Counting Down the Days Until It's Cool Enough to Go Outside Again

I was miserable-with-a-cold sick on Thursday and not a very fun mommy (at one point I actually asked Lorin, "What is your problem?" when she wouldn't hurry up and do what I wanted her to do rather than the pretty innocuous thing she wanted to do). So I broke out the "washable" fingerpaints I picked up on my last Target trip.

At first, Lorin did not like it. (We did this to her - I so hate food messes that I forced her to use utensils early rather than eat with her fingers. If she does get something on her hands, she wants us to wipe it off immediately.)


So much for me getting to do other things (like sit down and wipe my nose) while she paints. Once I got involved in painting, she liked it more. She also liked it when I squeezed the paint out where she pointed, and she especially liked it when I let her handle the paint bottles herself (not as dangerous as it sounds - she doesn't know/have the strength to squeeze the bottle).

When she concentrates, Lorin sticks her tongue out, just like her Daddy.


There's the tongue again.


"Where's Lorin?"


"There she is!"


I hope for the actual bottles' sakes that Crayola's claim that this is washable is true.


Ta da! (This one may have had some help from Mom.)



P.S. Totally washable - nothing a bath and baby wipes couldn't take care of.

Indoctrination OR Why I don't get into political discussions on Mormon mommy blogs.

It was an historic race and convention. See you in November!

P.S. Lorin loves the shirt, mainly because she thinks the donkey is a giraffe.

P.P.S. I just heard McCain's VP pick - it continues to be an historic race. Wow, what a brilliant pick.

The #1 Reason We Moved to Arizona

Cousins!

The Tale of the Tie

So we've talked about the neighbors on one side. What about the neighbors on the other?

We met our neighbor (we'll call her "Lady") immediately upon moving in. Lady is very, very sweet and had just gone through a divorce; she lives with her 4 kids. We were comfortable neighbors - we'd chat at church and borrow eggs back and forth, etc. Once, her 15-year-old daughter hung out at our house when she was locked out, and another time I helped her two younger kids look for their missing cat (who was found). She got remarried several months ago and has seemed very happy since then.

Flash forward to two weeks ago. We took off for a week in Utah to visit my parents and attend a wedding (which was lovely, by the way). Mid-way through the week, we remembered that we had a package being sent to us. With a very nice Robert Talbott tie. A package that very well could be delivered while we were gone. So we tried calling Lady for her help but never reached her.

And then, unbelievably, we ran into Lady and her new husband at the Wal-Mart in Orem. (More unbelievably? Both of us were buying wedding gifts for weddings that would happen the next day at the same time at the same temple.) We explained our problem to her, and she volunteered to call "right now" her teenagers at home and ask them to watch for it. She even found us again at the store to let us know that she talked to her 14-year-old son and he had the package. What a relief.

Well, this last week was busy, so we didn't make it over to Lady's until Saturday. Because Lady couldn't find the package, she called her son on his cell and asked. His response? "Oh, I saw the package, but I didn't pick it up."

What?!?! I'm not sure where that communication break-down occurred, but my money is on the 14-year-old boy. Apparently, when his mother called, he walked out of his house, looked on our front porch, saw the package, and just left it there. Now, we know this whole thing was our fault in the first place, but I am still amazed at the lack of common sense. I checked around our house on both sides to make sure the package wasn't moved, blown around, etc., but no luck. It likely was stolen, and we were out the tie.

But wait, there's more. This afternoon, our doorbell rang. A nice older gentleman held a smallish brown box. "I think this was misdelivered. I found it on [our other next-door neighbor's] porch, but it has your address on it." It was the tie, miraculously unharmed (although the box had gone a few rounds).

So, question - what happened to the tie the last week and a half? Was it always on our other neighbor's porch and Lady's son was confused about what "next-door neighbor" meant? Was the package moved some way? And why did it take a visitor/stranger to find the package and deliver it?

Oh, and Lady and her new husband and her four kids? They're moving back to Utah this week. So if you want to, you could live on either side of us...

These are the Olympic Games...*

We're big on the Olympic Games around here.

Part of it is the family tradition. Mr. T swam in college, and my BIL Nick is an absolute swimming stud who competed in his second Olympic Trials this year - a notable feat considering that he is also a great husband, father, and the second-biggest nerd in the country.**

(I was going to post the crappy video we took of one of his races - I mean the quality of the video was crappy - seriously, we sat there with our point-and-shoot filming the internet stream - but then I realized that technically that might be breaking copyright laws and being a member of two state bars makes me a bit cautious. You're just going to have to believe me when I tell you it looked like 8 really in-shape men swimming the breaststroke for 100 meters.)

So we've spent a significant chunk of our past two weeks watching the Olympics, especially swimming the first week - Mr. T for the pure sport, me for the bodies (amazing how the men manage to get the tops of their body suits down so fast after a race...), and both of us for the history.

And that's why I haven't blogged about our trip to Utah, the fact that Lorin's putting together sentences and can sort-of sing her ABC's, or Mr. T's awful day yesterday (it started with a scorpion sting and ended with a flat tire - and a flat spare). Being better about updating is one of my fall resolutions...



* One Olympics - I can't remember which one, and the two people who've known me the best through all of them can't remember either - I made up words to the Olympics theme song. This is how it starts. I can't hear the music anymore without singing the words in my head.

** According to the Deloitte Tax Challenge, graduate student-level.

Adventure #11: Perry High School Pool

The cities around here build amazing pools at the high schools and then those pools become the public pools during the summer. The downside to this is that "summer" ends the first week of August, when there are still three months of 100+ weather to go. Lorin and I didn't go to any of the public pools this summer because we have family members with backyard pools, I'm not super fond of being seen in public in a bathing suit, and there's just an ick factor with public pools.

But my sister-in-law (who feels me on the ick factor) promised that this pool was different. It was sparkling clean, had an wonderfully large shallow area for the little kids, and was nearly empty except for our group and the 15 or so lifeguards. We went on the second to last day that it was open, so that's it for this year, but I might actually go to a public pool more than once next summer.

I'm not confident that the replacements will be any better.

So anyone want to rent a poorly maintained home in a random subdivision in a random suburb of Phoenix? At least the next door neighbors are awesome.




Yes, our neighbors - those neighbors - are finally moving. I wonder if they'd like their hose nozzle back before they go?

Tag!

So Meg tagged me and now I have to write about me - no hiding behind Lorin.

How To Play This Game of Tag: List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, and 3 facts about yourself. Tag people at the end of your post by leaving their names. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

3 Joys
1. Sitting on the couch, eating good dark chocolate, and reading a magazine in the middle of the afternoon while someone (this post is not about her) takes a nap.
2. Sleeping in past 7
3. Picking up my produce basket and being surprised by all the fun fruits and vegetables (that reminds me, I have some ripe Saturn nectarines that need eating...)

3 Fears
1. Heights
2. Scorpions
3. Being the only adult in the house overnight

3 Goals
1. Figure out what I want to do with my life
2. Own a house, so that I can decorate it
3. Give Lorin the best education possible

3 Obsessions/Collections
1. Project Runway
2. European wood toys
3. Design magazines

3 Facts
1. I still haven't lost all the "baby" weight. Actually, I technically did lose all the baby weight, but I gained some of it back after I weaned. I just pretend like it's something I can't do anything about, and I wear loose shirts to cover my muffin top.
2. I can't bring myself to delete any photos that I take, so I have way too many really, truly crappy pictures cluttering up my internal and external hard drives.
3. I totally blog stalk.

So I'm tagging Heid because she seriously needs to update her blog.