Peapod Pink

The stud of my life got his first haircut today. He sat so still on the booster chair, it was unbelievable. The stylist said that she wished she had a video camera because she's never seen a baby respond that well to a haircut. He even looked down patiently and let her shave the back. His idiot mother forgot the camera, so she had to take pictures afterward.

L loves to put her head on J's shoulder and watch her play her DS. How cute are they?

I know...I'm late posting anything about the 4th, maybe my absence here has not clearly indicated that my summer is conspiring to kill me. So, you get what you get, until school is in session again. Our 4th was relatively low key. We attended a pancake breakfast at church in the morning, hung out at home, grilled some hot dogs, etc. Daniel took the girls to see fireworks, but I stayed home because someone started falling down on the ground crying for his crib around 7pm...which didn't bode well for fireworks. Surprisingly, I could see our community fireworks show perfectly well standing right in my driveway. So, for future reference, we don't need to fight the crowds.

I need to get this down on the blog before I forget when it started...the pre-teen attitude. I can't believe that my sweet sweet girl is getting the attitude already. She's been a delightful child for the past 8 years, aside from those 3 months of horrible colick, and now...I'm seeing glimpses of my future. She has tried to wear play makeup out of the house twice in the past week (that didn't fly), spoken to me with an indignant tone on several occasions (which is very unlike her), and taken to spending a lot more time alone in her room (instead of playing happily with her siblings). Granted, she is still a gem in the spectrum of child behavior, but nonetheless I'm displeased with these recent developments. She's starting to test her limits. I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. I'm officially about to enter a different phase of parenting. Sigh. I'm feeling like I should have a plan for this, to make sure I see her safely into becoming a kind, intelligent, responsible adult...but I don't have a plan. As with everything I've done raising her, it's my first rodeo, and I'm just trying to act like I know what I'm doing. It's worked so far. I've adjusted my methods for the other 3 peas based on their individual personality needs...but I always have to go through everything with B first by trial and error. Poor kid. It's a miracle I haven't screwed her up by now. I guess I have my parents to thank for that.

I was subjected to new levels of insanity today at Sam's Club when my monthly trip required use of the flat bed cart. It's true. People were quite literally looking at me and chuckling while I pushed a giant flat bed cart full of diapers, food, and paper products out of the store. At least I didn't have the kids with me...that would have been a circus. The total was ridiculous too. You would think for $336 I would have gotten something more exciting than food and diapers. Oh well.

Xander has recently developed a fondness for pushing this dump truck all around the house. It is so cute to see him getting more interested in toys.

About a month ago Daniel and L were reading the paper when she became enamored with a photo of the 2009 Toyota Yaris. She kept telling him over and over that she wanted to buy that car. It was so funny, I took a video. What can I say, she has cheap taste.

Untitled from Erika on Vimeo.

I have a new found hatred for squirrels. I always thought they were cute and harmless...before this year. There are 2-3 squirrels systematically stripping my tomato plants of every last tomato. They don't even run away when I chase them, yelling and clapping like a crazy person. I've sprayed them with water guns. I've sprinkled coffee grounds and cayenne pepper all over the place. And I've now resigned myself to watching them walk away with as many tomatoes as they can carry each day. Daniel wants to kill them, but I just don't have squirrel murder in me. I figure more squirrels will just come to take their place. I give up. All of those beautiful tomatoes grown for nothing.

I insist that anything involving a glue gun falls under the category of "crafts". So, when I noticed Daniel at one of his favorite hobbies, messing with electronics, (I don't have any idea what actually goes on here)...I asked if he was having fun doing man crafts. He did not enjoy having the label crafts attached to whatever this nonsense was. But honestly, what else would you call something involving a soldering iron and a glue gun? A man craft...that's what you'd call it. Am I right?

Still struggling to find the time to blog this summer. Here is a photo from Father's Day.

I took this video of X while he was learning to get down the stairs about 6 weeks ago. I never got it uploaded until today. :)

Untitled from Erika on Vimeo.

Long time, no see. The kids finished school 10 days ago, and I've been scarce since. They did an art camp last week, which was fun. I don't know that is was worth the cost, or as impressive as I'd hoped, but they enjoyed it nonetheless. My MIL is in town this week. She arrived Friday night to be here for Bella's baptism, which went well. I know I've missed a lot of blogging recently, but the thought of trying to catch up makes me want to quit all together. So, I will just start fresh from here, with a couple of pictures from after the baptismal service. My camera battery died, so I only have a few pictures. I'm going to do a little photo shoot of her in her dress sometime this week, then I'll post a solo shot of her. TTFN.