Kids and Random thoughts.

As I was vacuuming the house tonight I was thinking about my kids. Could be because I was yelling at one to pick up his cars and transformer pieces before I sucked them up or because the other one was yelling at me over the vacuum to ask what to pack for her trip which isn't until tuesday.

Regardless, thinking about them made me smile and I thought I'd post some of the random thoughts I had.

I love that as soon as I got to daycare today I got a big grin, hug and a "HI MOM," from Braden. Kelsey was busy sitting on the couch with Amber learning how to cross stitch. Glad she has grandma's and daycare providers to teach her these things. I am horrible at crafts. Anything I have started gets to a certain point and I either get bored and give up or I get stuck and put it away because I can't get any further.

Kids will embarrass you unintentionally... If I bend over too far and my low rise pants show more than needs to be seen, Braden will quickly laugh at me and say, "haha, I see your butt." So at least I know the rest of the world sees and I fix it.

Kids also have ways of pointing out all of your flaws... Often I yell at Kelsey to clean the clothes off her floor and pick up her room. I then go into my bedroom and notice that I have piles of clothes on my floor so I'm just as guilty.

As a toddler I one time caught Kelsey talking very sternly to her dolls (not yelling but in an angry tone). I realized that it was probably what she heard from me and then felt guilty.

If Braden goes to daycare and says a bad word I know that he probably heard it from our house. Although I'm going to blame that one on Scott. Mostly because I've specifically heard Braden say it immediately after Scott said something.

Today, in addition to the big grin and "HI MOM" I got from Braden when I arrived, I also got an "I like your hair." Nice ego boost, thank you B. :) Then, later in the evening, I get a "Mom, I like your shirt!" from Braden again. Personally I think he was buttering me up for the next "Mom, will you transform this into a car for me?" But since you know kids at that age are honest... gotta appreciate the compliment.

At Kelsey's age I get a lot of eye rolls. But still affection. She just wants to spend time with me and I need to be better about it. From playing games on the computer with her, to board games, watching TV and cuddling on the couch, to shopping, she wants to do it with me. of course, she also wants me to spend money on her that I don't have, but I suppose that's what girls expect.

At 10, she's starting to want to be more of a teenager. Which means conversations about shaving legs, bras, deodorant and periods.

Kids can make you laugh no matter what the age, Braden, in his transformer obsession, really just another version of a "vehicle" which he has been obsessed with since birth, has decided that his name is Optimus Prime. He will ignore you unless you call him Optimus. If you don't, he will correct you and say, "Tell me ________ Optimus Prime, Not Braden." This is only today though, tomorrow he might be Megatron, Starscream or Bumble bee. You just never know.

That's all for now... I know there was more running through my head but I seemed to forget a lot of it the second I sat down to type. It's amazing what can pass through your head in 15 minutes of vacuuming the house.

Waterfalls and the Capital Building

We've been needing an excuse to test out the durango on a longer drive since Scott did some work on it. We decided to take the kids down to Tumwater Falls Park and have a picnic. It was a great day for it. Not too hot and not raining. Traffic was a bit of a challenge on the way home and we were forced to use the back roads, but the kids had the Transformers movie to keep them entertained. It's Braden' new "Cars" movie, which as many of you know, he would watch as many times a day as we would turn it on for him. The DVD no longer works.

Braden was being a transformer in this picture.

They wanted to be part of the totem pole.

After we left the falls we decided to see if the State Capital was open. Kelsey and I have taken a picture outside it but never been inside. It was open so we went in to check it out. I've never seen so much marble. Walls, floors, stairs, probably even the toilets although I did not go in the bathroom to check. :) The detail was very neat.

waaaay up there in the middle are Scott, Kelsey and Braden.

Check out the detail on these doors!

Apparently we have a time capsule buried under the marble. Pretty neat.... I wonder what's in it.

Marble, marble everywhere......

Recent Heatwave

I have been neglecting my blog, mostly because it was too darn hot to sit with a computer on my lap and try to string sentences together. But we did enjoy our very very warm Washington summer. It's been almost a month since we've had any measurable rain. My yard is very very dead. ALthough since it's mostly all weeds at this time, I'm not complaining not having to mow them down.

On the hottest day of the wave, my outdoor thermometer showed 108 and my inside thermometer showed 90. OUCH. I met a good friend of mine and her two kids at one of the free spray parks in tacoma. Basically just a bunch of sprinklers. But it was a nice and cheap way to cool down.

That same day, my awesome in laws brought us a window A/C unit. AHHH relief. Unfortunately Scott didn't get home until 9pm that night so it wasn't installed until 11. We didn't feel the relief until the next day but it made a measurable difference, I think we were down to 78-80 degrees inside. MUCH better. The heat wave has finally broken and it's down to 60-75 again.

Here are a couple pictures from our trip to the spray park.