Gymnastics

As I sit on my couch watching the men's gymnastics teams compete on the high bar, I'm reminded of a recent trip to the playground with Edie in which I tried to do the monkey bars, and DUDE.  Monkey bars are seriously hard. I literally got a blister from swinging from one rung to the next - twice.  And twice was pushing myself because I for reals was ready to stop after jung hanging.

This keeps happening to me

I keep buying dresses outside my normal style genre, thinking I'm rocking it and then seeing pictures of myself wearing the dress and realizing that I am not rocking anything.  Maybe I only wore dresses with fitted waists and full skirts FOR A REASON. Or maybe I just need a bitchy gay friend again - the kind who sees you making a fashion mistake and tells you. I used to have so many of them! They might also cause you to have a little secret-cry in the bathroom on occasion as a direct result of their brutal truths, but at least they tell you when a dress makes you look like a normal body walking around on two tree trunks.

Weather

I know everyone is complaining about this and I should be more original, but i'm just so. fed. up.  Seattle weather is so terrible this summer that I seriously have been contemplating taking a vacation to somewhere warm just to feel like we experienced summer.  I'm currently wearing jeans and a sweater in late July.  And the weather forecast is showing days and days of more mediocre, wishy washy weather to come.  Including Sunday, when I plan to throw a bridal shower in my back yard.  Which reminds me!  This happened to me last year too!   Indoor August bridal shower while torrential rain came down outside. Which is another thing - it has looked and felt like it was seconds away from raining for 3 days now, tricking me into waiting to water my plants because fate would have it that the second I waste water on that, it will start raining.  So now it'll be gloomy and I'll have dead plants.

I'd honestly rather be sweating it out on the east coast right now.

Dear pacific northwest,
[insert picture of my middle finger]
love never,
Jill

Germ Pocket

Edie has taken to calling the inside of her elbow, her germ pocket - as in, "Cough or sneeze into your germ pocket please."  This is something she picked up from daycare.  She is meticulous about using her germ pocket to cough or sneeze, which is hilarious because Jeff has resisted the movement entirely and for years as been sneezing directly into his hand, which drives me bananas.  I've suggested multiple times that he transition to the less gross method of sneezing into your elbow, but he's not convinced.  But now I have Edie on my team. Just now, Jeff sneezed really loud downstairs while Edie was in bed sleeping (or so we thought).  A second later, we hear her shout downstairs from her bedroom, "Daaaaad! Did you sneeze into your GERM POCKET?!"

Bwahahaha!

4th of July

We drove north to my parents' place in Birch Bay on the 4th. This is the cute hand-me-down dress I dressed Edie in for the 4th (it is navy and white striped):

 This is what she was wearing approximately 1 minute after the above photo was taken:

 We drove all the way to Birch Bay with her wearing this ensemble.  She napped the entire way.  We got there in time for lunch at the cottage - mini burgers prepared by my Father who refused to make any other face than this when photographed:

 My patriotic child in red white and blue:

 My brother and sister in law (due in January):

 Scott and Emily drove their camper up and Edie was fascinated with the bunk beds and required everyone to cram into them more than once:

 Mini burgers with cheese:

 My parents:

 My Grandmother (or as Edie calls her "GGBee" for Great Grandma Bee - she and Edie share the same middle name of "Bee"):

 Low tide that afternoon:

 These photos are not flattering, but my Mom made me pose with my low-class, improvised version of an American flag cake.  The second one is particularly embarrassing, but at the same time makes me laugh really hard every time I look at it. Edie wanted to pose with me (she made the cake after all - I just frosted it) but wedged herself in between me and the cake in such a way that it tipped me over backwards and I almost dumped the entire cake in the process of trying to land gracefully.  Keeping my grip on the cake - check. Landing gracefully? Not so much.

 Hopefully my brother reads this blog, but this photo is JUST for him (his dog Kona wearing Edie's hat):

 Sparklers (they were mostly duds):

 I walked Edie down to the beach for fireworks with my brother and Emily (Jeff was reclining on the couch with a giant sack of frozen tater tots on his neck).  You wouldn't know it, but these were taken past 9pm:

The fireworks at the beach were OUT OF CONTROL.  Highschool boys everywhere, blowing up shit left and right.  We promptly got sand and gunpowder blown directly into our eyes and Edie was
d-o-n-e. I am 200% positive that at least one person lost a finger at Birch Bay that night. But by the time that probably happened, we were driving south to sleep at my parents' house.  Edie crashed hard on the way there and was easily undressed and tucked in without waking.  Jeff and his sore neck crawled into bed while I wasn't looking.  So I wrapped myself in a blanket and sat on the deck by myself and watched the 10:30pm Bellingham fireworks show.  It was actually pretty awesome - I really love fireworks and didn't mind all the booms that went late into the night.  It's just one night a year after all...

Orcas weekend

We spent last weekend on Orcas with Jeff's parents.  We would have more photos if it weren't for the fact that Jeff started the weekend 36 and ended the weekend 100 years old.  He has managed to mysteriously develop hip and knee pain (that moves from knee to knee and hip to hip depending on the day) and hasn't been able to move his neck since Saturday night.  In short, my husband is a hot mess. He's seen the doctor (twice) and a massage therapist and nothing so far seems to be making much progress.  Anyways, my point is just that half the weekend was a bit of a loss and we forgot to take photos.  It was still (as always) worth the trip though.

Jeff when he was still 36.

With Gramma Fifi on their way to the beach.

Collecting treasures.  She could (and did) do this for hours.

Whipping cream QC for our strawberry shortcake.

Attempting homemade tortillas with Grandma.

New Shampoo

It dawned on me after cursing angrily that I was probably one of the few out there that would have that reaction to realizing that I'd accidentally bought "Volumizing" shampoo AND conditioner.  AT COSTO.  So get ready Seattle.  Because this hair is about to get even bigger.  Oops.

Strawberry Picking

Last week, we went strawberry picking at a u-pick farm on the East Side.  We strapped an extra carseat into our neighbor's car, which made for 3 carseats across the back of the SUV.  Edie and Penny giggled and generally made a racket while gobbling down Annie's cheddar bunnies the entire drive there.  It was muddy from all the rain so I left the camera in the car while we picked, then tried to get it out afterwards for a few shots.  But we were all so muddy by that point that I stopped trying.  We did a cursory hose-down at the farm before climbing back into the car slightly less caked in mud for the drive home.  The girls polished off strawberries and pb&j's on route to our house, where it was decided that the girls needed a bath. BADLY. Edie and Penny decided that the bath was to be had together.  Some of the cutest of these photos are NSFTB (not suitable for the blog) due to adorable nude toddler rumps - but these are still pretty great shots.

I dressed my kid like a Punky Brewster ragamuffin because it was chilly and I knew she'd get covered in strawberries and mud.

Jam making.  Before it got super stressful:

Sometimes we wear tutus in public

A recent trip to Gasworks Park.