Summer Time, When the Livin' is Easy

24 July 2009

Yay! Happy 24th of July everybody...in Utah. What a great holiday it must be for all of you. They don't have a 24th of July in Texas, well they have it, but it's just a regular day, like the 23rd. This is sounding familiar. I think I already wrote all of this on the 24th of July last year...hmm...well, never mind.

Here are some updates:

Jared just sent off the first draft of his dissertation for review! Yay! Now we only have like 150 hours of work left to do! Wahoo!

Jared just found out that he is so allergic to fire ants that he cannot be deployed "to the desert" for the next 5 years while he gets allergy shots to "cure" him. Yay! I don't have to be a single mom during the next five years! Yay!

Holly still has no teeth.

Tyler still can't ride a bike.

Derek is getting better at kicking in the swimming pool.

My tomato plants have "leaf miners." Grrrrrr, curse the warm southern weather! Wait, no, don't! I take that back! We luuuuuuv the warm...mmmm.

The kids and I did some painting. Tyler is working on a paint by number wolf. Its an "intermediate" level painting so its taking him a while to finish.

Derek painted some sea life fridge magnets.

Holly didn't paint, she just laughed.

I found a lizard in the garage. It pooped on the freezer.

Derek's stomach growled while he was in bed (sorry the sound is so soft).

Sword Mall

22 Jul 2009

My mom said you were asking about Sword Mall.Well its this Mall that has everything that egsist.



Door handls are real Swords. Roller coasters are inside. No casino. It is in Los Vegas. Zoo inside. Things that dont egsist yet for sale. Like talking pets and x-ray glasses and transformer raydio that really transforms.

Tyler is the president of the mall. Eveyone I know gets what they want from the mall for free.

From Tyler.

Donut Recipe

20 Jul 2009

Tonight at dinner Tyler decided that he was going to turn our house into a donut shop. We told him not to, but that only made him want to do it more. He hurriedly finished eating and then ran off giggling. About 5 minutes later he came back with his donut recipe. How can I resist a well thought out business plan like this? I'm sold - donut shop it is.

P.S. Tyler says that there will also be a donut shop in Sword Mall. So you can all look forward to that. (If you don't know what Sword Mall is then tune in next time when Tyler will be doing the blog post and telling us all about it.)

Jiggle Bug

18 Jul 2009

Last night we got actual footage that proves a fact all parents eventually come to know very well: sleepy baby + jiggle bug = jocularity to the nth degree. For all of you non-parents out there, please watch close and take notes.

P.S. Excuse the formal tone of this post. I have been helping Jared with his research paper and I think the scholarly verbiage in the articles I've been reading is getting to me. Oy!

Shots

16 July 2009

Yesterday was shots day. I took Holly in for her 6 month vaccinations and they told me that Derek needed a Hep A booster. (Derek is really far behind on his shots. I think he got his 3 month shots and then didn't get any more until Jan of this year - oops.) When I broke the news to Derek in the waiting room he said, "Mom! I don't need a shot. I feel all better now." And then he did that cute little closed lips, raised eyebrow Derek smile. Poor kid. His leg really hurt the rest of the day.

Drum roll.....Derek is Potty Trained!

15 July 2009

Today is the day that I am officially declaring Derek fully potty trained! Yay! He's actually been doing really good with the #1 for some time now - no accidents in several months. It's the #2 that's been the problem. He was just too scared to go poop on the potty. Well about three weeks ago, he dookied his pants at the Costco and all I had was Holly's baby diapers. Since Derek is so small (30 lbs) and Holly is so big (20 lbs.) I was able to swap out Derek's dirty pull-ups for one of Holly's diapers. He went ballistic! He was super mad that I was "calling him a baby" by making him wear a baby diaper. After that he decided that he didn't want pull-ups any more - only underwear - and that he could poop on the potty. I wasn't convinced at first but he's been clean and dry now for two whole weeks so I think we're in the clear! Hooray! I'm so proud of my boy.

Derek at Disneyland with Grandma James when he was 5 months old.

The Weekend

12 Jul 2009

Here are a few photos for your viewing enjoyment.

These are my new tomato plants. I got special varieties that are able to pollenate at temps above 95 degrees. We should have lots of fruit before we leave in Nov.

This is the only plant (out of 6) that "melted" in the hot Texas sun. Luckily I planted it a good 10 inches down so it should come back to life and be fine.

Here is what a Texas ant bite looks like. It is not a pimple and you cannot pop it. The white is dead skin. If you can see the darkish circle kind of to the left of the bite, that is an old, healed bite. The scars never really go away.

This is what happens when you leave your baby on the floor while you work on your pizza recipie blog post. Shhhh....she's asleep.

Very Best Pizza

11 Jul 2009

I just made the best pizza ever! To get the recipie click on the link below to my dinnertime blog post.

http://www.dinnertimerecipes.blogspot.com/

Love, Suzie

The New Sandbox

10 Jul 2009

Okay so since we aren't moving this month like we'd planned. The kids and I decided to sell all my stampin up stamps and use the money to buy a sandbox. We've been working on it all week and it is finally finished. Yay! The kids really love it and it will be nice for them to be able to play outside for a few hours a day without getting sunburns or ant bites. (Plus the grass will all be dead soon because of the drought and the stage 3 water restrictions. We are only allowed to water the lawn for one hour every other Monday.) Here is our sandbox diary.

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Monday: We made dad come to the store with us to get wood for the sandbox and the tomato planter "tables" (cause we can't put vegetables in the ground - we're renting).

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Tuesday: It was raining so we didn't do anything on the sandbox.

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Wednesday: Derek and I measured and cut the wood - well I did, Derek was too scared of the saw. Then we used the drill (or the "big screwdriver" as Derek calls it - thanks Handy Manny) to put the pieces of wood together into a really complicated, technical "box" shape :) This was the fateful day where I got 6 ant bites (and for those of you who don't know - Texas ant bites are BAD - even though the ants are TINY), heat stroke (I've never had it before - it's crappy), and a broken finger (it turns out that it's not broken - just smashed and purple.)

This is Tyler's first attempt at taking a picture of Derek and I putting the sandbox together. Ralphie looks like a hot dog despite his summer haircut.
This is Tyler's second attempt at taking a picture of Derek and I putting the sandbox together.

This is Tyler's third attempt at taking a picture of Derek and I putting the sandbox together.
This is Tyler's fourth attempt at taking a picture of Derek and I putting the sandbox together. Ralphie still looks hot.
This is Tyler's fifth and finally sucessful attempt at taking a picture of Derek and I putting the sandbox together.
This is my first attempt at taking a picture of Tyler spazing out and Derek smiling in a very obedient way.

Thursday: I got some plastic and stapled it into the bottom of the sandbox. I know, I know, it will hold in moisure and the wood isn't pressure treated, blah blah blah. I don't care. We only need the box to last 5 months and the plastic's only job is to keep the sand from sliding out from under the box. I don't care if water can't seep out. It will evaporate - probably. I mean it's 105 degrees out there and it's only rained once in four months. Thursday night we borrowed our friends' truck and went to Lowe's to get the sand.

Friday: The kids and I carted the sand from the driveway to the back yard and filled up the sandbox. This picture is for real. We had 17 bags of sand that weighed 50 lbs. each and the kids moved three of them all on their own! I was very proud. The other 14 bags however, made me very very hot, tired and sweaty.

After the sandbox was filled, the kids helped me clean up the bags.

And...drum roll...the sand box is finished! Yay! Tyler looks tired because he is, and Derek looks super-extra excited because he is. They played in it for about two hours this morning and another hour after lunch. What good, cute kids.

Holly's First Taste of Real Food

7 Jul 2009

Last night Holly got her first taste of real food while having dinner at the table with the rest of the family. Way to go you big girl (not just big, she's really big, 21 lbs big). Holly ate 1/2 bottle of strained peas with some water to drink and honey nut cheerios for dessert. I wanted to make sure that her pictures were in keeping with the proud James-Cooper tradition of taking photos of babies wearing the most disgusting, ill-fitting t-shirts possible so here you go. My baby's growing up - oh yeah, and she likes peas. Not like those cry baby pickey brothers of hers.

Look at those feet! Ack! They are so cute!