Breakfast with my mom; The dog park

My mom and i went out for breakfast this morning to celebrate our birthdays...although, since she paid, i feel like we were celebrating my birthday more than hers, so ... Thanks, Mom! We went to a place that just opened yesterday, and it was adorable. I would want the person who decorated it to come and decorate my entire house. The food was fine. Neither of us was overly impressed with what we got, but maybe we just chose things that aren't the best? But the conversation was superb. I love hanging out with my mom!

Emma was completely hyper and desperate for someone to play with this afternoon, so i took her to the dog park. She flitted from one dog to another - wrestled with this one under the picnic table, chased that one around the park, sniffed noses with every dog in the place. (As an aside, i was watching, and she didn't jump up on a single person. Progress!!!)

Meanwhile, i watched the people. Most of the people who bring their dogs to the dog park are pretty laid back and friendly. There's the odd person who comes in a suit, crosses their arms, and glares around, but most people either just sit and watch the dogs or chat with other people or some combination of the two. And then there's this one girl who's been there many, many of the times that i've been there. She has a giant dog named "Boo," and she's kind of ... loud. She'll talk to the dogs, but she's obviously actually wanting other people to hear her, even from across the park. I'm not sure if she's a really socially awkward extrovert or if there's another explanation, but man, she's loud.

And then i read and read and read. "Ender's Game" with Houston. "The Last Present" with all three kids. "Harry Potter" with Katrina. By the time i finished, Katrina was all, "Would you read more?!" and i just couldn't. We're so close to being finished with both Ender's Game and Harry Potter, and both of them are to the really sad, stressful parts. Sniff!

Previews

Every six months, the movie theater by us has a free thing where you can go and watch an hour and a half of preview for movies that are coming out in the next several months.

I actually kind of love previews, which is really bizarre, because i generally don't want to know anything about books or movies before i see them. But! If i don't KNOW yet if i want to see it, then i need to see the preview so that i can know! Plus, i on purpose try to remember which movies i want to see while simultaneously forgetting everything that could possibly give away anything. (I'm a complicated, illogical mess.)

Anyhow. Tonight Beth, Stephanie, and i went to the preview night. And it was fun, although there are a lot of movies coming out soon that have stressful previews. I'm kind of exhausted. 

Scanning

I've spent hours and hours today scanning old pictures. I'm making progress, but i just have so many pictures! Right this very minute, i'm super-annoyed with myself of the past, because i have a whole book in which i actually glued in the pictures. To scan them is a long, agonizingly slow process.

I'm really happy to be finally getting all of my pictures scanned. I've scanned all of my grandma's pictures and all of my mom's pictures and all of Juanito's mom's pictures and a lot of pictures for friends, but i'm only now actually scanning my old pictures. I'm finding pictures that i'd started to believe were lost and pictures that i'd forgotten about. Yay!

Karla and Emma

I got to go out for dinner with Beth and Karla tonight. It wasn't planned - things with Karla often aren't - and it wasn't for a long time, because Beth and i were planning to go to zumba, but it was fun. We laughed and laughed and just had good conversation and caught up a bit on life. Friends are the best.

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A few days ago, i bought a dog toy at the dollar store. It was an adorable little fox stuffed animal, and after i got it home, i started thinking that maybe one of the kids would like it for a present instead. Juanito and i were in the kitchen, and i was showing him how cute it was, and Emma was wandering around, oblivious, and then i accidentally found the squeaker in the tail and squeaked it, and Emma skidded to a stop, whipped around, and stared at the fox. 

And that is when i realized that she thinks that everything that squeaks is a chew toy for her.

And THAT is when i finally understood why she thinks that the guinea pigs are so interesting. Because they're very squeaky.

Happy birthday, Mom!

Today was my mom's birthday. She and my dad came over for dinner after church - pulled pork sandwiches and the first corn on the cob of the year. So delicious. And then, of course, cake. Yay!

She requested something lemon-y, so i made lemon bars. (It was nice of her to wear a shirt to match!) But i also made brownies, because i assumed that she and Juanito would be the only ones who'd want lemon bars. Turns out, though, that Zane loved them and even Katrina really liked them. Weird! The two kids i'd least expect to like something different.

I think that my mom is so beautiful, inside and out. Growing up, she was all i knew, so i don't think i ever really appreciated her for all that was. My friend Karen would tell me that my mom was so great, and i'd think, "Well, yeah." It was after i was an adult and we started going out for breakfast and spent hours talking - after i was married and had a job and had some perspective, and after we became friends as well as mother-daughter - that i think i realized how really great she actually was.

And then i had kids and realized that i had no idea what i was doing, and then realized that maybe she was faking it some of the time too, that i realized how genius she actually was at being a mom. I always, always believed that she just knew things. Knew what to say and how to be and what was needed. She was either just way more prepared than i was or she was just amazing at making me believe that she had the answers when she was trying to figure it out herself. Either way, it was comforting, as a child, to think my mom had it all together. And it's comforting, as an adult, to hope that maybe my kids feel the same way.

So happy birthday, to the best mom i've ever had! I love you!

Book club, Carnival, and Movie night.

On Thursday, we had book club. This month's book was "The Pearl That Broke Its Shell," and it has the distinction of possibly being the first book we've done that everyone has finished AND really liked.

The funny thing is, i was totally dreading reading it. I knew it was coming up, and i just thought, "Bleh!!! It's going to be all depressing and slow to read!" Except that it wasn't! I read it fairly quickly, and although it WAS fairly devastating at times, it had just enough hope to keep me from being completely depressed.

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On Friday, the kids' school had their yearly carnival, which we ... hate. It's just loud and crowded and the games are lame and it's just the worst. Several years ago, in a desperate move, i said, "What if we have our own carnival!? At our house! Just for us!" And the kids loved it. So now, when the school has their carnival, we have our own carnival.

We made our own pizzas and played silly little games (Hit the ping pong ball with a nerf gun! Roll the marble onto the target! Stack dinosaurs into the tallest tower!) for tickets. And then they can use their tickets to get prizes that i've picked out - things that they'd actually probably like and use, like post-it notes and that cord that they use to make bracelets. They're happy. We don't have to go to the carnival. It's all good.

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Tonight was movie night. It was Juanito's turn to choose, and he chose "The Room."

I think this movie actually just beat out "Luggage of the gods" as the worst movie i've ever seen. It was cringe-worthy at times, and completely hilarious (unintentionally), but just so awful that it almost defies description. We all laughed and laughed and also had to look around awkwardly because.... It was So! Wrong!

Even taking the movie out of the equation, though, it was a fun night. We grilled using the grill that i dragged home from someone's trash last fall. Juanito fixed it up, and it works great. We have a propane grill! One that's big enough to do more than a teensy bit of stuff on! YAY!

Linda and Andrew and their kids and Stephanie and Beth all came over, and i really love my friends. I love that my kids love their kids. I even love that they all like Emma, which means that she's so much calmer than when people try to keep her away from them. 

Earth Day

Today was Earth Day, and as chance would have it, Zane's class had a field trip to the local recycling plant this morning.

It was pretty fascinating to see how the whole place is run, and the kids all seemed to really enjoy it. I'm not sure how much Zane will remember, partly because he wiggled and squirmed the entire time the lady was giving her presentation. He's the wiggliest wiggler that ever was. But he was really interested in everything once we got to see the place from the walkways. Sadly, something was wrong with the machines, so they were down the entire time we were there - they turned off five minutes after we arrived and turned back on about 30 seconds before we were leaving the building. Unfortunate timing, but the giant bundles of recycled stuff was still pretty fascinating.