110° or what?!!

Its hot! Hot enough that after we ate dinner Kate wanted to swim and we did, it was wonderfully pleasant. Kate is fab in the water, I love to swim and so I couldn't be more pleased with how much she loves the water too.

Pick your battles

Isn't it a case of picking your battles? I needed to make dinner and Sara found something that kept her occupied, can I really complain?

Then there was a time the other day that she saw Britain take a drink from her bowl and immediately thought that that might be a great idea!! She also climbed into the bowl but I wasn't fast enough to get a shot of that, she was really offended when I told her not to play in the dog bowl.

Low's baby shower

Saturday was Tanya and Bryan's baby shower, a bonfire on the beach down in Huntington. A little far away for my taste and a fire with little ones around is dicey especially as Sara wanted nothing more than to touch it, but we had a fun time and Tanya did too. The girls loved the beach, for Sara it was just one huge buffet but she really did have sooo much fun and Kate especially loved playing in the waves with her friend Keaton.

I'm back!!

I have been in a total funk lately, tired and unmotivated but today I can feel the wind changing.

My house has been a mess, the girls haven't been all that co-operative and so its hard to find the time to clean, or if I do have a little time they are off making a mess somewhere else so it is counter productive to clean one area as it means a new mess in another. Also, my tiredness and motivation have been lacking, here is a picture of my kitchen earlier today. So I raided my coin jar, who knew we had so many quarters?!! and off I went to in-and-out, grabbed myself a fabulous legal addictive stimulant (aka diet coke) and had re-newed energy for the rest of the day.

I got Kate a shake, got an extra cup so Sara could have a little, big mistake, she took a few sips then just played with the cup, ended up tipping it upside down behind her head and then cried because it was stuck and cold milkshake was running down her back. I may have cried too but I had just downed my lovely caffeinated beverage and so I laughed at the situation. I gave her a little of the shake in the first place so she wouldn't cry because she didn't have the same thing as her sister and she ended up crying anyway.

So tonight, I used my renewed energy or just caffeinated high to clean my kitchen and I am very pleased with the result. I had a fabulous talk tape my friend Brooke gave me and I cleaned for a few hours, I scrubbed the cabinet doors, the walls, the floor, you name it, if it is in my kitchen it got Clorox cleaned up!! I'm feeling happy again.

Happy Birthday

Today is my Mum's birthday, if she were still here I would send her orchids as they were her favourite flower. Happy Birthday mum, some days I miss you more than ever and so much it hurts. I don't think we ever truly appreciate our parents until we become parents ourselves, I wish I could call to catch up, get advice and to tell you that you did an amazing job raising us.

Instead I dedicate this post to you and hope that you smile down on us.

Kate's new do

Eric took Kate yesterday for a hair cut, her hair was pretty and quite long but she hates to get it brushed, it is seriously a huge ordeal and we were tired of the tangles, so off they went to get it chopped. I know I'm biased but think its really adorable and hopefully much easier to manage.

Au Revoir Jonina

This is Jon and Gina Cook, aren't they cute?. My sister-in-law's brother and wife. They aren't really any relation to me but they have been in town all summer and we have had a blast hanging out with them and Chris & Amber. We have especially enjoyed the introduction to the game of Settlers. Last night was their last night, we miniature golfed (Kate and I got a hole in 1!!), so fun. I forgot my camera so no pics, sorry, I did steal this picture from their blog though (did you know you could do that?!) Have a safe drive home, we'll be checking your blog to see the continued adventures of Jonina.

Beating the heat at the mall

(they never both look at the camera at the same time!!)

I wasn't actually going to post this but I just got an e-mail from my friend Julie who apparently is having back trouble and passing the time by reading blogs, not a bad way to pass the time, so Julie here was our afternoon yesterday:-

We went to the mall so Kate could play in the play area, she is very into the mall play areas right now. About a week ago I took Kate and Sara to the Northridge mall to get Sara's 1yr pictures taken at JC Penny's (will post as soon as I get them back, they did turn out super cute!), I promised Kate that after she had been really good whilst Sara got her pictures taken we would play in the play area, so we did and we hadn't been there 5 minutes when I smelt a disgustingly poopy diaper, you know the mommy nose you can smell one a mile away. Anyway, I detected the culprit to be none other than my darling Sara, I had no diapers with me and so poor Kate, we had to leave but only as I profusely promised to take her to the mall the following week to play and the mall with the carousel she could ride. It was a kind of bribery I know but she had been sooo very good and I felt guilty that she had only been able to play for 5 minutes. So, that brings me to yesterday. I go through my change jar and find $4 in quarters for the carousel, $2 for each girl to ride. We get there, park and get to the carousel only to find out that in June they put up their prices and its now $3 to ride (as if $2 wasn't ripping us off enough!!). I resign my self to the fact that just Kate will have to ride and I will deal with my guilt as poor Sara watches Kate go round and round later. I get her a token and explain to the lady I am just going to leave Sara a moment in the stroller whilst I put Kate on the carousel, she looks at Kate and tells me she is not big enough to ride on her own and that I would have to stand next to her, I tell the lady that I don't have enough cash for a token for Sara, she so kindly explains to me that I can stand next to Kate and hold Sara as long as I don't put her on a horse - if you know Sara she has to do everything like her big sis and I knew she'd have a fit if I was to just stand and hold her. I tell Kate that we can't ride today as I didn't bring enough money and she had tears streaming down her little face, my heart broke. Ding, ding!! there was a Target right there in the mall, I could go and purchase something and get cash back, wahooo, things are looking up. We go into Target and Kate tells me she needs to go potty, we go to find the potty and its too late, she couldn't quite hold all of it in, so another good thing we are in Target, we go and buy new pants, get the cash back whilst paying for the pants and Sara and Kate get to ride the carousel. Then they played in the play area, it was super crowded but my girls were happy so its fine, I'm happy. For the future though I think I'm sticking to the Northridge mall, its got a bigger play area and no carousel!!

Weekend in Arrowhead

We loaded up the kids on Friday and set off for Lake Arrowhead. Eric's boss so kindly let us use his cabin and we were joined for the adventure by Chris and Amber, their kids and Amber's brother Jonathan and his new wife Gina. We had a super fun time hanging out and a few great games of settlers in the evenings.

Here we are on Friday evening by the lake as we checked out the local farmers market. Then we had to hit the local grocery store for some staples such as milk, they had a cool car shopping cart and spot our crazy child, she never sits still these days!!

Saturday morning Kate wanted to do a boat ride on the Lake and so we took the tour, the boat was crowded and hot and it was a 45 minute tour, the kids did get a little bored but afterwards when I asked Kate how it was she said she liked it, when I asked her if it was a little long she said "no, it was good" so I'm glad she liked it, our crazy one kept us busy though!!

Saturday afternoon we went to a local event called 'mountain top days' there wasn't a lot going on really but they had fire trucks and Kate was able to play around in them, this alleviates a small amount of my guilt from when I dragged her over to a fire station visit I had arranged for her and some other kids when she had her eroded cornea (long story if you don't already know it!) Anyway, the smile on her face just melts my heart.

Then we rounded off our day and drove up to Big Bear and visited the Moonridge Zoo. It is a really cute zoo, set on only 2.5 acres so it is really small but makes it easy to see everything. They have different animals, no lions, giraffes or elephants, some that I can remember were the grizzly bears, bob cats, wolves, a beaver, foxes, raccoons and a deer that was extremely friendly and licked Kate's wrist. They even have a bear that only has 3 legs, when it was found it had been hit by a car and should have weighed 60lbs, it only weighed 13 and its leg was gangrenous. Anyway, they took off the leg, rehabbed the bear and it can be seen playing around having tons of fun up at the zoo. It was a really fun trip, nice to get away and spend some time with Eric and the girls, its my favourite time just being with them.

Pregnancy Cravings!!

O.K., let me preface this by saying "I am 110% not pregnant" I was just able to re-live a pregnancy craving tonight. When I was pregnant with Sara I craved the Wetzel Pretzel bitz, it had to be the bitz, one time I sent Eric out to get me some and they were all out of bitz and so he brought back a pretzel and it just didn't cut it. I even think one time I went to get some and Sherman Oaks was all out so I drove all the way to Burbank just to see if they had a Wetzel Pretzel in the mall (they didn't). This afternoon I was at the mall and Eric mentioned about getting a pretzel and so I got my pretzel bitz, as I was eating my pretzel bitz tonight I realized that they are just O.K. and not to die for as they had been when I was pregnant. It is just amusing to me that when you crave something when you are pregnant you will go far, far out of your way to get that prized item, then when you eat it, it tastes divine, even better than you had imagined it and now I am wondering what it was all about?!! Anyway, I'm not one for tagging but Brooke does have the best story about the most expensive Slurpee she sent Jason out for when she was pregnant one time so maybe check her blog and hopefully she'll post it.