Colors

When Leila was about Mia's age (2 1/2) if you asked her what her favorite color was, she would respond "Sparkles."

I love how Mia says the color yellow- "el-low". Today when looking at some pieces of felt she held up two and told me that one was pink and one was darkness. Darkness is the color black. 

P.S. Sam just came in and asked what I was typing because he just sat on his chair at dinnertime and then it just tipped over to the side, slamming him into the wall. After seeing that he was pretty much ok I could not help rolling on the floor laughing so hard that tears rolled down my face. 

Is it already the 21st of July????

Wow! Where does the time go? A little update, I will not be offended if you don't read this, it's more for our own family history, but you are definitely welcome to it.

Erica- Has a new calling (responsibility) at church and that is the second counselor in the Primary Presidency. There was a new presidency called about a month ago and I am absolutely loving it! The ladies that I work with are all fun and hardworking. The kids are great and make the last two hours of church fly by! I also have been waking up early to get in a workout video in the morning and my wonderful husband gets up with me. 

Sam- Is out of school, but still has a lot of catch up work to do. This past weekend we spent Saturday finally putting in new flooring from our water heater incident that happened months ago. We are almost done with that. We also have to take down all of the camping equipment after our great adventure with Nate and Heidi and their family (more on that adventure to come, with photos). He is also busy with his calling in the Young Men. And the yard and the garden etc etc...

Leila- Is so good at sounding out words and writing sentences left and right. She is so excited to start Kindergarten in the first part of September. Last week was her last day of preschool. It was sad to end something that has been so wonderful. We started going a little over a year and a half ago to a friends house and we had kind of like a cooperative preschool with other kids. I got to teach for a few months as well. So this past Thursday was a big party for the kids. I hope that I am going to be able to handle life with a child in school every day. I know it will be a life change for me as well as Leila.  Leila's latest funny: We were getting into the car the other day and she told me matter of factly, "Mom, we should learn how to spin straw into gold." I couldn't agree more.

Mia- I love Mia's stage in which she is fluent in language, but still gets some things mixed up- like she calls quesadillas ikeas, and pie ears are pioneers, yellow is ellow, all flies are called Shoo-flies (from the song Shoo fly, don't bother me), and all food eaten not at the table is a tea party. Mia loves playing with Leila and she loves cuddling her sister Lucy. When she wakes up from her naps and in the mornings the first person that she likes to see is Lucy. Mia's take on death- Leila and Mia were telling me about a potato bug that they found and that it was dead. I looked at it and agreed. And then Mia said, "Yep, it's dead. It ran out of batteries".  

Lucy- Is five months and very social. She loves her sisters. She loves to smile and laugh and babble. Fart sounds have been a favorite, as well as sucking on her bottom lip. She is working really hard at learning how to crawl. She can scoot herself around a bit. She unfortunately only likes the taste of mother's milk and gives a huge sour face with everything else, including water.

We have been very blessed with these three sweet, sweet princesses in our home.

Ok, More than Blue Skies

                                

We had a couple of nice days and now it is horrible outside. Right now the temperature is 106 and has been like this for the past week. This does not help the wildfires. I just got back from play McDonalds and it looked like there was lots of fog all around, but it is smoke from the fires. California is burning and it is pretty scary.

Here are the statewide fire statistics: (these numbers are total fires and acres that have occured beginning on June 20, 2008)

• Total Fires at Peak: 1,781
  
• Total Fires Contained: 1,458
• Total Active Fires: 323  
• Total Acres Burned: 675,631  
  

These are the Statewide Resources Committed:

• Personnel Committed: 18,954
• Fire Engines: 1,530
• Hand Crews: 388
• Dozers: 259
• Water Tenders: 398
• Helicopters: 110

These firefighters are amazing. They are working so hard. When my dad came through on his motorcycle he said that he drove through a lot of smoke and stayed at the same motel as some of the fire fighters. He said that they came back at night with soot all over them. They are amazing, just as I was driving around town today I was amazed at the few people I saw out walking or biking around at such high temperatures. I could not imagine fighting fires. 

Counting Body Parts

At breakfast Mia was counting her body parts and after counting twooooo arms she put her fingers in her nose and said twoooo boogers. 

Stawberry Boy?

Mia informed us that she wants to grow her hair long like the strawberry boy.

Leila's Card to Sister Hancock

A new primary presidency was called on Sunday. Leila wanted to make the old primary president a card. Who wouldn't love one of these cards? It says: "For Sis Hancock I miss you from church. I love you". See if you can make out the words. I know it is a little light. I am still learning how to use the scanner.

Grandpa's Visit

Saturday morning my mom called and asked if Dad had called me. I said, "no, why?". She then told me that he was coming down and was wanting to drop in. With my parents living in Hawaii, this was very odd to me. I asked if it was a business trip. My mom could not believe that she hadn't told us that Dad bought a motorcycle in Baltimore and drive it all the way through Canada and then was headed down to San Diego before he shipped it off to Hawaii. Deja-vu? Yes. My mom and dad did come through on a cross country trip last year except with a side car and a bike that was a bit older and did not start so well.

As quickly as he came he also had to get back on the road. We loved seeing you, thanks for dropping in Dad.

The Drive In

We saw Wal-ee (sp?) at the Drive-In movie theater. Sadly, they plan to take it down and build a stripmall in August. Drive-Ins are the greatest. Everyone brings lawn chairs and pizzas, snacks etc. Leila is content with a red vine in one hand and a gummy worm in the other.

PreSchool

They made princess Tiaras

Add the lipstick.
Kiss the toad and see who gets the closest. It just happened to be Leila! They also made the clip on ear rings that Leila is wearing.

Dress-ups

With the horrible air quality we did a lot of indoor play this past week and dress-ups seemed to be the theme. The girls were creative, but we sure are glad to see blue skies again.