Spiders and Hearts

Greetings friends and family,

The lack of close friends, home repair, and church here in Sacramento is a true blessing when it comes to the amount of quality and quantity time I'm able to be with Easton and Layla.  Kendra took Layla to Megan's house for a sleep-over and Ouma was away for a time that evening.  I asked Easton, "what do you want to play?"  He quickly pulled out his wicker basket of Nerf guns and we had a blast.  Ouma's arm chair covers worked perfectly as camouflage hats.  Sorry about that, Ouma.   He's proficient at cocking the six-shooter and his aim would be painful if it weren't for those soft nerf darts and suction cup tips.  Thank God.  

For our boys night he wanted to eat at home so we had delicious leftovers.  He didn't want to eat out, get a treat somewhere, or go anywhere for any reason.  Just a rowdy night at home with just the two of us.  I'm conscious about how much adventuring we do outside of the house because sometimes Easton prefers just hanging out at home with just the two of us.

yesterday Kendra pulled out the paint and did some personalized art work on Easton and Layla's face.  This is probably the result of their face painting experience at the fair last week.  Layla requested Rapunzel and Kendra did a great job.

Easton is intrigued by spiders.  I mean really, really interested.  I have not idea why because Ouma and Kendra don't want to think about, hear about, or look at anything having to do with spiders.  Even so, Kendra granted Easton's request by painting a Black Widow on his face.

I arrived home from work to find the twins swimming in the hot tub.  They both asked me to join them.  Easton said, "but first you have to get your swim suit on...  hurry up!"  Just to be spontaneous I carefully placed my cell phone on the table and hopped in with my clothes on.

They were stunned by my willingness to just jump in with them, but I love shaking things up and getting them to think outside the box.  I'm not bound by age and maturity so much that I can't do something completely silly.  Kendra is wayyyyyy better than me at this, but I'm getting there.

The only deficient area of Easton and Layla report card from preschool was swinging.  So this was their summer homework in action.  That's right...  Of all the criteria tested, Easton and Layla had one area that I didn't even know they tested...  swinging.

Sure would have been nice if the teachers would have given us the report card at the BEGINNING of the school year so we could know more details of expectations.  Don't worry, I won't make that mistake again.  Before the first day of school when Kendra and I go to the "meet the teacher" night I will not leave until i have this year's report card in my hand.

We don't consider reading as one of the homework or school areas.  Reading is a benefit, pleasure, and good consequence for obedience.  I took the twins to the library to load up on books.

I had a serious talk with the head librarian at my request.  I said, "Look, kids don't give a crap about who is the author, so why are the books organized by author?  Please tell the great public library gods in the sky that if I can have just ONE wish it is for them to step into this millennium and organize by topic.  Do you think Barnes and Noble is a good business?  You might want to take a few pointers from them and reconfigure the entire building to be more user friendly."  She agreed whole-heartedly and I felt better getting that off my chest.  

Luckily, Kendra and Ouma showed up to provide the necessary library card to get out the door with our pile of books.  The pleasures of library visits are:  picking out the books, immediate gratification by reading a few while in the library, and then the gift that keeps on giving for days as we read at home.  No, Ouma didn't read the book on spiders Easton picked out.  That one stays hidden in the pile for Daddy to read later.  :)

The park adjacent to the library provided another chance to play outdoors before the sun baked us out.  on the route across the parking lot we crossed a lost rooster from the zoo.  This is as close as I would allow them to get because you never know how territorial a rooster can get.  Explaining to Kendra about our trip to the hospital involving a rooster was not on my agenda for the day.

Kendra did another round of face painting in the afternoon.  I grabbed the camera and pretended to chase Layla around.  I double-backed and caught her by surprise with the camera ready for the shot.

I would never attempt this with a point-and-shoot camera because 100 times out of 100 this would have resulted in a dimly lit blur.  I'm very thankful for my DSLR.  :)  Once we stopped chasing around she let me capture Kendra's handy work of several lovely hearts.

We are loving our time here in Sacramento, but starting to have dreamy longings for our own house and king-size bed.  Our days are numbered and we'll be back to some resemblance of normal.

See you soon!