We’ve fully entered summer vacation mode. Lazy days, playing in the back yard (when it’s not too hot), and chilling in the house (thank goodness for AC). I’ve managed to switch my piano students to mornings for the summer, so that it leaves the rest of the day to do things. It’s nice not having students right before I need to start making dinner. We’ve also jumped in with both feet getting Abigail transitioned from Pull-ups to regular underwear. It’s not been as bad as I was anticipating, so I think she’s more ready than she was the last time we tried. I still put her in a Pull-up for when we leave the house to go somewhere and for overnight, but we’re definitely making progress! Paul has been super busy at work and has also been busy building a new little free library for the neighborhood park (people in the neighborhood have donated materials, and a guy from the neighborhood offered to help him with some of it, so that was nice). Monday was quite an adventurous day. I loaded the kids into the car to go to the grocery store and then started the car. It struggled turning over, but it started. I thought it was a little weird, so I went to the gas station to fill up and get a car wash (which was an adventure in itself because the car wash wasn’t working…which I didn’t figure out until after I purchased the car wash at the pump…luckily, I was able to go the next day and still use the same code). The car struggled again to start up, so I decided to go to Walmart instead of H-E-B and have them look at the battery. Sure enough…it needed replacing. Luckily, it was still under warranty, so it didn’t cost anything. After we got the battery replaced, we were off to H-E-B for our groceries. Whew!
Super Abigail to the rescue!Some of my friends went to Disneyland and when they got home, they surprised me with these fun hand towels.They also brought fun Mickey suckers for the kids.She liked looking at Mickey in between licks. 🙂I love big, poofy clouds.I especially love when there is a stark contrast between the dark and the light.I got some more bins to better organize Abigail’s dress-up area. Before, that striped bin was overflowing and she couldn’t really find anything without dumping the whole thing out (which usually took place right in front of my bedroom door). I bought three bins: one for gloves, one for hats, and one for accessories (glasses, masks, etc.). Now the striped bin is for anything else that doesn’t fit into one of those categories. The hooks hold complete costumes (and her cowboy hat since it’s kind of big). It’s been so much better!Paul switched out the incandescent bulbs in our bathroom as well as in the kids’ bathroom for LED bulbs.It actually made it so that the rooms don’t get as hot as they did before. It’s been a nice change!I zoomed in super close to get a clear picture of this guy. He’s really only about as big as half my thumb, so maybe a little over an inch? Baby toads are cute!Playing “knock over the dominoes”.On Thursday, I got the sprinkler out so the kids could play in the water. Joseph got the slide wet and then told Abigail to slide down. I told him he needed to stand at the bottom to catch her (since it would be super-slick and she hasn’t quite learned to put her feet down to stop herself). It was a good thing he did, because she shot off the end of that slide like a rocket, haha. Luckily, the grass is super-soft, thanks to all of Paul’s hard work and all of the rain we’ve been getting.I love that we have this back yard for them to enjoy childhood in!When she finally filled in her “stay dry” chart (we’ve been working on it for a month or more, but she hasn’t been very motivated until right towards the end when we switched the Pull-ups for undies), she got a surprise. She loves the cartoon that this dog is from…so she was really excited to see this new stuffie.I love seeing moments like this!I 💜 summer sunsets!
This week was the first full week of summer vacation. We’ve played, we’ve slept, we’ve lazed around the place (it’s been rather warm and the mosquitoes have been crazy)…it’s been nice! One funny story: Abigail was telling me about when we went to the park and she said, “But before we went, you had us put on bug scream and sun scream.” It took her repeating what she said three or four times before I realized she was talking about sunscreen and bug repellent. 😀
I tried something fun: regular Color street nail polish strips……with clear and black checkered overlays (also Color Street).This girl has to dress up at least once a day. It’s so fun!I was at Trader Joe’s grabbing some other things and ran across this. My pickle-loving kids love it! I think it’s good, but definitely in small quantities (that’s kind of how O feel about pickles, too, though).
I mentioned in my last post that Abigail was sick. Well…it took three full days before she was even able to keep anything (even water) down. Luckily, she turned the corner and has recovered. It was pretty dicey there for a bit. We were on the verge of taking her in to see if she needed an IV to keep her from getting too dehydrated. In other news, we had a restful Memorial Day at home (that was the third day of Abigail’s illness), and Joseph finished his last three days of school. We had some rain, which is always nice, but it has since dried up, which is nice, too. Yesterday, Paul took the day off yesterday (which was Joseph’s first official day of summer vacation) and we went to the zoo. The weather was perfect! Today, we took park in a community clean-up day where we helped to clean up our street and did some clean-up at the park, too.
Paul put some flags up at the entrance of our subdivision for Memorial Day. I think it looked quite nice!Even when it’s been raining, I still have to water my flowers under the tree. The tree has gotten big enough that it creates a nice canopy of shade…that allows pretty much zero rain to get through, haha.We’ve had a few birds fly into the glass doors. Paul suggested getting some stickers or gel clings for the doors to break up the glass a bit.I decided to go with these butterfly clings. I put most of them on the back door because this is the one that the most birds have run into.This is where she spent most of the weekend.She also spent a lot of the weekend here.I was looking for a good quote for June and came across this snippet from Ralph Waldo Emerson. I love the many different ways one can interpret this.I was so happy when she started wanting to play again. That’s how I knew she was finally getting better.We were getting ready to go get Joseph from school (gotta love her choice of clothing). Later as we were sitting in the parent pick-up line, Abigail had her music hedgehog that plays quiet classical music/lullabies (which she was pretending was a dog) and her Hulk figurine. She was singing the ABCs at the top of her lungs. Then she said, “Hulk! That was too loud. You’ll hurt my dog’s ears! You need to sing quiet!” Then she sung the ABCs song quieter. Then (in a different voice) she said, “Now, for rock and roll!” before saying “rock and roll!” over and over again, at the top of her lungs. It was a rather interesting afternoon, ha.We went from this……to this in less than thirty minutes.I love this cheeseball!Black bear! Abigail kept saying, “Hi, bear!”They both love the Komodo dragon statue.Madame ButterflyIt was awesome getting to see the Nile crocodile out of the water.Yesterday was National Donut Day, so we celebrated by making two batches of cake donuts (I love my donut pan).I made chocolate donuts and vanilla donuts with chocolate and vanilla icing.We had friends over for the evening, so it was the perfect excuse to go all out.Paul brought home some “just because” flowers. I had to look up what type these were. I knew they were a variety of a lily, but I wasn’t sure what type. Apparently they are called Peruvian lilies. They’ve always been one of my favorites.All ready for community clean-up day!Walking the trail at our park. Abigail found a “walking stick”. This tree is one of my favorites. I love how it curves over the walkway. Bonus points if you can spot a tiny Abigail on the trail! Paul noticed the sun shining on the geranium and making the red really stand out. I had to snap a quick picture!
