My sweet Sara

I adore my little Sara. I feel like it was just a few weeks ago that I gave birth and here she is almost 1, I felt that I got to enjoy (or at the very least experience) each and every stage with Kate and yet with Sara it just seems to have zipped by. Here she is almost one and literally into everything, emptying cupboards and pulling all the toilet paper off the roll is her new favourite!! So here is to my little Sara and a few reasons why I love her so much.

I love her little laugh

I love her smile

I love her big baby kisses

I love her baby babble

I love her cuddliness

I love her curiosity

I love her little fuzzy hair

I love her feistiness

I love that she loves her big sister

I love her playfulness

Where do they get their energy?

Where do kids get their energy? Here is Kate, its late and she is still rolling around in her bed shouting, "mama, where are you? what are you doing?", she had a totally busy day, friends came over this afternoon and swam, then she spent a good hour running around and jumping in the jump 'n' slide with two little boys who also seem to have endless reserves of energy. For those of you who don't know it is a rare day that Kate ever takes a nap so how she is still awake and where the energy comes from I am perplexed, especially as I need some of it!! Oh to be three again!!!

Good News Day

I've seen that a lot of people have added good news spots to their blogs. I'm not sure I could keep it up but today was just a good news kinda day, I cleaned Sara's bedroom floor, then I emptied out the sandbox, I then filled it with water for the girls to splash in, they had fun, Sara got soaked. She's standing now by herself, yipee!! Hopefully walking won't be to far behind. Both the girls napped (at the same time) and I got to talk to Nanette who I miss, (she's a great friend who deserted me and moved to Arizona for a huge house and massive backyard for her three boys, can I really be mad!!!) then Kate and I made gingerbread men (she was hot and therefore had to take her clothes off but I did manage to coerce her into at least wearing undies), we went to meet Eric for buy one get one free smoothies at Jamba Juice and then tonight I went to the pool and swam laps. Need I say more? So this is my good news day. Oh and to end it all, its only 9:45pm, I'm going to ignore the pile of laundry to be folded, dishes to be taken out of the dishwasher and carpet to be vacuumed and just get in bed and get a good nights sleep, and not feel guilty about it for a second. Sweet dreams.

Just melting!!

Today seemed a little cooler outside, there was a lovely breeze cooling things off a little, or so I thought. With the cooling breeze in mind I decided to take the girls to the zoo but I think I just about melted, it was still plenty hot. We took the wagon that Brooke has so graciously lent me but it was a bit of a farse trying to squash it into my Honda civic. Sara really likes riding in it and Kate decided about half way around that she wanted to pull it and did so for the rest of the time we were there. As we were leaving though I told the girls to bid farewell to the zoo for the rest of the summer, I think you will be more likely to find us staying cool in the pool where you are more than welcome to come and join us.

Same old, same old

So not much is new around here, I vow every night that I am going to go to bed earlier so that I can avoid being such a tired zombie all the time but here it is 10:30 and I have to update my blog, even if it is to say that we haven't really done anything lately. We had a fun play date at Brooke's last week, the kids splashed in the little paddling pool and Darby has this awesome motorized jeep that Sara loved, however, it ends up being a bit of a back breaker trying to stoop down to push it. Then a stroke of genius, I got Kate to sit behind her and push the little button to make it go, they were so super cute and all I had to do was trail along behind to make sure Sara didn't tank but rest assured her big sister was taking good care of her.

Then this weekend Kate's cousins Haylee and Ethan came over to swim and play. Kate and Haylee swam and played hopscotch. Ethan who is 5 can be a little rambunctious at times but he is a wonderful big brother and a fabulous cousin to Sara, she adores him. He entertained her for ages and also took a few snap shots, the close up of Sara is one of Ethan's shots.

Random Question

For anyone that has an opinion, what do you/what did you do with your wedding dress? Mine has been in my closet now for over 8 years, the last time I had it out was when I put it in a box to move. I was thinking about ebaying it, I would craigslist it but I have visions of obnoxious brides to be coming into my house to try it on. Would anyone even buy a used wedding dress? It wasn't overly expensive either, I think it was only $450 if that, what would you ask for such an item?. Anyway, I think it was pretty but too pretty just to be in the back of a closet to eventually turn a nasty yellow. Any suggestions?

Reality Bites

It has been a fun few days. Kate's cousins have been in town, (Eric's oldest brothers kids) and Kate has loved every minute of it, especially as grandma has been here too. We just kinda hung out and swam, they got here Sunday night and left this morning.

Kate and the girls, Auntie Michele, Kaylee (15) and Lanie (16) who is a super softball player. Kate and Jace (12) at the piano, Jace can't read music but hears a song and just picks it up.

Kaylee reading Kate her bedtime stories.

Finding a lizard, they actually convinced Kate to touch it!! All together as they left this morning, Chad (9), Jace, Lainie, Sara, Kaylee and Kate.

Family dinner on Monday night, Eric's dad grilled some excellent tri-tip, as always and then we hung out and ate. The sounds of chit-chat and kids playing and laughing, my favourite times.

Then a dose of reality, I love to look at other peoples blogs, seeing the fun they are having but I do sometimes wonder if everyone has moments like these. The cousins left with grandma and grandpa (aunt and uncle left Monday for a little alone time) my kids were exhausted from so much fun but somehow both refused to nap and so here is a little sneak peek of reality. Just soooo tired but then all was well, cousins Haylee, Ethan and Grace came over to swim and help us make it sanely to 6pm at which point both my kids were fast asleep!

Oh, deer....another day at the Thompsons

I am excited to post this picture of the deer behind our house, they have been coming quite regularly lately. I know they are there as the dog barks like crazy, they do not seem bothered by her at all, maybe they know she is behind a fence. However, when I go out to look with Kate and they hear our voices (try keeping a 3yr old quiet) they quickly move on so I hadn't been able to get a picture until last night. Anyway, I think its cool, sometimes here in LA I feel so surrounded by concrete and to see wildlife just puts me back in touch with mother nature even if it is only for a moment or two.

Today wasn't an overly interesting day, we didn't accomplish all that much at all but I had bought some fuchsia's at Target for 50% off a week ago and finally I got around to putting them in pots. I'm not much of a gardener, in fact I am vowing that this is my project for next year, I'm going to figure out a bunch of cool plants and get my garden looking all nice and pretty. For now its just some containers, my white one I'm in love with, a $10 purchase from Costco, all I have needed to do is keep it alive and its just blooming. Here is a picture of Kate helping me with the fuchsias, for those who don't know me all that well I have very little patience and motherhood is teaching me how to gain more in abundance. Of course Kate wanted to help and she has some cute pink gardening gloves that I got her, I took most of the dirt out of the pot as the previous flowers just didn't do so good at all I thought that maybe it was the soil so when it came to putting in the new dirt Kate wanted to do it all by herself. Her gloves don't fit quite right and there is no way she is letting me help her to get them on properly and so with gloves that are on the wrong hands and no fingers in the finger holes she moves the dirt very slowly from the bag to the pot, most of it doesn't make it into the pot and she exclaims "we're making a mess!!" and yes we were but it was fun none-the-less.

Then whilst waiting for dinner we played baseball. Thanks to Luke and Darby for the Dora bat and ball, Kate is getting quite good now and Sara loves being our fielder. It was a nice quiet day until after baths and I insisted that Kate get her nails cut. It was as if I proposed to actually trim the tops of her fingers off, it took a 30 minute wailing tantrum before she actually let me clip them, does anyone else go through this? Do you have any suggestions? I was almost drawn to bribery (I did bribe with allowing her to watch TV whilst I did it but it didn't work because everytime I went remotely close to her fingers she screamed) but toy bribes don't seem warranted for a simple nail clipping. Well, its done now, at least for the next few weeks anyway!!