apple apple bo bapple

Katie's apple tree looked promising this season. It started with more than 5 apples.

Alas, a couple shriveled up, and some were stolen by birds and what we think were squirrels (it had distinctive teeth marks in it).

So, we thought we'd better cut our loses and go ahead and pick the best looking of the last of two apples remaining.

I was a little worried because Maddie's tangelo tree had some pretty not-so-sweet fruit last season.

But the apple proved worthy.

It's supposed to bear apples twice a year so hopefully we'll get another round in the fall!

find

I was out for a run this morning and I saw this out on a curb.


I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but I fell in love with it.

What do you think? Paint it? Refinish it?

It's so little and just like I remember from elementary school with the top opening and everything!

We'll see how happy Papa is with my new find.

At least it was free, right?

this is george

He's a good little blanket.

Mo's world does not revolve without him though.

The thumb and George often go hand-in-hand.

The other day we were playing and Maddie came over and asked for George. She held him next to her face and sucked her thumb for a couple of minutes.

Then, she handed him back, proclaimed "all done," and ran off to play again.

It was like a Maddie version of a smoke break.

My biggest fear is that we lose George.

Miyo said she'll make a back up George for her birthday.

I have been on the hunt for the fabric to no avail.

So, I ask you dear friends if you happen upon the fabric please tell me, or better yet -- just buy it. I hate to go back later and it not be there.

last minute trip to

My friend Chris who works for Disney in Florida came to Southern California for work this week.

We headed down to Anaheim to see him. We were also lucky enough to be his guests at the Park while he had his afternoon meetings.

This was the Little Wickies' first trip to Disneyland. I was a tad nervous to go with them by myself during peak season.

I took some precautions.

Yes, it kind of looked like Maddie had a prison number tattooed on her arm, but she's a wanderer and it gave me a little piece of mind.

I brought pictures of the kids to have just in case they got lost. I even thought about printing pictures of them looking sad -- because if they were lost would they really have big grins on their faces like in all my pictures?

The girls had a blast. Katie who has been studying her brochures and looked at the Website the day before knew exactly what she wanted to do first.

The Davy Crockett canoes.

Now, I'm 99.9% positive she has no idea who Davy Crockett is, but the whole idea of paddling on her own was clearly irresistible.

Our longest wait of the day was to see some princesses.

The girls were pretty darn excited to see them. Maddie even did her happy dance which is similar to her chicken dance just without the sound effects.

Katie has talked incessantly about the Tea Cups for awhile now.

She was upset because she wanted to go on them by herself and felt misled by the "any height" requirement posted when she found out no one under 7 could go without an adult.

She got over it.

Mo passed out in my arms on the way to the Monorail around 4:00 p.m.

She awoke about a half hour later and remained a trooper throughout the rest of our day.

Chris joined us in the late afternoon and after a parade and a couple of more rides we finally headed home.

crazy eights tag

I got tagged awhile back by G over at Small Burst of Everything -- hop on over to her site, it's really cute.

So, the game goes:

Go to the 8th folder in which you store photos

Select the 8th photo

Post it and tell the story behind it

'Tag' 8 other people.

When I saw that Lyndsay and Roberto's wedding was my 8th folder I thought: oh this will be good. This shot is from their reception in Gunajuato, Mexico which was in a word: crazy.

Every 20 minutes or so different props were brought out. Wrestling masks, headbands with fruit on them, aprons, wigs, hats and of course, balloons as pictured above. I had never experienced anything quite like it -- let alone at a wedding. Even the band changed costumes at least 5+ times!

And, here's who I'm tagging.

Miyo

Aubrei

Candice

Laura

Tabitha

Kati

Stasia

Chris (see this as an attempt to get you to resuscitate your blog)

Like G said, it's just for fun, so don't feel obliged.

baby beach squad

It's been hot this week.

We hit the beach up twice and while I have a ton of pictures of all the fun that took place, I thought I'd dedicate this one to all the little ones.

First up, Ms. Madeleine who (gasp) let me do her hair, hence you can actually see her face which is rare these days.

Noah took his first trip to the beach and got all nice and sandy.

Makayla flirted with the lifeguard. She literally had her little toes pointed up in the air at one point but I managed to miss that.

More Mo.

Logan, who was drawn like a magnet to any and all chairs with animals on them.

Mo, unhappy about a group shot with Makayla and Georgia.

I'll post some pics of the big kids' adventures at the beach a little later.

it's coming

Today me and the Little Wickies headed over to the flea market that takes place every Wednesday in our town.

Katie was excited because she had never been before and wanted to "know about flea markets" because that's where Mama shops (without her).

We walked through a lot of garage sale-type stuff and shared a burrito from the roach coach.

Everything was good.

Until it went to great.

Katie stopped dead in her tracks to see...

sorry about the poor picture, I (gasp) didn't have my camera and took this with my phone.

a bunch of newly arrived fair rides in the corner of the parking lot.

We ventured closer.

She walked through carefully studying each collapsed ride, looking for ones she might recognize.

Man, that girl is excited about the Fair.

antique shopper in training

Took Katie antique shopping with me for the first time yesterday.

Me: Look Katie, that's an old sewing machine.

Katie: Like Miyo's?

Me: Yes but a lot older.

Katie: Is it really old like from the 80s or 90s?

The rest of the morning shopping conversation continued along much of the same lines. She would peruse, find something "really old" and proclaim it must be from the 80s or 90s.

By the fourth store she decided she was done "artique shopping."

Luckily the following store had a huge collection of Golden Books and I told her she could chose one which bought me some additional shopping time.

Her choice -- Cinderella, of course.

a sampling of her collection

When we were in San Diego Katie raided the brochure rack in our hotel and made some major additions to her collection -- of brochures.

She'll sit and pour over each one. She's always liked maps, so the combination of a map plus an amusement park is proving to be beyond riveting to her.

In recent weeks her obsession has reached new heights. Instead of choosing books at night before bed she chooses a brochure.

The process goes something like this:

Step 1: You chose how tall you are going to be.

Step 2: You chose how old you are going to be.

Step 3: We start the adventure using the map as the guide, choosing rides in accordance with the height and age requirements detailed for each ride. We discuss which will be a fast ride, which one spins too much for Papa to go on, etc.

This morning she was getting all fired up about the upcoming summer fair proclaiming "I want to go on all the rides this time with Dylann and Lia and Hayley and Jake and Amelia and... (there were a ton more names mentioned but you get the idea, right?)"

we were british once

About two weeks ago Katie wanted to know what the 4th of July was.

I tried to explain how we were part of Britain, but decided later we wanted to be our own country. I breezed over how we fought and won our independence. She stopped me dead at that point in our discussion.

"We fought!? Fighting is not nice Mama, why did they do that?"

Cornered yet again.

Quick change the subject.

"Katie, what kind of candy do you want to throw at the parade?" I asked in my awkwardly falsetto voice. "Should we start decorating your bike?"

And, so we set off to change her princess bike into her 4th of July bike which meant by her definition: "We shouldn't see any princesses or purple or pink."

This included her helmet as well of course.

Mo sat with the candy stash in the wagon and discovered Tootsie Rolls that day.

We spent the rest of the day with friends. We even experimented with roasting chocolate chips in bananas which was well -- interesting.

The kids with Ray's creation for the parade.

like devito and schwarzenegger, right?

"We should dress like twins mama," Katie says last week while we're putting away clothes in our respective rooms.

"Umm okay."

A game of clothing "go fish" followed.

Katie (shouting from her room): Mama, do you have a pink sparkly skirt?

Me (in my room): No honey.

Katie: Do you have a rainbow skirt?

Me: No babygirl.

Katie: Do you have a brown skirt with apples on it?

Me: Sorry hon.

Alas, we found a match.

Katie: Do you think Papa will know who's who when he gets home?

Me: I don't know sweetheart, I guess we'll see.

i've come a long way, baby

I am so frickn' domestic these days all I can do is laugh sometimes.

I recently made jam for the third year in a row.

As I was dropping cans into an enormous pot of boiling water with my new fancy canning tongs (which I LOVE) I thought back to my days spent in suits, when I would have a headset virtually permanently attached for conference calls, when I would spend hours on currency Web sites trying to figure out budgets in different countries.

Oh how my life has changed. And, for the better I might add.

Instead of approving Web site design and copy, I create my own jam labels.

Instead of telling executives what to say to the media, I help my four-year old memorize her prayers for Bible school so she can get a prize.

Instead of planning trade show events, I make weekly tents, caves and forts.

I now know where every park is in my city. I know all the words to the song "Trash Truck." I can whip up a dinner that includes every food group in less than a half hour with no advanced planning.

I'm thinking of adding these as bullet points to my CV. What do you think?

The best thing about my job bar none: I get to look at these two mugs all day long.

futbol & four-year-olds

Confession: I watch soccer on Spanish stations.

So you have to understand it's pretty darn exciting when soccer is actually on English-speaking stations -- and in HD to boot.

Yes people, I'm talking about the World Cup.

What I'm loving perhaps even more is watching with my girls.

Each match we get our globe out and find the countries who are squaring off.

We see how far each is from the U.S. and because I'm talking with Kaitlyn the conversation usually digresses into how long the plane flight would be to each country, how hot it is there right now, if they are in the same/different season we are in, how many people live in the country, etc.

Focus girl!

I'm trying to make this marginally educational -- the point is to watch soccer!

Here are some Katie-isms while watching World Cup soccer (and just think we're only in group play right now):

- "Mama, can we watch Butter Cup soccer together?"

- "What is that buzzing, why does it sound like bees?" (referring to the loud vuvuzelas you incessantly hear)

- "Which team has more players?"

- "Don't score white team!"

- "I think we should root for Germany because it's closer to us (than Serbia)."

And btw, the score should have been 3-2.

blueberries

Strawberry season may be ending, but blueberry picking is in its prime right now so we headed out to get our fill today.

You must think we are obsessed with fruit with all the posts about strawberries, etc. I've made this season. (On a side note: I was quite pleased to see the appearance of apricots last weekend at the farmer's market. Now that season is way too short if you ask me.)

Like many activities, Katie was all-business when it came to finding the most choice berries.

I love how one-year-olds will cop-a-squat just about anywhere.

Here Mo and Lo are sharing a berry or two.

We now have over two pounds of very sweet blueberries in the house.

I heard Miyo talking about blueberry pancakes which sound great.

Any other fantastic uses for blueberries?