July Update.

Ugh...still super busy these days. Pair that with a strong aversion to cameras (for whatever reason), and you get a pretty scarce amount of photos for the month of July...well, compared to normal. :)

One glorious thing about July....FIGS!!! For the first year we had NO idea what the heck these things were on our tree in the backyard until we decided to try to eat one. DELICOUS! Yes, their appearance is slightly disturbing, but they are so so good. So I was prepared for them this year. Picked a couple of huge bowl fulls the first few days and it was so hot and I was feeling so crappy that I gave up and missed the rest of the 2 weeks that they were producing. Oh well, at least we got a good taste of 'em this year.

While I'm busy making fig smoothies, jelly, etc....Russ decides that we need a gigantic chocolate cake. Granted it was my fault as I mentioned in passing the night before that chocolate cake sounded good. Doh. Alas, it was. Every.Last.Bite.

Sam...oh, Sam. This kid is...trying. With Brooklyn, all you had to do was look at her wrong and she'd burst into tears when she did something naughty. Sam is...different. Oftentimes, punishment is just downright hilarious to him. So we tend to jump to different types from timeouts in his room, in my lap, and now we've moved to nose in the corner. The first few times it just made me giggle as I recall having to put my own nose in a corner when I was a kid. I got over that quickly though, as he thought because I was laughing, it was funny that he was in time out. BAH. So he figured out fairly quickly that it wasn't funny. Well, one day I told him to say "You rock!" Somehow this got morphed into an insult in Sam language. So now, whenever he's in time out in the corner, he yells emphatically, "YOU ROCK!!" and jabs his pointed finger at the offender. Again I am forced to duck into the other room so he doesn't see my giggles, hehe.

Oh how I love this girl. She brings me sanity during those days when Sam's nose is permanently stuck in that corner. She has decided that instead of apples, oranges, or pears that she prefers carrots. Funny kid.

I got her a cookbook and designed most of our meals for an entire week around it. Granted she helped with maybe 3 of the meals, it was worth it. This is the first night. She wanted to make soup, then bread to go with it. Here she is sauteing the onions.

Onto the rolls! She did probably 75% of the cooking (I did the chopping and such), I am so proud of her! And for those of you wondering, yes, she is cooking in the buff. That should not surprise you any more. :P

The final result! Of course neither of the kids hardly touched the soup...bah.

TRIP TO RALEIGH.
Russ woke up one morning and decided to head to Raleigh--with or without me. Knowing that he wouldn't survive even the drive there by himself with the kids, I got my things together and we set off for the 2 1/2 hour drive.

Luckily, it didn't take as much coaching to get him to sleep as I thought it would. Thank heavens.

Hello, Girl Who Never Sleeps In Cars. Sigh. At least she's really, really good. Give her a book, an occasional snack, teach her the ABC game...and you're good to go!

We arrived and are in need of food. NOW.

A mediocre Subway lunch it is. Oh well, at least everyone is happy.

I had to get this photo as I have a similar one of Brooklyn when she was about the exact same age.

My water baby. This is before she insisted I don a pair of flippers and we both sport goggle masks.

Artists.

Gymnasts.

Historians. Both Russ and Brooklyn wanted to badly to gong this bell. After we came out of the Natural History Museum sure enough, there were some kids messing around with it. It was pretty neat.

Paleontologists.

Then we came home and the next day it was so hot that we decided to spring the $40 and get a backyard pool. I think kids had just as much fun setting it up as the actual swimming.

But the water was good too.

P.S. No, Russ is not that white. He is wearing a white shirt. :P

We hit the annual Peanut celebration at Plantation Grove. It was neat--boiled peanuts, lots of information on them and how they saved this area back in the WWII days. Also some really beautiful artwork and goodies like free peanut cake and lemonade. We wanted to get something from a vendor and guess what Brook chose...peanut butter cookies with mayo and pickles sandwhiched in between....I asked her 3 times if she was SURE it was what she wanted. She was very adamant that it was, and that Sam needed one. Ahem, yeah, Sam's went bad in my purse. Ew. Anyways, these are the only 2 shots we got, lol. Very cute, but not much about peanuts. Oh, and Dut has scabs on her nose b/c she was trying to do a walking handstand the day before and fell and got a rug burn on her nose. Hehe.

We actually made it out to a playdate awhile back--it was at the fire station! Both kids LOVE it there. The trucks, ambulances, gear, stickers, hats...what's NOT to love?!

The other day I randomly decided that it was time to drag the paint out and cross some To Do's off my list. Russ took Sam to the aquarium and Brook and I painted the 3 closet doors in their room, my bathroom door, touched-up 11 walls in the house, and re-painted my bathroom. Here's the Before:


And the After:
It still needs more work--another coat of dark paint (particularly on the light, which I wanted to replace, but there were complications), re-paint the trim (Brooklyn got a bit too paint-happy, plus they need it anyways), hinges for the doors on the cabinet, new faucet and other randomness, but SO much better. Much more calming.

This Summer I've been playing on the Crosswind's softball team and have LOVED it. I'm pretty bummed I'll miss the rest of the season when we head to WA. Such a great team with awesome people!

And last, but not least, Shelan came to visit us! The kids loved having someone else to ambush and I loved having someone I trust to watch the kids while Russ and I got a date night or two!

We snuck a few senior pics in as well. Love you, Whammy!

Alrighty, signing off for another month. The next will be full of vacation photos. Woot!