Quick 5

This morning the first words out of the girls' mouths were "Happy Cow Appreciation Day!"  Because this day is worthy of a greeting like that.  It might be our favorite day of the summer.

1.  I got a new computer from Hofgard Benefits to assist in the work I do for them.  As such, I've been busy transferring over all my documents and pictures to this newer, faster, better machine.  I set my screen saver to a slide show of all my pictures, which is something I hadn't done on my other laptop.  So now, every time it switches over to the screen saver, we are treated to pictures going all the way back to 2010.  And if we happen to see it, it paralyzes us.  We literally cannot do anything else, because we're staring at all the pictures sail by in random order.  Lee calls it "Awwww!" time.  Because that's all you hear while it's going on.  And being someone who generally does not feel like times flies, it amazes me to see how much these girls have really grown in such a short amount of time.

2.  I'm sure you've all seen the picture of me and giant bowl of spaghetti.  The one you've seen is not even the full picture of all the glorious Blue Parrot that we enjoyed:

That's a giant bowl of spaghetti, four meatballs and four sausages.  It's called the Mangia Mangia, and technically it IS family style (which is how we enjoyed it thank you very much) but apparently if you order it and eat the whole thing by yourself in an hour, you get it for free AND you get your picture on their wall.  If any of you decide to take up that challenge, let me know.  I'd like to watch.

3.  The saddest news of the week is when I discovered that Joya and Bria do not like watermelon.  I bought the first one of the summer, cut it up (which is always a huge chore in itself) and excitedly gave my girls the juiciest, reddest pieces I could find.  Alaina scarfed hers down with all the appropriate "yum" sounds.  Joya nibbled at hers and whined about it.  Bria took one tasted, scraped it off her tongue and out of her mouth and then proceeded to throw the rest of hers on the floor.  I feel like they are going to miss out on an important part of their childhood by rejecting watermelon.  Also, I'm not sure Alaina and I can take down the whole thing by ourselves, even with how much we love it.

4. The preferred activity each day has been playing in the sprinkler.  I've been having a hard time convincing them to play outside for more than 12 minutes lately, but turning on the sprinkler has been the key.  They'll even play happily outside for, like, an hour after I've turned it off.  I'm going to ride this train as far as it will go.

 5.  Bria has been giving me false hope about potty training this week.  It is quite obvious when she needs to do some hard core business in her diaper.  And if you ask her in the middle of it what she's doing, she'll look at you and say "Boop."  And when she's done, she'll say the same thing, then "Pee yew.  Teenty."  I feel like the recognition of what is going on is a HUGE step in potty training.  But then I remember that she's only 16 months old.  And I still want to stick with my plan that she either potty trains herself, or I'll start the training after she turns 3.  3 is a long way off.  So I'm trying not to get my hopes up.  But it's hard every time I hear her tiny voice say "Boop."

Next week begins the long-awaited swimming lessons!  Alaina will be a whale and Joya will be a goldfish.  And Bria will probably be a huge pain.