The View From Here: thoughts on a sunday

Brian at the pre-4th celebration. This was one of the only pictures that turned out that night- I'm still learning how to use my new camera and darkness is tricky. But isn't he cute?

This week has been weird. It's one of those that has gone by fast, yet thinking back to Monday- it seems like forever ago.

Tomorrow is the fourth of July. My birthday is always one week before the fourth of July. My friend Katie's birthday is on the fourth of July. We are exactly one week apart. She's going to be thirty too. She lives in Canada right now, so maybe for the first time ever, she won't have to share her birthday with America. :) Happy Birthday, Kate!

Quick question for you- do you buy those big boxes of Annie's Organic Bunny snacks at Costco? And do you love s'mores? Yes? Then you would probably love my new favorite dessert. I just invented it this week. Empty a packet of those honey graham bunnies into a bowl. Add a handful of chocolate chips. Then, you guessed it, a handful of marshmallows. Microwave for a few seconds (around 20) until marshmallows are all big and puffy and melty. Then stir it all together with a spoon and eat the gooey goodness. Note: this is not a pretty dessert.

Your husband might give you looks like you're disgusting. Especially if you get some marshmallow strings on your chin. Give it no matter and force him to take a bite. Then he'll understand and think you're brilliant! You're welcome.

My kids are obsessed with dogs. Around here there is no shortage of dogs. A different dog (and owner) probably walks in front of our house every ten minutes. McKay is getting pretty good at identifying different breeds and can spout of the characteristics of a Chow or a Bulldog better than I can. Ellery acts very interested too. They will usually stop the owners by asking, "Can we pet your dog?" Sometimes they say yes, sometimes they say no. But if they do stop and let the kids have a pet, Ellery usually has a follow-up question, "Is that a rottweiler?" She will be bending down to pet a Chihuahua and asking if it's a rottweiler. Sometimes the people look at her funny.

Today we were on a walk and she saw two little tiny dogs and she said, "Look- a gray ploodle and a white ploodle." They weren't even ploodles, or poodles, but it was just about the cutest thing I've ever heard.

Another one from Ellery: She has extremely dry skin around her nose and mouth and it often gets red and sore. Today she was feeling uncomfortable and told me that it hurt. I said, "Okay, we'll get some cream for it when we get home." "Sour Cream?" she responded in a high, squeaky, questioning voice.

I think I mentioned how depressing it was to come home to clouds and showers. It put me in a really down mood until. . .well, until the sun came out. It seems like the longer I live here the more affected I am by the weather. I thought it would be the other way around. It is really weird to have the sun change your mood, but it truly happens to me.

I guess right now is as good a time as any to tell you about McKay's "journey". My friend Starr and her kids came over on Thursday afternoon. They were here playing for awhile, and decided to stay for dinner. As we were making dinner, the kids were in and out, upstairs and downstairs- just running from here to there. After awhile we realized that we hadn't seen McKay and Talan. We looked outside and couldnt' find them. We searched the house- in case they were hiding (wasn't I just doing this?!) and couldn't find them. We called their names outside and couldn't find them. None of the other kids outside had seen them. We checked the house again. Nothing. We threatened to the air that they would be in big trouble if they didn't come out. At this point, Starr, Brian and I were just standing outside looking at each other, thinking, "OK, what do we do now?" We probably stood there for about five minutes just wondering what to do next. Then all of the sudden we see a little white helmet coming up over the hill. It's McKay. He stops to play on the playground. We yell for him to come right over and Talan follows close behind. When he gets closer I see that he has a look of pride smeared across his little face. Talan too. They're smiling- like they've done something incredible. "What mom? We were on a journey," was his reply to our questioning where they'd been. This journey that he spoke of consisted of going several neighborhoods away to their friend David's house to see if he could play (and invite him to dinner. he declined.). After playing in front of David's house for awhile they thought it might be a good idea to go to Jaxon's house too. Jaxon lives a couple miles away- across a really busy road. These three little boys were about to cross and go to Jaxon's house- which none of them knew how to get to- when a woman stopped them and said, "You boys don't even think about crossing this road without an adult. Go home." At this point, David ran home and McKay and Talan decided to take the lady's advice as well. They started for home except they didn't know where to go. They wandered for a bit, and then McKay recognized a "round thing" and somehow that got him on the right track back to our house. End of journey.

McKay was in big trouble. He lost his bike for a week and was grounded from outside for a day. This almost killed me because the next day was the first truly sunny day all week. And I spent most of it inside. I almost left my children home alone to go on my own journey.

Guess what? We don't even know what we're doing. We don't know what discipline a journey like that warrants. But we are very grateful that he is alive! I just kept shuddering all day thinking of the horrible things that could have happened. I guess I impressed these things upon McKay because that night he asked if I would stay with him while he said a prayer. These were his words, "Dear Heavenly Father. Thank you for this day. Thank you that I didn't' get dead. Thank you that I didn't get stolen. Thank you that I found my way home." My thoughts exactly.

Okay, on a happier note, we saw McKay's most darling friend, Isabella, outside as we got home from church today. We went over to say hi to her and she looked at McKay in his tie and gray slacks and said, "Hi McKay! Why are you wearing that cute little outfit?" It was more adorable than you could possibly imagine. I guess she's not used to seeing boys in church attire. We told her where we'd been and she said, "Oh, my dad and brother go to church sometimes, but they can wear just regular clothes."

Isabella is moving to Orem this month and I am so, so sad. She has been such a good friend to McKay and Ellery and really she is just the sweetest little girl ever. I hope we get some neighbors with kids, and not just working adults who drive right into their garage and shut the door behind them like most of our other neighbors.

My kids have been saying, "I thought you were a FEMALE!" all day today. Apparently a line from Ice Age that is completely hilarious, to them at least. Actually, I don't even know that Ellery knows why she's saying it, but McKay has promised her that it's completely hilarious.

This week we did quite a few things. We had a pre-4th of July party on Friday at Starr's, we went shopping for Brian at the outlet mall and we went down to Salem to pick up my new camera!

At the pre-4th party McKay was a blur- fireworks, lots of boys and some tractor-mobile kept him busy the whole time. Ellery spent her time running around at first, and then when it got dark, she sat down with her two best friends, Kenna and Kenzie. Her friends were just kind of relaxing, watching the fireworks show, but miss Elle was doing a solo concert of Girls of Rock'n Roll, which is a selection from one of the old Cipmunk/Chipette movies. She was in her own little world, and so serious. As for Layla, she was just confused as to why she couldn't go to bed and what the loud noises and bright lights were.

We lowered Layla's crib when we got home and at first she acted like she was in jail. Now, she's sleeping through the night (thanks to some great training in Utah) and is quite happy in her little cage. She's growing up! It always feels like such a jump when you lower the crib.

We decided to give McKay an incentive to say his r's correctly. He has known how to say them for a long time, but recently has gotten really lazy and will revert to baby-talk r's instead. We told him that if he went one day without saying a baby r then he could get a new zhu zhu pet. It took him a few days, but yesterday he was able to go all day! So this afternoon he got Stonewall, who he's been wanting forever. :) I told him that if he said baby r's again then we would take Stonewall away and he would have to start over. He said, "Oh! So you mean he's like my training zhu zhu pet?" Yep, exactly.

Last night we had stuffed quesadillas for dinner. I got a couple spoonfuls of re-friend beans and fed a few bites to Layla. In the middle of the feeding, I looked over at Brian and said, "I wonder if these will hurt her tummy. Too late now." We put her to be awhile later and went outside to enjoy the nice weather with the older kids. We played out there for about and hour and a half and when we finally came in guess who was screaming her lungs out? My poor baby. I feel horrible that I didn't check on her and I have no idea how long she was screaming. I do know that re-fried beans do not agree with Layla's tummy just yet.

Oh yeah, and Layla started crawling a couple weeks ago while we were in Utah. She's now getting more interested in standing. It's still cute to me to see her crawl.

Everyone has been commenting on how tan the kids are. You really can't get the same kind of tan around here, ever. Plus, summer just came to Portland two days ago, so no one's had the opportunity to try.