Beautiful ballerina mommy

Have I posted this picture already? This is how we start our day most days. Putting on our heels, our dress up stuff, and caring for the babies. On this day, she informed me, "I'm a beautiful ballerina mommy". This is a buggy she got for her birthday. She can fit all the baby dolls in it at once, and has solved the stroller overcrowding problem:

(There are 5 or 6 dolls packed on this stroller and in the 3 purses hanging off. I just didn't feel right about making Big Baby ride around in a purse)

Singing

Parker has been attending a Mother's Day Out at the Baptist church this summer. I think their influence is starting to show:


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(the word she says at the end is "bible")

New flower bed pictures

Before

During

Bob, during

After

I forgot to mention that there's a "Gold Dust Aucuba" (varagated japonica) in the back corner that will get about 4'x6' hopefully.

Worms

We had another busy weekend. On Sunday morning, I woke up to find that Landscaping Obsessed Guy had posessed Bob overnight. While I snoozed, Bob had decided that his project for the day, other than mowing the entire yard (!), would be to finally redo one of the back flower beds. In the before picture (coming soon!), you can see that there's a gigantic rose bush blob, our new Japanese Yew, and not much else. Bob elected to removed the rose bush and replace it w/ Encore azaleas. I had thought we'd leave the rose bush, but I wasn't really in a position to argue with someone motivated to dig in the dirt in the hot sun all day, so out it went. We had a couple family outings to select plants, soil and mulch and came up with 3 azaleas, some perienniel blue salvia stuff, coriopsis and lambs ear. It looks a million times better and will really look nice once it all gets established in a couple more seasons.
And Parker had a nice time digging up worms.

Cold Water

Another beach picture. The water in the bay is FREEZING cold. This is the first year I've been in it past my ankles.
Parker spent most of her time running from the sand into the water. Then turning around and running all the way back. Over and over again, until she was exhausted and then we'd take her back to the condo for an afternoon nap. It's rare these days that she consistently takes a nap, but in San Diego, she konked out every day, and then again at night.

Cousin pics con't

Cousin Closeups

More San Diego pics of Parker and her cousins.

New 'Bracelet'

For the past 4 days Parker has been wearing her "special bracelet". If you look closely, you'll notice that it's actually a ponytail holder. She got it with some hair bows and things for her birthday. We were putting all of the bows and clips into a box and she saw the ponytail holders. Pink with sparkles. She had me put it on her...it fits with out stretching....and she's had it on ever since. Anytime we go somewhere new...swimming, bday party, school, etc she checks to make sure she can wear her special bracelet. If we have to leave it at home (it doesn't go swimming), then she puts it back on as soon as she's home!

Be careful what Bob and Parker wish for.....

Well they got their trampoline. I showed just the slightest crack in my no-trampoline armour and it was like trying to stop wild horses. Saturday morning, after Bob mowed but before we had guests over for dinner, Bob purchased and assembled Parker's new trampoline. It was on sale, which was nice.
On the way to the store, we were waiting to turn left, and lots of cars were zipping past us. Parker's observation was

" Looks like a lot of people are going to get a trampoline! We better hurry before they're all out!"

Parker LOVES it and she just laughs and laughs and jumps and jumps. It is a bit of an eyesore for our neighbors though. Hopefully Parker's squeals and giggles will cheer them up.

Skipping

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Carnival pics

Here are the carnival pics I promised. At the beach, there is a permanent carnival set up. We usually go once when we're there and ride the rides. The big question is whether or not to get a wrist band or buy individual tickets. You have to ride x amout of rides to get your money's worth, and it's not recommended for kids Parker's height because the amount of rides is limited. Turned out, we had no trouble getting our money's worth! All of her cousins were so great about riding with her too.

Merry Go Round

submarine thing that wen up in the air and back down

driving a boat

Tilt-A-whirl....she rode this 4 times! It flings you around in circles. I couldn't believe she rode it so many times!

July 4th

We had a long fun day yesterday. Our neighborhood has a full day of activities. In the morning, we took Parker up for games and the bounce house. She LOVES to bounce! I'm starting to conceed on getting a trampoline I think. I don't have pictures of the morning, but maybe I'll have some forwarded to me that I can post.

In the evening, there is a live band around the pool area and at the lake behind the pool, there are fireworks, and people bring their own and shoot those off too. Parker loved dancing to the music and watching the fireworks. When she got sick of that, she played tag and other games with some of the neighbor kids. We were there until 11pm! We had a sleepy child to deal with.


Watching with dad. Parker's observation about the noise:
"This is gonna bother my sleep."

Dancing with friends

At the carnival

More carnival pics coming soon.....

Sea World

I'm going to try to post some chronological pictures of the stuff we did on vacation. Here are some from Sea World:


At a 3d movie w/ cousin

Looking at the Clidesdales w/ another cousin

Walking around. She spent as much time as possible holding hands with someone.

Jumpin' Cousins - Foot update

This was a fun game Parker played until all the big kids got tired of it. This is one of her cousins...Bob's sister's daughter.

I was just reminded that i never gave an update on Bob's foot. He went and got Xrays and nothing is broken. He got good marks for keeping his cuts clean, they were very impressed considering he'd been at the beach for a week.
He received a velcro shoe to limp around in and promptly mowed the yard when he got home!
If you aren't easily grossed out, here's a link to the pictures.
http://www.flickr.com/gp/41254716@N00/MQ6J28
It continued to swell through the week, to the point that his toes didn't touch the ground at times!
You'll notice that he's wearing a dishwashing glove to keep his foot clean from sand and showing off his sunburn from Sea World.

Parker's first sand dollar

She wasn't terribly impressed, but it's a cute picture.

Beach Pic-1

Here is the first of many. I'll try to get them up sporadically during the week. As you can expect, we have a lot to do. We (hoped)expected Parker to have a droopy sleepy lazy day today, but to our (horror) surprise, she's the opposite, running everywhere, thrilled to be home and playing with all of her toys. So today should be a busy day. Bob's going for foot xrays in a while, I'll report the findings when we get them.

We're home

We're home safe and sound! Stand by for photos and vacation recap in the next few days.

Vacation report

It's Thursday here ;-) we are still having lots of fun. The weather has been amazing. Sunny but cool. Bob's foot cuts are healing nicely, but we're wondering if his foot might be broken. Adding insult to injury, he got a really bad sunburn through his shirt at Sea World.

Parker is having such a wonderful time with her cousins. Today we went to a little carnival and she rode a lot of little rides, including the Tilt O'World, which slings you around in circles. She loved it, to my suprise, and rode it twice!

Milestone alert:
Parker can skip now. She says "watch my new dance".
I'll try to get video of it.

3 year checkup

I just noticed that I never posted this:

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Parker had her 3 year check up yesterday. She's doing great...weighs 27 lbs and is 36 inches tall, which puts her in the 25%tile in both. That's pretty much on the same growth curve as before, so we are pleased.