What we've been up to

I bought this material 2 years ago and I've been trying to find a pattern I liked. Finally finished the top piece and now I have to find someone to help me finish it.

I have been doing lots of face/body painting on my chitlens.

We went to the river out in Coloma 2 weekends ago with the Kidds and had a great time. Last time we were there was when we were dating, 10 years ago.

All the boys in the yellow raft and the one next to it

Last weekend we went with the Mendiola's downtown to the rapids park

If it looks like a full boat don't worry, Steph and I piled in with all those kids too

Later in the day Amy and Jared came up and we went down to the river again. I had taken the 3 kids and the dog here earlier in the week and it was umm, interesting, to say the least. My children think I'm nuts with the things I take them to do. I try to tell them either we do crazy stuff or we stay at home and I get to listen to them fight all day. At least they are getting a lot of exposure to different things. I mean, come on, getting stuck on a log in the middle of rapids and having the dog almost drown wasn't that big of a deal. We don't even like the dog. I had to tell them to quit being a bunch of pansies. "Be more like your mom, not your dad!"

Last week was nuts with all our activities. I took them to the fountain park on Monday, the Lake on Tuesday (didn't leave until dark), the River on Thursday, Wild Island on Friday, River on Saturday. There's 4 days before school starts and its just starting to feel like Summer. Maybe we'll have to live it up a little more over the next few weekends.

My children have every right not to trust me. . .

because I lie to them . . . all the time!

Here's a scenario:

Bryson: Hey Mom my tooth is making this squishy sound when I wiggle it.

Me: Cool! Lets pull it out.

Bryson: K, but I get to do it. I don't want you to touch it. I just know you're gonna try and yank it out.

Me: I won't. Promise.

(I tie the floss around his tooth and we wait patiently while Bryson tries a dozen wimpy tries at pulling his tooth out, using every excuse in the book and even making us turn around so we weren't watching.)

Me: K we're getting bored here buddy, let me try just once and if it doesn't come out we'll leave it alone.

Bryson (grabbing the floss): Nooo! I don't trust you. I know you're going to pull it.

Me: No I won't I'm just going to untie the floss from your tooth (grab his hand and yank. Out pops the tooth and lands in my lap while Bryson hollers at me.)

Bryson: MOOOMMMM! I knew you were going to do that! UGHHHH!

Me: But look, I got it!

Bryson: Oh . . . hey that's COOL.

See, my kids should just listen to me the first time and I wouldn't have to lie to them all the time. We have pretty much the same conversations every night at dinner, usually with Brynn about whether the food is good or not. She still doesn't trust that I'm a good cook.

I also really don't like the tooth losing stage because they go from such cute little kids to major-gomer-pile-hick-looking-not-so-cute-kids. But because I'm his mother I still think he's cute, even if he is funny looking.

Money well spent

For Brynn's birthday I bought one of those Butterfly Habitat things off Amazon. They send you the little cage first along with a postcard for your caterpillars. Then you send off for the caterpillars when you're ready and they come in a little plastic tub with all their food in the bottom.

Within 3 days our caterpillars had more than doubled in size and on the 4th day they hung themselves upside down from the lid and transformed into chrysalides.



About a week later our butterflies emerged. We missed the birth but found them shortly after and were able to witness them change from brown to orange and black.

Here are the shells of their chrysalides.

Apparently they like to suck on fresh oranges. You are supposed to let them free after a few days, which is what we did this morning.


They all went straight to my massive 'Butterfly Bush' and began drinking the nectar. It was a really fun experiment and the kids had a blast watching them transform everyday.

My shweetie

Hudson was not fun in the month of July. At all. His favorite phrase, which he repeated all day long, was "Get away from me. Don't talka me. Don't even wooka me." Since we got home from Spokane we have done nothing but lots of sleep and naps. He's much more fun to be around now. We have been working on getting him out of the crib and into bed with Bryson. Huddy loves it. Bryson, not so much.

He's pretty sweet most of the time, and when he's lovin' on someone he calls us his "shweetie". But when he's had a long day and I tell him 'no' he says "Quit saying dat. I'm sicka you tellin' me dat all day!" Yesterday in church he was super tired and kept saying loudly, "This soo annoying! This DUMB!"

My favorite right now is his counting. He counts everything and it goes like this "fee, five, six, seben, eet, nine, ten, weeweben, six, seben, eet, nine, ten, weeweben, six . . ." You get the picture. He is my little shweetie!

Gorgeous. but weird . .

Its August.

Its 58 degrees freezing.

Its raining.

There's a spectacular rainbow right outside my door.

That's pretty weird.

LOVE this

This is what inspired me to sit at my piano all night tonight and try and conjure up my old piano lessons. I felt like I was 8 again, writing what the notes were at the bottom of each line. Time to practice a little more. Maybe Bryson and I can take lessons from the same teacher.

About the music though. I didn't love the score for Bella's Lullaby in the movie. This one seems to fit much better. And when you read about when Bella first hears Edward play for her its just about perfect. I'm a little bit obsessed with this song right now.