things got a little crazy as they scrambled to get everything together, but by then it was too late to make sunset at the beach. After a lot of debating, gnashing of teeth - okay, not really, but there was some tension - we ended up at Pittock Mansion. It actually ended up being a cool place to take pictures - great view of the city, beautiful landscaping and architecture. By this time, we were still running out of light fast. The bride, with my help, changed into her dress right in the parking lot. Did you know a full-skirt wedding dress can double as a changing room? It's true - it was all modestly done and a funny memory for both of us I'm sure! So we finally get to start taking some pictures and it's fun, we're doing good - the good moment lasts for about 7 and a half minutes before some guy informs us that we need to be off the grounds in 10 minutes. We just had one obstacle after another! Even so, I think Eric was able to get some amazing shots - low light and all. I'm excited to see them. The night ended with some insane driving through the Portland streets at night - led by the least likely, directionally challenged person in the group - yep, ME. I think we were all grateful to survive my driving. We attempted to find a spot to get a cityscape shot with the bride and groom, but ended up calling it a night. In my defense, I had several counts against me - little experience driving downtown, it was dark, and we were on the infamously annoying road called Burnside which has signs on almost every road that say "NO TURN". Portland streets are so dumb. I love Portland, but man, the roads don't make any sense even after 8 years here.

The next day was fun. The wedding was at the Portland LDS temple - so we met up there in the morning. It was a beautiful, sunny day. I sincerely hope the pictures turned out good because I did most of the photography that day with Eric's camera. He did the videography and most of the posing and managing people - which made things easier for me. He also had a second shooter who drove down from Washington and did tons of candid shots with his telephoto. I think that would be the most fun and least stressful - just be a fly on the wall and get great shots from a distance. The reception that night was busy and fun. I really enjoy getting to know the people in the family and also ran into a few people I know and, of course, took their pictures. (o: It didn't all go perfect, but I learned a lot. There is one lesson that I never will forget, but I won't go into details. I had one of those REALLY big hit-yourself-on-the-head "Duh" moments. I am very anxious to see how things turned out. Thanks for the memories Eric - I learned a lot.

Top 10 Most Memorable Moments so far this summer...

10. Seeing Sarah and Natalie overcome their fear of water and playing in the pool with the whole family.
9. Our backyard makeover including the new "playground" and garden area. I love walking out to the garden and checking on it's progress. The girls LOVE the play structure.
8. A quick, but fun visit with my grandparents and Aunt Ann in June.
7. Getting the YW president calling - and our first activity doing karaoke will always be a fun memory.
6. Playing outside as a family - tonight we played hide and seek in the front. I love those moments together in the nice, warm weather.
5. Reaching 3.5 miles on the treadmill.
4. Angela's pooping incident outside during potty training. (I said memorable - not necessarily favorite) See "Potty Training Woes"
3. Taking pictures at Maquel's wedding - my first complete wedding photography "job". Very nerve-wracking, but also very fun.
2. Taking pictures with my cousin-in-law Eric at a wedding last week. More on that later... I'll just say it was a lot of fun learning and hanging out with Eric - (probably not as fun for him) - one of the most patient guys in the world. I keep thinking to myself, "these experiences shall be for your good" I'll just leave that as an inside joke. The two days of shooting were some of my most memorable.
1. Nearly getting blown away off the beach with my awesome in-laws and my girls screaming as we braved the hurricane force winds! (o:

That's our summer in a nutshell.

Birthday Girl

My baby is officially three! Some of her presents from the day included some darling clothes from her grandparents, new beautiful princess-y underwear, a soccer mom and Swan Princess Barbie (Angela can't get enough of Barbie's and princesses), Barbie Swan Lake (a movie), the Enchanted soundtrack, a very sparkly and pink purse, a "magic" baby bottle for her dollies and some awesome Sponge Bob pajamas! (o:

For Angela's birthday celebration we went to her favorite restaraunt - IHOP - followed by bowling. It was a fun night, but Angela didn't like the fact that she had to wait for four other people to bowl before her next turn. (O: The funniest part is that she actually beat all the rest of us - That's right, she scored 118 and left the rest of us in the dust - mostly scoring in the 80's. Pretty pathetic - and we had the bumpers up!

A House of Order

This is how I wish my whole house looked. This closet (I wish I had a before pic) has haunted me forever - it was a black hole. I now know exactly what is inside this closet and often leave the doors open because I like to look at it. (o: Unfortunately, some FHE/church visual aids I was hoping to find were NOT in the black hole. Maybe they actually were sucked into another dimension before I got the closet clean. I am baffled.

Sooo, my kitchen desk and cabinets above may be an eyesore (my next project), dishes may be overflowing from the sink and I might be way behind on laundry - but I have a clean office closet. Let's hope it lasts for more than a few weeks... Thanks to Shannan for taking the girls during the afternoon that I tackled this project.

Messy Messy Messy

Here are a few recent pictures of my messy Angela. The top picture of scribbles all over the counter and her arms were not done with washable markers. She had "tatoo" marks for a couple days and the counter was a joy to clean. The milk mess was when she wanted to be a big girl and pour her own glass. The last picture is after Natalie and Angela licked the bowl with Angela's birthday cake batter. It doesn't look too bad in the picture, but that's just because the color of the batter was close to her skin color.

I love my Angela - messes and all. (o:

Summer in the northwest

This picture was taken yesterday - that's right - July 29th. Natalie decided she wanted to play outside while daddy grilled some shis-kabobs in the rain. I'm not complaining - we've had the longest dry spell this year and my newly planted shrubs that Shannan gave me from her yard need the extra drink! We got a kick out of Natalie's attire to go play.

Jungle

We think that some of our vegetables look like they are from the Jurrasic era. The cabbages front left - are ginormous! The individual leaves are about 18 inches across. I used to be able to walk in between the two gardens, but they are growing across the divide. We've enjoyed a few cucumbers and zuchinni and soon they will be coming out of our ears. I can't wait for the tomatoes!

Sweet Sarah

It's Sarah's turn to be highlighted today. (o: I love the shirt she is wearing in this picture. It is a self-portrait she did at school. My little artist. I have been getting some photos ready to send in and enter the state fair. Sarah has been fascinated with the process and has been a great cheerleader. She tells me how much she loves the pictures and that she thinks I will win. She asked what I would win for a prize and seemed to think that just a ribbon was kind of lame. I tried to explain that it was just fun to try and enter so we can see my pictures when we go to the fair. (If they get picked to even be displayed.) She liked that idea and asked if she could enter sometime too. She has started dreaming about entering pictures, art and crafts - the wheels have started turning. I love that the whole world is open to Sarah - there are so many things to do - talents to develop, contests to enter, occupations to do someday. Today she said she wanted to be a shoe shiner (?), other days she wants to be an inventor, dancer, pianist, mom, teacher, cook, and so on and so on.

Sarah is a very stressed out girl lately. I think all the time being around her sisters is really getting on her nerves. She is constantly huffing and puffing about this or that being so annoying. Life is very difficult according to Sarah. Some days it just feels like to her the glass is half empty and it's everybody else's fault. She is a master at dramatic sighs and eyes rolling up so often I worry they will get stuck. I get in really big trouble when I point out that she sounds JUST like Napoleon Dynamite when she does a loooong drawn out sigh and/or says, "GOSH!" daddy and I sometimes add to her Napoleon-like drama, "Just make yourself a freakin' quesadilla." Word of warning - don't do this to Sarah when she is in a bad mood. Just a tip - from personal experience. Sometimes she laughs along with us, but there is a gray area that we have to tread through cautiously.

Despite Sarah sometimes acting so much like a teenager it's scary, she really is getting to be quite the young lady. I love Sarah's enthusiasm. I posted an update on the swimming lessons last week. Sarah is now in the second swimming lessons with Natalie and she LOVES it. She has learned to "dive" down head first in the water to retrieve pool toys and thinks it is the coolest thing ever. Natalie is not quite there - she'll put her face in the water but diving is terrifying to her. Sarah is trying so hard to show her just how exciting diving can be. You would think from listening to Sarah, that nothing in the whole world could compare to diving in the pool for toys. Hopefully she will convince Natalie someday. (o:

We went to Chuck E. Cheese's last night to celebrate Angela being completely potty trained - WAHOOOO! That has been our theoretical dangling carrot for each of the girls once they master this wonderful skill. I love that Sarah has not outgrown the little rides, games or even slide. And she still gets just as excited to count up the tickets and get some totally lame, cheap prize when we leave. Sarah was especially drawn to the air hockey game and played Jays and I. She is a very competitive girl and LOVES to win. She got ticked when her daddy beat her, but was thrilled when I offered to play. She had this smile like, "Yeah...someone I can cream!" And sure enough she beat me. She isn't very subtle about her excitement when she wins. (o:

Piano lessons are going well. I am so impressed with Sarah's progress. She learned and memorized "Teach Me to Walk in the Light" from Hymns Made Easy after practicing just over one week! She's only been taking lessons for a couple months! This song has up to three notes at a time and the fingering moves around unlike her regular lesson books. She is now working on "As I Have Loved You" with a sharp. This one has the hands moving around quite a bit and it is driving her crazy. She got so mad that she hid the hymnbook in the piano bench because she said she was mad at it. (o: That's my girl. She gets so mad when she can't be perfect the first time - then I push her to keep trying, there are sometimes tears and then she applies herself and she learns it super fast.

I love my sweet Sarah, even when she's not being super sweet. I try to use the method of just giving her a hug when she is having a bad attitude and this almost always works. Sarah is such a fun and smart girl - I thoroughly enjoy our conversations and time together. We are quite a funny pair because we are both a lot alike - perfectionists, sometimes over-stressed about things. It is a first born child complex, I believe. I am so proud of the young lady Sarah is becoming and can't wait to see her accomplish all the things she wants to do in life.

Happy Birthday Angela!!

Today Angela is three! Wow - I know everyone always says this, but where did the time go? I can't believe my baby is a big girl now. She has mastered the art of potty training just in time for her third birthday (hallelujah chorus). Today is the first day I put on a pair of My Little Pony underpants without hesitation. Due to our "Potty Training Woes" (see previous post) we resorted to Pull-ups for a while. After two days of no problems, I promised she could wear underwear on her birthday.

For lunch today, I let Angela pick a place to go - we rarely do this for lunch. She picked "Kizz-No's" or Quiznos and we took our food to a nearby park to eat and play. It was a nice idea, but as soon as we got settled to start eating, nature called. Angela had to go. There was no potty at the park. I had her go before we left, but her bladder can't handle much just yet. (o: She tried to pretend like she didn't need to go, but I insisted that we could just have a picnic at home with nice dry underwear instead. Sarah was the most disappointed. Hopefully our fun activities tonight with daddy will make up for that little flaw in my plans.

Since we didn't get anything too "big" for Angela's presents - she has simple requests - I thought it would be fun to get one of those big, outrageous Mylar balloons. I found the perfect princess-y one with all the Disney princesses in separate hearts all connected. Hard to explain - let's just say it's one of those splurges I'd never normally get - $9 for a balloon! I put the balloon in Angela's room when I knew she was asleep, so she would wake up and have a surprise. Unfortunately, my plan backfired when she woke up at 2 a.m. from a bad dream. I went to soothe her and hopefully hide the balloon from her view. As soon as she saw it looming behind me - her eyes popped open and she exclaimed, "My birthday balloon! - you tun de light on so I see it?" She practically yelled this for all to hear. This was the reaction I wanted, just not at the time that I wanted. I obliged and let her enjoy her surprise and then tried to get her to calm down and go to sleep. She tried hard, bless her heart, but she couldn't help but sing for a while before finally falling asleep.

Angela's only present she has opened so far today was her Enchanted CD. Boy has it been a hit. She LOVES the songs and just beamed when they started playing. I got some really cute video of her dancing and hope to figure out how to post a piece or two on here.

Now I have to wake up princess Angela from her birthday nap so we can go PAR-TAY!

Natalie's Joke

This was a funny joke Natalie told us today...

Natalie: "What animal likes to eat cheese?"
The rest of us: "Which one?"
Natalie: "A dinosaur"
The rest of us: Silence
Sarah: "I don't get it."
Me: "Me either, Natalie."
Natalie: "Me either."