Thursday, August 9, 2012

HIGHER! LOUDER! FASTER!

Ruby's new mantra!

On the swings, "Mummy! HIGHER!"
In the truck with the radio blaring, "Mummy! LOUDER!"
Skipping down the street hand in hand, "Mummy! FASTER!" she says with a tiny little growl!

Sure and spice oh my!

Where to begin?! This summer has been AMAZING! (please read 'AMAZING' in a sing song voice.)

The trailer is fantastic! We've spent OODLES of time with cousins, here there and everywhere!

Nick and I took the 3 older cousins to the river for a swim while my sister took my wee ones and her smallest one shopping. Elias stole all the cilantro out of the cart. He had incredibly fresh breath though!

Gypsy swam so much in the river that it has made a noticable reduction in her waist line. And also hurt her paws poor thing :( But she didn't seem to mind!

Came home to a fairly pathetic garden.:(  Despite making a trip home half way through the week to water, the potatoes wilted and were burned by the sun. Didn't seem to make to much difference fortunately, as Nick just cut away the plants above the ground and we can harvest potatoes as need be. Tomatoes are laden with green bulbs just waiting to ripen. Beets are as big as tennis balls, carrots are finally as long as Nick's fingers, still skinny but tasty! We've harvested 3 LARGE bowls full of green beans and more are on the way. The wax beans are taking their time but we'll wait.

Raspberries are 4 ft high, plums are the size of golf balls but again still green. And the lone strawberry surviver has two off shoots seeking soil. Not bad for our first veggie garden!

Monday we had a smorg of beets, carrots, potatoes and green beans all from our garden!! It filled my heart to know we grew everything except the pig!

Before we left for a week of camping I mowed the back lawn. First time in 10+ years I've mowed a lawn! It was glorious!  It was exersize, it smelled sweet, my ears hummed to the sound of the motor and best of all, BEST of all, I had no kids to harass me while I did it! Nick found it amusing that I was so refreshed both mentally and physically after mowing. But hey! I'm the mother of two children under 3! I'll take solitude where and when I can get it!!

Kids are great! Growing like weeds! I can't keep enough food in the house to satiate their appetites. Thank goodness I'm going to expand the garden next year, hopefully it'll off set the cost of feeding them! (LOL)

Elias is walking more and more, although shoes piss him off and he refuses utterly to wear them unless absolutely necessary. His little face is HILARIOUS all contorted in frustration!

Ruby is a swimming chatter box! She spent the entire week of camping in the pool. First thing in the morning her eyes would open and she'd ask, "Nick! We go swimming now?" ~ She refuses to call him Daddy, he's quite perturbed but she won't relent! "Your name Nick! I call you Nick."

She'd be in the pool until she turned BLUE! But then she figured out that the concrete surrounding the pool was HOT. Hot enough to lay down on for a few minutes and like a lizard her core temperature would rise in a matter of minutes! Had to get cross at her for running pool side, until we realized she was running to the sunny spots to warm up!

She has no fear, NO FEAR, of the water whatsoever! Jumps right in! Can't take your eyes off her for a moment or she's at the bottom! But when you reach down to pick her up, she comes to the surface and yells, "NO! I do my OWN self!"... Meaning that she wants to  hit the bottom with her feet and launch herself up on her own power. We were thanking the heavens that the pool at Country Maples is only 5 feet deep.

Once home she wouldn't stop asking, "we swim now? After dinner? ...After lunch?" Took her to the pool last night and she wore a life vest and plunged off the diving board into my arms. Lifeguards were astonished! We were told to get her into lessons ASAP, and that we could 'skip Otter' altogether because she's ready for, 'Salamander.' ~ Whatever that means!

All I know is that she can hold her breath longer than I can!

We did catch Synchronized Swimming on the Olympics Monday. Her breath was taken from her she thought the girls were, "SO beautiful! Mummy! ...Swim? Swim... dancing?...But I have to be big enough Mummy. 'Touch the ceiling,' big enough."

Ya, Ru when you're big enough to touch the ceiling you'll be big enough to be a synchronized swimmer!

~~~

I've been trying a bunch of new recipes from a fellow blog, 'Meal Planning 101' things on the cooking front are great! (For those of you who don't know me that well, I only learned to flip an egg 2 years ago because my husband told me while I was very pregnant with Ruby that I needed to be able to feed our children more than just tuna fish sandwhiches.)

He actually paid me a compliment last night! I made polynesian satay with marinating steaks,  green beans from the garden and polynesian potato salad. He told me it was the best potato salad he'd had in a while, and my heart grew two sizes!

Simple recipe I found on the net, (not the blog) potatoes, red onion, celery, shredded coconut, raisins, sour cream, mayo, splash of milk and some sugar to taste. It WAS delicious! Recipe called for pineapple too but I was all out.

I cut a cat door in the laundry room door down stairs. I busted a gut at the kids reaction! There I am with the drill and bit, poking large holes in the door. Elias was fascinated with the tool, Ruby was perplexed, until she understood what I was doing. Then she started to become upset, "NO! Mummy No! You BREAK it! You make MESS! NO, you should NOT do this! ... Daddy gonna be SO MAD!" and she actually CLUCKED her tongue at me!!!!

And then Elias started howling his head off, so I just kept on keeping on. When it was done Ruby looked at the reasonably shaped hole I had made and said, "PERFECT!" ... I'm so glad I have her approval!

I've swept off the front deck off our bedroom and put out two chairs and a folding table. Then I opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed a few sips out on the 'veranda' with my hubby until his computer beckoned. So I'm blogging in the setting sun. Such a shame it is overcast, would have liked to have enjoyed the sunset in clear weather.

Summer has been wonderful, but it is definitely winding down. The mornings are cool, as are the evenings. I don't mind though, as summers go, this one is the best we've had in years. I feel blessed.




At the skate park with Jon and Ethan.

Hard core biker gang!



Cuteness!

ET!


She had so much fun!

Back at the water park

Jon being a goomba!

Country Maples Camp Ground in Chemainus, Nana came to visit and we played mini golf... Nana and Daddy cheated.

Helping Nana.

Nana with a cute yellow ball... wait......
More Cuteness!

More helping!

Can I help you get a hole in one?

PROOF!

That while Mummy is away for the day, Daddy lets them run WILD!

\
Holy crap! He looks like me!

She stood out front of the trailer like a Child Soldier at a check point.



This guy slowed right down and then stopped in front of us to ask if it was, "Safe?"

Backyard Bounty!

It were tasty too!

Silly Billy! Wearing two hats!

The bug that landed on my arm. I freaked out, Ruby looked at me strangely, then I had to tell her that bugs are 'GREAT.' And, "I LOVE bugs! God creatures are beautiful, I just (shudder) don't like them touching me..." Ended up being a very pretty bug!

The 'veranda' ... darling...!

Sipping BlackBerry wine

New hair cut, which is now flat from the heat... but we had fun!

No comments:

Post a Comment