everything you ever wanted to know...

what have we been up to lately? Well, it's been a hectic week, full of just about everything that can come our way. For starters, our house helper was gone for half the week - which I realize puts me back in the ranks of pretty much every mother in America, having to make my own meals and wash my own clothes, poor me, I know - but it sort of threw my whole week off. BUT we made it, even with the rest of our crazy week.

Josh fell down on a spot in our kitchen that always seems to accumulate water after washing dishes. It was a particularly nasty fall, the type that turn your knees and ankles all sorts of colors and evoke lots of sympathy. For a few days, he couldn't even really walk on it, but things are better now and he is back to his almost-normal self. He's excited about starting school next week, and is at school right now taking some placement tests for the upcoming semester.

Emma has somehow arranged a meeting of her two "favorites" - a few nights ago at dinner, she announced to us that Swiper the fox swiped Lightning McQueen and Mater's wheels, but he felt sad so he gave them back. Apparantly, Lightning and Mater were really excited to get their wheels back. This has also been a week of scrapes and bruises for Emma. The weather here has been ultra-fabulous, with cotton candy clouds and periwinkle skies, hot sun, but a nice cool breeze. Summer is definetly over here and autumn is on its way, so it's perfect outside weather. This week we were outside every day: Monday was to a park down the street, Tuesday was the park with the swings (one of emma's favorites), Wednesday was in our courtyard playing with sidewalk chalk, Thursday was hanging out at a park by our friends' house with big rocks that Emma could throw into a pond (way cool to a two year old!), and then today we went to another friend's house after a special breakfast at McD's. But all those outings are hard on a two year old! Emma has twice gotten bloody knees from falling, and her legs have their fair share of bruises as well. Getting the bandaid when we get back home, though, seems to make up for it and she takes her sweet time selecting her choice from the hello kitty and dora options available to her.

Samantha keeps us living in fear with her newfound fearlessness at crawling on everything, but has managed to keep her spills down to a minimum lately. Her newest vocabulary word is "doh-dee", which means Dora in Manthanese. She is always requesting Doh-ee; not so much to actutally watch the movie but to hold her precious doh-dee doll that was sent to her by my parents. And my most favorite samantha-development to report is that her "I love you's" are getting so fun and sweet. We probably ask her to say I love you six thousand times a day, but everytime she says it, she adds lots of "love"s in there and she always specifies "daddy" at the end, even if she's talking to someone else. So it comes out sounding like "I whuv whuv whuv you, daddy". It's great. :)

And me, what about me? Well, I'm eating chocolate cake right now. My friend Rachel is coming back to my city in less than one week and my parents are coming to visit in just about a month - a double hooray! Things are good for me.

In other past news that I have been too lazy to blog about, we went fishing with my house helper and her family a few weekends ago. It had the potential to be a never-ending asianese outing, but since my house helper knows me so well, it was actually all arranged perfectly according to the times of when my children would get tired and cranky. In fact, the outing was WAY fun. We piled four adults and three children in a little Geo-metro type car and drove way out to the countryside, to some friend of a friend's house who had a pond. My house helper's husband brought along all the equipment and his own special-made fish food, which looked like some combination of dirt and little white things, but what do I know about that? Nothing.

(We were informed that these were for eating. Of course, we thought, what else would you do with them...?)

Anyway, we had a fun time. Emma helped daddy catch some fish, and then loved watching them swim around in the basin where they awaited their fate. She kep throwing leaves in the basin. As if those poor fish needed any more drama in their lives. The ponds had huge lotus blossoms and lily pad things that the girls so loved, and even though we were all dirty and tired by the time we made it home, it was a fun afternoon.

Later that night, some friends came over just as emma was going to bed, and Emma was delighted to discover that when people come over late at night, she can get out of going to bed! She was a great hostess and made sure everyone - everyone - had their own hat to wear. You couldn't get by with just leaving your hat sitting on your lap. No, siree. (Mantha had no hat because she, unlike emma, did not get to stay up past her bedtime.)

Another thing we started a little more than a month ago was "Family Fun Night", and emma is already hooked and looks forward to it every week. This is when mantha goes to bed (I'm sure later on we'll let her stay up too) and then we do fun things like make a big bowl of popcorn, play games, or watch a movie. But, of course, half the fun is getting to stay up past your bedtime. The last three times, we've played this new board game that Emma likes to play. It's been sort of interesting, teaching her the concept of rules and congratulating winners and losers, and playing to have fun, taking turns, and stuff like that. Family Fun Night is fun times. Maybe as the girls get older, I'll have to figure out how to make Blizzards like my dad used to make during my own childhood "family fun nights". My siblings and I loved having sleepovers in the living room and playing games or watching movies and eating dad's blizzards.