Not one of my Finer Moments

Earlier this week I put the kids in the car to take them to camp, and discovered I could not find my keys. I could have sworn I'd seen them in the front door the evening before, so I immediately called Joel and accused him of accidentally taking my keys with him to work (which he had done once in the past, so it was not an entirely out-of-the-blue accusation. Joel checked his pockets, his car, and insisted he did not have my keys and that it had been his set of keys that had been in the front door the night before.

I didn't quite believe him, but at his suggestion I ransacked all the kitchen drawers till I found a spare car key so I could get the kids to camp. By this time, half an hour had elapsed, putting me significantly behind in my morning schedule and making me very irritable!

I walked back into the house, dropped my purse on the counter, and then all of a sudden spotted my keys -- in my purse. They had fallen into an inside pocket instead of just loose on the bottom where they normally are. Oops.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Yep, today's my birthday. Thanks to everyone who posted happy birthday messages on facebook. When I went into Rebecca's room this morning, she sat up in her crib and started singing Happy Birthday to me! It was so cute that she remembered. That girl loves to sing Happy Birthday! Ben didn't remember until I was walking him into camp, but that's okay.

Some highlights of my special day --

1. Unclogging a drain

2. Sewing an ear back onto a favorite stuffed animal (yes, it was the first time I'd sewed anything since 7th grade and yes, it showed, but Ben was happy).

3. Having a repairman out to look at our A/C (and it was also our cleaning service day so I had two girls in here cleaning and a guy outside messing with the A/C while I was supposed to be on a conference call)

4. Arriving to pick up Ben after camp to discover that he had just spiked a fever and was feeling miserable

5. Pizza and birthday cake! Joel's parents came over and we had a yummy dinner. I got cards, cash, and

6. A DVR!! Joel is finally letting me revolutionize my TV viewing ;) It's not getting installed until Monday though. How Joel managed to avoid paying the $200 charge for it is another story! (And very Joel-like). Since he felt bad after talking the DirecTV rep out of making him pay for it, he did sign up for the extra charge to make it so we can watch our DVR'd shows from any TV in the house, though.

All in all, a great birthday! Ben's going to be home sick tomorrow unfortunately, though after falling asleep on my bed for two hours he did rally for some pizza and cake. On Saturday night we're swapping babysitting with some friends -- they are watching Ben and Becca and then another time we will watch their two kids -- and Joel and I are going to PF Chang's for dinner and Pinkberry for dessert. YUM!

Way Too Hot!

That was the overriding theme of the weekend - way too hot. It was 98 degrees both Saturday and Sunday and it has been very humid lately so with the heat index, it's been feeling like 105 or something awful. Not sure if it's the combination of the heat and humidity, but neither of our central air units (upstairs and downstairs) seemed to be working very efficiently this weekend. The upstairs one is as old as the house (13 years) so expecting to have problems with that one from time to time, but the downstairs one we replaced when we moved in, and this was the first time it started acting up.Anyway, our usual chilly indoor haven wasn't all that chilly this weekend.

Saturday afternoon while Rebecca napped I took Ben to the pool, and the pool water was like, I don't know, 90 degrees at least... it felt like entering a warm bath. Totally un-refreshing. We only stayed about an hour. There weren't all that many people there either -- guess it was too hot even for swimming!

Later in the afternoon Joel's parents came over to babysit and Joel and I had dinner at Brio, dessert at Pinkberry, and then saw the movie Inception. Pinkberry and a movie was a good way to beat the heat, at least! But yesterday was just as hot, the air conditioners were just as tired, and Rebecca was complaining of not feeling well so aside from grocery shopping we spent most of the day holed up at home trying to stay cool.

Looking forward to some (for the most part) cooler weather this week -- I only see one high temp past 94 in the ten day forecast ;)

Peachy

Fro Yo

Ben, Jared, Becca and Evan enjoying the below-mentioned frozen yogurt.

Fire, Ice, and a 9 Hour Playdate

Fire.

Saturday night we took the kids out to a hibachi restaurant. Now, I did remember from our last hibachi experience that hibachi restaurants are not Rebecca's favorite thing. Last time, she was scared, but was okay -- didn't try to run out the door screaming or anything. But age seems to have increased, not decreased, her fear of flame. So as soon as we walked in and sat down and she saw the fire flare up at one of the other tables, she clapped her hands to her face a-la MacCauley Culkin in Home Alone and gasped loudly. Then she burst into tears, yelled "We have to get out of here!" and tried to run out of the room. Somebody's teaching that girl good fire safety, anyway. Joel ended up spending the whole time that our food was being prepared sitting at the bar with Rebecca. Once the "fire man" (as she called him) had left our table, she was okay to come back and sit down, but was still nervous and only picked at her food. Cross hibachi off the family-restaurant-night list for a while.

Ice.

After the hibachi near-disaster we took the kids to the new TCBY that opened up this summer. For some reason, all the frozen yogurt places discovered Charlotte at once, and there's now 2 Yoforia franchises and a TCBY that opened earlier this summer, and a Pinkberry franchise is opening later this week. Anyway, this particular TCBY (probably copying off the others) is the first self-serve TCBY in the franchise's history. I learned that when you give a 6 year old a cup in a self-serve frozen yogurt shop and tell him to, well, serve himself, he comes back with blackberry and pistachio swirl topped with M&Ms, gummy bears, Oreo pieces, sprinkles, caramel sauce, and marshmallow topping.

The 9 hour playdate.

Yesterday morning I was woken up at 8am (yes we were all still asleep at that hour minus Joel who was at work) by the dad of one of Rebecca's classmates, asking if I could come pick up Mira, since her mom went into labor with baby #2 a couple weeks ahead of schedule. They live in our neighborhood, about two minutes from us, and Becca and Mira have known each other since they were babies. They actually both attended the same day care when they were infants, and now the same preschool. So I brought Mira over to our house, and she made herself right at home. Her baby sister was born mid-afternoon (though Mira seemed underwhelmed by that news), and her grandmother eventually arrived from out of state and picked her up. After getting to spend all day with Mira -- including going out to lunch together and taking a nap together -- Becca was very disappointed to see her go! Congrats Mira on your new baby sister!

Another Fun Weekend

1. Becca would like to say "thank you" to Grandma for the cute clothes she sent her last week -- thanks Grandma!

2. I took the kids to Old Navy with me Saturday morning, trying to find myself some shorts and t shirts - Rebecca ran around the store shrieking, and Ben pulled down a mannequin's shirt to "look at her boobies". (Children? What children? I didn't bring any children in here...)

3. We had friends over for dinner Saturday night, who Becca referred to as "People." Where are People? I want People to play with me. There were actually 4 Peoples, two of the grownup variety and two of the child variety, and the four kids played great together while the grownups drank and talked and drank some more. We had Make Your Own Sundaes for the kids for dessert, and the kids managed to use an entire can of whipped cream in creating their concoctions. It was a very fun evening.

4. This morning we headed for the pool, then home for lunch, and one of Ben's friends called to invite him over to play. Love it when that happens. Joel dropped Ben off, I put Rebecca down for her nap, and we had almost THREE HOURS of peace and quiet. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY! How great is that? Then Joel's parents came over for a barbecue, so we ended the day with more food and more fun!