The Latest and Greatest

I don't have a ton of pictures to share, but we've had a fair amount going on.

Loofa had his week of summer soccer already. Thankfully it wasn't rainy that week. This summer has been so much wetter than usual. Loofa enjoyed his soccer again even with his typical complaining. He'll be doing the regular fall season this year for the first time. The park we were at had a spray park (new this year) and some pretty cool play structures. Now that Ephant is old enough to watch the kids at home I usually leave her while taking kids to activities, but she is still enough of a kid that she wanted to go to soccer everyday and play. I kind of wish she hadn't so I could leaver Feefers at home. That child is quite the momma's girl.

Fefe had an aborted potty training event. Between peeing on my iphone and refusing to poop on the potty, it just wasn't happening. I'll probably wait a couple months till school starts and try again. She mostly had it down, but she is so STUBBORN. At one point, I was forcing her to stay on the potty to poop and in the midst of her tears she kept saying "I'm freaking out!" You really have to hear her say it in her little chipmunk voice to truly appreciate it. No I get to deal with her telling me every time she pees her diaper. Silly girl.

Ephant is in the middle of her first theater class. It is a two week long class. They are making up their own play and at the end of the session we'll get to watch it. She is truly enjoying the experience. I'm sure we'll video her play for everyone to see later.

Brother B hasn't done much, but he is really looking forward to cub scout day camp. That boy will really make his Grandpa C proud with how much he is enjoying Scouts.

Both J and I had our birthday's the last week or so. We got J a deep fryer and J got me a computer chair. We haven't tested out the deep fryer yet, but we are very excited to have fresh french fries and scones. One of these days I'm going to attempt deep fried snickers and twinkies. I'll have to get my cholesterol checked soon and in a year to see what affect it has had :) I just updated my recipe book. You can download it here. The computer chair has been awesome. I had no idea I could be this comfortable while sitting at the computer.

We are finally out of our warranty period on the Odyssey. Boy does that hurt. I took the van in last week to get the air conditioning fixed (the front blower had gone out). That cost $350 to repair, just to replace some relay pack. The front brakes had to be replaced at another $350 and the tires were worn down. I'm never getting Michelin tires again. Les Schwab's tires cost the same, but they gave us an 80,000 tread warranty. Thank heavens because the Michelins lasted only 35,000 miles. The tires cost another $700. I'm not sure how much of an inheritance the kids are going to get.

Speaking of spending money. We finally got a NEW couch. Not a hand me down or a Goodwill find. The kids destroyed Grandma Morgan"s couch (okay, maybe my elephant behind played a role in that too) and J had had enough of the cushions not fitting properly anymore. We checked out a few furniture stores and Costco too and ended up with a leather reclining couch from Costco. It has been so nice. I was grateful once again for the hitch on the back of my van so we only had to rent a trailer to haul it home. I'm hoping they'll get the loveseat back in stock soon so we can get that as well.