Hot times... Summer in the city (errr.. suburbs)

It hasn't rained all day - of course, our plans got all screwed up today, so we threw the kids outside to play. They got hot, so into the kiddie pool they went...

Dinner and a show...

Last night we went to Tom's parent's house for dinner. Quite the feast - shrimp and steak with hot dogs with the kids. I love shrimp, but since Tom is allergic to shellfish, I rarely get any. Yum!

Before we left, the kids had Tom make them guitars so they could put on a show. Below are the videos and pictures from the entertainment :) They tell me there will be an encore this week - this time with them in red hair ;)

Videos:
First was all 3 of them with manager/lead singer, Marie, singing School's Out:

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Then the manager took a break to see if the other two were worthy of staying in the band, so next up was Under The Sea:

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First up was a practice session:


All that practicing can really make a rock band hungry!
A rock band's work is never done... after the show, they had to pose for pictures for their adoring fans...

Rock Band

Rockin' out at MiMi's house

Marie - and- Today's Adventure...

I realize this will be a shocker, but it was raining today in Austin (I'm still planning on that ark building party, people!). So, let me catch you guys up...

My niece, Marie, who is 8, is here visiting for 2 weeks. She got here on Tuesday. My kids have been talking about taking her to the pool, to Volente Beach, playing outside, etc. Ha! It is STILL raining here in Austin. It rains at least every 24 hours so nothing can dry up. It's insane. We've been avoiding downtown with all the rain, so we've been just doing little things here and there. Poor kid, she's going to have memories of visiting us in Seattle Austin.

So, anyway, this is how she looked when I picked her up. She told me her name was Tom. Hey, don't ask me, she's my sister's kid... LOL *waves to Ginger*

Anyway, so she's a jokester (sometimes not such a good thing - we had a rubber cement incident with the dog - oy vey!)... anyway... so, what we did today...

First we went to Jamie's favorite place to eat, the Spicy Pickle. Here's some pics from that outing - I don't know why, but Cassie wanted me to make the pepperoni in her mouth blue. Whatever.



... ut uh... already turning her into an alky...

(It's Pellegrino water, Gin... chill out!)

Then it was off to Main Event... first, we played Lunar Golf - not great pictures here because it's all glow in the dark and hey, my camera sucks (HINT FOR TOM)



And THEN we went bowling... whew! What a day!




Cassie won! 'Course she was using the kid's thing and Marie wasn't... I think we can safely call it a tie ;)

Ice Cream

Marie likes the dots!!

Lunch

Lunch at the mall... Yum yum yum

Ark Building Time

I'm gonna start building an ark. No, really. For the past month, Austin has been over-run with rains. It won't stop. So, I can't send the kids out to play because it's either raining or just stopped raining and it's muddy. Or the grass is too high because you can't even freaking cut the grass.

We are just going to float away one of these days.

So, today, Tom got enough. It stopped raining and he got out the lawn mower... which of course, it kept choking up with wet grass... but he did it...



But man... look at the side of my yard? Well, in the picture above, you can see how long the branches are a little on that side - he has to get out there this weekend and cut it back, but look at the vegetation we have growing on the other side. DANG. It's never looked like that. I dunno how he's going to whack all of that down, good luck, honey. What the heck is going on here? Seriously, it HAS to stop raining. Soon. I'm going to lose it.

For the record, that stuff is coming from the neighbors yard. I don't care, we are whacking it down from our side at least. I'm paranoid about snakes.



To make matters even more irritating, my niece is here visiting. She's 8. Poor Marie - we told her we were going to take her to the pool and to the water park and all this fun stuff - so far, we've made it out to dinner a couple of times and had a friend over to play. We hope to do some indoor stuff this weekend - "they" say it might stop next week for a few days. UGH! Poor kid - she probably thinks she's visiting a rain forest.

Oh, and I'm now a bloglines addict. That's the best thing since sliced bread.

Hot Pepper

He actually took 2 big bites... Heheheh and then drank a LOT of water... His idea... Don't look at me.

Serranos

Out to dinner with cousins... Tom and I are so outnumbered.

New Friends

Julie found a new friend...

Red Dragonfly??

No, I'm not crazy. I swear, I have seen 2 red dragonflies outside. No, really. I thought they were all like blue or green, but this is actually red. The picture doesn't do it justice because I took it through a window far away, but see... it's red. Anyone else ever see one? Is not a dragonfly? Weird...

Cousins

They have conquered the errrr... Cow?

Raining and Harry

Tom and I finished our books within about 30 minutes of each other. I wrote a review on my other My Raves blog.

Seriously, what is up with the rain this year in Austin? This is ridiculous.

My niece, Marie, gets here on Tuesday for a 2 week visit! My kids are beside themselves with excitement - Marie is 8 and this is her first plane trip alone - and Little Miss Fearless is thrilled!

Fort

It is raining... Still... Bribed kids with fort so we could read Harry Potter... laugh.

HP7

Guess what Tom and I are doing all night??? WooHoo!

Date Night!

Date Nigh!
Originally uploaded by Candy_Beauchamp

Yes, Tom and I are dorks. This is not news. If we are childless, we will be going together, otherwise Tom will go get our copies so we can stay up all night reading.

What happened to going out partying all night? So totally over-rated, people!

Cassie/Jamie...

This was taken by one of my friend's kids... I thought it was a great picture! To see more pictures taken by kids, visit/join our project blog: If You Give A Kid A Camera... - where people share pics taken by their kids!

Cassie Playing With The Dog...

There's nothing like playing inside on a hot Summer day with your dog and your My Little Ponies (and of course, irritating your older brother). She looks like she is simply up to no good, doesn't she?

Jamie - Kindergarten - Then & Now

We were going through the big envelopes of stuff (finally) that the teacher sent home with Jamie and wow... what a difference.

This was his writing during the first week of school:
And, no I don't know why he draws penis-looking things. (Remember the butterfly?)

... and these were done in late April...


... and just a funny story about the one below... Jamie kept forgetting where he left his library books. At the house, in the car, in the classroom... he apparently wrote this one on a day he did NOT want to be at school and the teacher responded *laugh*

A major Jamie milestone to talk about...

Walking, potty training, losing teeth, reading... none of that has anything on Jamie's latest milestone.

Yes, folks, that's right. For the first time, Tom and I managed to throughly embarrass Jamie. YES! We are a success at parenting after all!

Somehow Tom and I got suckered into today being "the best day ever" and we basically have been running around doing errands between letting the kids tell us what they want to do - thank goodness the little girl next door came home today or we would have been subjected to endless hours of Candy Land, I fear.

Anyway, Jamie chose lunch and Cassie got to choose dinner. So, we ended up at Chili's for an early dinner. As we are getting ready to leave, Tom looks over and tells Jamie to not stick the straw from his drink up his nose. He was kind of hovering around the top of the drink. He said "Ohh... I didn't even know I was doing that" which just made me crack up, which made Tom crack up even more and we couldn't stop. It was THAT funny... anyway, so his little cheeks turned bright red and he crawled under the table...

... where he announced, loudly, that there was bubble gum stuck under the table.

Yeah...

More mall fun

Playing at the mall...

Gotta love the free play area....

Trip To Ikea

The monkey, the bat and the octopus

Ut-Oh... This Can't Be Good...

Earlier today...

So, I'm in the office and Tom ran out to grab lightbulbs. I'm sitting here for a few minutes and realize the kids haven't said a single word in like 3 minutes. Obviously, there's trouble afoot...

So, I get up and in the middle of the hallway, I find this:


Yeah, that can't be good, right? Is he trying to hypnotize me into believing I cannot find them or are they hiding? Obviously they've been up to something...

But when I "fined" them, this is all I saw...



They look innocent enough, but I'm still suspicious. They were up to something. I just know it. Lookit the snarl on Jamie's face... Hmmm...

Cassie is weird

Another weekend... Another birthday party...

Did you know....

Caffeine may be the only thing keeping me from going crazy? taking the kids around town while Tom does school work... They are acting crazy in the car.

Wedding Picture

I didn't bring my camera, but a friend took this with her Treo :) This from a friend's wedding in late June. Very formal (the table settings were gorgeous!) I wish I had gotten my friend to take a picture from the photo booth pictures Tom and I took - they turned out really great - I was quite impressed. Yes, she had a photo booth. I thought it was really crazy, but ya know, it was such a great idea and it was fun too! The wedding was absolutely gorgeous - and yes, I wore a formal gown - and no, I didn't get through the entire night without complaining - but yes, I waited until we were on the way back to the hotel to take off my shoes. Heh.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July! We had a party over here that ended up being pretty fun! We had a nice break in the rain and the kids got to go in the pool and we had quite a few people show up in the end. It was nice to hang out with friends and have a good time. Tom and I both love to have people over so we are trying to do it more often :)

We grilled out burger and dogs, ate way too much, let the kids run wild and did some fireworks. I would have more pictures, but I forgot. I blame my friend, S, who must have doubled my drink while I wasn't looking :p

RAIN

I am so sick of the rain. It has been going every day for a month. Ugh!!

Julie's 6 months old...

Well, a little more maybe... she was born in mid-January, so whatever... The update on her is that she's insane. No, really, she flips out when the door bell rings or if she THINKS the door bell has rung. Yeah, I know chihuahua's are hyper, she's a cutie. And honestly, she is SO good with the kids and is overall a sweet dog. She had her stitches out a few days ago from her spay surgery and we decided to try on her shirt she got from the Easter bunny... it fits! (Yes, I know - I said I never would - leave me alone). She let me get a few shots of her today too.





She weighs in at 3.5 pounds and they figure she'll be around 4 full grown at this point. She's a small little thing, but so cute!

... if only she'd stop pooping and peeing all over my house...

Going to the birds...

Jamie wanted me to take a picture to share here. Tom mowed the lawn yesterday and every time he does, we always get tons of birds and squirrels hunting through the newly shorted grass looking for whatever it is they look for... we even had a cardinal and two blue jays out there. I always point them out to the kids because they think they are so cool. My office is so great. I can see into the backyard where we have a bird feeder to attract them (those blue jays are MEAN birds!) and I can see the kids playing. It's fun for me to watch as soon as the kids come in, the birds start flocking around. I guess because of all the rain we've had the past 3 weeks, they were hunting around hard for food.

Anyway... this is a picture of the cardinal (I assume these are cardinals - I had a pan on the bird feeder to attract them but I had to take it off because it was just enticing the pigeons and they were eating the bird seed as fast as we could replace it - they are like little vultures).