Ice cream date & dog days of summer

We missed the ship tour at Seafair so we opted for an ice cream date and a visit with my folks and their dog  while J. readies the ribs for the grill.

Seattle summers are lovely. It's almost enough to make me forget about the craptastic weather we've had this winter and spring. Almost.

Stylish siblings

All dressed up for cousin's baptism.Dylan wasn't having the clip-on tie though: clearly he already has taste.

This little piggy compounded with interest

Unlike Ava's cute, monogrammed piggy bank, we've been keeping Dylan's money gifts in an open ceramic jar he received at my shower. I think it had flowers in it originally.

I figured we'd upgrade at some point but we were persuaded to do it sooner rather than later about a month ago when Ava's 5 y.o. cousin came to visit and started to leave with a pocket full of cash she'd been generously gifted byAva out of Dylan's stash.

We sat Ava down for a little lesson in not giving away things that don't belong to her, then went in search of a real bank. I found this one at a local toy store.

It's a hard rubber number and from the moment I unboxed it, Dylan has been smitten: carrying it around, pretending to feed it bits of food off his plate, and giving it impromptu hugs. We've either got a Future Farmer of America on our hands or a future banker or accountant.

Bigger but not better

One of these water guns cost $20. One cost .99. Guess which one failed to do more than spit ineffectively even after a tennis-elbow-inducing dozen or more pumps,  and which one has a strong, steady stream, whether wielded by an adult or the chubby fingers of one of the resident kiddos?

This soaker epitomizes the disappointing summer we've had. I'll be returning it in short order.

The mother of invention

One thing I miss about my pre-kids life is sleeping in on the weekend. I'm a night owl, but that used to mean that whatever time I went to bed, I'd wake up 9-10 hours later.

Ava and Dylan usually wake up between 6:45 and 7:15 a.m. and want me to fix them breakfast, if I'm not jetting out to work. So now that means that regardless of what time I went to bed, I wake up when they do. Which can mean rough mornings when I've alternated between my bed and both of theirs all night responding to cries, wet diapers, or bathroom runs.

A few month ago, before Ava could recognize her name, I started leaving a covered bowl of cereal and cup of milk in the fridge with a heart on it and telling Ava to find the heart, to buy myself a little more time in bed. I trust her to pour her own milk and clean up any minor spills.

This morning I added a new twist: a treasure hunt. I hoped that it would eliminate at least one reason for her first foray into our bed in the morning.

Right outside her room, she found the first post-it with her name and an arrow directing her to the next one just down the hall.

The final note was on the fridge itself with a poorly-rendered drawing of a bowl of cereal and cup of milk and a heart. It worked, but it's such a gorgeous day out that I couldn't stay in bed!

I'm trying to get active again, but I have so little time without the kids that it's tough to fit it in and I don't really like or have time to to drive to a gym. So I found a 10 minute workout online that I started doing in the living room.

But J. turned up his nose at it and gave me some sets he uses to train his basketball clients. They got my core working and stretched my legs, then we took breakfast out to the deck where the sun was shining and Mt. Rainier is out.

After a leisurely morning cleaning up, getting everyone dressed and having lunch on the deck, we hit a local park then were off to a birthday party at a local gymnastics academy.

As you can tell by the expressions, they had a blast. Then I got some quiet time after they went to sleep. And I haven't heard a peep from either of them in hours. Loving that gym more and more.

Even without sleeping in, it shaped up to be an awesome, sunny Seattle day.