Enough already!!!!

This morning's radar. Every time I hear thunder and look at the radar, this is what I see.....not just normal rain, but crazy lines of storms.
Good thing we got all of our swimming done yesterday!

swimming day and bedtime battles

We had a big day of swimming today. Parker looooooooves the pool! She wears arm floaties, but she can still manuever around very easily and go anywhere she wants, or just float and bob around. In the morning, she went to a birthday party at the pool, and this afternoon, she went with us to a grown up party, where they had a pool, so she swam more. Certainly she'll sleep well tonight.

Since she swam so much, I topped her off with a PBJ sandwich and milk when we got home, and let her watch a show. It was already past her bedtime, and since she got to watch a show, I told her we'd just read 1 story. "3 stories?", she asked. No, nice try, just one story. So when it was time to pick out a book, she chose the 1 inch thick Treasury of Nursery Rhymes, the thickest book she could find. Bob had told me she had pulled that on him too, but I thought maybe it was just a fluke. Guess not.

In the end she settled for just one story, and I compromised on letting her wear her Tinkerbell panties underneath a pullup. She didn't want to take them off, she said "but then Tinkerbell will be worried about me". She's also wearing one of her dresses as a nightgown, "like a princess sleeps in, a gown". There are just so many battles I'm willing to fight at 9:30pm.

Purple Heart

Here's a link to an article about my uncle receiving a Purple Heart recently for injuries in WWII (she said, feeling old).
I'm not totally clear why he's just now getting it, but it's a neat article.

http://www.theeagle.com/stories/060107/local_20070601038.php

Bath pic-edited

I like this crop better

Baby doll sleep over

Parker has been spending all day every day messing with her dolls. Feeding them, arranging them, walking them, moving them from one location to another. Here she has them all having a sleepover, which is sort of odd, because usually this is where the 'pool' is too. Until today, we have been struggling for covers, but her Grandma made her some doll blankets, so that problem is solved. Pictures of that later.

Fun with video

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Bob got me a new camera for mother's day, and it's super easy to take little video clips with it. Here's another quick one of Parker sitting under the dog-drying towel.

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?

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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.