Dinner with friends

(This picture was taken a few weeks ago, before the non-stop rain began. )
Here's Parker and one of her friends. The shocking part of this photo is that Parker has finished her fish sticks and he has not. We've been having a nice time lately spending evenings with friends that have kids Parker's age. She's finally at the age where she will run and play all evening, and the grown-ups get to sit and chat. Win-win.
If you click on the picture to see it larger, you can see in the background on the left where the tree that split in The Storm used to be. A couple weeks ago they came and cut the rest of it down. Turns out it was in the utility easement (so are our new privit bushes, whoops) so the neighborhood paid to remove it. Bob is scrambling to come up with a new screening option/tree solution to put back there.

Life with Bob

2 hours before company was about to arrive, I can't find Bob. I look around and find that he's decided to do some tree trimming real quick. Most of my friends complain that they can't get their husbands to do stuff around the house.....I can't get mine to stop!

Header under construction

I'm working on changing the look of the header.

Circus act

Let know if you don't see a video clip....I'm having trouble uploading it.
Edit: Ok, Emily reported that she was able to see it. You just never know what you'll see when you hear Bob and Parker tell you "Watch this, mom!". This is the kind of thing that goes on when we are bored and stuck inside because it won't. stop. raining. She has really good balance, doesn't she?

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

If you're spoiled and you know it.....

This is after playing in the sprinkers and helping Bob bathe the dog. The towel was used to dry off the dog and at some point, Bob made a tent out of it for Parker. She loooooooves a tent.

Sign language - Flashback

Last week Parker and I were trying to fill our day and were looking back through old pictures. I found these that show her doing her baby signs.

"Butterfly"

" Bear " (she thinks the silhouette of the soldier in the magazine is a bear)

"Duck "

More fair pictures

This is Parker and her little friend walking around after a brief shower. Her friend is exactly a year older than her, if you are comparing sizes.

Running in the fountain

At the carnival we went to last week, they have a big area with a fountain and lots of sprayer things. We took some extra clothes so Parker could run through them. She's really into the sprinkler thing lately.....she and Bob spent about an hour on Tuesday evening outside - him checking all the sprinker heads, and her running through them in her swimsuit. We'll probably make it a weekly event (Tuesday is our day to water).

Plumeria Blooms - 2005

This post is for my mom.
Bob and I both remember the plumeria as having pink blooms when it last bloomed in 2005, but I guess I can see where they could be considered white in comparison to some that were very dark pink.
So is this from the white plant, or the pink plant?

Eyeing the ferris wheel

At the fair

We attended The Taste Of Addison last night with some neighborhood friends. Parker had a great time and loved eating corn on the cob.

Helping

Here are some old 'helping' pictures I never posted. She's a biiiiiiig help these days. Here she is making muffins and making salad. There's a list below of all the stuff she can help with now. I meant to make that into a nice narrative, but I'm in a rush.



Things Parker helps with:
Cooking: stirring, assembling salads
Washing dishes
Feeding the dog
Filling bird feeder
Planting plants
Watering plants
Putting wet clothes in the dryer

Lemon Tree

We got a lemon tree a couple weeks ago. The blooms smell just like gardenia. It lives in the pot that the plumeria was in, and the plumeria got a big new pot.

Bob was out of town for a couple days, so I'm very behind on pictures and blogging. Tomorrow is Parker's last day of school. It's going to be very sad because she really had such a great time and made some really good friends and really loved her teacher. Hopefully we'll be able to get together with her little girlfriends this summer.

Reinactment

This wasn't the actual angry moment. I had her recreate the magic so I could take a picture.
I heard her saying

"Mama, you made a MISTAKE!"

According to Parker, I made a mistake when I threw away this very noisy Happy Meal toy. She got it over a year ago, and it has yet to get lost or make its way to the bottom of a toy bin. My mistake was that I didn't shove it far enough down in the trash can so she wouldn't find it.

Tree v. Car

Here's the picture I took last night. This back behind Parker's swingset....like if you had your back to the swingset. Bob said it was bad manners to take a picture, but I did anyway. I can't remember if i mentioned in my earlier post that the chainsaw man showed up at 11:30pm to cut the tree off the cars. He told the neighbor he was booked, so it was last night or wait until Friday. There are trees, big and small, down like this all over town.

Power restored

The power came back on around 2pm. Yay!

Here's a picture of Parker making a beaded necklace.

Weather report

We are all safe and sound after the huge storm last night. I'm posting this from work, since the power is still out at home. Our home, and about 300,000 other peoples from what I've read.
Parker was very confused by the power outage, and was walking around flipping on all the switches trying to make the lights work. When the power does come back on, it's gonna look like Vegas in there.
Our storm drama was that a tree back behind Parker's swingset fell onto the neighbor's cars. Notice I didn't say "our tree". We think it is in an easment, so not technically ours. We assume the insurace companies will sort it all out. It's a good thing we didn't start filling that back flower bed with shade loving plants though.
If anyone knows how long a food in a freezer "lasts" before it has to be pitched out, email my gmail address, or just post a comment and I can check it from my phone.

Apple, pt 2

She is soooooo concerned with
1. The moon
2. Airplanes

Since she was able to talk, she would yell out any time she saw the moon or an airplane.

And cancel what I said about her being in a good mood lately. The Grouch is back. I should have taken her to the doctor last week to see what was causing the happy.

Big Apple

Parker at an entire apple the other day. She didn't want it cut up, she ordered it "big and tall, no cuttin'".

Friday, no flashback

We've had a fun week. Parker has been in a pretty happy mood lately, aside from the normal fit-throwing and drama of the almost 3 year old. Yesterday she had a terrible meltdown because I wouldn't let her wear a dress AND a skirt at the same time. She is obsessed with wearing dresses lately. That's all I can get her to wear. I suggest other skirts and pants that I know she likes, but she only wants to wear them WITH a dress. Could she be Penecostal?
Tonight I picked out PJs for bed, and I showed them to her, hoping it would help motivate her to get out of the tub. She looked at my selection and said

"Probably that doesn't match."

(in my defense, the top and bottom were the same color and they DID SO match, they just weren't a set that was purchased together)
Bob said she did the same thing to him last night...shook off his PJ pick as non-matching, and chose her own.

--------------------
Singing in the tub tonight:

"Baa baa black sheep have you any wool?
Bless you, bless you three hands full."

--------------------

New plants

We did some landscaping this weekend. I'm posting small pictures since there are several, but you can click on them to see them larger if you'd like. Parker is included in the pictures for scale. I'm just guessing at the spelling of all these plants. You can send in corrections via the comments if you'd like.



New St. Francis (patron saint of animals)


New Japanese Arealia....we might get another one.


3 Japanese Yew ....they stay this wide, but get much taller. (that's the neighbor's swingset in the background) They are to provide screening of the view of the other neighbor's house when sitting on the back patio. I'm sure they'll be glad to have a little screening from us too.



New squirrel-proof birdfeeder. The squirrel was FURIOUS today when he couldn't figure out how to eat out it. And Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal were very happy. :-)


Red mandavilla vine. You can see the Japanese Yew plants in the top of this picture.

New salmon colored Oleander in place of the cannas that had over-multiplied.
Bob did all the hauling and planting of all these, and also planted a zillion flats of periwinkles in the front yard. We still have a ton of work to do, especially in the back beds. We're hoping by next summer we'll be done with most of the planting and will be able to replace the crumbling brick with some nice stone.

Cucumber Sandwich

I heard Parker saying "cucumber sandwich" when she was eating, so I assumed she had stacked a couple pieces of cucumber, but I didn't think she had stacked 5 of them, and was eating them that way!

-----------------------

Complaint:
Parker: "I don't like that yogurt"

Me: "what's wrong with it?"

Parker: "It's too yucky"

Me "what is yucky about it?

Parker: "The yucky part."

------------------------

This week, she's been singing lullabies. She does the "Hush little baby" one and makes up her own words, usually looking at the things around her:
"Hush little baby don't say a word,
Daddy's gonna buy you a.......
bathtub.
And if that bathtub is broken,
daddy's gonna buy you a......
potty chair.
And if that potty chair doesn't work,
Daddy's gonna buy you a......
door."

-----------------------------

There was a comment on the previous post about her eating and holding her fork with her left hand. She holds her pencil with her right hand usually, but will eat with either, especially when eating noodles.

Eating noodles

Do not leave children unattended....

----------------

Funny quote from yesterday:

"Mom, will you go halloweening with me?"

Weather report

We are safe and sound and only got a bunch of rain. It was sort of nerve-wracking there for a little while, but most of the bad storms stayed south of us.

Flashback Friday

Hide and Seek

Here's Parker playing Hide and Seek at her Gigi's house. I'm pretty sure she though she was hiding in this picture.