Random Cuteness

A few weeks ago, D was riding his bike and almost hit this dog when it ran into the street.  She's a Queensland Heeler puppy- very sweet, very cute..... and chews on everything of course.  I originally objected, but the puppy dog eyes (belonging to the kids and husband) won me over.  So now I have four children, and this one is more work than the other three combined.  Her name is Smokey. 

E loves to take pictures and she got this one of Z. 

Busy, busy

Wow, we've been so busy I've hardly posted lately! Then we were sick last week- yuck!

Let's see... we went to the Janzten beach carousel with some friends. It's beautiful and E had so much fun!

Our garden is producing massive amounts of tomatoes and cucumber. I love both of those, but there's only so many salads and sandwiches a person can eat!

We went to Powell's- the world's largest book store. I only got to browse the kid's section, since D's brother was visiting and I let them do their thing while I watched the kids. When my mom visits, I want to go back and check out the rest.

E found a book there called ALIVE and it's all about the body. I'm hoping I can find it for her at the library. She can't get enough of body books right now. We got a bunch at the library, but they aren't nearly as good as ALIVE. We've been talking about bone marrow, ventricles, cells, neurons, platelets, tibia, radius, ulna, skull, dentricles, carpels, intestines..... I explain some things in simpler language, but a lot of times she just wants me to read the books.

We've discovered some new favorite movies. E really likes Balto since it's about dogs (another current favorite thing), and we just discovered Harold and the Purple crayon. It's cute! She's also enjoying the Signing Time movies. They are sign language movies that show the signs for different themes. And I have the Wonder Pets song permanently imprinted on my brain- "It's Seweus!" lol

She got to see some new dogs too. I cleaned a house for a friend who has two dogs and E came with me. She's always pretending to be a dog complete with howling like a wolf. She calls all her food dogfood, and I'm just waiting for some stranger to think I'm a horrible mother when she asks for her "dogfood" in public. :)


This morning E discovered that one of her coloring books has letters in it that are the kind where the lines are broken up so kids can write over them to learn how to make them. She thought the was really cool and wrote E, H, I over and over. And she got to go swimming today at an apartment building managed by the same company that we work for. We've had an open offer to swim there all summer and D and E finally did it today. We'll have to take her back a few times again before it's too late.

L is cranky every morning until she gets a morning nap. I think she needs more sleep in the mornings, but gets woken up by a wet diaper and the rest of us moving around. Then she's too busy playing to go back to sleep, but too sleepy to really enjoy herself. Not sure how I'm going to help her with that.... for now I've just been nursing her a lot all morning long. Maybe I'll start wearing her more- she's happy if she's in the carrier and maybe she'll fall asleep that way. And she's climbing non-stop. On the chairs, the table, IN the kitchen drawers. Pulling stuff out of the drawers and turning off the tv. It's the age of perpetual redirecting... But she's SO CUTE and so much fun! She has two all purpose words "Ow" and "Ah Oh." She walks around all day "Ah oh! Ah oh!"

So, that's all I can think of that's happened in the last few weeks. I have some new projects in the works, but nothing I'm ready to share yet. Still, they have been taking up time. And I've been doing more meditating and mindfulness practices, which I'm going to do a different post about.

Some Pictures

E took this picture of my friend's baby, Akasha.



Berry picking with friends.


Eating lots of berries.



E with the dog she was dog-sitting.

Dogs

E has really developed an interest in dogs lately. She is always pretending to be one, and loves to pet every dog we see at parks and farmers' markets. We've gotten dog books from the library that show the different breeds. She's watched at least half a dozen dogs movies over and over. So, I put the word out that she would love to walk and play with a dog if someone would let her. One of our friends just happened to be going out of town this weekend and needed a dog-sitter. Not only did E get to hang out with a dog, she also made some money!

I helped her feed the dog and walk it, and she played ball with it in their back yard. She had so much fun! Today was the last day, and when we got home she started asking when we could go see the dog again. Hopefully our friends will let E walk the dog a few times a week.

I explained to her that they were paying her money to take care of the dog. She asked me if that was like my work, and I said yes. She said "This is MY job mommy. Not your job. My job!" :) She is anxious to get to the store tomorrow to spend her money, and said that she wants to buy the dog a toy, but we'll see when she gets there. I hope she always works at things she enjoys, and never gets bogged down in the rat race.