Can't get enough of this photo

This is my little niece Elle, Amy's oldest. We get to see her this weekend.
We are leaving for California on Friday. We'll be gone for 10 fabulous days. Well, 8 fabulous days and 2 Mermaidia-movie filled days in the car.

Seriously, do I check-out Ok???

Today was my first day volunteering at Tea's kindergarten. Ben asked her yesterday if she was excited and she gave this "conditional" shrug. Turns out, she was worried what I was going to look like!
Here's the run down of that one:

>Are you going to look cute, mom?
>>Do I normally look gross???
>Well, sometimes when you come home from the gym.
>>Honey, would I EVER go to your class straight from the gym?
>Maybe, I dunno. But are you going to wear your hair in a piggie, or down?

So, today, I was standing in my closet and I started laughing. I realized I was stressing over what I was going to wear. . .to kindergarten! So dumb. So So dumb. I couldn't help but ask Tay if I looked presentable (for her apparently fashion-forward kindergarten class). She checked under my hair for earrings and then said I looked fine. We took these pictures with my phone at the bus stop right before class today.

I am so in-for-it.

Avery and I spent the entire day playing paper dolls and watching Cinderella III. That's because she didn't get to go to school and wasn't allowed to have friends over.

Last night at 9:45pm she woke up crying. I just about passed out when I saw Rocky Balboa's swollen eye on my daughter's face. I was not prepared. It was awful. I called InstaCare and I basically had 9 minutes to find someone to stay at the house (Ben wasn't home) while I drove 85mph to make it before the doctor left at 10pm. It was Pink Eye. On the way home, she was crying because the eye drops "feels like smoke." I told her the drops were good guys going in to kick the bad guy's trash. She said, "Do they have guns? Or are they just kicking them in the stomach?"

That picture was taken today, 18 hours later. It's is looking GOOD at this point. I feel bad for her. And you all can feel bad for me. . .I could not find her little sunglasses ANYWHERE, thwarting my plans to sneak her into the library for a little "excursion." (I'm desperate ok!) Not to mention, I am out of ideas of what my Cinderella doll can say to her Sleeping Beauty doll.

Summer Catch-up

Summer is coming to an end. I love Summer. Fall is definitely on its way. I can feel it. It is always a bitter-sweet change for me. The only bad thing about Fall is that after Fall comes Winter. Snow is not too welcomed, seeing how I only wears socks like 3 days a year. Here are a few things we've been up to the past little while.

We spent 4th of July in Idaho. The last 2 days of the trip, we dumped the kids on the boys, and took off for Sun Valley. We went to an outdoor Ice Show. Just prior to the show, we also went on what I consider a Gastronomic Safari. Oh was it gluttonous. We all overdosed on raspberries and bread. My sisters-in-law and mother-in-law are so great. That was a fun night.

Tay and Avery are on the same soccer team. It just happened that way because they are so close in age. Téa is not happy about it but little Avery doesn't care. At her first game, she was running-down the other kids and pushing them out of the way. She wouldn't hesitate to "sweep the leg," if you know what I'm talking about.

We have 6 fruit trees in our backyard. We watch and wait and check and wait some more. It seems like forever before the fruit is ripe. Both peach trees and both apple trees decided to ripen ALL of their fruit on Tuesday evening at 8:36 pm. ALL OF IT. I really did paniced. Ben and I were picking fruit as fast as we could. LIterally hundreds of peaches and apples. It's a race against those peach-sucking hornets!

Well, my mother-in-law happened to be visiting and she saved me! She and Roz came over and we made peach jam.

Ok. So we have a real-live friend who is a real-live clown. We took the kids to see him in action, but not before Ben took a ride on his clown bike that was left in his car.

The ever-so-humble Téa who did Avery's hair and makeup.

Téa lost her first tooth on a day she happened to be cruising around in a velvet cat costume. Of Course.

The girls got to take a friend for a day of animal-petting, pony-riding, and shopping.

And then there was the day Avery was a Half-Rainbow Pirate. Of Course.

Labor Day we had friends over to BBQ what we didn't BBQ at the Chili Party. We just sat outside and told college stories (dang, I sound old). This is cute Rachel and Ashley. I genuinely appreciate having great friends live so close.