sippy cups

The tortillas were overflowing with their delicious innards as we sat down to dinner last night.  The fajitas has just finished sizzling as the chicken and veggie mixture softened to the perfect consistency.  Then we ran out of cups.  We have a lot of cups.  Some are large, some are small, most are plastic of some sort.   With that being said, somehow last night when we all sat down for dinner, everyone wanted a medium sized cup and the only smallish plastic cups still available were Fox' sippy cups.  That's right, everyone but me (I have standards) drank out of  a sippy cup with their dinner.  He doesn't like them, so I guess at least they were getting used by someone.  Fox chooses to only drink out of his "baba", a bottle which I refer to as his "cow bottle" because it totally reminds me of one of those huge bottles they feed baby calves with (not because we did in fact get his bottle from sort of farm).  The girls actually thought it was fantastic, their inner baby coming out, I guess!

new treats

My kids love Jamba Juice (who am I kidding, we all love Jamba).  Anyway, since they've had their $1 oatmeal with the purchase of a drink, I've gone over and gotten the kids a smoothie or two, so I can have the oatmeal (seriously it is so good).  But that gets a little pricey, so I got my own steel cut oatmeal which we have been loving, but the kids were still missing their smoothie.  Thanks to my friend, the internet, I've been recreating their favorite smoothie, the Strawberry Surfrider and they love it.   I couldn't find all the correct ingredients at Sprouts, so we had to improvise, which is nice because now I can make it with ingredients I have most of the time.
recipe:
15 strawberries (frozen)
1/2 bag of frozen peaches
4 tbsp of frozen lemonade (just the concentrate)
1 cup of milk (the milk and the limeade are replace the original recipe of lime sherbet)
16 oz limeade (original recipe of lime sherbet and prepared lemonade)

Breakfast or after school treat - delicious.  Just make sure to add more milk if it seems really thick.  Otherwise you might see this:

bummer.  Fox thought it was pretty funny

which I thought was pretty funny myself

SO CUTE!

Fox really is the cutest little boy - no, seriously, it's a proven fact.   He is in this really cute phase right now (maybe I already mentioned it) where everything he does is really cute.  Even if it is really annoying and is making a huge mess he just gets his giant grin on his face when he knows he is busted and if somehow I can continue to stay mad he gets the saddest little pouty face.  I mean, how can I either get or stay mad at that cute little face?
I took him and his cousin to the park the other day. He genuinely loves the park.  I don't remember the girls ever loving the park as much as he does.  They liked it, but I mostly was going for my own social purposes, but I have to take Fox because he really likes going.  A portion of his love for the park is probably because you are outside when you are there (unless you have like a super large house in which case, can we come live with you?.. oops, sorry, got off track there).  Anyway, as you may know, when you are outside there are birds chirping and planes flying overhead and sometimes there are dogs.  All of those things are things he loves which deserve both naming, "pay pay pay" (plane) and pointing (finger to the air).  He loves to repeat dog sounds (woo woo woo) and try to point to the dog or birds get a very similar response.  I'm not sure why, but it hasn't got old yet, for him or me.   He still gets excited, and then so do I because it is so darn cute!

I think he also likes the park because he loves to explore, so when we go and he finally gets up the nerve to cross the little bouncy bridge thing, he is so proud of himself.   I really want to appreciate more how lucky I am that I get to take the kids to do things they enjoy and especially that he wants me to be close to him (he's a little clingy right now).   I love being one of the few people that understand his words.  He thinks he can say every word he hears, but only a few select people understand whether showa means "shower", "towel" "car" or a host of other things or that "mema" means lemonade and "me" means milk.  I sure love this little guy!

Timmy?

Robie's boss' name is Tim.  Why is this important, you ask?   Because I can not remember his name for the life of me.  Every time I refer to him, I have to either say, "your boss" or "Tom? or is it Tim?"  In my defense, he did used to work with a fellow named, "Tom" and the diving instructor that certified us to dive and that works with Robie is named Tim (or was it Tom? - he only has one arm, so usually  I just say, "the diving instructor guy with one arm").  Anyway, it is driving me crazy, so I"m posting about it in the hopes that I will finally be able to remember his name correctly.  He was even in the car with Robie and I can hear him talking because Robie was driving and I knew I was on speaker (obviously as Robie would not be breaking the law by holding his phone in his hand), and I still couldn't say anything to him, like, "hey Tim, have a great trip" because although I know his name involves a T and an M, I can not get the middle letter, right. 
Robie just sent us a video from Thailand (loving his new ipod touch and the wifi in his hotel lobby) and in it you can see his boss standing in the background.  So I even said to the kids, "oh, guys, there's daddy's boss, Tom or Tim or something.  It really isn't that difficult, right?  In fact, even while I type this I'm wondering if this whole post is written about a man named Tim or if I got the whole premise wrong and really his name is Tom?  AAHGHGHG

Our first cast.

I think part of our problem on Monday (which, just for the record, I do think is hilarious) was due to Brooke and a recent injury.   She fell backwards and put her arm out to catch herself at her basketball game on Saturday.  Robie and I laughed, I mean, I'd like to think we aren't totally heartless, but she did make this funny, "oh no, I think I just fell down" look as she fell and then she popped right back up, so we figured she would be just fine.  I think I might (I did) have even yelled things from the sidelines such as, "It's ok, just shake it off" and then assured her after she came out for a break that she was probably just stunned and needed to give it another go.  We knew we were in trouble when she dribbled the ball down with her good hand, made some nice moves then shot the ball up making a basket with both hands (yippee), but instead of cheering she was crying because her arm hurt so much from shooting the ball.  Um, bummer, off to urgent care.   Anyway, urgent care didn't really know (might be broken, might not?) and of course, radiology was closed Saturday and told us to call on Monday.  Oops, guess they forgot no one would be in on Monday for Martin Luther King, Jr, day.  Brooke was really mad she wouldn't find out what was going on for another day.  So we were trying to find something to keep our minds off of the whole "not knowing" situation - so many questions, will she still be able to play soccer on her indoor team?  will she be able to finish the basketball season?  will it start feeling better really soon?  Answers:  no, no, and yes - answered with this high quality orange cast:

It is actually a "buckle break" in her distal radius which seemed totally obvious when the orthopedic dr showed me the other view of the x-ray today (which of course the urgent care dr must have reviewed in depth, NOT).  Luckily, Brooke is a kid and apparently kids heal really quickly, so she will only have to wear the cast for 3 weeks.  She immediately chose orange.  It is her favorite color, but I thought for sure that when the nurse asked her if she saw the ltitle boy that just left with the orange cast she would change her mind.  Nope.  I've gotta say, I thought casting was more like when you are making those paper mache things where you have the balloon inside and then you put that milky substance on it and make a bunch of layers and then let it dry.  Instead, it was sort of like they were wrapping this wide tape around her arm, then they switched to the color tape on the outside, then they rubbed it for a minute (with this stuff to activate the fiberglass casting or something like that - I get a little sketchy on what they were doing here).  5 minutes later, hard cast.  So weird.  Anyway, she even let me be the first to write on it.  So far I've only had to use the "cool air from the hair dryer to try to stop the itching" technique once, which I didn't think was too bad.
Here's my only big question.  Her basketball team isn't that great.  In fact, I would say she is one of their star players, but she wants to go watch them play.  So do I have to take her to watch her team lose horribly?  I mean, seriously, it's bad.  Am I a bad person?

a bust

We tried the zoo today and although i wouldn't say it was a total failure, I would definitely not call it a success.  The odds were stacked against me from the beginning, since Lauren and I were the only ones that wanted to go in the first place.  Ashley actually used the phrase, "I don't care what you do to me, I'm NOT going to the zoo."  Not sure what got her all weirded out about it, but she was totally crazy.   She was able to shake it off, and even promised to try to stay positive.   The rest of the day went something like this - Brooke gets to listen to her Ipod in the car, so Ashley gets grumpy while Brooke is pleasant.  Brooke gets grumpy because it is hot and her sisters want to go to the sea lion show.  Leave Sea Lion show a little early because it is hot and now Ashley doesn't want to be there either.  Lauren is now crying because she wanted to watch the rest of the show.  Lauren snaps out of it and everyone is pleasant for about 15 minutes (see monkeys, tigers, hippos).  Lauren sees a frozen lemonade cart and I tell her she can't have one.  Lauren cries again.  Brooke sees nachos and pretzels at the food stand and I tell her no.  Brooke is now mad, too, as she has looked in my wallet and can assure me that I have just the right amount of cash needed.   Ashley is constantly saying, "I'm the most cooperative one now, right?   I'm not causing trouble right now, right?" which is secretly annoying me, even though she is technically being the most cooperative and is currently pushing the stroller so I can hold Lauren's hand and try to perk her up.  Try to see giraffes and girls decide they don't really care about animals anymore and just want out.  Brooke and Ashley are now being pleasant, Lauren is still crying.  Cries most of the way home and is still talking about the elusive frozen lemonade.   longest 1 1/2 hours at the zoo ever.

tradition?

I think we might have started a new tradition - going down to the tidepools in Pt. Loma in January.  We went on New Year's Day and had a great time.  Admittedly, this was not an original idea.  I thought it was, but based on the line to just get into the Park (we went to the ones down from the Cabrillo Naitonal Monument, so you have to wait to pay your $5 - or use your National Parks Pass like us... yeah, we're cool).  Anyway, we did have to wait for about 15 minutes, but a large bag of Baked Cheetos made sure to keep spirits up.  Unfortunately, this trip made me acutely aware that I have a major problem with my camera.  Bummer. I got a few pictures, but most were kind of fuzzy and the last 1/2 were all 1/2 black.  Ouch.  

We had a little picnic at the top of the hill and then headed down.  We didn't want to wait to park in the parking lot that is closest, so we did a little bit of hiking (totally not that far, but no portapotty, which was kind of needed).  It really was a beautiful day.  Last year, I just had Fox in the Baby Bjorn but this year was a little harder, since of course he wanted to run around and bend over to look at the pools of water.  After a while, I just stayed up close to the bluffs with him and Robie took the older girls out a little farther to explore.  We did all see a pretty sweet lobster, and a sea star.  Everyone else saw two other giant multi-color sea stars, but I missed those while I was at the portapotty - who knew the sea stars could move so fast?  I guess they were cruising along the rock so they were gone when I got back down there.  We were goin gto go to the lighthouse, too, but everyone was kind of done with that idea after roaming around at the tidepools for a couple of hours.  We did take the time to stop at Robie's granddad's grave on the way back.   We hadn't been to his site since his funeral, so when we got there it was a little weird because we were using the map code numbers they had given us to find it (it's the huge military cemetery out there on Pt Loma).  He was cremated (they didn't have any more space in the ground), so he is in this giant wall of names.  When I was looking, I yelled out that I found it, so Robie and the kids could come over.  After a few seconds I had pointed out the wrong name!  I was looking at a "Robert Tyler".. um, yeah, his granddads name was Paul Bardsley.  It was only a few rows over but still I thought it was weird - I mean, that is Robie AND his dad's name (although this granddad is on his mom's side)..oops.  Also, taking kids to see a wall with lots of names in it brings up a lot of macabre questions.  We just tried focusing on the star fish and our subsequent treat visit at 7-11.