Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Wednesday Update

Around the House: I really should be calling this one "Monthly Update," right? Well, we've been busy. My niece and nephew arrived from CA last week. They'll be staying with their grandma for a while, but will come visit us soon.

We had a pretty uneventful 4th due to the rain that started at around 5 am and continued through most of the day. The local parade was canceled and since the kids went to bed early we stayed home from the fireworks. Fortunately, our next door neighbors shot off some impressive ones right over our houses, so I got to see some fireworks after all. Unfortunately, they kept shooting them off until almost midnight and Embry woke up scared and ended up sleeping on the floor in our bedroom.

I did have a good b-day though with an awesome cake made by my aunt (who has been making my birthday cakes since I was born). It was white and chocolate marble cake with vanilla icing (only the stars were fondant). And the stars on the firecracker were candles, so we got to light them instead of digging up 31 (yikes!) regular candles and blowing all those out. I also got to spend the weekend with my Mom who drove down on Saturday. We watched the best Wimbledon Final ever on Sunday, played and had a picnic at the park, and went shopping and visited Purina Farms. (More on that later.)



In the Kitchen: For the 4th we grilled some pork ribs and vegetables, made homemade rolls and German potato salad. Perfect Independence Day picnic food, only we ate it inside since it was still raining on and off. I also tried a new recipe for sour cream coffee cake with blueberries that tuned out great. I finally broke down and bought a bundt cake pan for the occasion. I can't believe I have been baking for so long without one. For Mom's last night here we fixed one of our favorite dinners; crusty bread, 3 different kinds of cheese, grapes, strawberries, dates, and wine. No cooking and very little clean-up, my favorite kind of meal.

New with Embry: Grandma brought the kids a radio flyer wagon this weekend. The kids love it, but what Embry spent most of the next few days playing with was the box. She kept getting inside and asking us to shut the flaps and pretend that she was a birthday present for Mama. Then she would lean it up against the couch to make a slide and pretend like she couldn't get out. She would yell, "Help! Help!" and then slide back down into the box. She played in it so much that it started to fall apart and after several tape applications, I gave up and snuck it outside to the trash when she wasn't in the room. She noticed a few hours later, but only whined a little bit instead the huge fit I was expecting.



New with Matthew: I think that Matthew has been swimming since the last time I posted. We brought him and J along a couple of weeks ago to Embry's school's pool. They have a shallow baby pool there, but he was tired of that after about 5 minutes and ready to jump in the big pool. J and I just carried him around in the water for a hour and a half and he loved it. The only problem was that he kept putting his face in the water and trying to drink the pool water, yuk!

I'm Grateful For: Another birthday and a long fun weekend with family.

The Weather Outside: A couple of weeks ago we were given a violent shove into summer with a whole week of temps near 100 degrees. It was an especially long week, since it was too hot to do anything outside. Embry and I would have to wait until 7 pm just to go out and water the flowers. And even then it was still miserable. But, thankfully, it seems back to normal now; still hot around noon, but cool enough in the morning and early evening to play outside. And the kids aren't so crabby from being stuck inside all day.

I'm Obsessed With: Since I've finished with the old episodes of Lost I need something else to do during naptime. Luckily, my Mom gave me a sewing machine for my birthday! So my new obsession is teaching myself how to use it.

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