Weekends

Wow! The weekend seemed to fly by.

On Saturday mornings, I get to sleep late and Momma Karen and Kylie go out to play. They enjoy breakfast together at one of their favorite restaurants and then run errands or have adventures. This past Saturday, Kylie got a haircut. And as an extra special bit of fun, she got her hair braided.




We were all so pleased with how pretty it looked.


And as another special treat from the kiddie haircut salon, Kylie got a dab of sparkle fingernail polish. I hadn't planned on painting her nails for quite some time but she was so tickled with her "fairy dust fingers".


On Sunday mornings, Momma sleeps in and Kylie and I go to the ocean.


The tide was in this Sunday and there were no tide pools but we did find this very cool sand bunker. Kylie was fascinated with it.





So, how was your weekend?

There's nothing better

There's nothing better than going out for ice cream after dinner and then deciding to hit the beach. It just amazes me that in a blink of the eye, we can be at the ocean. We didn't have any bathing suits in the car so Kylie went from dressed...

to partially dressed and soaking wet...

to fully submerged.

Magnolia leaves and vacuum cleaners

We have a huge beautiful Magnolia tree in our front yard. The blossoms fill the air with the sweetest fragrance. Unfortunately, it drops a large amount of leaves everyday.

So after school, Kylie and I go pick them up and put them in our yard debris can.


And today, I picked them up while little miss sat and cheered me on after pulling all of her accoutrements out of the garage.


So she's not very interested in picking up leaves (which would be very helpful). But she insists on holding onto the vacuum cleaner the entire time (not helpful at all).


Here are a few recent scrapbook pages:

Body pump and playground

Yesterday I took a "body pump" class at my new gym. You use barbells to work out your chest, biceps, triceps, back and leg muscles over the course of an hour. The music was strong and the class was competitive.

About halfway through the class, when every little muscle in my body was quivering and I was thinking, "What in the world am I doing here? Am I crazy?", I looked over and saw a woman who was in her mid-70's who was in terrific shape and was just busting her workout.

I thought, "That's why. I want to be her in my 70's. Actually I want to be her now. Her barbell isn't shaking at all and my barbell looks like I'm have an epileptic fit because it's jittering so much."

Of course this morning, the only thing I can do that doesn't hurt my extremely sore muscles is to sit here and type.

Remember when working out just playing at the playground with your friends? Ah, those good ole days.

Sand textures

Beautiful texture in the sand around the tide pools on Sunday morning. Kiddo is pretty cute too.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to our two dads.




And to our unknown donor, thank you for your help. Our lives are brighter because of you.

Butterfly net thief strikes again

The butterfly net thief strikes again! "Give me all your money!"


or I shall sing loud karaoke into my microphone.


I'll make my escape with my bear backpack. (She's been wearing this constantly around the house.)


Oops, I slipped and fell during my escape.


But I'm still smiling. (And Mommy is feeling a little goofy tonight. Goofy posts are fun, don't you think?)

Ten Things

Kylie has a freckle on her left cheek. It's her first face freckle. I tried several times (unsuccessfully) to take a picture of it with my iPhone. But I netted this cute shots.







She makes pretend sleeping bags on the floor comprised of pillows and scarves. She calls it her "stranger bed" instead of sleeping bag.


She calls Ruffles potato chips "snuffles".

She likes to fill our refillable water bottles from our 5 gallon water stand. She's a great helper and rarely spills.

Kylie confessed that she had a time-out at school on Wednesday. She had to sit on the thinking bench for pushing someone. I'm pleased she told me and we had a good talk about not pushing others.

We have a new game we play as we wait in our car for Kylie to be taken into school. She grabs as many crayons as she can hold in her hand and asks me my favorite one. When I name a crayon, she moves it to her car seat drink carrier. Then she chooses her favorite and then asks me my next favorite. We do this until all the crayons are out of her hand. Then she grabs them up and we play again.

Although we wear 70 - 100 SPF, Kylie and I have developed tans. She never burns but browns like a berry (Did you know this phrase seems to have originated in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"? Wikipedia is so cool.)

Kylie loves sitting and standing on her belly board. I had hopes that doing so would reduce the amount of sand that would be swept into her bathing suit. No so. Her suit is covered in sand when we come home from the ocean. She is light enough that the ocean waves can pick her up and float her a bit when she's on the belly board. Today, after a good float, she looked at me and said, "Cowabunga dude!


Kylie adores the book "Pinkalicious and the Pink Drink". She has asked me to read it to her at least twice a day for over a week. I'm looking forward to "Tickled Pink" that is due to be released at the end of July.

Kylie drew this very cool guy on her dry erase board. 


Those are my ten things for right now. I'll add this photo and say that I simple adore the wisps of hair that escape her ponytail and how they curl like this. Love it! Have a great day everyone!

A few scrapbook pages from Fall

Seventh Anniversary

Happy anniversary my darling Karen. Seven fabulous years together.



Here's a link to the anniversary paper scrapbook I made to celebrate how Karen and I met.

Weekend Snapshots

Last Wednesday, we had a new sitter come to the house to play with Kylie for a few hours. I stayed home to supervise and watch how she did with Kylie. Her name is Alexandra and we found her through seeking sitters. She and Kylie got along fabulously--blowing bubbles together outside, reading stories, coloring pictures and of course, Kylie had to show her many of her toys.

On Friday, Alex came back to the house and Karen and I had a date! We enjoyed a yummy, casual dinner at Tijuana Flats and saw Sex and the City 2 movie.



Saturday, Kylie had her swim class at her new swim school. I was not impressed with the teachers or the facility. I suppose I'm back to the drawing board to find her a better swim school. And after swim class, we went to the library and got our new library cards. This is the children's section and it is just lovely.


Most of the toddler books are in this semi-circular area so I can browse for books while Kylie plays at this table.




I was excited to read this post about reading aloud chapter books and picked up Ramona the Pest by Cleary to read aloud to Kylie. Kylie wasn't interested at all. She was much too occupied building a house with her Momma.


And Sunday we went to the ocean and had lots of fun playing (and photographing) tide pools.







How was your weekend?