Paper Dolls

One day this week I found a paper doll pattern I had printed out seven (yes, seven!) years ago in my scrapbook stuff. I was curious to see if the site was still up, and it was. I found links to several other sites from that one, and the next day printed out a bunch of paper dolls for Julia. There were sheets and sheets of them. I asked her if they would be a nuisance to cut out, but she didn't think they would. And over the next few days she got them all cut out. I would ask her from time to time if the cutting was getting tedious, and sometimes she would say, "A little," but she kept at it and now wants me to print more for her! She has so much fun playing with them.


One set I printed out were two dolls: a blonde and a brunette. It had several sheets of clothes, dresses and accessories to match, from many different countries. Today Julia was having me guess every single country, as she dressed one of the dolls in its costume. Then she went on to have Brian guess them all! She said Brian did better than I did. LOL She was pretty stingy with her hints, too. For instance, for the costume from England, Julia gave this clue: "A famous movie with the main character starting with M.P. comes from this country." Brian guessed Sound of Music. Oh boy. He said he was thinking of Julie Andrews, and then said Mary Poppins, which it was, and which is set in England. For the girl dressed in the Italian dress, Julia told me, "A city in this country starts with V." I had to think a minute of which cities around the world she could possibly know (but don't be fooled, she knows more than we think!!), and then guessed Italy. And she said I was right, because Venice is a city in Italy! I knew she'd read the Magic Treehouse book about Venice last summer.... For the Russian costume, Julia's clue was, "This is the biggest country. I think it is the biggest country, anyway." :)

Here she is with the dolls dressed in their Dutch and Australian costumes.




She had me take a picture of the dolls in every costume, and I did, but those are not all going to be printed! The beauty of digital..... Here is the doll in Japanese dress.

Little Engineer, Little Mommy

Austin has a ton of Thomas trains. SO SO so many of them. But they have been one of the best investments we have made. He plays with them almost every day, for a loooong time. It's been this way for 3 1/2 years now. Today he was making various tracks. Often he makes up stories to play with his trains. Sometimes he "acts out" stories he's seen on the Thomas videos, just like a play, using his trains and calls them train shows. Tonight he had a terrible time focussing on eating his dinner, as he was deep in thought. (By the way, I was having a hard time not chuckling about this. He is definitely all BOY, only able to focus on one thing at a time!! ;) ) Brian and I had to keep reminding him to eat when the rest of us were long done. Austin said he was planning a train show. Brian had put on a Little House on the Prairie DVD with an episode about a runaway caboose with three kids in it that was about to collide with a train. Austin said he wanted to put on a train show just like that. And he proceeded to tell us how he was going to do every detail!

Here he is with Sir Handel. AND our big boy lost his first tooth yesterday! Look at that cute little smile. Julia didn't get her first baby tooth until shortly after her first birthday. At the time, I had many little old ladies tell me that was a good thing, because she would lose them later. (I guess the logic being that it would be that much longer before she got her permanent teeth, so they wouldn't decay as fast???). She lost her first tooth at 6 1/2 years old. Austin got his baby teeth on a more typical schedule, and here he is losing his first one at 5 1/2. I wonder if there is something to what those ladies were saying?



One big track he made today. I couldn't get it all in the picture. He called it a "double double double track". I think, because it had six loops...?? Three sets of double loops...??



Brian got down a bunch of infant equipment from the attic earlier this week: The bouncy seat, swing, Snuggli, carseat, bathtub, crib mobile, etc. The kids have been quite interested in all these things. Every one of them stood by the crib staring at the mobile spinning around with its music playing yesterday. :D Today Lauren got out her Bitty Baby, Baby Emily, and played with her in the bouncy seat. Oh the fun they'll have when we put batteries in it and it plays music and the toys move.... LOL


She went on to play with Baby Emily much of the day, pretending they were going to dance class, grocery shopping, to Costco and the Merry-Go-Round (consignment) store, etc. When Lauren had to go potty she said she was going to share her potty seat with Baby Emily so she wouldn't have to go to WalMart to buy a new one! Lauren also said Baby Emily came out of her tummy on her birthday. And that her tummy was big like mine, and then Baby Emily came out.

Lauren wanted these pictures with the kitty and Baby Emily. In the second one, the "ktitty" is giving "Baby Emiwy" kisses. Because the "ktitty wikes Baby Emiwy." :)


Yesterday the kids and I did a LOT. I had a doctor's appointment at 10. Then we went to Costco in SLO, where we ate lunch afterwards. The kids liked eating at their outdoor food court. The one in Santa Maria is inside, so this was something new. Ha ha I'd brought two ice chests with ice packs so I could put the cold food in them while we were at swim lessons from 1-1:30. They absolutely love swim lessons. Austin was not happy to find out they only have four more this summer!

After swim lessons we headed down to Santa Maria to Toys R Us/Babies R Us. Since Brian had taken our infant things down from the attic, I washed the seat covers for the swing, bouncy seat and carseat. But when I went to wash the one for the carseat I saw that it was slightly torn (in several places) on the back, plus the entire foam back piece had come unglued from the carseat! That seat does have an expiration date (7 years about, from when we bought it, which was before Julia was born), but I was always pretty skeptical about that. I mean really, how can a carseat expire?! It hasn't been in any accidents after all, though I do realize that safety standards change a little from time to time. Anyway, it is no good anymore. Maybe after 6? 7? 8? years the glue dries up and the seat falls apart?? Obviously that happened to this one. So we had to get another one, which is why we went to TRU.

This is the one I ended up getting. Brian and I decided on the specifications, and I chose the fabric. ;) I have to say, the practical side of me would wonder when I saw a baby in a gender-specific colored carseat/stroller/front pack, etc., why would someone buy a pink stroller, for instance, unless of course they knew they were only having one child. After all, what if the next one was a boy? ;) Well, here we are with a pink carseat (BUT a "next one" would come as a big surprise, or maybe shock....soooo.....). I asked Brian what he thought about that, and he said, "Well, she is a girl...." and "I sure hope the doctor was right and the baby comes out a girl!"

This carseat's manual actually says to throw away the base and to not use the seat after the date (7 years, Dec. 2015) imprinted in the seat! Is this expiration thing a way for the the carseat companies to make more $$$? Or is there really something to it? While we were at TRU I registered for a very few things for the new baby. I had a coupon for a $10 gift card if I registered, and hey, $10 is $10, so that is what we did. The kids thought that was fun, "shooting" the scanner gun at the bar codes, and they all took turns doing it!

We stopped at Michael's just quickly, and I bought picture frames for our main bathroom. I'll have to post pictures of that soon. Next we went to Vons for just a few things, and then back home. I made a double batch of lasagna (one to freeze) for dinner, and oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies (also froze half of them) later that night. Austin and Lauren had no naps since we were gone all day, and they were exhausted last night. So was I!!

What She Does Best

Julia is back home. Brian picked her up yesterday afternoon, meeting his mom halfway in Carpinteria. Julia and Austin had swim lessons again today, and Lauren and I went in the pool too. Lauren was very excited to play with the new pool toys Miss Jennie got at Disneyland. She wanted to stand on the bench in the pool and play with them on the edge....not exactly my plan! I did let her play some and we also kicked around a bit in the pool to get some exercise. ;)

While Austin and Lauren took naps (swimming wears them out!!), Julia read most of the time. She is sooo into American Girl books these days! Her favorite was Felicity, and now she says it is Kirsten. But she loves all the books. She goes through them in no time! I think she sure looks like her daddy in the first picture! And more and more grown up...but love that she's not so grown up that she minds wearing a sticker on her shirt. In fact, she stuck it there. :)


And the other "she". She is full of it. And so so silly! She likes to get out this old, old Children's Bible Hour song book my mom ordered when I was little, and pretend to sing the songs in it. Lauren sings Zacchaeus, Jesus Loves Me, It's a Small World, etc. Today she said she was singing "Pungo Po". I have no idea where that came from. I told her the name of that particular song was Child of the King, but no matter, she was singing Pungo Po. Sometimes she will make up words to fit a title of a song, but not this time (except for her own song...)! LOL

Desperation

It has been SO hot here. Yesterday it got to 113!! And 88 in the house. It was miserable. We went out for dinner by the beach, and there was actually a cooler breeze there, and it was quite pleasant. Also yesterday in Santa Maria it got to 110, and that not only broke the record for the day (not sure what it was), but 110 is the highest temperature ever recorded in Santa Maria on any day! Ever! The last highest temp recorded was 109 in 1929!

Today it was a tiny bit cooler, I saw 104 somewhere and Brian read it was predicted to be 99. Still got to 87 inside! We absolutely did not want to spend another day in our hot house! Nor be outside in the hot sun! We ended up taking Austin and Lauren to see Kung Fu Panda at the movie theater. And that is where the desperate part comes in. We haven't seen a movie at the theater in 3.5 years. I can remember Brian and I saw Christmas with the Kranks on a date the last time. I guess we've taken the kids to the drive-in twice, once to see Cars, and once to see Ratatouille. Anyway. Brian was laughing at me because normally, to get me to go to a movie, it will have to be a *really* *really* good one, for me to agree to spend so much $$ on the tickets! ;) The only kid-friendly movie we found was Kung Fu Panda, so that is what we saw! Austin was glued to the screen the entire time. Lauren got antsy about halfway through. She did enjoy eating popcorn though. We went out to lunch at air-conditioned Carl's Jr. afterwards. Then back home to our hot house. At least tonight it is cooler. The red-flag warning is supposed to lift at 1 a.m. As it was 87 inside, and close to or over 100 outside, Brian said it was too hot to BBQ. I said if it was too hot to BBQ, it for sure was too hot to cook in the house! He agreed, and we ordered pizza. :) We talked about getting Subway $5 footlong subs and going to the beach, but we were all just laying around. Nobody felt like doing anything!!

Here is what I made for us this afternoon. Very refreshing! My version of a frappuccino. :)

The recipe:

1 c. milk
3/4 c. double-strength coffee, chilled (just add two scoops/tablespoons to one cup/*serving* water in the coffee maker)
3 Tb. sugar (I used Splenda, 1.5 Tb. was too sweet for me, I thought just under 2 tsp. was about right)
2 c. ice

Blend in the blender! Top with whipped cream if you like. I also added some baking cocoa powder to a couple of these, and that was good too.

Heatwave...The Beach

Today our backyard thermometer read 108 degrees...at 5:40 p.m.!!! The news said tonight it got to 106 here, so I am thinking the 108 is fairly accurate. It got to 87 in the house, and we have never, never seen it so hot inside! Come on now, this is the coast after all...our little town is supposed to have the most 70 degree days of anywhere in the US! What is up with these temps over 100? Yesterday it was 100 at around 7 p.m. Crazy weather, anyway. I will be glad to see the morning fog, the typical "June Gloom" return. And have I mentioned we have no air conditioning here? Most of the time it isn't needed, but seriously, I would like my house cooler than 87. It is 82 as I'm writing this.

We went to Vons this morning, and I asked Austin when we walked in the door if we should just stay there all day. ;) I bought a bunch of decaf tea bags and a 1/2 lb. of decaf SLO Roast Hazelnut coffee, as well as a couple more ice cube trays. (We have no ice maker in our freezer, b/c most of the time we don't use much ice, and I didn't want it taking up space in the freezer. I was so tired of having dinky little freezers in our apartment fridges and wanted a fridge with a good-sized freezer, and no ice maker taking up space, when we bought ours for our first house. However, we ended up getting the previous owner's big upright freezer when we bought that house, and I should have just gotten an ice maker in the fridge freezer. Oh well... next fridge...) Anyway, the cashier saw that I was buying all that stuff for drinks, and told me I should just camp out at Starbucks all day. LOL They have a little Starbucks inside the store. :D

At home I made a gallon of ice tea and 3 cups of double-strength coffee so I could make my mock Frappacino drinks at home! They were good, and quite refreshing. Austin and Lauren liked it too. Today is the day we should have been at the beach (well, maybe, heard it was over 100 there too....!), but though it crossed my mind, I really didn't feel like sitting in the sand with the sun beating down on me at midday. It would have been nice at night though. We all did go outside in the little wading pool and sprinkler to cool off a little at least.

Friday was the last day of school for Julia! Brian's mom and Alexis, our niece, came for the weekend. Alexis lives in OH and is visiting Grandma for a month or so. We went to Avila Beach in the late afternoon and had a picnic supper there. Brian BBQed hamburgers. Austin's patty fell off his bun right into the sand. Good thing we had one extra!


Austin digging a deep, deep hole. I asked him if he was digging to China, and several times he had to look in the hole to see if he could see China yet. He told me he didn't see those people.



After supper we roasted marshmallows. They were chocolate marshmallows--different, but yummy. These girls each ate 7! And would have had more had we let them! Julia's face is painted because they had a field day at school that day. It was also only a half day, which was nice. It is supposed to be a flower on her face, but she told me, "If you can't tell it is a flower it is because the 5th and 6th graders were doing the painting..." Like they might not know how to paint a flower. Hee hee... ;) Alexis reeeeeally wanted to find shells, so she and Julia went off closer to the ocean to search. They did find a few, a nice mussel shell, and I think a few broken other shells. Avila Beach really is not a shell beach, mostly sand. When I dumped out the sand toys, I found a bag of shells that Julia and I think we got at a beach in WA, and we gave those to Alexis. She was thrilled to have them. No matter she was visiting CA, what difference does it make which beach the shells come from? LOL






Saturday morning we all went to the Avila Valley Barn. The kids fed the animals, and then we took the hay wagon ride to the Ollallieberry patch. Combined, we picked 8 little green baskets of berries. Tuesday the kids and I made an Ollallieberry (8 cups) and blueberry (2 cups) crisp. It was very yummy. We also made blueberry muffins the same day. It wasn't hot that day! Or I wouldn't have been using the oven!! Saturday night we went to a Go Fish concert at our church. It was really fun, and the kids loved it! They are a kids' group, but the rest of us enjoyed it too.


Father's Day: I took these before church. Alexis helped me by playing a kazoo to get everyone to look (and look pleasant!) at the same time. LOL I told her she needs to come be my assistant every time. ;) Brian made them look in the picture of the kids with his mom. Brian and I taught Austin's Sunday School class that morning; we are teaching in there for 4 weeks in a row, 1 down, 3 to go. We went out to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch. The food was good, as usual, but we were there for the longest time--about 2 hours! Our waitress was new, and things took her a looooooong time to get done--and done right!




Monday Brian's mom and Alexis went home. Brian stayed home from work because he had (still has) a bad cold. He sounded really, really stuffed up and croaky! Julia and Austin started swim lessons, and Brian did come along with us to those. The kids were excited to have him there watching them! Miss Jennie is a sweet teacher, and they just love her. She is also a very good teacher, and they learn a lot with her. I was impressed they both seemed to pick up right where they left off last summer, especially Julia. Miss Jennie said I could take Lauren in the pool too, so that was fun. Lauren thinks she is taking lessons right along with the older two. She told me she wants to swim with Miss Jennie next time. ;) I don't think she understands she's not exactly part of their "class". It feels really good for me to be in the pool; I feel normal, not pregnant in there. But getting out of the water I feel even more pregnant than before I got in! It's funny how that works!

Wednesday I had an OB appointment--going weekly now, I'll be 37 weeks tomorrow/Saturday, depending if you go by my date or the doctor's ;) . Last week I had my Group B Strep culture taken, but haven't heard the results yet. I was only dilated 1-2, minimally (he said maybe 25%) effaced, and baby was too high to measure for stations/engagement. This week all the kids came with me, and Julia was telling the nurse how she talks to the baby and the baby will know her voice. Austin was telling her how he's felt the baby kick him. Usually he won't say a peep to the nurse or Dr., so that was cute. Anyway, the dr. checked me again, and I told him I just didn't want to hear I was going backwards! LOL But that is not the case. I was dilated to a "good 2", about 50% effaced, and baby is getting lower, at a -3 station. So I am glad about that, making a little progress. But not anticipating going into labor anytime soon, as this is what I do, make a bit of progress little by little, the entire last month..... It's happened with all the other kids.

We went to WalMart, and then to the "big" South County library, which the kids all like. We ate our picnic lunch out on one of the little tables they have set up on their sidewalk in the shade. Then we went to Miss Jennie's for their Weds. swim lesson. I didn't want to go back home b/c of the time and gas (cheapest is $4.65 a gallon now!!). Of course the kids thought it was just fine eating a picnic at the library. Austin and Lauren had naps at home. Swimming/playing in the pool tires them out! Austin has about ended his afternoon naps. Most days he doesn't sleep; just rests in bed for a while and then comes out. But he is 5 1/2, so I guess that was bound to happen! That afternoon Brian drove Julia down to Santa Barbara where he met up with his mom and Alexis. They ate pizza for dinner together, and then Julia went off to Grandma's for the rest of the week. She is having a good time there. He is going to pick her up Sunday afternoon to come back home.

Sunday Afternoon

After naps and before supper, everyone went outside to play. Brian was BBQing chicken for our fajitas and I was cooking the veggies inside (left them on the stove while I snapped all these).


What do you think of this? I don't know that Lauren knew what to think... It's a good thing that Little Tykes stuff is built tough! Austin was the one who rigged up this formation in the first place. It seems he *cannot* resist rigging things up! I think that play cube has been turned on every one of its sides, tied up with cars (using the jump ropes!!) and his baseball T, etc.



My favorite boys



See what happens when you try to take a nice picture of this bunch?!



Although, truth be told, some of these silly ones are my favorites. ;)


Julia pretty much just jump-roped the whole time she was out there.


She was quite concerned about Lauren and warned her several times to not get tangled in the rope! She really is a good big sister and does her best to look out for the other two (even if they don't appreciate it.... ;) )


And one more, just being silly in the Cozy Coupe. :)

Reader and Artist

I took these of Julia sometime last week. I realized I had lots of recent pictures of the other two, and not as many of her, since she is at school all day. She was in the middle of reading a book, and preferred not to be interrupted, but did let me snap a few. ;) Julia loves to read. She is very much into the American Girl books right now. She says she wants an American Girl doll for Christmas, either Felicity (her current favorite) or Kirsten. Our little book-lover is very excited because tomorrow she gets to choose a new book at school to take home. Every month the kids are supposed to read at least 20 min. for at least 2o days, and if they do this each month they get a new book to keep at the end of the year. Well, she reads every day! And most days for much longer than 20 minutes, especially all the times added up! She reads in the morning in bed before the rest of us are up. She sneaks a book in the bathroom in the morning when/while she is supposed to be brushing teeth. She reads at school. She reads after school, sometimes sneaking in her pleasure reading before her homework. She reads after homework and before she goes to bed, while the other two get their bedtime stories. She plays other things too, but loves reading.

I have been going through Julia's artwork and papers I'd saved over the last few years. Now, I didn't save everything, not even close to everything. But the stack was getting pretty thick. One of my friends said they only save [some of] their kids' original writing and original artwork. Seems like a good plan to me. However...some of the things she's made are just cute, and fun to look back on. Sooooo I scanned a bunch of them and photographed the rest. I resized them and made these collages which I am going to get printed 12"x12" and put in Julia's school scrapbooks. These are her first grade pages. For her Kindergarten artwork I was more on top of things when the year ended, and took several pieces to Kinkos to shrink and color-copy. I need to put those on actual pages for her scrapbook too. She made a LOT of art in Kindergarten and first grade, much more than even this year. I plan to keep just a few actual pieces of art and writing in a bin/scrapbook and get rid of the rest. I can't store everything, and really, I doubt she is going to want everything years from now.