Sorry

Anda is a great little girl just about all of the time. Occasionally, however, a perfect storm of hungry, tired, and momlessness combine to turn her into something resembling a monster. Dan experienced this one night last week when he put her to bed while I was with Lilah at a moms-only party. I didn't get home until after the actual tantrum (because I am diabolical and stayed to chat long enough to be sure to miss bed time just this once), but the look on Dan's face (and his detailed description of the event, too, I guess) was enough to tell me that it had been one for the ages.

The next morning, I talked to Anda about her behavior and how she treated him the night before, and she was very remorseful. I suggested she write him an apology note and this is what she came up with.

That's Dan (the little one) giving her a bath (the big one on the bathtub, obviously--I don't know why I have to spell that out for you). I wrote "S O R R Y" on another piece of paper and had her copy it, which I think she did pretty well. This is, of course, not something we want to happen very often, but I thought the picture that resulted from it was pretty cute.

July

I feel like we've done a lot this month, but I don't have much blog posting or pictures to show for it. Here's what I do have.

I took the girls to the Freedom Festival in Provo one afternoon. It was fun, but so hot that by the time I got Lilah home and out of her car seat, I could have wrung her out. Poor baby. In the short time we stayed, though, there was face painting, jolly jumping, live parrots, crafts, nail painting, and even a princess for Anda.

The fourth, of course, is also Dan's birthday, so we participated in some of those festivities as well.

The scouts put a flag in our yard for patriotic holidays throughout the year, which Anda LOVES ("It's holly-day time!").

And Dan and I realized we didn't have very patriotic shirts, so we got some totally rad ones at Wal-mart.

And of course there's the cake and home-made ice cream tradition.

Then Dan and Anda went to the neighborhood fireworks show. They didn't get home until around 11 that night, and the Twizzlers and doughnut powder on Anda's face testified to the good time she had.

Speaking of doughnuts, I love them. Also, I started a tradition with my mom about 7 or 8 years ago (even if she doesn't remember starting it) where every Friday the 13th I get doughnuts. Apparently, the trend caught on, because when we went to Krispy Kreme on the 13th of this month, everyone else in the state of Utah had also shown up. They were having some kind of promotion that we didn't know about for their 75th birthday. We got in line inside, and after we got our free waiting-in-line doughnuts and heard it was a 20-30 minute wait to the register, we figured we'd got what we came for already and just ducked out. This picture shows the cars in the drive-through line, which literally wrapped around and back out into the street. Hooray for obesity!

Obesity seems like a good enough segue to my next picture: Lilah and me enjoying some Lego Harry Potter. I was just complaining to Dan that Anda and I don't really share the same interests, even though she wants me to do EVERYthing with her. He mentioned that she'd probably be ready for video games soon, so he tried it out with her. He told me it didn't go well; she still didn't really seem to grasp the concept of pushing the joystick around to move the character on the screen. However, within about two weeks Anda and I had completed all the bonus levels, and within a month, the entire game. And I don't mean I played the game while she mashed buttons. She could do things like recognize where Hermione's cat needed to dig, find a potion to change into Hermione, select the appropriate spell to make the cat come out, go back to the right area, and dig up the object. She's a fast learner, but you're entitled to your own opinions on whether or not we are channeling her super powers appropriately. Anyway, here's me giving Lilah a head start. I was definitely a Luigi kid (younger sibling), so I know how important it is to learn to hold your own in the video game department.

But we didn't just stay inside playing video games all month. We also got rain for the first time in about two months, complete with a double rainbow all the way across the sky.

Another outdoor highlight of the month was Dan's summer work party at 7 Peaks. We have season passes, so I take the girls about once a week on average, but each girl needs to have an adult with her at all times, so we have to schedule it just right and we often only end up staying for about an hour. This was a four hour extravaganza with plenty of other grown ups around who were willing to hold the baby so everyone could get a chance to play. Both girls did really well and we all had a great time.

Speaking of my girls, in conclusion, they are adorable.