Christmas Came Early

When we bought our very first house, we bought it new.  The carpet wasn't at great quality.  Every time I vacuumed balls of carpet with appear and eventually it killed our vacuum.  You still have to vacuum and it started to clog up a second one.  We only lived in the house for 6 months.

When we moved into our current house, we still had vacuum #2 from the carpet balling days.  It sucks up things that are on the floor, but I never felt it was really sucking up the things I couldn't see.  To my sheer delight the vacuum went to vacuum heaven last night.  I'd like to think all the little gigantic carpet balls in its system are gone and it is now able to perform like I'd always hoped it would.

I don't think I even had the old vacuum totally put away when I announced to Zoe we were going to buy a new vacuum.  Since she's always up for shopping, she had a list of stores she was willing to go to in search of the perfect vacuum.

When she learned that we also had to put it together with tools and screws, I think her night was the best night ever!

As you can tell she's totally excited about our new vacuum and all it's cleaning power.

My favorite thing is it's bagless and has the name Turbo Power.  I could vacuum all night with that kind of machine!

That is until I empty the container. 

We are a houes of filth no more! 

A Little Splashing

This weekend Zoe's social calendar kept us busy.  She had a birthday party for her friend Lincoln.  He's 6 and one of the cutest boys I've ever known.  He and Zoe share a love for pretend play and dressing up like super heroes. 

He had his party at a local park with a splash pad.  This is how we spent most of our time.

We stayed dry despite the serious amounts of water coming down.  A girl can't get her hair wet when cute boys are around!

Zoe - 0, Palette Truck of Doom - 1

Yesterday was a day that I'm not too thrilled to ever relive.  You know it's bad when your mom calls and says "how's your day?"  When you ask her the same she says, "we've had a little incident." 

Zoe and Grandma went to Fred Meyer to do some grocery shopping.  Ever since Zoe has been in tap class she likes to dance in the aisles of the grocery store.  It's her personal stage.  Grandma happened to be looking at something while Zoe was dancing in the aisle.  Out of the corner of her eye, Grandma noticed a palette hand truck stacked with frozen food coming down the aisle.  The kid with the palette was pushing it rather than pulling it and couldn't see in front of him because of the size of the stack of frozen food.

Grandma turned around, screamed bloody murder and watched in slow motion as the palette ran into Zoe, knocking her to the ground.  Frozen food fell off the palette, but fortunately landed on the other side of Zoe missing her head and and torso completely.  A couple other frozen items fell off landing on her legs.

She immediately started crying and asking Grandma to leave the store.  They left and Zoe seems to be fine.  Fortunately nothing landed on her in places that would be a critical injury.  Her legs are fine, only some small bruises.  Her elbow is the sorest part because she landed on it.  We had it checked out and it is not broken, however it is severely bruised on the inside. 

Last night as I was tucking her into bed she said, "I'm sorry I ran into frozen food.  I'm a little scared of frozen food now." 

Of course you're scared of frozen food.  How often does someone get run over by it.

Our Hearts Belong to a Swamp Dog

This weekend was Settler Days in Deer Park.  There's a huge park in town with many trees, so for a festival on one of the hottest days of the year, this is a beautiful thing.  A few weeks ago N was asked by a fellow worship team member to play in his band at Settler Days.

Denny has a bluegrass band called Denny and the Swamp Dogs.  It took N all of 2 seconds to say, "I'll be your swamp dog" and had his bass ready to go.  Zoe and I lathered up in sunscreen, packed a cooler with water and Gatorade and loaded up our chairs with built-in umbrellas. 

As N was getting set up, Zoe and I scouted out the festival.  We saw people dressed as actual settlers.  I've never felt so sorry for people in all my life.  It was mid-90s and the ladies were in corsets.  I think we should take a moment of silence for that kind of dedication to authenticity. 

Zoe on the other hand was more interested in snow cones and face painting.  She sat totally still and absolutely emotionless as this kind lady painted a ladybug on her cheek.  This picture doesn't adequately convey the perma-smile she wore for the rest of the day.

Then it was time to head to the concert.  As you can see, N dressed the part of a swamp dog with his boots, jeans and cowboy hat.  I think, with the exception of those poor settlers, he was on the only one in long pants.

This smile was captured early on in the concert.  Prior to any sweat dripping down his face from his outfit of choice.

Here's the rest of the band.  All in much cooler, albeit less authentic swamp dog attire.

Thank you Denny for asking N to play with you.  It was a highlight of his bass playing career.  It was also a highlight to see him on that stage playing. 

Next year Zoe and I are getting "I'm with a swamp dog" shirts.

She's Only Missing An Eye Patch

During the week Grandma Kathy and Zoe usually do all kinds of fun things together than make Zoe not so happy to see me after work.  She loves having me come to Grandma's house, but it is so I can play with them, not take her home.  They have a bond that makes my heart sing.

Yesterday Grandma took Zoe to lunch.  As they were eating, this was the conversation:

Zoe, isn't this lunch delicious?

Squinting one eye, looking at Grandma out of her good eye and in a gravely voice: It sure is Matey!

Apparently it was pirate day at Camp Grandma.

I Don't Know Much, But I Know I Love You

This week has actually been an awesome week.  We have several things to celebrate this week, so I thought I'd do a little shout-out to the awesomeness that is the third week of July.  In random order of course.  I don't want anyone to think that perhaps I have my priorities out of whack.  Although my morning cup of coffee is fairly important to me and anyone who has the opportunity to see me in the morning.

Without further ado:

That's right.  Coffee-mate is going All-Peppermint-All-The-Time!  It used to just be a holiday thing, but now it's all year long.  Can I get a hollah?  I can't even tell you how happy this makes me.  It almost makes up for Starbucks getting rid of the cinnamon scone.  I never like something that they make more of.  They always take it away.  Those folks at Nestle sure know how to make a girl happy.

Second-up is my doctor.  Several years ago he diagnosed me with poly-cystic ovarian syndrome.  He put me on medication and all the horrible side-effects of the syndrome went away, I was able to get pregnant and life was good.  However, since that time, I've been off the medication and signs of the syndrome started to come back.  He ran some tests, highlighted words like "extremely high" and "medicate immediately" on my labwork and put me back on the medication.  While it's only been a week, I can tell a difference already.  I'm not as tired.  Which when you have a three-year old who likes to cram 12 hours worth of activities into 4, it's much needed. 

Third-up is N, who is wicked smart.  He brought home a book full of math that he needed to know.  He told me to thumb through it.  The first few chapters were on adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing/fractions.  I told him that sounded like a cake-walk and to stop being such a nancy about it.  Then I got to chapter 6 and it was stuff like ratios of an isosceles triangle while water is flowing through the turbine and 5 salmon are swimming upstream.  It safe to say they lost me at ratio.  He had a test on it on Tuesday.  He got a 90, the second highest in the class.  I'm so proud of him for doing so well.

Lastly is Zoe, the super dancer extraordinaire.  I'm amazed at how quickly she learns things.  On Monday they learned a move that had them stand on one foot and tap their other toe behind them.  Zoe couldn't get the idea of tapping behind.  Every time she crossed her leg in front, much like in the potty polka.  On Wednesday, the girl had it down as though she never had a problem.  Granted she practices her tapping all the time.  At the grocery store, on her stool while brushing her teeth, outside, in the parking lot, while she's watching tv, while she's walking anywhere, etc.  You get the idea. 

Ballet has always been a bit of a challenge for her because of her slight, never diagnosed cerebral palsy.  Her heel chord is tight, so things like walking on tip-toes and pointing her toes are difficult for her.  Last night during the ballet portion, she walked on her toes across the entire length of the room.  She hasn't been able to do that yet.  She makes this mamma proud!
That's this week in a nutshell.  I got creamer and medication, N got an A and Zoe is amazing! 

I'm not even a little bit biased.

It Was The Best Compliment EVER

Last night I was putting Zoe to bed and my phone beeped because I had a text message.  My dear friend Sarah said this:

I'm listening to Coolio/Gangstas Paradise & thought of you.

I really hope it's because our hair is so similar!

Thanks Sarah for totally making my night.  I think I'm going to try out the braids for the reunion!