Mushy Bananas.

Indulge me, I have to get this down before I forget it.

Eva: mommy, we have a lot of mushy bananas.

Me: that's ok, let's just go make a smoothie.

Eva: no mommy, I want to sell 'em to the neighbors.

Me: what? who?

Eva: to the neighbors.

Me: oh, ok

Then I went on to distract her from that inspiring idea.

That was yesterday. Last night we were in the car returning home from visiting Tony's folks. I remembered that Eva said something funny about selling something to the neighbors and I wanted to tell Tony and Emily. So, I look back at her sitting in her carseat and I ask her "what was it that we are going to sell to the neighbors?" She looked at me seriously and said "mushy bananas."

I proceeded to tell the story to Tony and Emily and they got a nice kick out of that and then I asked Eva if she knew which neighbor we should peddle our mushy bananas to and she actually had a specific neighbor in mind. I really don't think this gentleman would find the same humor that we did.

Today, after a trip to Costco for our six gallons of milk and great big gobs of other things that we needed, we made lunch and we made smoothies. Three mushy bananas unsold and pulverized in the Vita Mix along with the frozen mixed berries, the pineapple core and the grapes, ice, vanilla soymilk and honey.

There you are. That's what we do [and think of doing] with our mushy bananas.

Off now for a night swim with Emily. Summer is grand.

Summer Afternoon.

"Summer afternoon-summer afternoon; to me these have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." - Henry James

Summer isn't my favorite season, but I'll agree that the word summer + the word afternoon rouse some pretty terrific feelings. It feels, warm, happy, fun and easy. Easy, like Sunday morning, those Commodores were brilliant.

Emily loved her volleyball camp last week. Her coaches asked the girls to bring a photo of someone who inspires them; she picked my Mom. Sweet.

I have five little people this morning, Emily [for the first time] had a friend sleep over last night. I'm relieved to find them awake and not in sugar induced comas since the birthday party we took them to yesterday set a record for the most candy + cake distributed and consumed - ever! They're getting ready for a morning swim and I think I'll go too. It'll be my first morning swim; so far with the pool, I've been a late afternoon or nightswimmer. R.E.M. had it goin' on too, I might have to revisit that one, sweetness may follow.

Hi Mom, me and my tribe of small people are coming to see you this week so call me and tell me what days you want us up.

Little Bits.

We had a great time with my family last weekend. Happy Big-Birthday again Momma! Thanks everybody for coming all this way to spend the day with us and celebrate Mom's birthday and Jake's [my nephew] too. It was so freaking hot that day but we made the best of it by taking regular indoor breaks from watching the kids swim all day. We said boo to the heat and had a BBQ anyway, it was all good and all yum. I wish we got together more often, I love my family! Here's a big 'ol colorful + busy collage for a peek.

That first picture shows my mother reading a stat sheet I printed from the year she was born, zoom up and look at her friend Brenda's reaction to one of the items she read, I love it. That's my sister Alicia in the black top and my brother Jimmy down at the bottom right wearing the USA wifebeater. My sister Renee's in the blue tee. The picture of my mom with her grandchildren is sweet. Absent from the grandkids photo: Eva, who was inside taking a little nap.

Moving on to the not so retro...

Emily has had half day volleyball camp all week and Wyatt and Sarah are still golfing weekly. Not a whole lot more going on for us this week, which is nice. It's good to be slow and easy sometimes. We have lots of family birthdays [I mean lots, like ten!] in the next few weeks so I suspect we will be eating scads of birthday cake and summering ourselves up outdoors too. I'm needed by little people who need super important things at this very moment, I'm off. More later.

Tee Time.

Wannna have a tea party? I do make a pitcher of ice tea nearly every day this time of year so any day's a good day for that. Did I tell you that Wyatt and Sarah are taking a weekly golf lesson for beginners? They're loving it and they can both hit the ball pretty good. Here's a little peek at their first two weeks:

I had great plans of things I wanted to accomplish this week but most of them are undone. It's just so darn hot, it sucks the life right out of me. This morning I am going to go out and get some yard work done while it's still only 75º or so. After that a much dreaded trip to the grocery store. I can hardly bear to take all four of them there but I just gotta go. I have avoided doing so this whole summer if you can believe that. I confess I have taken them to Costco a few times. Usually, I go when some or all of them are in school, except Eva, she's always stuck with me!

I better get myself outside before it gets any hotter! Oh July, be sweet and chill just a little bit.

Colorful Summer.

The princesses on the kickboard were so funny, Emily set them adrift [which completely delighted Eva!] and then desperately tried to avoid having her picture taken with them [she's 11 and would rather eat her veggies than be seen with the princesses]. Typical princesses, waiting around for a prince to save them instead of taking charge of their own destiny. Hmm, I have three daughters, there's a lesson here.

Emily is a certified book worm these days, she reads four or five a week and she plans our weekly trip to the library. Her current favorite are Nancy Drew, she has nearly made it through an entire series. It's so marvelous to see because a few years ago she was loath to read a book, so don't give up if you have one that you have to bribe to read, it could turn around.

My mouse is not behaving and I'm about to slam it! This post has taken me forever, I think tomorrow I will drag out my old corded one, hook it up and take my chances. Update: did it, old mouse works fine so I'm keeping my sanity today. Nothing slammed.

Are you ready for another edition of the things my little people say? Ready or not!

1 & 2. Tony took the kids for a bike ride and Eva rolled in after everyone else and proclaimed happily, "Mommy, I'm the last winner!" After that, the big girls wanted to go for another ride but it was already late so Tony told them it was getting too dark. Wyatt pointed at the reflector attached to the handle bars of Tony's bike and said, "you have a light, it turns on when it sees dark!"

3. I was shucking corn and Wyatt excitedly said to me, "Wow! I didn't know that it came in a wrapper!"

4. Eva was eating macaroni & cheese and said this to me: "Mom, first it goes in your neck, then it goes to your belly. I'm gonna have a fat fat belly!"

5. Friday, we rode our bikes to the park, I towed Eva in the trailer this time so she wasn't the winner. Anyway, Eva and I decided to go down the slide together, you know the tunnel one where you go in up at the top and you come out at the bottom? Halfway down, the rubber soles of my sneakers became lodged in the wall of the tunnel and we twisted around and did finally [and a little painfully for me] come out the bottom. Sarah saw us come down and she was screaming from across the park, "Momma, why did you come down butt first?" My scrapes and scratches are still healing, motherhood is so glamourous!

In other news, I did make the time last week to actually finish a project. I saw these little hand stitched books and I had a burning desire to make one myself. Check it out, it's lovely to behold!
I tried follow an online tutorial but I just wasn't getting it, so I purchased a kit that included the tutorial [from the lovely Eve Johnson] and I was able to figure it out and I think I did it right because the sky opened up and a bright light shone down on me. I immediately wanted to make another one but couldn't find the supplies locally so I am waiting for them to come to my mailbox. I'm super anxious to make another one!

So looking forward to this. If you can believe it, my family is coming to visit! You don't see a lot of them on the blog because, neither do I. It's not for lack of want or missing one another, it's just plain old time and distance. We actually have worked out a plan that will bring us all together, sans one brother, for a day, and I could not be happier! Yay! A reluctant someone also has a very big milestone birthday in a few days [hi mom! love you!]

So far July is pretty cool, and it may get better.

Thank You June!

Thank you June, you were loads of fun! You gave us a whole month of swimming + some extreme weather! You also gave us more work than we could handle but you are forgiven and I still like you. Ahem.

The first three weeks, or so, of June we chilled out with below average temps. Not bad, terrific actually, unless you have a shiny new swimming pool to christen and you want it to be HOT! Then this past week the hot stuff finally arrived with a vengeance! Busting out like it had been restrained and finally freed itself with a powerful burst of BAM, here I am! HOT! HOT!

We celebrated Emily's 11th last week and had lots of girlfriends over Friday afternoon to help us do it right. Before Tony got home from work, Wyatt was the only lonely boy out of 13 partying + splashing females. For birthdays, I am usually behind schedule. I start strong because Emily and I like making invitations, but then I always run out of steam and much of my grand plan/scheme falls apart.

[Note to self: please stop always trying to make the cake yourself, you aren't very good at it and it takes you way way too much time and ends up stressing you out because you have no time]

Thank goodness, and all my lucky stars, for my sister-in-law Ana, who showed up at precisely the perfect time to help us get ready and saved me from a minor meltdown!

Later, Nena brought Emma and made the party complete. Nena and I took care of the business of the party, she is the best, I'm beginning to wonder how I could make it through a birthday party without her.

So a party thrown by me can go one of two ways. It can either be a partial smashing success, or a massive failure. Happily, I just learned that when you have a swimming pool, it is not possible to fail! You even get bonus points if it's really hot outside! I got the bonus points because it was finally mid 90's here in the geographic middle of California.

In other news, we [well, mostly Tony] have been working our a***s off in the backyard and I am wondering when we will be able to slow down and enjoy it! Yesterday when it was only 100 degrees, I finished painting the patio. I know it sounds ridiculous but it had to be done because all things outside were in complete disarray and we couldn't even sit and relax because things were in complete disarray.

So finally, last night we put things back in order, cleaned up and now can relax a bit. We even hung these cute little candle/bell decor things on the patio that Tony purchased from someones "candle catalog" at work six years ago!

I told Tony NO MORE WORK until Friday and even then ONLY the small stuff! I'm thinking the big projects are behind us and now we can tackle the lesser ones like the landscaping front + back + the garden at a much SLOWER and EASIER pace. *exhale*

Just this morning:
Today, Emily and Sarah are on an all day Girl Scout excursion to San Jose and Wyatt and Eva are hanging out with me. We're going to do extra FUN things today, like, well, I dunno. But, they will be FUN...NO WORK! Let's try July!