Swimming, Farting, Dancing, Sleeping (8/24-8/28)

It’s been hot lately. Not hot like it usually gets in Antioch. But hot for this year. The weather all year has been weird. This summer has been unusually cool. This week though it was finally over 100 degrees. Jake was away at the annual Reserve training in San Jose so he was gone for a few days, while the kids and I got to play in the pool, have easy dinners, and lots of bedtime books and fort building. I don’t remember fart noises being quite so entertaining when I was a kid. I was at Walmart and found this stuff called Flarp. It looked familiar, but I think it was called something different. Hours of fun for the kids. It’s mushy and squishy. A little wet. You push your thumb down into and it makes an air bubble that when pressed… farts. The kids’ thumbs were too small though so they had to use their whole hands. You can also take it out of the container, stand on your chair, hold it up, and wait. It will slowly make it’s way to the table. Shyla liked to put it on her hand and watch it melt over her fingers. Fun for hours on end for $1, can’t go wrong there!Shyla’s dance stance. She loves to sing and dance. All the time. All over the house. It’s so cute. I’ve got her on video too. She gets in stance and just belts her little heart out. Feet turned in, hip popped, arms straight. And her mouth does this little down turned thing that’s really adorable. Shyla loves it when I sing too. I don’t think I’m a sucky singer, but I’m certainly not the best. But in my daughter’s eyes, I’m the greatest!!! I start to sing along in the car and stop and there’s Shyla, “Keep singing mommy!” I’m laying with her in bed and bedtime, “Mommy, sing me a song you sing a choir practice.” She forgets the words to a song, “Mommy, I can’t remember the words, you sing it. You sing so good!” Jacob wasn’t feeling too well this particular Sunday so Jake stayed home from church with him since I had to sing in the choir. He said he heard Jacob playing in another room when he realized he hadn’t heard him for a while. He came around the corner to see this… poor little boy. It was not even 11:00am. Usually Smokey is our escape dog. Someone came to the door first thing in the morning this day and as I open the door I see Bandit. The lady double checks that it’s my dog. A answer with a confused “yes”. I go outside to see how Bandit got out. Both fences are in tact and the gates are locked. I’m still baffled how she did it. She’s not the most agile dog and she’s a little overweight. I asked the lady if she lives on our street and she said no. Apparently she was just driving by and saw a dog laying in the middle of the street. We live on a quiet residential street, but still. She thought the dog was dead, but when she got out of her car the dog looked up at her. Didn’t bother getting up and just put her head back down! The lady checked her tag and saw that she was out in front of our house. I don’t know how or when she got out, but she was obviously tired. I kept her in the house to recover from her big night out. This photo was taken after 2pm, at least 6 hours later and she still didn’t budge. We all walked by her all day. The kids played with her. Jacob sat on her. Not a budge out of her. I literally had to drag her outside to pee.

Tiny Cart

I don’t know if I posted about this back in February, so pardon the repeat post if I did. This was taken at Save Mart in Visalia. Our area is too cheap for these cool carts. Shyla LOVED getting to push her own cart. She did everything, push the cart, get the food to put in it, put everything on the checkout belt, I even let her slide the card and push the buttons to finish the transaction. You can’t help but love this independent girl!

More Pups

It’s just before 7am. The kids are up… and outside??? They come running in, “MOM, THERE’S PUPPIES IN THE BACKYARD!” Okay, I heard this story in February, that’s how we ended up with our dog Mesa. I look out the window and sure enough… more pups. At first I thought they were the leftovers from Mesa’s litter. Uh uh. They were baby pups. From the same parents. It had only been 8 months since the last litter. Since dogs are pregnant for, what, 5 months?, these pups were about 2 months old based on how Mesa’s litter looked when they came into our yard. So momma had to have gotten pregnant right away! SPAY/NEUTER YOUR DOGS ALREADY!

It was SO HARD not to keep one, but we’re already at the 3 dog limit for our city. The bottom picture is Mesa (the runt of her litter) next to the new puppies.

Elders Quorum BBQ

It’s that time of year again, and again the BBQ was set at our house. We have a pool and a new BBQ so you’ve got the best of both worlds. The man behind the grill… Jake. Last year didn’t go so well with the grill. Our last one pooped out on us DURING THE BBQ! We had used it shortly before the party and it worked, but as tends to happen, when you want it to work the most, it doesn’t. As the party got underway and people were ready to eat, the BBQ had another idea in mind. So Lane (The guy in yellow in the group shot) took the food home to BBQ and bring back. Lucky for us he only lives 1 street away. But that was last year… this year everything worked out great. The weather, the pool was heated, everyone ate well, good music!

The girls were so cute, they were pretending to be in a club for girls only called Tulip. It’s catchy, no?

It’s hard to tell in the picture, but Jacob has an oreo cookie in his hand. All he wanted to eat were those cookies. At first he’d ask me or Jake if he could have one, even if he just ate one. We’d say yes and he’d go and get one. After a while he got smart and just went to the table to get one himself. Everyone thought he was so adorable trying to get a cookie that when he’d have trouble they would just give him one. It pays to be cute!

FREE Book Giveaway

It seems to be every 2 years Contra Costa County’s library’s have a book giveaway. It’s all the books/audio/video stuff that goes out of circulation. I went a couple of years ago. It was quiet. There were a handful of people there. I thought the same thing would happen this year. NOPE. Totally wrong. People hear the word free now and show up in abundance. People had boxes stacked of stuff they were taking. Sheesh! Same some for the rest of us. I went with the kids. It was hot. They behaved well and I found lots of good stuff. There are some areas these pictures don’t show. Tons of people. Tons of books. It won’t keep me from going again, I certainly will be there again in 2 years! Sorry Jake! If you could buy me another bookshelf so I have room I’d appreciate it, thanks!

(You can see Jacob in the foreground and Shyla is at the start of the boxes in the pink skirt with black backpack for carrying any books the kids want.)

Summer Dinner

I love summer dinners. Quesadillas in abundance. Fruit galore. Add some frech veggies. Milk/water/juice for drink. Everyone eats. No one complains. Mommy is happy! :)

Time To Wake Up

It was time for naptime to be over. The kids still weren’t up yet, so I went to go get them. If I let them sleep too long then there isn’t much time awake before it’s bedtime again. Here’s what I find when I go to get Jacob…Here’s Shyla… I opened the door and didn’t see her. Turned around to look in her closet and there she lay (picture her head laying back and sleeping, she woke up when I took the picture)…