Fox' First Pedicure

Seriously, spoiled.

Robie's home from China and I'm in a nice air-conditioned salon getting my nails done with my sweet little buddy on my lap.. nice.

I want to be bald

Lauren and I had a rough day. She threw a fit at Albertsons (I didn't want to use the self-checkout for my full cart, and she thought I should), the dr's office (she was done and wanted to leave, i was feeding Fox), and a few at home (who knows what those were about?). I'm DONE listening to her crying! Before that, she woke Fox up by putting his bouncy seat cover over his face while I was in the shower, then writing in red permanent marker on herself and her toybox. Lucky for her, she had a few cute moments earlier in the day. Her hair was a little skeewampus, so I told her we needed to put it up. She actually got excited exclaiming, "Oh yeah, can you make me bald again?" Sadly, the cute hairdo only made it through the second tantrum, but still it was fun while it lasted. Doesn't she look so innocent?

Fox went in for his 2 month check up today. He's weighing in at 11 pounds 10 oz and 24 inches.. I guess that puts him in the 50th percentile for weight and 95th for height. The Dr. said everything looks great - so it was full speed ahead for his first vaccinations, ouch! poor kid, he got a little bit of a fever this afternoon, but he is sleeping pretty peacefully now, so I'm hoping he will feel better tomorrow. The Dr didn't EXACTLY say it, but I'm pretty sure she thinks he is a genius. She was surprised he has already been cooing for quite a while and that he has really mastered his split bubbles. What can I say? Good genes?

Ruining the planet

Apparently, Brooke has decided to be an environmentalist. We were driving down the freeway the other day and she all of a sudden looks over at me and says, "Why, why would they build this road right through such a beautiful area". My reasoning of needing to get places was met with disdain as she informed me that we don't really need to go those places then, we should all just stay home or at least closer to home (we were driving about 10 miles away). Maybe she's been reading too much Harry Potter and she figures we could just all fly places? She then started in on the shopping center (one of the busiest in our area), saying, "see, there are hardly any people, why would they build all of this - we don't need this here..".. WEIRDO!

On another note - Fox is loving his new little toy - When Robie realized I was considering using our butterfly activity mat we had for the girls, he nixed that idea, so Fox got this new Nascar one (because nothing says Tyler family like Nascar). He is actually really liking it - he will just sit and stare at the little tabs.. he even swings his arms wildly until he hits one and it makes noise - its quite amusing for the 10 minutes it lasts anyway..

Saturday fun with a side of yellow gloves

The two older girls both started soccer on Saturday. They were so excited. As we arrived at the field I was so happy because it was overcast and a pleasant temperature. Of course, minutes before Ashley's game, the fog burned off and it was SO hot! Thanks to an overachiever mom of another girl on Ashley's team (I guess she regularly takes pictures of other people's kids just to be nice - sweet!), we got some great pics - My pictures are more like this:The girls played so well and, most importantly, had fun. I think Robie even had fun coaching Brooke's team, although I'm not sure how long it will be before he gets his voice back in full. Maybe I'll have to get him a megaphone?

When we got home the girls REALLY didn't want to do their Saturday jobs. They usually are pretty good about just hammering it out, but there was a lot of weeping/wailing and gnashing of teeth since they were just so sore/tired/hot (pick any excuse, I'm sure they tried it). As I was pulling out the cleaning supplies, though, I came across these gloves, which totally invigorated the cleaning process. I mean, who doesn't want to clean when they can wear sweet gloves like that?

But, I want to go to bed early!

Along with her clothing optional escapades, Lauren has been cracking me up with her vocabulary. She thinks she is so independent - she wants to be running the show. In defiance of Robie and I's selected bed time for her, she has announced the last two nights, "But I want to go to bed early". I have reassured her that she is, in fact, going to bed early, which only agitates her more as she tries to explain to me how her plan to go to bed "early" actually means she should stay awake longer. Of course, I am well aware that she actually means, "late" but I'd rather play up the early situation as long as I can with phrases such as:

• Why, of course you can go to bed early Lauren


• Lauren, would you like to go to bed early tonight?


• Let's get home so we can get ready and then get to bed early

Poor kid. At least I'm trying to help her get "tomorrow" and "yesterday" figured out. Right now "tomorrow" is actually the term for both "tomorrow" and "yesterday". It can get very confusing, for example, when she is asking where we are going tomorrow and then doesn't like my answer, because really she is trying to remember the name of the place we were yesterday. It kind of makes me wonder if that is how aloha came to mean both hello and goodbye. Maybe at some point long long ago on one of the Hawaiian islands, one small child just couldn't get it right and eventually their parents just gave up - next thing you know its a cultural phenomenon. I mean, "sick" has changed meanings in my lifetime, right?

Lets get this party started

This last weekend my parents came into town to be here for Fox' baby blessing.

I was so glad to have them here - I'm pretty sure Fox was psyched about it, too

In a classic moment at the end of the weekend, Lauren and her cousin, Mia were found on the trampoline without any clothes on. When we asked them why she was not wearing any clothes, Lauren said she was just trying to "get this party started". Hmmm, looks like we need a little more work on appropriate ways to entertain friends and family?

We miss you already grandma and grandpa...

How is this happening?

I'm not quite sure how this is happening, but Brooke is another year older - which means I have a 9 year old! I sure love the little girl she is becoming. I've always loved how she really pays attention to her surroundings, but this year I've noticed that she has used that to be able to help friends that may be feeling a little down or even to follow my moods and say what she knows I need to hear (lets just say a "that's a cute outfit" goes a LONG way right now.). She's very competitive, but she's also able to be a good sport. She is also getting so adventurous - she wants to do so many things on her own, which sometimes scares me, but also makes me realize she is capable of a lot of things. It was amazing to see her and her friends at her birthday party this morning just sitting at a table working on some paintings and chatting it up. She decided she wanted an art party - it was so mellow I was actually worried maybe they weren't having fun, but at the very least Brooke said she had a great time. We didn't want them to get too tired of art work, so we took the frisbees they painted and had some frisbee golf. Apparently, a bunch of Robie's co workers go out to a field nearby Robie's work at lunch and play frisbee golf - that pretty much qualified Robie to run those kids around (I need to figure out how to upload video because there were some classic frisbee moments). Her sunset painting came out just like she wanted it...

Motivated by Robie and I's recent viewings of numerous cake decorating shows, I decided to give fondant a try, and I love it! I made a marshmallow fondant, and although it was extremely messy, I tend to find a way to make a mess when I'm making regular frosting so that wasn't totally out of the ordinary and besides that, I thought it was pretty easy to work with. I messed up the writing on the top like 4 times so I just wiped it off and redid it - not to mention that it was just automatically kind of smooth. It's supposed to look like an art palette - I wish I would have gotten a better picture.I'm sure it could have been smoother, but for the first time, I was pretty happy and Brooke really liked it and that's what matters, right? It was so fun to have my parents still here for the weekend. My mom made us each a birthday cake every year in some sort of cool shape (and she had 7 kids, so that's a lot of cakes), so it was really cool to have her here helping me figure out what shape to cut the cake and how to complete the decorating and to make Brooke her special birthday breakfast casserole that she requested.

Finishing off the day by swimming with friends and then dinner with family made this day seem like it was seriously 3 fabulous days in one. Happy Birthday Brooke - we love you!