August 19, 2008

7:15 Drop off. Becky could tell I was home because she smelled pancakes. Apparently JJ is not a big pancake maker.

Ariel is a big pancake eater, she had 3 for breakfast.

7:45 Got my big boy ready for his first day of 1st grade. He's now taller than the deadbolt:



And a tad nervous. We looked at the class lists yesterday and there are only 2 girls in his class this year that were in his kindergarten class. At least one of them is Riley, which is yay for me!



JJ walked over to the school with us, which turned out to be handy when I brought Alex into his room and JJ stayed outside with Adam and Ariel.



Ariel is sooo ready for preschool. She had to carry her backpack for the drop off.



Alex found his name tag and is all ready for school:



8:05 Alex was all dropped off and safely tucked into 1st grade.

8:30 While I made a grocery list, I gave Ariel and Adam some gak (cornstarch and water) to play with. Adam was much more into it, but Ariel did stir all the red food coloring in. And reminded me several times not to eat it.

9:30 Adam and Ariel and I left for our big adventure of the day, grocery shopping. I gave into the donuts, but the important question is, Did Ariel have a donut, or did the donut have her?



For all that mess, she only licked 1/2 the frosting off. But it did keep her quiet. Until, that is, she had a full blown tantrum over I don't know what and a King's employee gave her a balloon to shut her up. That'll teach her.

10:30 Got home and Adam and Ariel played with their balloons for quite a while.

11:45 Lunch - mac & cheese, 1/2 a banana and 2 zucchini cookies.

12:15 Done for a nap, quickly and quietly for once.

2:30 Woke Ariel up, she was pretty good natured about it and had a dry pullup to boot.

2:40 Picked up Alex from school. He seemed to have had a good day but was a bit tired.

When we got home, Alex was very excited about the gak and he and Adam played with it for about an hour.



Ariel amused herself by undressing Baby and asking me to put his clothes back on. And having a tantrum about not knowing where her balloon was.

When Alex was done with gak, he read his latest bird book. This one is really cool, it has 250 bird songs attached (including the most-likely-extinct Ivory-billed woodpecker). And, instead of maps and phrases about diet and breeding, each bird gets its own page with real text. I can tell this will keep him happy for a while (though it would make me happier if he was able to read it by himself now).



4:30 Pick up.

August 18, 2008

We seem to have a knack for having super busy weekends lately, and there's no end in sight. This weekend we went down to the Springs for a Texas cousin reunion. We got there Friday night and the kids went right to bed. Jeremy and I scored a free hotel room and mightily enjoyed our own queen beds and perfect dark and quietness. On Saturday J and I missed out on the Mining Museum and subsequent burro birthday bash with the little cousins and instead toured the Olympic Training Center. In the evening, we enjoyed a big party and some Olympic viewing and a mini wedding shower for Sarah and Devon. And on Sunday, the rain let up just enough to allow the little cousins to go to the North Pole (once again, Jeremy and I skipped out. I took a soggy run.) Here are some pictures from the weekend.

7:00 Drop off. And I was asleep. Apparently letting yourself sleep in until 9:30, no matter how nice the hotel, is not conducive for getting up early the next day.

7:30 Breakfast - a bit of oatmeal

10:00 Left for our errands of the day - first, getting school supplies at Target. Next up, haircuts. Ariel was so jealous of the boys that I got her hair cut too.



Hahahahaha. Not really. I begged the stylist to comb out Ariel's hair so she would stop her pitiful crying. She had her heart set on a Number 2 clippers withs scissors to blend. Ariel's comb out took all of 2 minutes and she didn't charge me.

And then, onto Michael's to get the watercolors and oil pastels for Alex's school supplies that we couldn't find at Target. And then, back to Target so the boys could look at Bionicles. I also picked up some clearance goggles for Ariel so she'll quit hogging the boys'.

12:00 Home and lunch. Ariel had one more slice of eggplant pizza and then some mac & cheese.

1:30 And off again for more errands, this time the dentist.

2:00 Alex and Adam's dentist appointment. Ariel and I amused ourselves in the lobby while they got their cleanings. They had a really cool huge fish tank ("Deedee, look look at the pish. Look look." etc.)



2:30 Met with the dentist. Both boys got x-rays and Alex's showed 3 between teeth cavities that have to be filled. Nothing makes you feel like a steller mom more than a bad dentist appointment for your kids. At least Adam's were fine and they both behaved beautifully.

3:15 Got home, Ariel went right down for a nap.

4:30 Becky woke up a dry Ariel

August 15, 2008

7:15 Drop off, and I was home. I had set my alarm set for 5:30 so I could get up and ride, but when I saw the heavy rain I went back to bed for another hour.

7:30 Breakfast - oatmeal

9:00 Mae-Mae joined us for the day

9:15 Activity of the day - swimming. And while it may seem crazy to take 4 kids swimming, 3 of them have completed the infant survival classes and are smart swimmers. The swimming was fine. When we arrived, we were the first ones there and had the pool to ourselves for 15 minutes. Poor Adam, he wanted to do the slide but the lifeguard said he was too short. I argued that he's done it many times before and could the guard please just watch him, but to no avail. Adam kept asking, "But why am I too short today?" And frankly, my feelings were hurt too, I mean why would I let my child do something dangerous? I wouldn't let him do it if he couldn't. But the girls had fun, Alex had fun (doing the slide) and Adam eventually got over it.

11:00 Left the pool. Still pouring rain.

11:15 Got home. While we waited for the mac & cheese water to boil, Ariel, Mae and Adam got new polish on their toe nails.

11:30 Lunch - Ariel had mac & cheese, one more eggplant pizza and string cheese.

12:00 Down for nap. I originally put both girls in Adam's room but not much sleeping was going on so I moved Mae to Alex's room. He didn't care, he and Adam were watching Star Wars.

While the girls napped, I did my bike workout on the rollers. The hour was not as horrendous as I expected. I listed to my audio book and it went fine.

2:00 Mae woke up (when the movie ended and Alex went in his room and was upset to see a visitor in his bed).

3:00 Ellen, Sam and Ted arrived. Alex helped Ted with a lego set for a bit

3:30 Ellen et al left about when Becky arrived. Becky had to wake Ariel, but I think Ariel didn't fall asleep until at least 1:30.

And, even though I had plenty of picture worth moments day, I didn't get my camera out. However, here's a picture of our first suet feeder visitor, a beautiful male northern flicker:

August 14, 2008

7:something Drop off. I don't know, I was at group swimming practice.

8:00 Got home, a tad late. Noted by husband, who seemed a bit peevish. He left for work, announcing he'd be home at his "leisure."

8:10 Ariel and I took a shower.

8:30 Breakfast. At least I ate, Ariel said she wasn't hungry. I'm not sure if Jeremy gave her anything or not.

9:00 Walked Alex over to school for early testing. He was given a stern warning to not goof off. While he did his testing (mostly literacy) Adam and Ariel played on the playground. His evaluators said Alex did great, I'm so relieved.

9:30 Done with testing, we walked home and then then left for the adventure of the day - The Wow Museum.

10:00 Wow Museum with Lilianna. Alex told me he prefers look-at museum opposed to play museums but I think everyone had a good time. It was very uncrowded, which is rare.

Ariel and Lilianna acknowledged each other:



Pretty pretty princess clothes with real tappy shoes:



Ariel also dressed up in a dino costume (as did Adam). She played with the hula hoop bubble maker. She went shopping in the grocery store. She listened to a bit of storytime and did a dragonfly craft. She also had an on-potty accident which led to new pants.

12:00 Left. Ariel must have had fun, she protested loudly upon leaving.

12:20 Got home - had lunch. I made everyone leftover angel hair pasta from last night. Ariel was fine with the pesto sauce until she saw me eating the eggplant parmesan that went on top. She asked for a bite and then another, until I just gave her a whole slice. She LOVED it. Ate 2 slices to which I'm eternally grateful for. Alex has been saying he wanted to try an eggplant and when I made it last night I had 3 slices, Alex had 1, Jeremy had 1 and Adam picked at 1. Which left us with approximately 11 leftover slices. God bless Ariel, even if she did think it was "pizza."

1:30 Down for nap without a peep. And a confession - When I get up at 5:30, I need a nap. So I put in Ice Age 2 for the boys and crashed on the couch. I guess it all evens out in the end, and I did get my workout in.

4:30 Pick up (and Becky had to wake Ariel)

August 12, 2008

7:15 Drop off. I scared Becky by actually being here. I just had an evening workout today.

Breakfast - oatmeal

And then, a very quiet low key morning. Jeremy hung around until 9:30 because he had to work late to talk to India. I worked on my photography while the kids destroyed the house (damn chipmunk nests that require every pillow and blanket in the house).

11:30 Lunch - canned ravioli, yogurt and a baby cheese.

12:15 Put Ariel down for a nap. It took a while for her to settle down.

2:30 Ariel woke up, wet again.

2:45 Grand Adventure of the Day, biking to Dairy Queen. Adam insisted on riding his own bike even though I was ready to bike with the trailer. And he did great, he's getting more confident every time. He still walked some up and down hills, but he didn't fall or freak out. And he made it! Since he was riding, I pushed Ariel on the trike. I think she pedaled all of 3 times on the ride.

Good ol' DQ:



Adam had hot fudge with sprinkles, and Alex had his standard strawberry sundae:



And the gang ready to ride back (it's about one mile each way):



4:10 When we got back, the neighbors were riding too so we stayed outside with them. I took the handle off Ariel's bike and she managed to ride it a bit. Hey, she did better than Alex did at age 3.

And then, our minor excitement (especially since we are bonafide birders) - a chicken hopped into the neighbor's yard. After some consulting, we learned that her neighbor (the ones with a ratty garden in the front yard) keep 9 chickens in the back. Obviously, no roosters, or we would have known about them long ago.



4:30 Pick up.

And a funny aside - Dad babysat for the boys tonight and took them to Noodles for dinner. And then the little sneaks talked him into taking them to DQ - AGAIN! Not a word about it being the second time that day. Oh well, I guess they can use all the fat in their diet that they can get.

August 11, 2008

As usual for our family, we had a very busy weekend. Saturday morning saw us up at 5:30am to go to the boys' triathlon at Boulder Res. And what a super cute triathlon it was. The distances were roughly a 25m dash through knee high water, a 1/4 mile bike and a .1 mile run.

Adam's age 3-4 wave went first.



I was with Adam the whole time. He didn't need bike help, but he did need help with the transitions. And he's off (on his training wheel bike):



And the strong finish:



Adam was convinced that he won the whole race and the "everyone is a winner" wasn't cutting it for him:



Alex's wave started about 1/2 hour later. He had the option to really swim but he chose to run:



And the most I saw of him on the bike, he's too fast to run with:





And another strong finish!



My triathladorks:



After the race, I had a senior photoshoot (you can see a sneak peek on my photo blog).

Sunday morning, Jeremy had a race on highway 128 and the boys and I watched a bit. Sadly, Jeremy got a flat tire and didn't complete the race.



And onto Monday...

7:15 Drop off. Today is my rest day so I was here.

Breakfast - Ariel had 3 pancakes (I do make them small).

9:00 Ariel had an irrational crying fit that lasted about 1/2. Odd. And noisy.

11:30 Left for the adventure of the day - swimming at Ted's pool.



An appropriate place to wear a swim cap:





We swam and ate a sack lunch. Ariel had 1/2 a PB&J, 2 string cheese, yogurt, a few grapes and a zucchini cookie. Must be a growth spurt or something.

I took her down the slide 3 times before I told her that she needed to do it by herself and I would catch her. That backfired when she actually did start down the slide (after a few false starts) and stopped half way. The kid behind her couldn't see that she was just sitting and he went and pushed her down. Then we were done with the slide.

1:45 Left the pool.

2:00 Got home, went down for a nap. Ariel went straight down, I didn't hear a peep out of her.

4:30 Pick up (and Becky woke Ariel up).

August 8, 2008

Me: "Honey, do you know what day today is?"
Jeremy: "Trash day?"
Me: "Well, yes. And our anniversary."

So Happy Trash Day to us, celebrating 9 fabulous years.

7:45 I got home from my swim work out. My new workout schedule has 2 longer swim workouts rather than the 3 shorter ones I was doing before. So today's workout was 2100 yards and took an hour. The main set was 6x200 yards and the first two 200's I accidentally did two 100's and thought, "This isn't so bad." I realized what I was doing in the 3rd 200, whoops, I mean 100 and corrected myself for the rest (of course, counting the first two 100s and just one 200).

Anyway, got home, Ariel was here, Arieling.

Breakfast - Oat Clusters with Adam. Adam was being odd today and kept telling me he was going to play with Ariel in his room. Maybe I missed a part, like Alex kicking Adam out of his room.

9:15 Left for our adventure of the day - swimming at North Boulder (cause remember, I already was there and got my reentry pass).

My underwater camera is definitely more exciting in bright sunlight. The flash is not pretty:



Ariel's pink toes are pretty though:



10:30 The kids were ready to go and get lunch and their triathlon race packets.

11:00 As I got in the car and checked my phone, I noticed Jeremy had called and it turned out he forgot his wallet so we drove to Gunbarrel to give him lunch money. It was the least I could do for Trash Day.

11:30 Lunch at Moe's. The boys had their egg and cheese bagels, I had a Yummus Hummus and Ariel had a mini cream cheese bagel dipped in ketchup (which the boys thought was hilarious).

12:00 Picked up the race packets. Ariel picked herself out a swim cap and insisted on wearing it:



And my last stop, the bank. On Wednesday, I found $31 at the fair, which led to much excitement and much guilt. And also brings my found money in the last two years to $164.11, including over $5 of interest paid. Anyway, so I deposited my lasted mess of coins and a few checks.

12:30 Got home. Put Ariel down for a nap. She chatted for a long time.

1:30 Finally quiet from Ariel.

4:00 Pick up, Becky got a wet Ariel up.

August 7, 2008

Poor Ariel. All the fun she misses on Wednesdays. Yesterday I took the boys to the Boulder County Fair. I'd never been to a county fair, or a state fair for that matter, but it was about as expected. We looked at 4H projects ranging from photography (Alex does not care for black & whites) to needle point, painting and cake decorating. We made a quick run through the pig, goat and sheep pens before Alex could tolerate it no more (though as far as farm animals go, they were pretty darn clean).

And then the good stuff started at noon when the rides opened.

I took the boys on the ferris wheel:



Alex's favorite ride:



Another ride (Adam was a bit short, so the operator stuck him on with some bigger kids to keep him from flying around):



We lasted 3 hours on the rides until our cotton candy lunch caught up with us and we left to go to Wa-Noodles. So yeah, the county fair was alright, might be worth an annual trip. And maybe next year I'll enter the photography contest and kick some butt :)

And onto today...

7:45 I got home from my track workout. Now, except for 2 weeks ago, I have haven't worked out on a track since high school and now I remember why I don't just go and do it on my own. It ain't much fun. Today we ran 4 400's at a good clip. At least, a good clip for me. And then a mile at a slightly less good clip. After a typical running performance from me, my coach suggested that maybe all my hacking and wheezing might be excerise induced asthma. An interesting theory, though I always though running was just suppose to hurt like that. So I made an appointment with my doctor next week to get checked out. Maybe that's been my running problem all along (I can hope, right?).

Anyway, when I got home, Ariel was here and still in one piece. JJ said there had been a minor crying incident due to some, "Adam hit me" business.

8:00 Hot cereal breakfast

8:15 Ariel and I showered.

8:30 I ate breakfast and Ariel finished her cereal.

And then, we had a very quiet morning. Alex and Adam locked themselves in Alex's room to work on legos and Ariel played by herself or tagged after me. She helped me load laundry into the washing machine.

We did some birding.

Here's my best hummingbird picture yet (though I took it last night):



Ariel and I sat outside and tried to get some good goldfinch pictures (got some pictures, not great).

12:00 Lunch - grapes and mac & cheese.

12:30 Down for nap.

And still, not much happened in the afternoon. We did learn that we have a ton of birds during the day, I guess we haven't been home much. I finally got a good picture of the goldfinches that have been tweeting non-stop the past few days. This shows it is a Lesser Goldfinch, and not the more common American Goldfinch. Good to know (Alex would not let me label the page just "Goldfinch"). I love these guy's song, they are so chirpy and happy sounding.



And then, a new bird for us. Alex was the first to spot this female Black-Headed Grosbeak. Right on!



3:40 Ariel woke up, very wet.

4:00 Early Pick up. Sweet Corn!

After pick up, the boys and I went to the Wild Bird Store to buy a suet feeder to attract more woodpeckers and nuthatches. Don't know what a suet feeder is? I didn't know until today. Suet is beef fat. And we got an extra special suet/insect (millworms, crickets) blend for the flickers. Woohoo, the things I do for my kids!

August 5, 2008

So it's really happened. I've become one of those people (at least in the summer) that gets up at 5:30am to work out. Before Ariel even got here I had ridden my bike to a trailhead, run 6 miles (on two day old blisters), got several mesquito bites and lost my cell phone on the trail. Quite a morning.

7:45 Got home, Ariel was here. Breakfast - she had a few bikes of Oat Clusters with the boys.

8:15 Ariel and I took a shower.

9:00 Drove to the woman's house who had my phone. That's one thing I love about Boulder, you know if you loose your phone, it's going to get returned and NOT have all your minutes used up calling China. I think I need to safety pin my velcro pocket shut in the future. At least my phone didn't fall out in the tall grass, that might have been a problem.

9:30 While we were out, we stopped at Target to buy Mae a birthday present and to pick up more blister bandaids.

10:15 Hit the library for story time. It was less crowded and Ariel did better this time, making it about 30 minutes. I was surprised Alex still enjoyed it as much as he did.

11:00 Last errand - post office.

11:30 Home and lunch - mac & cheese and most of a banana and a few grapes.

12:15 Ariel asked to take a nap, good sign.

3:15 Finally went to wake Ariel but she had just woken up, and had just wet the bed.

3:40 Left for Mae's birthday party in the park. All children were very excited about the party. Alex and Adam made elaborate cards while Ariel was napping.

Here's the front of Alex's card. He copied the Broadtailed Hummingbirds from the bird book, but came up with the symmetric flower motif on his own. VERY impressive for art reluctant Alex:


And the inside - on the left are a female and male House Finch at our feeder. On the right is the Bald Eagle diorama from the museum, complete with a Magpie inching in to get a bite of fish. It's in the Birds of North America room, if you want to check the original:



And Adam's - I was impressed that he tried to copy Happy Birthday Mae from the paper I wrote on for Alex. I haven't seen him write so many letters. As for the rest, your guess is as good as mine.



And the party lived up to all expectations. Ariel went nuts in the bouncy castle/slide. Really nuts:



Big hit all around:



And the birthday girl:



I didn't get any great pictures, a zoom bird lens is not ideal for 3 year old birthday parties. Unless you want to see pictures of the barn swallows that had built a nest in the playground and were diving bombing anyone in a 10' radius.

4:45 Becky picked up Ariel from the park.

August 4, 2008

Well, hello there and welcome back. It was quite a long and busy month without Ariel, I'll try to sum it up for you.

First, we did the 4th of July with Grammie in Colorado Springs. Adam stayed up for his first firework show.





On July 8th, we traveled to Maryland to visit Crissy and family. We had a very relaxing time. We spent a lot of time at the pool and a lot of time just hanging out. Our only kid adventure was going into Baltimore to the National Aquarium, and one night we hired a sitter and Crissy took me out for crabs. Pictures are here (and if you've already looked, I just added some more with my new underwater camera).

We stayed in MD for 10 days. The week after we got back, the boys went back to Grammie's house for a week of art camp. They were both pretty skeptical but of course ended up enjoying it. And I enjoyed my week off. I worked on my "real" job stuff, I did a few photoshoots and updated my website.

The next week (or last week, depending on how you look at it) the boys and I did a lot of swimming and a trip to the museum. I took them to see Beavers at the IMAX theater earlier in the month and they wanted to go back to see Greece (and no, not the movie with John Travolta). We also spent an obscene amount of time at bird dioramas. Alex has turned into quite the bird nerd this summer. Well, we all have and it's quite fun. We've done several bird watching hikes and the kids do much better if they have something to look for. They might not be complete wusses after all. Some of my more exciting bird pictures are here. Oh, and Grammie, we finally got a hummingbird to our feeder. It's a migrating Rufous, but she's been hanging around for a week. We only saw the male one day.

Female:



Male:



And talk about Bird Nerd, right away Alex identified the female because she didn't buzz when she flew, "Mommy, only males flap their wings fast enough to buzz." Oh, of course.

And yesterday, I completed my first triathlon in 8 years. I did the Tri for the Cure at Cherry Creek Reservoir in Denver. And for just picking up the sport again in June, it went pretty well. I did fine on the swim, I was consistent and confident, if not fast. I rocked on the bike (Jeremy's so funny, now that he knows I'm actually decent for a female triathlete he's encouraging me to get aero bars and try his time trial helmet). And then the run... didn't go as well as I hoped. First, it was hot by the time I started and the run was a hard course. It went up to the Dam road and the whole course was visible at all times. Because of the elevation and because THERE WERE NO TREES. I didn't stay hydrated and ended up walking some. Well, first I just walked the water stations but then I just kept on walking. And, oh yeah, I thought I'd save 10 seconds by not wearing socks and I ended up with some nasty blisters. Anyway, I wouldn't have wanted to do spectacular, now I have some (lots!) room for improvement before my next one September 21st.



And that pretty much sums up the month of July. And now, onto today's exciting installment of Adventures with Ariel.

7:15 Drop off one Ariel. All cousins were excited to see each other again. At least for the first 1/2 hour.

7:45 Small breakfast of oatmeal.

8:15 Ariel demanded pink toes, I gave pink toes. Then Adam asked for blue toes and got those.

9:00 Left for our Adventure of the Day - swimming at Boulder Res with Ellen and family.







Much fun was had by all. Alex and Adam did a little swimming, Ariel waded in up to her waist. But they spent the most time playing in the sand. One popular game was sliding down the hill on their bottoms, which put sand in places I didn't even want to think about.

11:00 For lunch, Ariel actually ate half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some pretzels.

12:00 The Res closed to due lightning, but it was time to get going anyway. All three kids took a shower in the locker room to try and remove some of the aforementioned sand.

12:30 Got home, threw kids into the bath. I decided some soap was also needed. Plus, my own kids have had about 5 baths this entire summer and I'd been meaning to get around to it for a week or so (c'mon, doesn't swimming count as cleansing?).

1:00 Lunch Part II - Ariel finished her oatmeal, had a string cheese and a bowl of spaghetti o's. Who is this child that eats?

2:15 Super fun trip to the grocery store. SUPER fun.

3:15 Got home and unpacked the groceries. The kids were out of my hair until I mentioned that I was baking zucchini cookies and then all three wanted to be in the kitchen on chairs "helping." Oh, and back to zucchini, my small garden is doing pretty well, inspiring me to plant more next year. We have mint and basil, tons of cherry tomatoes and zucchini. The big tomatoes are just starting to ripen and the carrot tops look good.

3:45 Gave up on cookies and talked to Crissy on the phone.

4:25 Ariel pick up. No, she did not have a nap. And yes, she was fine until Mommy walked in the door. Oy.

July 2, 2008

7:15 Drop off with perfect timing, I had just gotten back from my swim.

Breakfast - once again Ariel declined.

8:30 Left for our adventure of the day - Swimming! (I'm so thrifty I feel like I *have* to go twice on days I workout).

9:10 Met Rachel and Lilianna at the pool.

Ariel stylishly wore her goggles the entire time, though mostly above her eyes. I'm sure Lilianna was horribly jealous of Ariel fashion sense.





It almost looks like Ariel is swimming, but don't let her fool you, she's just lying on the pool bottom:



Ariel had a FABULOUS time. She splashed. She dragged me down the big slide at least 5 times. We hot-tubbed.

11:00 I finally decided that Ariel had all the pool she could handle (though she disagreed). I got her out of the pool with a granola bar bribe.

11:20 Met Rachel coming out, we decided to meet at lunch at Breadworks. And then a most random thing happened - I ran into a girl I used to run with, back in the day when I really ran (like about 8 years ago). She has a two year old daughter and is also training for Tri for the Cure. Kinda blew my mind, I always wondered what had happened to her, she spent two years in Equador and I lost track with the training group, what with having kids and all.

11:30 Fabulous lunch at Breadworks. I had a tomato/basil/fresh mozzerrella pizza (Ariel declined again) and a brownie (which Ariel gladly shared). Then we biked home.

12:00 Ariel napped. And for the record, I did not. I showered, then started messing around with Becky's iTunes to grab some more tunage.

2:30 Ariel woke up. I let her watch Hello Kitty Cinderella to give me more time to finish up the iTunes business (and btw Becky, you are welcome for YMCA, now you CAN dance on your coffee table!).

Midst movie, Ariel got hungry and had some yogurt. When the movie ended, she was very distraught so I gave her a popsicle and shuffled her outside. My distraction might have worked if Ariel knew how to eat a popsicle quickly so they don't melt off the stick, but alas she doesn't (even the 2 1/2" mini ones) and we had another tragic episode. This time she was distracted by our young neighbors who came over to see what the commotion was. Ariel kept trying to tell them things and they kept saying, "What? What is she saying???" Poor Ariel. As it was, I could only translate about half of it myself.

4:30 Pick up. Finally.

Have a great 4th of July. The blog will be on hiatus for a bit, the boys and I are going to Crissy-land next week and we'll be gone until the 18th.

July 1, 2007

7:20 Got back from my run, Ariel was here. I asked if she was hungry and she said she didn't want to eat. She's been eating so little for breakfast lately that I didn't push it.

9:00 Went outside to wait for Rachel and Lilianna. I pulled weeds and Ariel "helped." Cute story, she looked up at the phone wire and said, "Look Dee-Dee, Good-morning dove!" I was very impressed, we were looking at doves in the backyard yesterday, but they look very different way up high (which she also noticed, "I can't reach!")

9:20 Rachel and Lilianna arrived and we walked to the park. The girls did a spectacular job of not playing at all. Instead, they whined about Cheddar Bunnies.

10:00 Given how the park was going, I suggested we walk up to the library for storytime.

Ariel did ok for about 5 minutes, until she decided it was more about a territorial war about the sitting cushion and less about the stories. The library had to stop reading to reprimand her (I was on the other side of the room).

Before it went bad (with Lilianna):



11:00 Rachel had parked her stroller up front and so even though the girls were long ago done we had to wait until the end to leave.

11:20 Got home, Ariel had mac & cheese for lunch.

12:15 Down for nap.

2:30 Woke up. Ariel spent the afternoon intermittently whining and clinging while I tried to do some chores. She was a good cheerleader though, every time I finished something she'd say, "Good job, Dee-Dee!"

4:30 Pick up.