Garden (and Parker's) Growth

We had a super busy week last week. Construction finally got underway on the playroom. The new lighting, new windows and new door were installed. Tomorrow, hopefully, the "mud people" will come and the cabinets are being installed this week too. I'll post some progress pictures after the mud folks are done. Just the new windows have made a HUGE difference in how light and bright it is in there now.

On Thursday Parker had her 4 year old "well visit" or checkup. She's continuing to grow along her same growth curve, and she's in the 25th percentile for both height and weight and BMI. And her blood pressure is normal. They also checked her blood sugar and iron levels with a finger stick, because I said that she seems like she has low energy some of the time. We don't have the results yet, but I suspect she'll be diagnosed as 'lazy'...or another polite medical term meaning lazy. I'm making an effort to boost her stamina.

The garden is limping along. Parker and Bob planted sunflowers, and one is finally blooming. I've had several tomatoes and cucumbers and dill and we also have some jalapeño peppers but they're pretty tiny since they're in the shade of the sunflowers. The other day I made a yummy ziziki sauce using cukes and dill from the garden. Pretty thrilling. Next year I'm going to try zucchini and squash and eggplant.

Striking a pose for the sunflower picture:

Cucumber - I planted the english kind that have a thin skin. Very yummy.

Green tomato. I should have picked this one green....the birds found it when it turned red. They've taken care of my grasshopper problem though, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I'm getting a net next year though.

My garden clogs. Army green with ladybug jibbitz.

July 4th and swimming breakthrough

We had a great 4th of July! Our neighborhood has activities all day, beginning with a little parade. People decorate their golf carts, mowers and bicycles and toss candy. It's very cute. After that, Bob, Parker and the neighbors went up to the pool and did lots of playing in the water. For dinner, we went to our friend's house and did more swimming (see video!) and then back to the neighborhood to watch fireworks. Everyone congregates at the pool cabana, and there's a band and dancing, and people bring their own fireworks and set them off over the lake. It's a ton of fun, and Parker lasted until 11pm! We really soaked it up this year and had a great time.

The parade

SWIMMING! At swim lessons, Parker learned to swim underwater all the way across the pool, but it's been pulling teeth to get her to do just a couple strokes under water at home. Yesterday at our friend's house, she finally just went for it, and swam over and over and over again while we cheered. She's very proud of herself.....and we're super thrilled too.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Summer Vacation 2008

We made our annual trip to California a couple weeks ago. We left early on a Saturday morning, and finally got home Sunday night, 8 days later. We had planned to get home the Saturday before...but because of storms in Dallas, our flight was canceled as we were boarding the plane! Luckily, quick-thinking Bob started dialing the 1-800 number as soon as he heard the word "canceled" and we were able to get on a flight the next day. So we rented a car and drove back to Escondido to Bob's cousin's house and stayed another night there. It was nice to get to spend some time on the beach, and also to see other areas of CA....citrus trees, mountain views, etc.. Avocados are 5/$1 there.

Incidentally, the directions to Bob's cousin's house sound like this: "you take the 5 to the 8 to the 163 to the 15". For some reason, in California, they put "the" in front of their highways....instead of "I" like we do. I thought the Texas folks might find that regional difference interesting.

We stayed in a condo in between the beach and the bay (Mission beach/bay) - it had a nice courtyard where Parker could play with her cousins, and was about a half a block from either the calm water of the bay, or the waves on the beach. Parker preferred the waves, surprisingly, but she tired out pretty quickly. This year, instead of going home for naps, Bob's sister loaned us her 'nap tent', and Parker would crawl in it when she was tired of the sun or wind or of being awake. It worked really well.
Bob's sister and her family also came down, and we had a lot of fun visiting with them, and Parker loved playing with Lexie. So all together, Bob saw his Grandmother, 3 aunts (or 1 aunt and her 2 sisters....how does that work?), his uncle, 2 cousins and their husbands and their kids, and his sister, brother in law and niece and nephews. Phew! Lots of folks!

Here are some pictures. There are many more uploaded to a web album if you're interested.
http://picasaweb.google.com/CGPost/2008SAnDiego?authkey=TZKRuENfbvk
Hopefully you can just view it without logging in or anything. If not, email me.

Family portrait



Playing in the waves at the beach.

Parker and Bob going to the waves

Parker and Lexie playing with baby dolls

On the swing

Chasing waves with Mackenzie and Bob

Demo day

Today, after years of talking about it, we finally began construction on the playroom/family room renovation. And by 'construction', I mean deconstruction. And by 'we', I mean the guys in this picture. As it turns out, carpenters get really jumpy when working around old wiring and someone does flash photography when they're not expecting it. Whoops.
They tore out all the old paneling and cabinets today, and soon an electrician will add some new lighting. Then we'll have new texture and paint, and new wainscoting and new built-ins. New windows and a new door too. Yahoo!
Ideally, I would not have schedule this so soon after returning from a vacation. Yesterday was ROUGH with Parker afflicted with severe jetlag and me needing to completely empty this room of 4 years of toy accumulation. We got it done though. I'll try and have vacation pictures up soon.

Home again

We're home! We've been in California all week, and we're finally back. Pictures to follow soon!

Happy Birthday!

Last weekend was Parker's birthday party - she is very happy to finally be 4 like her friends. To count down the days until her big day, we made paper chain - one link for each day - and tore one off each night. I had Bob take a picture of it.....but forgot to ask him to make her bed or brush her hair first.


For her party venue, she chose a bounce house place, Pump It Up Jr, which has smaller stuff for younger kids. She's been to a couple other parties here, and enjoyed it I guess, so that is what she chose. She really had a ball, and all her friends had a great time too.

Leading the pack.....

Group picture....she had a good turnout.

This is the big chair she sat in to sing Happy Birthday. She was worn out at this point, and got stage fright when it was time to blow out the candles, so I had to do it. She refused.

We opened gifts at home...a new Barbie nightgown, and some lipgloss w/ a clutch purse carrying case were among her gifts.


After gift opening, we went out for a family dinner. Here's the clutch purse in action:

Loving the pool

I'm still working on birthday pictures.....here's a pool picture in the meantime.

Parker is LOVING pool. This picture really isn't accurate, because she's in the baby pool with goggles on, neither of which she'll do now. She wants to be in the 'big pool', and wants me in with her....no floaties. Last year, she wouldn't go NEAR the big pool if there were other kids there, but this year, she's over that, thankfully. I guess.
The shallow end is low enough for her to touch bottom along the edges, so she spends most of her time bobbing up and down, back and forth along the edges. She's trying to teach herself to swim WITHOUT putting her face in the water, so she's hopping up and bicycling her arms and legs and then landing again. Today she did that for 2 hours, and the bottoms of her toes are raw. She took a great nap though.
Otherwise, she likes me to hold her stomach and swim her around while she kicks and paddles her arms. Still with her head up though. Either way, this is waaaaaaay more time in the pool than I spent all of last year I think.
She is also taking swimming lessons this week and next. These are old-school lessons, where you go under the first day, no matter how much you're screaming. Today was her 4th lesson, and the first day she didn't cry going in and have to be peeled off of me. When we did lessons when she was 2, it was the same way. She hated it at first, but by the second week, she liked it. The trick is going to be convincing her to swim underwater at home, not just at lessons. I told her that as soon as she could swim underwater, she could go down the slide at the pool, and that has really motivated her. Hopefully she'll put it all together soon. Stay tuned.

Ballet Recital

This weekend was the big ballet recital. Apparently, it's recital season for everyone, and dancers across the metroplex have been working on their recital numbers for months now. And Parker's class is no different. We got things rolling with a dress rehersal friday night. I was super worried about this because it meant leaving her back in the dressing room until time for her dance....her class was the eighteenth one to go. There were teen assistants assigned to each class, so I knew she'd be fine, but wasn't sure if she'd freak out or not. She had no issue with me leaving her, thank goodness.

Parker and dressing room chaos:

The next morning was the big show, and again I was super nervous. She has really done great all year in ballet, especially considering she is the youngest one in her class by a year at least. She keeps up and tries very hard and does a great job...and not just by a mom's standards. But as recital time grew closer, she's had a few freakout/meltdown issues at dance class....refusing to dance, running out of the room crying and balling up in my lap, etc. So it was anyone's guess if she was going to totally freeze or not.

But she did great!!!
And neither one of us cried or wet our pants.

She's the 4th one from the left.

I have some very grainy video of her that I'll try to get posted. I have to do some editing on it, so it might be a while. We chose not to buy the professional video for her 2 minute performance. Not did I get the professional pictures done...although I might take her up to JCPenney and get a picture in her outfit. It is amazing how much money you can spend on recital if you take all the options. And the bigger girls do TWO dances....so 2 costumes, etc, etc.

Afterward we went out to eat and got ice cream. In costume of course.

Another tradition is to give your dancer flowers afterward. Conveniently, I could order them in advance and pick them up at the show. Bob presented her with her roses afterward, and she also got a metal on stage when they did their final bow. She really liked that part - all the dancers come out and they introduce the groups ("Tinkerbells") and the do a big bow holding hands. The back of her metal says "Parker - First Year".

The next day when she woke up,
she said "do we get to do recital again?" and was very annoyed when I said no. We're going to take a break from ballet this summer....namely a break from driving her talkative self across town and back every week....and start back up in the fall when school starts. I hope she gets as much enjoyment out it next year as she did this year.

Happy Birthday Paula!!

Happy Birthdays!

Happy Birthday Emily!

Happy Birthday Jack!

Memorial weekend

We stayed home for Memorial weekend....but we had plenty to do around the house to keep us busy. Bob cleaned out the garage, and Parker kept him company riding her 3-wheeler while wearing her slippers and a ballerina skirt.

On Sunday night we broke out the Slip-N-Slide. Parker was THRILLED with it....although she's not quite coordinated enough to slide very far. She sort of runs to the end and falls down. But she has a ton of fun doing it, and it really wears her out.

This is her starting to run....she rares back like a baseball pitcher and then takes off.

Water collects at the end and makes a big splash.

Then she runs back for more.

Today's exciting event was Bob dismantling the freezer. For months now it's been leaking at the bottom, so he took the whole thing apart to fix the clog in a water line that was causing it to leak. At least we're crossing our fingers that will fix it. That might not sound like a fun holiday event to you, but if it's actually fixed, and we won't ever walk into the kitchen first thing in the morning and step into a puddle, it will be way worth it!

Pizza dough and a progress report

Friday night is pizza night. Either Bob picks one up, or I make one. Actually, I make 3 - we each get our own. Normally Parker is occupied when I'm making pizza, but this time she helped. She rolled out her own dough....over and over and over again, and eventually cut out shapes using a cookie cutter. With some help, she also added the canadian bacon and "topping" (she won't eat cheese if she knows what it is). I guess the little shapes tasted the best because she ate those first.

Today was her last day of 3 year old preschool. I think the teacher was a little sad saying goodbye to everyone...she had a really nice group of kids this year, and Parker has loved every minute of school. I can recall only 1 time when I had to coax her to go....and I think she wound up throwing up in the car on the way there. Last week she got her final progress report - here are her latest skills:

MASTERED SKILLS:
1. Makes plans with three or more details
2. identifies the beginning letter or sound of a word
3. writes a string of letters and asks to have them read
4. arranges objects in a series
5. recognizes a written word

EMERGING SKILLS:
1. Offering a solution to a conflict
2. arranging objects in a graduated series
3. counting two groups of objects and saying which one has more

SUGGESTIONS FOR HOME:
Parker spends a lot of time role playing. Puppets would promote her imagination, creativity and language skills.

None of those were really ground breaking news to me. The other day she spelled 'job' aloud by sounding it out, so she's getting pretty reading ready. She likes to be read to, but isn't terribly interested in any of the early reading books (Bob Books) I have for her. She has to do it all on her own terms, I guess. As for the suggestions for home, I think I'll pass on doing any more puppeteering than I already do. I'm not sure I can handle her having any more imagination or language skills.

Fun full family weekend

We had a nice full weekend at home. Parker is detoxing from being the center of attention last week at her grandparents house, so we've endured a lot of whining and fits, but I think maybe she's past it.
We planted a TON of annuals in the front flower beds...the usual zinnias and some verbena. I got Parker some sidewalk paint, and she painted and experimented with mixing colors. It's pretty cool stuff, and it kept her amused for several minutes.

Throwing a fit in the yard.....isn't she pitiful?

After nap, she finally came around and was in a pretty pleasant mood.
This evening after all the work was done, Bob turned the sprinklers on for Parker to run through while I assembled dinner.

She was pretty cold afterward.....here she is all bundled up eating dinner. She's eating a ciabatta roll in this picture. She got a kick out of the name.

As part our quest for a pleasant dinner time, we've started taking turns talking about the favorite part of our day. Tonight Parker said her favorite thing of the whole day was,
"Right now, eating this nice dinner". I'd believe her had ~I~not said the exact same thing last night. She realized that was a nice thing to say, and so she's using it now because she knows we'll say "awww, how sweet". Prior to this, her favorite canned phrase was to say:
"....and I put a heart on it....because I love you"
- a line she stole from her aunt Paula, and has gotten a lot of mileage out of.

Our lovely dinner - bbq chicken sandwiches (mine w/ mustard too) and quinoa/cucumber/tomato/chickpea salad and a tasty chardonnay (the brown thing is a rock).
A nice end to a nice weekend. Awwww, how sweet!

Bird verdict and homecoming

For those of you on the edge of your seats about the birds on our porch fan, I think I have a verdict. My mom and I reached the same conclusion....that they're swallows. I think these are Cliff Swallows, but people call them barn swallows too (people who are wrong). According to my mother, if they find a place they like, they are very persistent about building mud nests and it makes a huge mess. I'm pretty sure this was a family, and they were 'parking' the fledgling up on the ceiling fan while they caught bugs. Any time he flew off, they'd fuss at him and make him go back to the fan. I've seen these types of birds out here all the time, zooming around catching bugs, but I've always thought they were Martins. And prior to that I thought they were bats. This is the first time I've ever seen any of them stop and perch anywhere, which is why I think it's a family. Anyhoo, to foil their nesting attempts, I'm keeping the fan turned on. They weren't too happy about that.

Blah, blah, blah, what about Parker........Parker has had a nice day. Bob has been out of town all week for work, and she's been missing him. On the phone they were talking:

Parker: "I miss you"

Bob: "I miss you too."

Parker: "I miss you....one hundred!"

This week we've been working on table manners, and not making a BLECH face when you get your plate and see your dinner, and not playing with toys or getting up and down out of your chair or singing or dancing or crying, etc etc. I made a chart and tonight she got all her stamps...although it was easy since it was pizza night.

bird id

What could these be? Click on the picture and it will enlarge. They made a big rucus flying up there, all snipping at each other (there are 3). My guess is lazy Martins taking a break. They look like they had a little blueish/purple on their backs.