Crazy stuff!

Chris, Elle and I all went to LACMA with our friends the other day and this time Elle made a puppy house. She even made a room for her tiny little dogs.













Last year, Hannah and I helped Kristen assemble a class worth of open court books for Connor's class. We folded and stapled and talked, and it wasn't so bad. PTA was in charge of doing the same thing for Elle's school's worth of open court books. Elle and I thought it'd be pretty easy to do four boxes. Ha. Haha.*hysterical laughter*

One box took up our whole living room and our whole day. With the help of Elle, Chris and Lisa, (THANK YOU AGAIN, LISA and CHRIS,and ELLE!!!) we finished the last of the four last night *whew!I'm never doing THAT again!



Although we worked Lisa hard when she came to visit this weekend, we also took time for some sister-to-sister Twister. (thanks for the game, Hannah :)



















Elle played too :)

In between all THAT, I took Elle to Kidspace. We climbed all the way up the tower together, went through an ant hole. ate pretend gross bug food, and made a house earthquake safe. Elle had lots of other fun at the dinosaur dig, climbing up more stuff, eroding a "mountain," riding a little tricycle, playing the drums with water, rock climbing and playing in the "stream." It's kind of funny that we had to pay $16 for her to play in the pretend nature area and all of this other stuff. It was a fun day though!

News

For those of you who know what I'm talking about, it went REALLY well today for Chris.
He's still on the airplane, on his way home right now.
Everyone really liked him. (he was a little worried, but come one, it's Chris !)
He felt really comfortable talking to everyone and knew his stuff. He didn't get to drive around as planned because they all had a great time at lunch and stayed for a long time.
They told him he's really expensive, but it'll be OK.
Now we just wait for HR to call, and talk money.
Thank you for your prayers!

In other news, Elle is going to have her spreader put on tomorrow. Fun for her! She opted for blue, no sparkles. We've heard from other kids who have had them that they don't hurt like those little rubber bands that are in between her teeth (And those aren't even bothering her right now). The only bugger is this thing will be cemented in her mouth, so food will get stuck up there. Ew.

Someone is ready for school

Every day Elle tells me how many days are left until she starts school.
She was playing in her room one day and did the above. They are the lines at school: Pre-K, Kindergarten, First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth. Her line is the one with the fairy :)

She got Puppy all ready for school too.

In the background is another line of school children going inside their classroom.
I am certainly NOT counting down the days, but I'm glad she's excited!
(but, today, we found out that NONE of her best friends are in her class :( She is very sad.

Fun with Kate and Bill

I know it's a bit late, but here is a mere glimpse of all the fun we had with Kate and Bill.

Elle creamed uncle Bill at X-box.














Thank you again for the great game Liz and Derek! It was a hit with everyone!



We even hit the beach!

thanks for coming, Kate and Bill!

New!

Elle's sandals were too scruffy for church and her Sunday shoes were too small for her feet, so we bought some new grown up high heel church shoes! She debuted them today.
And I've been meaning to show you this cute picture she painted for her door at her little friend Keely's house the other week.
And worst of all, Elle has started "Phase I" of her orthodontia. She's not happy. The little green rubber bands are spreading her teeth apart just enough to fit metal bands that will be cemented in and connected to a pallet spreader. Oh. the. joy. She's in teeth pain today.

Sunday and Elleisms

We taught nursery for the first time today! They just split the nursery because there were over 30 kids in a room about the size of Elle's bedroom. We get to have the older group--all 20 of them :) They were very cute. We had 4-5 other adults helping us, so it was OK. I taught the lesson on "I can be forgiving" Such an easy topic to teach to wiggly 2 and 3 year olds (um, not).

We did have a lot of fun playing with the kids. It was nice because there was a schedule that they were used to and they did well following. Play, lesson (which, they actually did sit still and listen to), courtyard time with bubbles (It's so funny that we even HAVE a courtyard!), snack, singing time, then mom and dad came!

It went by really fast. We only had a couple criers today and no potty accidents.

Now for a couple Elleisms:

When I put Elle to bed, she said, "Mom, I've been wondering how eggs get in snakes." I didn't see that one coming. I told her they grow there. Thinking she was ready for the real stuff, I told her she was once an egg. "Hahahahaha! Did I peck my way out?! hahahahahaha!" I decided I could get off the hook this time and changed the subject.

We talked some more and we started talking about how Dr.'s can give you a shot to make you sleepy. (No, this was in no way related to the above subject lest you wonder) "How can a shot make you sleepy? Is it like Motrin?" I asked her if Motrin made HER sleepy. "No! Motrin makes you hungry and feel like running all over and jumping up and down!"
Hmm. I did not know that Motrin had such effects on her. I'll log THAT away.

Now for some Elle riddles. (I checked out some riddle and joke books to encourage her to read. It works.)

Where do you go if you want to be tall? Utah (U-tall)

Where do you go if you want to get salt? Salt Lake

Where do you go if you want turkey? Turkey!

Where do you go when you want to fill up your glass? Philippians (fill-up,um, ya.)

the end!

Saturday: more fun!

On Saturday, we went to a museum because Elle said, "All I've wanted to do this summer is go to museums and we haven't gone to ANY!"So we went. The exhibits were cool, but the children's section was even cooler! Elle and Chris painted a picture together (which we forgot to pick up after it dried. whoops), and we plan to go back so Elle can 'construct' something.



It was our turn for a date, so Chris and I went out to eat and ate way too much Indian food then we went to DSW for me to try on crazy shoes. (see below) (Sorry, Elaina. I am a married woman after all. Just shield your eyes)

Then we went to the pier to check out crazy people. (see above) We had a goal to find 1. Some girl suffering from Saturday night fever (which, is, if you didn't know, someone who dresses like they don't realize how cold it will be on Saturday night near the beach) and 2. A pregnant belly that is exposed. We saw #1, but we didn't ever see #2. Maybe next time. We MORE than made up for it by seeing a fifty year old woman dancing with a baton (sorry, that picture is kind of dark and blurry). We also got to see lots of people trying to climb up the ladder. (no one could). And, we saw tons of cars in the beach parking lot (which we did NOT park in, thank goodness) Chris and I added to the crazy sighting by posing sillyily. And then, to top it off, Chris almost stepped on a black duck that was hanging out next to us!

If I had the foot strength, I would have bought the gold pair. I was at least six inches bigger!

After all THAT fun, we went to get Elle and had dessert with our friends! Thanks again, Kristen!

Oh ya, then when we all got home, we saw the craziest thing of all. As we walked up the stairs to go to our building, there was a guy just standing there holding the door open. "Um, thanks!" I told him, trying to be all cheerful. "I was just watching the opossum over there" he said, and pointed to where WE HAD JUST WALKED! Sure enough, there was an ugly baby R.O.U.S. (blegh!) The man told us he didn't want to scare us by mentioning it as we walked inches next to it. I thanked him profusely.

Whew! What a weekend.