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Sunday, August 26, 2007

This week in the hottest August on record in North Carolina....

We had a pretty good week. Monday and Tuesday, there was a lot of art being created at our house. The girls do love it when we get out the paint!

Also, on Wednesday we went up to the Homeschool Gathering Place, to see if they might have a used copy of a reading program I'd like to use for the Bean. They didn't have it, and for the FIRST TIME EVER I didn't buy anything while I was there! Woo Hoo!

Then, I took the girls over to the nearby mall - not high on my list of fun places, usually, but we had some clothes to return for Schmooey that I'd bought, and Kanki is there - my very favorite Japanese steak house. The girlies were sure that Subway was the better choice, but I was able to convince them to try Kanki with me, and they had a great time. It's one of those places where they come out and grill the food right in front of you plus do nifty things with their knives and such. The girls were fascinated! Emma told me she was so interested in watching our chef that she actually forgot about horseback lessons for a few minutes. That in itself was quite a miracle. Abbie decided to try shrimp, and she really liked it! She even ate all her leftovers. It seems that my choice of restaurants was a hit!

After Kanki, we wandered over to the Disney store and found Schmooey's coming home outfit! I was so excited.

Saturday was my birthday, and the girls painted picture frames for me. They did such a nice job! Abbie had decided at least a week before that she wanted to make a picture frame for me. We nearly had a crisis when Emma said something about Abbie wanting a picture for me while we were at Target. We were able to avoid catastrophe when I told Abbie that we would pretend Emma didn't say anything, and that I wouldn't remember it. Abbie was much relieved and said, "That's right, you don't remember things very well, do you, Mom?" Heh. Sad, but true.

Todd gave me new Birkenstocks for my birthday - woo hoo! They are the same style as my old ones, but you certainly wouldn't know it by comparing the old pair to the new pair. The old ones have paint, spit-up, and various other substances of unknown origin staining them. The new ones are still suede-looking and clean. They are a new canvas awaiting their stains from the walk of life. Ha.

Monday, August 06, 2007

That Silly Baby!

I went to the OB this morning for my first of two appointments this week - since I'm taking insulin for gestational diabetes, they do a non-stress test and check my amniotic fluid level twice weekly. Fun, eh?

This morning the baby was, of course, fine - squirming all over the place, not letting us find his heartbeat for more than a few seconds at a time, but they finally had enough of accelerations in his heartbeat to be done with the test. When we went for the ultrasound, we discovered that he is breech AGAIN. The little stinker. He couldn't make this easy and be cooperative and stay head down, oh no. Those brief days of him being in the right position were just a ploy to lull me into a false sense of security.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Unknowingly, a Field Trip!

Yesterday, I took the girls to Duke Gardens in Durham, NC to have their pictures taken. A friend of mine had made an arrangement with a local photographer, which allowed several families to have "abbreviated" sittings (no outfit changes, about 20 minutes each) for no sitting fee, and then we can decide to purchase pictures, or not. I hope we get some good ones - Emma was feeling weepy over her pony from horse camp who she has not seen in a few weeks and is next on the list to retire - in a couple of years. We won't go into how I felt about that.

We have lived in North Carolina for 9 years, and never been to Duke Gardens. It is one of "THE things" to see and do here, but you know, it meant driving to Durham and probably getting lost on Duke's campus and..... I am not a touristy kinda gal, really, so we never went.

Anyhoo, we were over by the goldfish pond for pictures, and when we were done, the girls were naturally drawn to the water. Do you know we saw at least 4 or 5 kinds of tadpoles in there? We saw some huge ones that had to be bullfrogs, and several different smaller kinds. Of course I did not have a camera (it was a million degrees and humid and I did not want to be there any longer than I had to be), but I wish I'd thought to at least take a small net and a jar... oh, wait. I bet the Duke Gardens people would have frowned heavily upon my snagging tadpoles for brief observation from among all those incredible water lilies.

In the short walk we had to and from the photo-taking area, we saw lots of beautiful flowers. We will definitely be going back when it's cooler to poke around a bit more.

Naturally, on the way home we found ourselves to be what you might term "slightly misdirected." I came in on Anderson Street and went out on Anderson Street, but apparently it's a kind of magic road that changes its position in the universe from time to time because where I came out and where I came in were not the same and the way out didn't take me back to the highway. Thanks to my very wonderful husband and the new AAA maps he just put in my car last week, I was able to figure it out and take a different way home. If you know how directionally challenged I am, this was no small feat. We ended up going by the mall with Pottery Barn Kids store, so we stopped in there and got a wonderful, soft blanket for Schmooey. It was tax-free weekend here in NC, and it was not my first choice of days to go to the mall, but it means I don't have to go back, so it was worth the effort.

In other breaking news, on the way home from the pool last night, the girls were "flying" with their towels as wings, running down the sidewalk. Abbie fell and scraped her poor little nose and forehead on the sidewalk. Thankfully, this time it was AFTER pictures. Extra specially thankfully, she did not give herself a concussion, black eyes, or break her nose.