::monsoons::

We have been having amazing summer storms this year. Almost every afternoon the storms roll in and we get a little rain.

The other night there was a huge thunder storm after we all went to bed. The kids sleep through the huge claps, but they sometimes wake me. I woke up and I wasn't sure exactly why. Turns out that the dog had gotten tangled in the cords of the two baby monitors that live on my nightstand. He'd tried to get away, pulled the monitors down and pulled the baby's little bed a little ways away. He was rather distressed. I finally figured it out and fixed him.

His thunder fears do cause some trouble for us for sure. He's so scared that anytime a storm starts to threaten he's got to be sitting as close to me or Kris as possible. Like, under my legs. Or he tries to squeeze between us and something else, hence the baby monitor tangle up.
Also, the silly dog isn't smart enough to stay out of the rain. So if we leave him outside when we're gone and there's a big rainstorm we come home to a soggy disgusting dog. And a soggy disgusting dog that wants to sit as close to us as possible--preferably actively rubbing against our legs.

Sandy is conflicted about the thunder storms. Sometimes he loves the sounds and sometimes he's scared enough to scream. Luckily as I said the night time storms don't bother him. He's gotten braver as the summer has gone on, but today as we came home from dinner there was a gigantic storm with lots of rain and a lightening bolt hit the mountain just up from our house. We all saw it really clearly. It was beautiful but intense and Sandy did NOT like it. He had to be carried from the house to the garage in tears. Luckily we got him in some footy PJs and he recovered.

Mostly I just really like the lightening shows. They're pretty exciting. Keep it up weather, we're loving it all.

::beach + sunset = ahhhhhhh::

I keep going back to California with Kris for his continuing ed classes because I just can't get enough of the coast.

We were in Laguna Hills this last weekend which is pretty inland, but we drove out to Laguna Beach to try to get a fin for Kris's surfboard that would work better for the area. It was kind of a stressful night. All the kiddos were up way past their bedtime, they were all exhausted and Lucy was crying and crying. I couldn't get her to stop the whole time we were driving.

So I had Kris park the car and leave me with the little ones while he and Max ran over to the store. Well....Lucy was totally poopy, poop everywhere. Luckily the minivan we rented had a lot of space for baby changing. So I changed her. And even more luckily, right behind where we parked was the ocean! I changed the baby and turned around and there was the sunset starting. It was gorgeous. So Sandy Lucy and I walked over to the edge--it was kind of a steep hill down to the beach--and had a seat to enjoy the show.

It was so peaceful and gorgeous! The sounds, the colors, the breeze, the salty air. It just reminded me why I love the ocean. And though there's so much to dislike about CA, I love the dang state too.  I can't help it.



And then Kris came and the sun set and everybody cried all the way back to the hotel. But that's ok. At least there was that moment. Sometimes that's all we've got to go on.

::the last few days::

I've had a bit of a crazy time the last few days.

It was Saturday afternoon. Kris left on a bike ride. I put the baby to bed--not the easiest thing in the world to do--and headed out to get some stuff done. Always feeling behind I was rushing out of the room when I tripped rather heavily on one of the three steps we have in our house. I tripped forward and fell hard. Our floor is really loud because we have a crawl space, and to me my crash sounded like a bomb going off. But the baby slept through it and Sandy didn't even notice my accident. The only thing to commemorate it was a long scratch in the wooden floor from whatever I was holding, and my two skinned elbows.

You're not supposed to trip and fall in your own house as a grown up, right? That was weird.

Then I was mixing up some protein shake for lunch. Sandy asked for some so I overfilled the little blender a bit. When I was going to pour it I hit the mix button with my thumb. Well, the top was off, so as you can imagine the thick sticky chocolate drink flew everywhere. All over the kitchen and all over me. I was wearing a bright yellow skirt. Suddenly polka dotted. That was weird and annoying. Besides, most of my lunch ended up smushed all over everything.

I took off my soiled clothes and went straight to the laundry room to try to save them. While I was in there it occured to me that it would be sooooo awkward if someone came to the door right at that moment. Lo and behold, the doorbell rang. AUGH! I couldn't put my dirty clothes back on, they were already covered in soap. And guess what, Max's shorts just don't fit. I tried. I ran to the bedroom (if you've been to our house you know that's a little ways to run--the house is really spread out). As I went I heard the doorbell ring again, and then again and again and suddenly I knew it was Sandy. The little stinker. And so it was when I finally got clothes and made it out there.

Impeccable timing for Sandy to be playing around with the doorbell. Amazing really.

Later that day Kris took my car on a trip to the grocery store. He got to the end of our street and suddenly the huge lovely sun room in my Audi exploded. It just broke. Suddenly and for no reason at all. I wish I'd taken a photo, it was pretty spectacular. Luckily the screen was closed so Max and Kris weren't hurt, but they were scared.

Turns out that this is a known problem in Audis of my model. But of course the recalls are all for a later year and there's nothing for us. Classic.
It's tough to drive a car topped with broken glass. So it was out of comission.

The rest of the weekend went smoothly enough. Besides all the dropping off and picking up things at repair shops.

BUT then on Monday I was working--trying to get lots and lots done in a very short period of time when I spilled my protein shake lunch (yes, another sticky thicky chocolately protein shake) on my laptop keyboard AND my phone. AUGH!!!

My laptop went straight to the repair place and my phone mostly survived. But there I was not getting anything done. And then when I got home the internet was down. For hours.
What the heck. Isn't that a crazy bunch of stuff?

Everything is fixed and back now (except for my phone which will probably never sound quite the same). Knock on wood it all stays that way for a while.

::costumed::

Remember this little guy?
He loved dressing up like a giraffe so much. Sometimes I had to take him to the grocery store that way, or to visit Kris at work.
The other day Max and Sandy had disappeared. Kris and I suddenly realized it was very quiet and we hadn't heard from them in a while. Suddenly they burst out of Max's room, giggling like crazy.
Like this:

They were so proud of themselves. And they thought they were soooooo funny.
And it didn't hurt that Kris and I thought they were pretty funny too.



And of course it all ended up like this:

Costume steamroller.
And Kris was dressed in something special himself--I almost forgot to mention. Max got him a special present for his birthday.

Recognize the shirt? We showed Max What About Bob a couple of weeks ago and he went and searched out this shirt for Kris on Amazon all by himself. He was proud. And Kris likes it.
So everybody was wearing costumes except me. I was just wearing Lucy.

::happy & sad::

In the same day--in fact sometimes in the same moment, our little one can be happy and sad.

Happy:



Sad:

  

Happy:



Sad:

 

Happy:

 

Sad:

  

Happy:



Sad:



So many emotions, so little time. And such a little girl too.

::eevently::

Sandy has a really out of control vocabulary. He says things like "ignore" "completely" and "adorable" regularly. Yes, we think he's brilliant because he's our little guy, but I think his vocab might be a little advanced for a three year old. Just about every day he uses some big word--usually appropriately--that I try so hard to remember because it's cute, but I can never remember by the end of the day.
Eevently is different though.
We can't actually figure out what eevently is supposed to mean. Is it "evidently" or "apparently"? We just really don't know, though we keep asking him to use it in context.
He says, "Eevently nobody is getting me cereal." And, "Eevently nobody is putting my shoes on."
Um, ok?
He's so cute.

The following photos are by Max when he stole my camera the other day.



Eevently Sandy is a character.

::july the fourth part 3::

Whenever I do a multiple part post I always get really stalled out. I need to stop doing it. But those extra long posts are probably just as dang bad. Anyway, here's the last part of the fourth, a super fun day.
SPARKLERS!

This was extra fun because Sandy has never done or seen sparklers and Max hasn't done them since 2010. Good old wildfire danger. So the boys were very excited and charmed.






Max didn't remember that you could draw stuff in the camera with your sparkler. And my little camera did an awesome job capturing it all.



Max was working up to writing his name. He was trying hard.


This circley thing of Sandy's is spectacular!



Max never quite got his name written, but he got awfully close. So cute.
That was a blast to do the sparklers, eat the smores, hang out and watch the concert in DC with the big fireworks on PBS. After that we put the little ones to bed and let Max stay up. Our new house has an awesome view across all of Santa Fe, and we had heard that the fireworks show at the high school was supposed to be really visible from our area. Boy was it ever. At about 10 it started up and it looked great from our back porch. We watched the whole show, ooohing and aaahing just like we were supposed to and then we closed it all up and headed into bed.
All in all it was a great 4th. I couldn't have asked for better. We even had a delicious BBQ that I forgot to mention and Kris went on a bike ride and I went on a run. It was great.

::july the fourth part 2::

We had a great day of swimming, watching the hot dog eating contest, a little running for me, a little bike riding for Kris and some hamburgers.
When dusk fell it was time for some fireworks to finish off the day right. They boys were so excited because we haven't done any sort of fireworks for ages. Maybe since Max was a brand new baby. They're not illegal here but they just don't sell them--probably because of the fire risk. Anyway, Kris was out of town and found some sparklers and a few other things. I found smoke bombs and pops at Target so we were well supplied. We did have kind of a strange assortment of stuff, but at least we had stuff.
Lucy and I took a seat and watched the proceedings.



Sandy was very very excited about the smoke bombs. He kept calling them smoke balls.

He jumped and danced around in the smoke until the moment when he got some in his mouth--yuck.



It was great except that the smoke kept blowing right on Lucy and I of course.
Then we took a break for smores, which were delicious as always. I think they were Sandy's first smores.


The firecrackers were too scary, so we didn't do many of those. Well, if you're Sultan all of it was too scary. He wouldn't come out of the front gate to the driveway.
Kris had some of those little tank fireworks to do next. The boys thought they were really fun. They make me nervous because they roll around, but it's true, they are fun.


Then we tried these weird tall fountain things and realized they shot way up in the air. So we put the rest of those away. No forest fires for us.
It was cool looking though.

One more part, coming up as soon as I can make it happen!!