Another week

 

Ana had some seriously awesome hair this week.  

I taught Sebastian how to lather the soap. 

This was not a good idea because then he screamed when I made him stop.

He could have spent thirty minutes washing his hands, and he would have used up all our hand soap.

But I was mean and made him stop. 

He is so stinking adorable though.  This was after I mowed the lawn and he was outside playing in the dirt.  I also weeded the front flower beds.  Random question for you all--is it still called flower beds even if there are no flowers?  We have really pretty landscaping with lots of asparagus ferns and cool, tropical looking plants and small palms and a few butterfly bushes, and one half dead canna flower (because it's in full shade, and they're supposed to be full sun). Anyway, it just sounds misleading to call them flower beds.  Just wondering.

Ana practicing her states.  I'm a cruel mom and I'm making her memorize the fifty states this summer.  That and making her do two math worksheets every day and write a one-to-two page paper every week. Oh, and she has to read an hour every day.  And she has to make all the bread all summer, which is about every other week, and then on the week she doesn't make bread, she has to bake something else.  This week she made breadsticks.  YUM!!  They were so good.  Delicious. I didn't even hardly help her.  :)  It sounds like she has it really rough, but besides me not being a patient teacher, the school work really doesn't take that much time. Well, besides the reading part, and the first day she writes the paper--that takes a little more time, but the other days she just makes revisions, so it's not as bad. 

I love having bookshelves and the space to have the old National Geographics out where my kids can look through them.  A subscription might just be a stocking stuffer for me this year.  Elena loves looking through them, and even Ana gets them out occasionally and reads an article.  Best magazine ever!

Isabel chilling on her bed. 

She's so funny.  She makes Leo and I laugh all the time.  A lady in church today told me that she just loves my girls because they are so confident and willing to answer questions and come to the front and do whatever in primary. She said she was happy to see that, especially in girls.  It made me laugh, because yes, my girls are definitely not shy and definitely have an overabundance of independence. That however, can be challenging too.  Isabel is such a people person, where ever we go--parks, the pool, etc--if she sees other girls her age, she'll go right up to them and ask them to be her friend and play, and in no time be pulling them around by the hand or giving them hugs and her over-friendliness is often a bit overwhelming for the other kid.

Sebastian and Isabel and Elena like to burrow into the pillows on my bed.  (Yes, I have quite a few now.) 

Sebastian looks completely buried.  I love it.

And I finally gave Isabel that pink scarf this week.  Every time she came to my room she'd want to get it out, and then she'd wear it around all day.  I figured it wasn't worth the fight anymore to keep it nice, and gave it to her.  She wears it with her silky pink dress.

And Elena posing. 

It's really hard to get her to smile natural.  She always wants to strike a pose and grins crazily. 

Cute girl.  I wish she'd sleep more though.  Any ideas on getting five year old's to sleep before 11:30 at night?  She goes to bed with the rest of the kids and is just in her room in the dark, but she doesn't go to sleep for so long.  Twice this week she slept in till 10 AM.  Which is crazy, and yes I know if I woke her up earlier she's probably go to sleep earlier, but then it's horrible the days she gets woken up early because she's so grouchy.  Those two days she slept in till 10 AM, it was like she was a different child.  So sweet, so happy, and singing me songs all day about how much she loved me.  Which by the way, she told me on Saturday that I'm "too hard on her," but she likes "how you take care of me."  I think it had something to do with having to do her vacuuming. 

 

And in food news, Leo took me the other day to DQ.  There's one at the end of our street (practically anyway).  And they just brought back frozen hot chocolates!!!!!!!!!  I ordered one, and it was seriously so good.  Just like I remembered.  Now I have a hard time not begging Leo every night to go back and get another one.  When I worked at Dairy Queen in high school, they came out with these and it was my favorite thing to get there.  And then they went away for some unknown reason.  I would try occasionally to get one, (Old Town Gilbert in AZ still made them perfectly; the DQ in Orlando was an utter fail despite the person's confidence that he remembered how to make it) but most places the workers would just look at me with the expression of annoyance and obvious ignorance on what it was.  And now they're back.  I told Leo to scope out a DQ close to the hospital where I'll be delivering, because this is what I'll want immediately after this kiddo pops out.  Yum.