in the park

Last summer we went to every single 'concert in the park' in Lemon Grove.  I used to go to these each summer with my mom and some friends of ours.  It's so much fun, I looked forward to it every week.




 






Sometimes the music is good, but most of the time the real entertainment is just being outside on the grass, and watching the best dancers in Lemon Grove do their thang:




 







The girls got to use one of their birthday presents, those cute new chairs from Pottery Barn:




 




Personalized with their names:


 



I love those chairs.  :)


The girls loved the treats:



 






One week they were handing out balloons, and Mallory was so excited to get the last one.....you'd think she'd never gotten a balloon before in her life!




 


So much fun.  Can't wait for next summer.

weekend outings

Mariah likes to look at maps and say pensively: "According to my calculations...."










I may be only 32 and feel like I'm still 26 but I know I am old because the rides in the Bay of Play frighten me:










Mallory's absense of a smile turned into full-fledged tears right after I snapped this picture:









Sitting in the soak zone while intending not to get wet is serious business:








But you can't help encouraging Shamu to do his thing:









Love these guys (I think they'd have a lot more personality though if I could glue some googley eyes to them):










What seems to be the problem, officer?








Which reminds me of the "blind leading the blind", or in our case: Arissa leading my blind bum through the shark exhibit because I only had my prescription sunglasses.  I couldn't see with them OFF, but it's so dark in that exhibit that I couldn't much see with them ON either.

 Arissa led me by the hand and told me which way to turn, which rock wall not to walk into, etc.  I may or may not have exaggerated my disability for comedic effect.  But it was fun.






And I thought I was in the twilight zone when we approached the new ride "Rip Tide Rescue" which we had never really seen before for some reason.  The usually fearless Arissa & Mallory wanted nothing to do with it, and little Mariah, who is scared of bathwater and newborn puppies, was all over it!  Poor Jesse had just enjoyed himself a few beers during the Shamu show, but Mariah dragged him over and had him ride with her.  Arissa eventually decided to go on it too, but she was still kind of skeptical.  They even talked ME into going on it, after 3 rides.  It was easy & fun, but I still couldn't believe Mariah's bravery.  That thing, combined with those Bay of Play rides, was more than enough for me for one day!  We're working up to Journey to Atlantis....  maybe by the time the girls graduate from highschool.

busy busy busy 3

It's now officially Spring, which means it's almost summer, which made me remember this stuff.  :)

Jesse & I went to a birthday dinner last summer and I like this picture because:

1) I like my shirt (haven't worn it since)

and

2) Mariah gave me that necklace before we left for the night and even though it did NOT go with my outfit at all, I promised her I would wear it the WHOLE night so I wanted to take a picture of us at the party and show her I kept my promise.














Too many pool parties in one weekend = ouch for Arissa.



I'm still working through the guilt about it.





It helps ease my guilt to know it'll never happen again, ever...not on my watch.  I ordered a bunch of SPF 100 sunscreen on amazon, and on auto ship!  I've already stock-piled a cupboard full of it.  No sunburns or tans for us this summer!



We hiked Cowles Mountain.

Our brilliant, fun idea was to hike up at 8pm, so we'd be hiking down in the dark, guided only by the light of the FULL moon expected for that night. 

Well a FULL moon doesn't give off as much light as you'd think...and we were hiking down, all by ourselves, in the pitch dark, with no flashlight.

It was funny, only when we were safely back to the car and had not broken any bones or been eaten alive by any animals.  Then, we did laugh about it.

We went to the drive-in to see Cars 2!













Arissa attended engineering/science camp for 3 weeks.







Jesse and I took advantage of Vacation Bible School to have date night every single night for one whole week!  Mmmm the dinners we had....







(These aren't all mine.....I swear.)









Ahhh I look forward to this most of all....











Can't wait for the rest of Spring and for Summer too.  As long as it stays under 80 degrees.

new years 2012

We started off shopping....I liked that very much.  :)


The girls played around with some after-Christmas sale stuff.


Mallory said this was a sombrero, but then started doing a hula dance....I think she was confused.

We went to dinner (I also very much liked that!).  Nowhere fancy, just the best food on earth (or at least in Lemon Grove):

Then we headed over to a friends' house for a little party.    The girls were happy to catch up with old friends:

They were also happy to suck down every last juice box offered:

There were new babies there, which Arissa especially had fun with:

Babies, juice boxes, & friends (oh and jell-o shots, for the adults)...that was our new years eve.  :)

mallory's class

I picked a super awesome day to volunteer in Mallory's class....they were doing a CRAFT and there was GLITTER involved, not to mention 30 of the sweetest, kindest, most polite kids you ever did meet.


I got to sit at Mallory's table:











Yayyyy glitter:







By the way that the kids reacted to cutting out paper and gluing stuff down, I wondered how often they do crafts in their own homes...... or if school is the only place they get to do that.  Which made me sad to think about.  It also made me think that with all the crafts we do in MY home, we don't do nearly enough that involve glitter.  So I made a mental note to use more glitter.  We'll just have to do the craft outside.  In the street.  In front of the neighbor's house so we don't make a mess in our own space.  :)







I think Mallory must have been telling her friends stuff about me beforehand, because by the time I got there I felt like I already had quite a reputation.  For some reason, the kids all thought I was an "amazing artist", a "genius at art", and things like that. 

When they had traced out a heart and I suggested to one kid that he put the glue on the side with the pencil markings so they wouldn't be seen after he glued it down, he burst out "Wow! So that's why you're the great artist!  You know all the good ways for crafts!".  :)  It was cute.


I handed out the bookmarks I had made for the class.  Even though I had made the boy ones blue, I knew they were still very girly and so I couldn't wait to see the boys' reactions to them.







As expected:










At least they didn't rip them apart like they did with the halloween pencil toppers I hand embroidered before.  Well that was 1st grade, a looooong time ago, so I guess they've matured.  Not only did they not tear these up or turn them into weapons, they seemed to enjoy and appreciate them.  I'd be interested in knowing how many of those kids actually use them in a BOOK...but that's not really important.  :)


What IS important is that Mallory was ecstatic to have me there, and those kids are awesome.

making babies

Mallory has the nicest, sweetest, coolest teacher this year....she adores her like you wouldn't believe.

And she just found out she's pregnant!

(the teacher, not Mallory)

Mallory wanted to get a gift for the baby-to-be, so we got her a little snowglobe and a pair of baby booties, wrapped 'em all up nice and pretty and everything.









Mallory was real excited that (according to her teacher) the baby is as big as an avocado.  She just thought the food comparison was the neatest thing.  We happened to have some avocados in the fridge and she asked if she could bring one to school to show the class. 

So Monday morning on our way out the door, she got it out of the fridge. 

But I said wait wait wait, we ought to put it in something BABYish, to make it cute.  I think it was Jesse who came up with the idea for what we ultimately ended up doing:








I diapered his little bum (the avocado, not Jesse) with some felt, secured it with a safety pin, added some googley eyes, and then -I know it's kind of girly but at least it's blue- topped it off with a bow.  This is why I think everyone is lucky I have girls, not boys, because no matter the gender, I like putting bows on things.  :)


Mallory was so happy with him:





Our little avocado baby was a huge hit with the class, a few moms texted me saying their kids wouldn't stop talking about it.

I thought "how cute would it be if I made little avocado babies for the whole class!". 

When I had last bought avocados they were .50 each, and there's 30+ kids in the class, so I decided if the avocados were still .50 on Thursday night, I would do that.

But of course they were back up to a dollar each.  :(  I considered using apples instead, but figured it'd still cost quite a bit and it's just not the same.

So Thursday night when I picked up the girls I told Mallory I was sorry but I wasn't going to be able to make little "Baby Lloyds" (as the class calls them) for everyone.

Mallory said excitedly "Mommy that's ok, because today Mrs. Lloyd told us that now Baby Lloyd is the size of an ONION!".



Yes, of course:

No, I did not make 30+ onion babies.  Thought about it, but decided against it.  We made one for the teacher, and then I made these bookmarks for the students instead (more evidence that I love bows):

I look forward to finding out what piece of food I'll be diapering next week, as Baby Lloyd continues to grow and grow!