This weekend we turned the office/guest room into Julia's room/computer hideout.

We moved the full sized bed of there and into Antonio's room and moved his twin bed into her new room. I had scored a great deal on some lavender fairy sheets and quilt, and painted one of the walls a similar color to match.

She is so tickled to have her own space!
Now, to get her to sleep in there...




We painted Antonio's room too.
He picked out a cool Nickelodian Jimmy Neutron brainiac blue (or something like that) for one of his walls.
He is excited to have the big bed in his room, not only is it larger, but it's up higher, he has to climb on his chair to get in it, or take a running start and leap onto it, the favored method.




Now, we just have our bedroom left to paint and some carpet to install and things will look really nice.

Julia was following Antonio around this afternoon, snatching up every toy that left his hands and running off with it.
He was getting bugged, so I suggested he find something they could do together.
This is what he came up with.

He found that putting her slip on pink shoes were the hardest, because she kept on wiggling & they'd fall off.

She felt pretty beautiful in all that though.
He does good work.

Today was another hot day, although not as bad as this weekend.
The house was unbearable this afternoon, so I set up the little pool, slip and slide and a sprinkler for the kids.
I took a chair and a glass of iced tea to a shady spot to watch.
We stayed out there until just before bed time.
I brought out a few different courses for dinner.
We started with a frozen go-gurt course, then moved onto the fruit salad course, next was an encore frozen go-gurt course, followed by a main course of cold roasted chicken and sliced apple.

After dinner, while I was making lunches for tomorrow’s field trip, Julia was busy again.
She snuck into my bathroom, I swear I try and keep those doors closed, and rubbed my deodorant on various surfaces of my room.
I came in to check on her, and she quickly dropped/tossed the deodorant, put her hands behind her back, and looked up at me with her big brown eyes.
I saw deodorant smeared on my alarm clock, and when I asked her where else she ‘colored’, she quietly and a little proudly pointed out the buttons on the TV, an area on my cedar hope chest, and a book shelf.

Most of it was easy enough to clean up, although it’s going to require a little more effort than half hazard swipes from a baby wipe to get it out of the spaces between the buttons on the TV.

Today we went to my cousin's wedding.
It was so much fun to be with family and be invited to share her special day.

It was outdoors and they chose this really pretty historic house with beautiful gardens for their the wedding and reception.

The kids behaved and had a blast.
Since it was so hot, 100 degrees-ish, and we were all out on the lawn, most of the women ditched high heels for bare feet.
Julia quickly took this as an opportunity and found my brother a willing accomplice to help her out with my shoes.




Antonio loved the cake & was impressed with the little rose petals on each plate.
He kept his, and I think ones from our plates too and put them in his memory box at home.

The Man had duty on the ship today, so I was in charge of keeping the kids entertained for the day, and since it's been hot as hell lately, keeping them cool.
Heat makes us all cranky, and I was marginally successful in keeping them pretty mellow and happy.
We watched movies, snacked and napped.
At one point Antonio went out to ride his bike, but came back after two laps around the neighborhood because it was too hot to play.

We did have to take a trip to the grocery store this evening, primarily for the opportunity to be in an air conditioned space. Our house, with its skylights, turns into an EZ-bake oven by 4:30, when the sun starts to hit overhead.

After coming home, putting away the few groceries and folding a load of laundry, I went to put clothes away.
Down at the end of the hallway I saw Julia freeze and stare at me, her brother's Sponge Bob toothpaste was firmly clutched in her hand.
Sparkly blue toothpaste was all over the bathroom door, part way down the hallway and smeared on the bedroom doors. Julia had a decent amount on her as well. I wasn't planning on giving her a bath tonight, since she'd spent some time in the kiddie pool, but now it was necessary.

The Man is coming home today!
He's been away for two months, and man, has it been a long two months.
The ship wasn't due back until Thursday, but it seems that they're being rewarded and get to come home two days early.

Antonio's head begins to look thistly when it gets too long.
Today I shaved his head but left a patch in the front long, like skater punky style.
He's not sure if it's cool.
I showed him pictures of the drummer of Green Day with hair like his and he felt better.
He looks pretty badass.

He told me, "Mom, you shouldn't say that word to describe my hair because I can't say it. You should say awesome instead, because it means pretty much the same thing."

How could I disagree with that?

Julia is sitting on my lap and she smells like sunshine and strawberries.
While I weeded the garden this morning, I kept her nibbly little self busy with a bowl of strawberries from the farmer's market.

So, tonight for dinner we had meatloaf, baked potatoes and fresh sauté’d zucchini from the garden.
In fact, I picked 5 zucchini's this afternoon and there are radishes and peas ready to be picked as well.
Anyway, guess who doesn't like zucchini.

That’s right, neither of the kids.
Julia took one bite, and as she chewed it, she worked it out of her mouth and leaned over to put it back on the plate.
Antonio had one small piece, and that was it for him.

They'd probably hate candy if it grew in the wild too.

We're just getting in and Antonio is getting ready for bed.
It's 10:45.
There are still all kinds of fireworks going off outside, there were way more this year than last around the 'hood.
One neighbor had this GIANT firework this year.
He came out with a cardboard box that was 2 1/2' x 2 1/2' and 10" high.
Sucker was called Mama Mia and when he took off the top it had at least 40 individual mortar things in it.
It was amazing.

We had about 9 families from the neighborhood all hanging out today.
Between us all, we set up 3 pop up shelters and 4 tables of food.
The older kids set off daytime fireworks and the littler ones watched from camp chairs.
As the evening progressed, the adults took over and we kept fireworks going until it was time to go in.
We really had a great time.

Antonio has jumped gleefully into the hilarity of knock knock jokes.
We have a book full of kiddie jokes and he tests them out on me as we drive in the car.
Most of the time he's pretty good, sometimes it's painful.
Like when he doesn't know the word, so he spells it to me and before I know it, he's spelled the entire joke out to me, words separated by noting 'fingerspace'.
Like, " c-h-i-c-k-e-n-fingerspace-j-u-m-p-i-n-g-fingerspace-a-c-r-o-s-s-fingerspace..."
You get the idea.

So, I suggest he skip on to the next one, which he does very well.

"Knock-knock"
Whose there?
"Banana"
Banana who?
"Knock-knock"
Whose there?
"Banana"
Banana who?
"Knock-knock"
Whose there?
"Banana"
Banana who?
"Knock-knock"
Whose there?
"Orange"
Orange who?
"Orange you glad I didn't say banana!"

Peals of laughter, from both kids, in the backseat.

Then, a little voice chirps up,
"nak-nak"

Julia has jokes too

After a long weekend away from home, I found a problem in the garden this afternoon.
Something is terrorizing the new broccoli




the culprit was discovered, but I'm not sure what to do about it.