Late to the Party

We are well into peach season here and I finally bought some seconds at market this weekend and made peach cobbler Monday night. It is already gone! I think we are going to try to eek out a lot more cobblers in the remaining peach time that we have!

He Can See!

Finally, after many weeks of peering through his shaggy hair, Porter got his first haircut today. It's been a long time coming but Tim & I couldn't figure out what to do about it. At the barbershop Porter sat right down and asked to look at this style book, as if he was going to figure it out himself.

He was very occupied during the event by the ashtray in the old-school barber chair.

An after shot in front of the awesome Beatles mural in the barber shop.

I am on the fence still about the resulting cut but at least it doesn't make him look as drastically like a big boy as I feared.

The Emmy Came to Dinner!

Anthony brought his Emmy over to visit us before he takes it on tour really tomorrow night for all the fancy after parties. Matilda had a few questions for him about how it is being so awesome.

Porter enjoys sucking on a celebratory crab leg.

Bonus cute shot of my crew today, goofing off while I was at work: As a side note Porter is up playing ball right now at 2:21 a.m. He is turning bedtime into a nap too often this week and wants to PLAY & SNACK & YELL with great enthusiasm from 11ish until 3ish. Thankfully I am a big fan of both sleep deprivation and coffee.

Company Beach Party = Success

There was tons of yummy food and I only managed to let Porter get washed under a wave in front of the entire company once! Thankfully he was thrilled with it and came up smiling. Tim's co-workers were too polite (or too drunk?) to look outwardly mortified. Here you can see the huge crowd all gathered for the affair.

Sandier Than You Imagine

The heat is finally here so we are squeezing in lots of swimming and beach time. Today we went to the lagoon again with a bunch of friends and then ran into even more.

Porter stayed up ridiculously late last night so he was so sleepy when we first arrived. I even thought he might even fall back asleep sitting there watching the kids run by

.Matilda is super cold sensitive lately and spent a lot of time sprawling in the warm sand like a lizard.

After Porter woke up and re-fueled with some snacks he spent the day surveying and confiscating trucks.

So sweet with her bud:

Tomorrow: more beach at Tim's company beach picnic.

Fine, Fine

All good here, no lasagna needed (although if you insist....). I just had the Monday blues because our weekend was so rocking. Also, the circadian rhythm of our household requires grocery shopping Sunday which did not happen. Monday found us hungry, and underdressed as laundry was also presenting itself as an issue. I somehow need to move our shopping schedule so I don't find myself at a loss for what to feed my kids every Monday at 11:30 and 5:30 with odds and ends in the fridge.

Some examples of weekend fun: Matilda loves this floaty suit she borrowed from the neighbor. She's so independent & comfortable in the water now which is fun to see.

Porter & Stella enjoy the hot tub at her building. This is a good example of Porter's "say cheese" smile that he'll give now.

Saturday night found us at the Dodgers game where Matilda did some ballet moves and Porter shrieked with delight over his proximity to the "Ball! Ball! Ball!" He made sure all our seat-mates were noticing the ball, too.

It was "Bark in the Park" night so some folks brought their dogs to the game. Hot dogs and cutely-dressed-Dodger-fan-dogs was almost too much awesome for Matilda & Porter both.

Victory over Produce

Porter was frustrated with this watermelon for hours until he succeeded at lifting it. Eight pounds of sweet, seeded goodness.

Grrrr, Monday.

I am feeling a bit like Garfield around here today. If only someone would make me some lasagna.

Yet More Evidence that Anthony is Amazing

Check this picture out. Our buddy just won an Emmy tonight for his work on Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Fantastic work with such a good message. School lunch in this country needs all the help it can get. Thanks for bringing it into the spotlight a little more. You rock, Anthony! We are all so proud.

Friday Fun Day

It was Hawaiian day at zoo camp for Matilda's last day so she broke out some of her dress-up items & went in style. I didn't send her in her grass skirt because I thought that might be overdoing it, but I was wrong since many, many gals showed up in them. Apparently LA families can bring it when theme days are involved. After doing a little garbage patrol in the park, Porter & I met Stella and Sarah for a jog.We retreated from the high temperatures to our pool for a post-park swim.
Then Porter raided his sister's old things for a little dress-up fun of his own.
Stella headed home for a nap while we headed to lunch with Tim where Porter tried wiping everyone's face up.
Matilda emerged from zoo camp as a shark today and bid her counsellors farewell. I loved her rocking face paint, although I might interpret it more as a wave but awesome regardless. Matilda liked it even more tonight after I washed it off and the remaining stained spots of color looked like eye makeup. She'll be ready for some scary pageants tomorrow!
After camp we made a quickie run to the party store for the biggest Ariel ballon we could find to cheer up Matilda's school buddy who fell and broke her arm this morning (at school - yikes!). She has to stay at the hospital overnight till they can do surgery tomorrow for a few pins to repair the bone so we thought some room decorations were in order.
Stella & crew rejoined us for dinner. Porter thinks, "If only they would cut my hair I could scarf down this stir fry faster."
We ended the evening with a little YMCA, a crowd pleaser around here these days. Stella alternated watching Matilda with doing somersaults!

Thumbless

OK, so Tim recalls that in a toddler zoo class long ago he & Matilda put socks on their hands to simulate what it would be like to grasp things without thumbs. This seems to fall in line with the primate theme but still does not explain why the socks were sent home. I will comfort myself with this theory and try to avoid further speculation.

Matilda is really enjoying the zoo camp as far as we can tell. She is not one to recall in any detail at all what they have done each day so we are pretty much in the dark. One of the counsellors told us that yesterday was lemur day. Here you can see her sporting her "stinky lemur tail" that she made while she sucks down her post-zoo treat of chocolate milk. It was such a hot day yesterday and she was so flushed when I collected her from the zoo that I decided she need some hydration stat. (It wasn't at all that I myself wanted an iced coffee; no, not at all.) She is looking so concerned because she was terribly stressed out that Porter or I were going to try and score some sips of her precious, precious beverage. You can also see her camp shirt which the kids all have to wear everyday. (We were given two of them but I am currently doing laundry!) She loves it so much because it is her favorite color AND features her beloved condors.

Volume Problems

Last week we went to the Long Beach Aquarium where Porter professed his love for the puffins and guillemots. His screams echoed through the already noisy hallway. He knows only one volume it seems.

Later, when we watched this video at home he laughed hard each time it gets to the part where he turns to face the camera and scream.

At Least They Seem Clean

Matilda's lunch box came home from zoo camp today with a pair of men's dress socks in it. I have no idea what to think about this. Any suggestions?

Camper

Matilda is at the zoo 6 hours a day all week! She was thrilled at drop off and barely said goodbye to Porter & I. Porter was seriously distraught to leave the classroom. He is going through a monkey-love phase and Matilda's class theme all week is primates so there were lots of apes and monkeys there for him to oo-oo-oo at. It was such a novelty for me to pack 6 hours worth of food for her; I kept throwing more and more things in hoping that she didn't have to lug it around with her. She was almost more excited about her new lunchbox than she was about camp, such a novelty.

Porter & I have been super productive with our day completing 3 loads of laundry, a jaunt to the tire shop to fix our flat, a big grocery store shop AND a nap (for him only) all with 1.5 hours to spare so far. Maybe I'll get that nap yet!

Bathroom Adventurers

This morning at the grocery store Matilda announced she needed to use the restroom. Since I still had Porter in the cart, I let her go in on her own which we don't usually do. She went into the stall and locked it, "for some privacy" (her words). After another moment she called out, increasingly worried sounding, that she couldn't reach the paper. I peeped my head over from the neighboring stall to size up the situation. Illogically, I decided I could just toss her a roll. Keep in mind that this 4-year-old child of mine can still only catch a ball 10% of the time!

After several pinball-type bounces around the stall, the entire roll of toilet paper of course landed in the toilet, . At this point, I was laughing hysterically while Matilda was even more concerned with the situation. I attempted to convince her to hop off the throne and unlatch her stall but she was having no part of that, certain that "poop would go everywhere." She was busy trying to talk me into climbing under the stall when I realized there was a little slot in the front of the lock and I turned it open with my bobby pin. M was very relieved & but still saw no humor in the situation. I was at least thankful to discover that the now-drenched-roll-of-tp was not completely submerged, allowing easy removal and disposal. Just another normal day in the life!

Salty Melon

We finally got a really good watermelon after several mediocre ones this summer. I saved the last bit of it to make this awesome Watermelon, Feta and Black Olive salad for our company tonight. Now I will be inspired to gamble more often on watermelon. You should too.

Porter: "Brrrrm. Nack."

Can you guess what Porter is telling me he wants to do?

The Reptile Family

Long ago before our trip, we saw (for the third year in a row) the Reptile Family come do a presentation at our library. This year both Matilda & I got in on the action holding animals.

She was super excited to hold this bearded dragon, especially since she is an old pro after handling her Uncle Dan's dragon lots of times before:

I don't have pics of me holding the huge-ass boa, but I do have pics of someone else with it:

Stella also had fun.

Porter got to see all his favorite girls there, including little miss G, who LOVES Porter and gave him lots of hugs and attention.

A little foreshadowing for NC: turtle race!!

My favorite video from vacation

My husband is the master of putt putt.

He totally intended to do that.

Gambling with Vibrio

Of all the videos we took on our vacation last week, this one is Matilda's favorite to watch. She especially likes the part with Porter dipping his cracker.

Looks like Matilda wasn't the only one trying raw oysters for the first time!

Coming Down

It is always hard to return to regular life after vacation. The kids were both missing Tim today as he went back to work. I was too. Here are some other things I am missing from our vacation:

Bike riding. Porter would not ride in this wagon for the first two days that I tried to get him in it. He kept trying to convince me he was going to ride on the bike seat. Once he did finally try it he was an addict.

Rain storms with thunder and lightning. I miss those so much.

Great Grandpa's tomatoes. Yum. Look at the size of this beauty - just right for a sandwich.

Baby Leatherback Turtle

Here goes one baby turtle, headed to the water. Good luck, little guy.

(The red light is the turtle volunteers helping them find their way.) Here's more photos and the story from Holden's local paper.

Home

After a super long day of traveling we are home and crashing. Come back to see video of cute cute cute baby leatherback turtles tomorrow! (I mean later today. Waaah.)

Matilda finally wore us down & we just let her have her 1st raw oyster. She loved it as much as she anticipated.

Accomplishments for today: morning ride with 65 pounds of kids in the bike trailer and authentic NC BBQ for lunch. Next up, testing out M's new snorkel set.

You had better practice your game Uncle Brian, Matilda got TWO holes in one at putt putt tonight!