Sprinkler Fun

It is still pretty darn hot here in Arizona. Unseasonably warm, as some may say. But it’s “cooled off” enough that a little backyard play isn’t out of the question now and then.

 

Please excuse the backyard. It’s a dump. Someday…we will have grass. Which will probably grow as high as those weeds.

 

Until then, my children will play in the dirt and rocks. At least the dog poop was picked up.

 

Besides, they have fun anyway.

 

“Hey, you’re cramping my style!”

 

*Queue Chariots of Fire theme*

 

There are always things to be found in the yard.

 

Oranges are on the list of approved “found” items.

There are less desirable ones, but I won’t go into that here.

 

Spray in the face!

 

“What are you doing, silly Daddy?”

I’m wondering the same thing, myself.

 

Maybe not as refreshing as a pool, but a good way to beat the lingering heat nonetheless.

Even so…fall and cooler temperatures can’t come soon enough for this mom.

Fun Hat

Veronica recently saw an episode of Curious George in which George, forbidden to touch the Man’s iconic Yellow Hat, decides to make himself a “Fun Hat” of his own. He adds various gadgets that he thinks his pals will like. Then the Man accidentally wears it to a presentation and manages to inadvertently set off all of the fun features while giving his speech.

 

Taken with the idea of a “Fun Hat”, Veronica just had to have one of her own.

 

And while it wasn’t as fancy or high tech as George’s hat, it did have a few surprises.

Now I’ll just need to be careful not to accidentally wear it the next time I give an important scientific speech.

The best thing about growing up is…

Today Veronica was asking me where we got some of her clothes from.

Me: We got them from our cousins, Mary Rose, Kaitlyn, Karly and Laina. They got too big for these clothes so they gave them to you. Isn’t that nice?

V: Yes, that is nice. Why did they get too big?

Me: Because kids keep growing until they get as big as mommies and daddies and then they stop.

V: I stopped growing.

Me: No, you are still growing. You will grow until you are as big as me.

V: Then I can drink booze!

Chirp Chirp *SMASH*

On the scale of bothersome bugs that give me the heebie jeebies and demand instant death, crickets do not rank very high. Comparatively. If I see a cricket and there is a handy weapon nearby, I may make use of it, but if there isn’t then I won’t go out of my way to find one. So sometimes the cricket escapes to live another day.

One exception to this is if a cricket jumps on me. Yuck. Luckily that hasn’t happened in recent memory. Another more common exception is if a cricket wakes me up in the middle of the night. In either case I will hunt that chirping fiend down until it has been flattened by the underside of a shoe.

And who decided that “chirp” is the right word for the noise a cricket makes when it is happily sawing its legs together in my bedroom in the middle of the night? “Chirp” does not begin to describe the piercing quality of the noise that for some reason sounds like it’s being produced right next to my ear.

Anyway, this happened the other night. Since I am entering that uncomfortable stage of pregnancy where it is impossible to fall asleep, I had tossed and turned for a bit and didn’t even realize I had finally fallen asleep until I was violently woken up by a “chirping” serenade. Needless to say, I was annoyed. So I went on a mission: search and destroy.

I wasn’t sure I would be able to find the cricket, given their habit of “chirping” madly only until they sense they are in danger from a flip-flop. But I did eventually manage to rustle the cricket out of it’s hiding place and one good whack did the job. Sweet silence. Of course, I was very awake at that point, and while trying to fall back asleep my muddled brain decided I needed to write about crickets on my blog at the next opportunity. So that’s what I’m doing. Somehow, it seemed more amusing in the wee hours of the morning. You can thank my sleep deprivation.

On a side note, a large percentage of the crickets we spot around the house are missing one back leg. I like to think it’s because they are being relentlessly hunted by our house lizards. It does look awfully funny when they try to jump.

So, crickets. Major pest or minor annoyance? What say you?

Painting with Daddy

Last Saturday, for some Daddy time, Paul and the girls painted a picture.

 

Well, Paul and Veronica painted a picture. Jacinta got a little confused about the purpose of the activity.

 

She thought her job was to ingest the (blessedly non-toxic) paint.

 

Daddy tried to instruct her on the finer points of painting.

 

And some of it seemed to sink in.

 

But I suspect she didn’t quite get it in the end.

 

Veronica, on the other hand, was very good at the whole paint to paintbrush to paper concept. She ended up with minimal amounts on her person.

 

And certainly none in her mouth.

 

But, in the end, the picture got painted anyway.

 

Everybody had fun, and would definitely be happy to do this activity again.

 

Though maybe for different reasons.

How does this happen?

I never get tired of posting these.

A Fishy Situation

The big project on Saturday was…digging a hole. But not just any hole.

 

It was the mother of all beach sand holes. Complete with a ramp for easy access and an archway for decoration.

 

The kids loved climbing down into the hole, despite my aunt insisting that holes and tunnels weren’t safe and she had read about them collapsing and trapping kids inside. Everyone thought she was being a worrywart, until the archway did collapse – right on top of one of the kids who was, for some unknown reason, lying under it. I wasn’t there to capture the exciting moment, but I’m pretty sure they pulled him to safety.

 

 

Aside from those involved in the hole-digging, it was a day for relaxing in the sun. The weather was perfect.

 

And there was plenty to snack on. Ew.

 

Once the sea-side antics were finished, some of the group went for another shell-collecting walk.

 

The rest of us stayed behind to collect diaper sand.

 

There was plenty of that to go around. But it was worth the fun playtime.

 

 

I mean, it’s not every day you get to drive a lounge chair around the beach, right?

 

The walkers came back with some interesting finds. This was some kind of stationary sea creature…but if you look closely it kind of looks like a very small hippo. Weird.

 

And of course there was Fernando the Fish. Irresistible to three year olds everywhere.

 

Oh, Fernando. What fond memories.

And Veronica did wash her hand thoroughly when play time was over.

 

Which is good, because we had a tasty dinner waiting to close out the night.

 

Sunday slowed down a bit, at least for me and Jacinta. We took an afternoon nap in my parents’ tent trailer while everyone went back down to the water. But while she was waiting for me to finish my lunch, Michael kept her entertained by reading the ingredient list off of various items on the table, including this bag of flour. Fascinating.

 

And Sunday was a special day – Tyler’s birthday! So there had to be a tasty treat at end of it.

It was also really our last day, since Monday was spent packing everything up and then driving back into the Arizona heat.

We had a fabulous time, especially the girls. I don’t know if I mentioned it yet, but Paul couldn’t make it on the trip, so it was just us girls who got to go. I’m so thankful to my parents for taking such good care of us, and to my aunt Kathy for letting us use her house. It made a huge difference, and let me get the rest I needed to make something like this possible.

And now I’m ready for the next adventure! Or at least I will be…after a few weeks of sleep.