Welcome to Dragonbard.com

I’ve been a slacker about posting my updates to the blog lately… I write them, I save the drafts, I upload the pictures… and then I go do other things! I always plan on coming back to them, adding the pictures, making them pretty but I never do. So I’m posting a bunch of the updates without pictures just to get them out there! I plan to add pictures and publish in a timely manner from here on out… we’ll see, won’t we!

I’m writing this email with one hand, to the soothing sounds of a slightly fussy baby and two very noisy children… everything is back to normal!

The girls had a great time at their sleep-over from what I hear. They had a camp out in Grandma’s backyard, complete with snacks and light up bracelets. CareBear tells me that they played “the whole time” they were there and that they had pizza. Sounds like everything went well!

AliBoo and I missed them, of course, and thought it was way too quiet around here. AliBoo didn’t have anyone to watch besides me, but she managed to amuse herself anyway. She is quickly learning to sit up by herself (she can manage a few seconds, anyway) and loves the new perspective. Her biggest news of the week, though, is that all of the drooling and chewing is paying off… her first tooth is starting to poke through! She’ll be 5 months old tomorrow so I’m pretty sure this is the earliest first tooth we’ve had around here.

We were able to spend a few hours at the Ren Faire on Saturday. (I’m so happy that the weather cooled off as there’s no shade out there!) I enjoyed a bit of “window shopping” and the girls loved listening to the music. LiliBee was fascinated by the pickle wench. She’s a little pickle obsessed right now and eats 3 or 4 of them a day. CareBear loved all of the “princesses” there and told many, many people how pretty she thought their dresses were. We actually got to sit down and watch a little of the horse show this year, and it was amazing! The horses are so well trained and it was fun to watch them “dance” with the people. Hopefully, we’ll get to watch the whole show eventually.

Sunday did not go as planned… Chris spent the whole day at work dealing with power and network outages. He didn’t get home until after the girls were asleep so they’re under the impression that he’s been at work since yesterday morning! I tried to tell them that he came home last night but had to go back this morning, but that just made them sad that they didn’t get to see him so I think I’ll let him explain it tonight. Hopefully, he’ll get a day off sometime this week to make up for losing half of the weekend.

I’ll be busy with preschool start up for the next few weeks, but that should settle down just in time for the Puyallup Fair! I hope it all goes smoothly and that my “job” will settle down… making the preschool budget makes my brain hurt.

We’ve managed to survive the heat wave so far! I’ve discovered that either going through the pregnancies or the fact that there are usually three kids hanging off of me makes it so I’m a big wimp when it comes to hot weather. Bring on the A/C!

We actually had a lot of fun this week, though. We had a preschool play date on Wednesday, compete with dam building (supervised by Chris). The kids had a great time making the creek into a pool and all of them ended up wet and muddy. The sign of a good day.

On Thursday, we hit the park again. This time, we met my folks there for a nature/exercise hike. The park has an exercise trail with stations that give you different stretches or activities to do. CareBear and LiliBee had a great time running from sign to sign to see what was next. They attempted everything, though some of the bars were way too high for them to actually reach. It was a really fun adventure!

This weekend, we headed out to the Pierce County Fair in spite of the heat. It’s such a nice little fair with lots of stuff for smaller kids to do! We visited all of the barns in search of stamps (the kids got a prize for collecting all 8 stamps on a piece of paper) and then ate shaved ice to cool off. AliBoo got to ride in a stroller where she could sit up and see everything, which she loved. (And carrying her in the pack when it was 95 degrees sounded like a bad idea.) LiliBee got to go on a couple of rides with CareBear as the ride operators were very nice and pretended not to notice her standing on her toes to reach the line. They spent a lot of time at the “heat relief station” (a couple of sprinklers that the park had set up) while Chris and I watched some belly dancers perform. A good time was had by all!

This week is weirdly quiet… CareBear and LiliBee are down in Olympia having a sleep-over with Cousin H! They’ll be gone until Thursday, which will (hopefully) give me time to prepare for my preschool board meeting and get the budget ready for approval at orientation in a couple of weeks. AliBoo and I spent this morning doing her favorite things (nursing, snuggling, napping). I think she enjoys not having the big kids waking her up every time she nods off!

I’m hoping to make it to the Ren Faire this weekend, but mostly I think I’ll enjoy the relative quiet around here before the bustle of school starting up!

You know, it wasn’t until I put the “subject” on this email that I realized that it’s 8-9-10! Cool!

Anyway.

We had a pretty fun week around here! We spent Tuesday evening at a “carnival” that they put on over in my folks’ neighborhood for the National Night Out. There was a circus train to shuttle people to and from that was very fun to ride. CareBear, in particular, was very excited about riding the train and talking to the other people in out “car”. Once we got to the carnival, there were hot dogs and cotton candy to eat as well as lots of bouncy houses in which to jump. CareBear wanted to “dunk the kid” at the dunk tank so my dad paid for her to take a shot… and she hit 2 out of 3 tries! It was pretty impressive. Lilia took a turn too, of course, and they let her walk up and hit the button to dunk the kid after she was out of balls. It was a very fun time.

We also had a nice picnic in the park on Chris’ day off. CareBear and LiliBee spotted baby fish in the lake and watched the dragonflies flying around. They also spent quite a lot of time rolling around in the field while I tried not to think about goose poop. Those geese stay down by the water… right?

AliBoo is very interested in watching all of the activities, but she can’t quite figure out how to join in yet. She does appreciate the entertainment, though, and spends a lot of time smiling and laughing at her sisters. When she isn’t busy chewing on things and drooling, anyway! Her newest skill is scooting herself around by pushing with her legs. She doesn’t have any directionality yet, but she doesn’t stay where we put her anymore. She’s also very pleased with herself. (Except when she scooted herself off of the bed, that made her pretty mad and about gave me a heart attack, but at least she didn’t get hurt at all!)

Over the weekend, we had the usual classes at the Y and I got to go to a candle party practically by myself! AliBoo and I had a lot of fun looking at all of the things I can’t buy until the kids are much older and visiting with people I don’t see very often. She was quite the social butterfly.

This week is looking a little busier, a trend I’m pretty sure is going to continue until school starts again next month! We’ve got a couple of playdates in the works and the Pierce County Fair is this weekend. I’ve got some stuff to work on for the preschool (by the way, we’ll be having a garage sale in a couple of weeks if anyone wants to donate and/or shop for anything!) and I’m slowly trying to whip the house back into shape after my post-partum slacker-ness.

Well, we had a nice week with no big injuries that I can think of so I think it was a good one!

We had another picnic in the park on Wednesday with some of the preschool kids. CareBear and LiliBee had a lot of fun exploring with Chris and then they fed the ducks some of their lunch. The rest of our week was mostly spent hanging out at home, believe it or not! Chris and the girls decided to move their playroom into the bonus room upstairs over the weekend. It’s about halfway done, I think (I’m staying out of it…) and they’re thrilled with the change. It does give them more room to spread out and they’ve been playing up there for a couple of weeks anyway. Plus, there’s the piano and the pool table to play with up there, too. I am going to pare down their toy collection, though, and donate a bunch to the preschool garage sale in a couple of weeks. The old playroom is now an office (again) for Chris and my treasurer and crafting stuff.

AliBoo had her 4-month-old doctor appointment last week. She’s up to 13.5 pounds! According to the doctor, she’s doing very well and is right where she should be. The poor kid got two shots, though, and was less than happy after that. She’s been working on her rolling skills but hasn’t quite figured out the back to front thing. She did manage to catch her feet with her hands and was very proud of herself.

I can’t believe it’s already August… it kind of snuck up on me! I think we’ve got a lot of stuff going on over the next couple of months, especially with all of the fairs going on and school getting ready to start. This week looks to be pretty mellow, though, which is a good thing.