Road Trip

Sophia, Ella and I drove to Detroit to meet our new cousin and nephew Henry and celebrate his baptism. It was just like Thelma and Louise. Except the total opposite. We watched the first season of Little House on the Prairie and did a potty tour of the McDonalds bathrooms along I-94.

As we were packing up the car Ella dragged out her hello Kitty suitcase and insisted we put it in the back. When we arrived at the hotel she rolled it into the room and proceeded to bring it EVERYWHERE. People kept asking her if her dolls or toys were in it. Nope, her soccer ball. That was it. Here we are on the way to the bathroom at brunch. She refused to leave it at the table.
Henry is adorable and was a trooper with all his cousins hugging and poking him.

Sophia and Ella looked cute at the baptism:

There was a lovely dinner following the afternoon ceremony where they brought out a beautiful cake for dessert. As soon as I saw all the kids gathered around it I instructed Sophia and Ella NOT to touch the cake. I could see their little fingers itching to take a swipe at it. I didn't see it happen, but heard a number of people at my table say "Did she just LICK the cake?" My stomach turned and while there were a number of little girls there I knew exactly WHO had just licked the cake.

Sunday afternoon

Just posting this because I love this picture. We were actually about five minutes early for church and the girls looked pretty cute so I asked them to gather for a picture. Ella took a digger walking up the stairs and skinned her knee and was crying hysterically so opted out of the photo.

After getting a band aid we were our usual ten minutes late.

Singing in the Rain

We got our piece of Hurricane Ike over the weekend. Well, not the 100mph wind part, just the rain for 72 hours straight part. I have officially crossed Seattle off of my list of cities I would someday move to.

Sophia and Ella had fun wading in the lake that formed in our neighbors' backyard (after I told them they could LOOK at the new body of water, but not go INTO it). They came home soaked to their waists saying they only looked at the water. Someone told me yesterday that all the back up in our neighborhood was sewage. I have chosen to ignore that statement. I'm pretty sure they got baths Saturday night. I know, gross.

Hair brushing with Ella

me: Ella, I really need to brush your hair.

Ella: Right. Because if I don't brush my hair nuts will crawl into it.

me: Nuts? Like peanuts?

Ella: Yep. Peanuts will crawl into my hair.

me: ....no Ella. You will get KNOTS in your hair. Not NUTS.

Ella: Oh.

First Day of School

Sophia and Ella started school last week. Sophia is now officially a Kindergartener. It's hard for me to believe that she is now doing things that I remember experiencing at her age. She looked so cute in her uniform. Ella is now in Sophia's old room in Miss Jones' preschool class.

Everything went smoothly. I surprised myself by being able to keep it together.Here Sophia is giving me the "Mom, please leave. Most of the parents are gone and I would like to get on with my day" look.

Ella was a little more nevous until she saw her BFF Sean. Then it was all smiles.

After her first full day Sophia said that she thought she'd like to go back to Miss Jones' class. I asked why and she said that Kindergarten is just too long and Miss Jones' class has many more things to play with. Now into week two she's getting used to the full day and loves school.

Rick called it my greatest parenting move ever...

Grandma and Papa Patterson are in town from California and we thought it would be fun to take everyone out to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner. Sometimes when we go out for dinner things go swimmingly, but this was NOT one of those evenings. We tend to remember that one time we went out for dinner and everyone was perfect and forget the other ninety-nine times when it was a disaster. Rick and I like to think we can repeat that one meal when everything was aligned and we actually enjoyed going out to eat.

As soon as we walked into Lalo's I knew this would not be that elusive meal. From the minute Ceci and Katie sat down in their highchairs they were both whining/squirming/crying non-stop. As we were trying to get them to quiet down Ella dumped a full glass of apple juice on the floor. Rick had that look on his face that said he was about to run out of the restaurant and return home just in time for Katie and Ceci's high school graduation.

This is when I spotted the bowl full of lollipops at the hostess stand. And, Voila....two happy (and QUIET) one year olds.

One minute earlier both girls were crying and refusing to sit still. Rick kept saying, "that was the BEST parenting move EVER".

Chicago Triathlon

I've realized that we start a lot of stories in our family with "It sounded like a good idea at the time..." Welllll, it sounded like a good idea to bring everyone to cheer on Rick as he swam/biked/ran his way through the Chicago Triathlon with the families of 6,999 other competitors. I learned a lot last weekend about how long it takes to complete an Olympic distance tri and how challenging it is to entertain four girls during this time while trying to walk what felt like our own 10k from event to event.

Grandma and Papa Patterson came to help which made it much easier for all.

We began by walking two miles to see Rick run out of the water. We missed to whole swim part after visiting about 15 port-a-potties walking from the parking garage to the lake. At each one Sophia would say quietly to herself "don't look down, don't look down, don't look down" and the first thing she'd do was stare into the poop pit when we opened the door. She made sure to tell Ella that whatever she did not to look into the toilet so guess what was the first thing she did when we walked in? My very wise daughter was appropriately grossed out by the concept of toilets that don't flush. They each learned how to squat and pee in a bush that afternoon.

Next we had and hour and a half to waste while Rick was biking and we walked over to the Bean in Millennium Park.

Then back to the course to cheer on Rick at the run:

It was at about this point that Ceci and Katie decided that they were done watching the race.

When it was over we all felt like we'd run a tri and were ready to go home.
We were very proud of Rick however: