I Survived the Heatwave of '09

The subtitle to this blog reads, "When Did I Become Old?"

I remember the last time the Pacific Northwest had a lot of high temperatures, which we were not used to, when I was living in Seattle. Around my 16th year, it was hot during the summer. Really hot. And I loved it! I remember hoping that the temperature would get to be 100 degrees and stay that way for a while. We didn't have air conditioning, and I didn't care. I just wanted the heat.

How am I so much older than my 16-year-old self and pray that the temperature stays in the high 80s? When did I get to be one of those "adults" who can only talk about the heat and how hot it is. And just sit in the one air-conditioned room of our house waiting for coolness to come. I choose to believe I am not that old yet! Pardon me while I go listen to some music way too loudly!

Ok, on a much cuter note, we survived the heat by hanging out with friends and plenty of water activities for the kids. A friend of mine, Lara, invited a bunch of friends over to her house where we let them play in pools, slides, and the timeless classic, Slip-N-Slide (it's a lot of fun to play when the sprinklers all the way!) Today, Sarah and I took the girls to a local park that had a sand pit and a little waterfall/wading pool right by each other. I guess it's like being at the beach....getting sandy and then going in the water, but it seemed a bit odd to me. Erika loved it, though! She cracks me up because she will dig in the sand or mud forever, but once she realizes she has a bit of dirt on her hands, she freaks out. Silly girl! Laurel just loved the Cheerios I had for her.

Laurel's first taste of yummy big kid food....a cookie! I'm trying to fatten her up for her weight check appointment in a couple weeks.

Lara's homemade water slide. The kids loved it!

Better than spending money going to a real water park.

Lara is explaining to all the moms that we should tell our husbands how much money we saved going to her house instead of paying to go to a water park. Which reminds me, I need to cash in on that suggestion of shopping.......

Erika and her friend, Larissa, loved this toy the most...a storage box with water in it.

Erika ran down the slip and slide when it was first set up, fell backwards and bumped her head. This was her reaction to it again when I told Sarah to throw her down the slide. She's lucky Aunt Sarah was the one holding her....I would have just made her go down!

Eating lunch with her friends.

Laurel munched on Cheerios while Erika played in the sand. This is what she looks like .5 seconds before she sneezes!

Is there anything cuter?

After the sand, we head to the water!

Making sand towers.

Beating the Heat

Our local weather station has been giving us tips to beat the heat in our 100+ degree temperatures. Their list is good and helpful. Some of their tips include:

-Wear light, loose-fitting clothing.
-Stay inside.
-Eat small meals.
-Drink plenty of water.

Yep, those are all good ways to stay cool.

I took it upon myself to make my own beating the heat tips. They include:

-Go swimming with your two-year-old in her kiddie pool. Go ahead and let her splash you!
-Don't do any housework. At all. It's too hot.
-Avoid the oven, stove, microwave, and toaster. Anything that will provide heat. Instead, go out to eat. If you can't afford to go out to eat, just eat a bowl of ice cream for dinner.
-Cram the entire family in the one room that has an window air conditioner.
-Ask your friends and family to surprise you with a gift of $14,000....enough money to install central air conditioning. If that price is too steep, perhaps a gift of a Cold Stone Creamery gift card. Whatever their budget affords.

Yes, I like that list better!

Weekend Update

We had such a fun weekend! Newberg held their Old Fashioned Festival....I love a good community festival!

-The festival kicked off Thursday evening with a Children's Parade. Basically, if you are a kid, you can line up with a bunch of other kids and march around four blocks. I pulled Erika in a wagon for the parade. She looked confused the entire time! I think she had fun, but she wasn't sure why everyone on the side of the road was cheering for and waving at her. That doesn't normally happen on our walks!

Erika in the Children's Parade.

-On Friday, we went to the main carnival area for dinner and to look at all the booths. I had my annual carnival corn dog, which was delicious! Erika got to slide down a big huge slide with Mommy....for $2.50. And yet she won't slide down the free slides at the park. Hmmm.....

-Saturday, the main parade came right past our house, which was really nice! We had a friend and her son come over to watch the parade with us. The fire trucks led the parade, with their sirens on, so Erika got scared right away. After that noise ended, and I had calmed her down a bit, there was an honor guard on horseback and one of the horses whinnied right as it went by us. Well, that was the end of parade fun for Erika. For the rest of the parade, she sat on Daddy's lap in the shade and watched the parade from a safe distance.

-Sunday, Matt went up to Seattle for the Mariners game. The girls and I had fun going to lunch with Aunt Sarah and some friends and then swimming in the pool in the front yard to try and stay cool. Daddy brought the girls some neat presents from the game!

We love the Mariners!

-Well, we are finally going to break down and buy a window AC unit. The forecasts is calling for 100+ temperatures for the next three days. The girls are already little balls of sweat when they are trying to sleep, so we're going to put the AC in their room. Of course, as soon as we spend the money on the unit, the temperature will probably fall to 70 degrees. If that happens, you can thank the Hammar family!

-How is it that Erika is looking a lot less like a baby and more like a little girl?

Little girl vs. baby.

-Slug update: Can't find it. I choose to believe that Wyatt ate it.

Slow Mover

Did you know that average slug moves at a pace of 0.014 ft/sec.? I did.
This morning as I filled Wyatt's dog dish, I noticed a little glistening string in his food. Oh, I thought, it must be Wyatt slobber. Gross. But, upon further investigation, I found said glistening slime on top of his water dish, on the towel under his dishes, and on the wall behind his dishes. Uh oh. Slug.
You see, Matt takes Wyatt for a walk in the morning before he leaves for work. Twice before, I have found a little slug that must have came into the house on Wyatt or on Matt's shoes. Both times, the slugs were tiny and I just put them outside. This latest slug encounter, however, has produced slime, but no slug. Which means there might be a slug somewhere in the house. And it is moving at 0.014 feet per second. And I need to find it, if it is indeed here, before it makes a home on my Diet Pepsi or my zucchini bread.

Baby #2

Anyone who has more than one child will admit that the second child does not get as much camera time as the first child. Henceforth, this post is devoted to our adorable second child, Laurel!

She loves to be on her tummy!

I think this is why Laurel doesn't weigh much....she is constantly rolling over and turning circles!

Erika is a good sharer....Laurel, however, needs to work on her sharing skills. She would scream every time Erika took her cup away.

Sprinkler

I just really like this picture! Check out the hair.

The sprinkler finally came out of the garage this week. Erika loved it! She was way more playful in the sprinkler this summer than last summer. And, it looks like Laurel is planning to be a water baby as well.

The story behind this video: Matt had Erika picking up her little Playmobil people today. As she put them away, she was saying, "Night-night men. I love you! See you tomorrow!" In this video, she is saying, "Night-night horsey. See you tomorrow!" Which is so cute because every night before she goes to bed, I say, "Good-night baby girl. I love you! See you tomorrow!"

On another note: Erika's favorite new phrase is, "I don't want to". What?! Where did she learn that? She has only been saying for 3 days and I am already sick of it! And she's only two. Yikes!

*And, I'd like to apologize to my mom for saying that phrase while growing up. How irritating!

I have nothing exciting to say, just wanted to share some pictures!

Why are kids so much cuter asleep than they are awake?

Erika continues to practice being a mommy.

First, she helps Laurel have a bottle.

Then, she helps her baby have some Cheerios!

Laurel loves her playpen. And so do I, since she is now scooting along the floor so this is safer for her against her sister, and the dog.

Erika loves to read, and is trying to instill that love to Laurel. She is saying, "Laurel, goat"; "Laurel, car"....etc. Wyatt seems less enthralled with the reading lesson.

And, if one video of Erika reading wasn't enough, here is another! She can say almost all of the animals in this book. Here, she is saying, "Pig, duck, lamb, chicken, raccoon, monkey, alligator, zebra".

Thoughts Running Through My Head

-I love that my girls share a room. They are really good about it too. Even if Laurel is crying, Erika just calmly waits for her to get quiet and then they both go to sleep. This morning, after I got out of the shower, I heard Laurel fussing so I went in their room. Erika was also awake just sitting in her bed. I said, "Did you girls decide you didn't want to sleep anymore?" To which Erika answered, "No, her" and pointed to Laurel as if it was her fault that they were awake. Too sweet!

-Do you think more people would understand and appreciate God's love if we just sang nursery school songs to them? I do. I love how the songs that Erika and Laurel sing in Sunday school tell them exactly what they need to know about God. Such as, "If my name is Laurel, then Jesus is my friend. He loves me and I love Him, Jesus is my friend!"

-Whenever Matt hugs me, and Erika is around, she runs to be a part of the hug. She's done this forever so I started calling them "family hugs". Now, she'll gather two or three of her stuffed animals/babies, hug them, and say "family hug!"

-When we got married almost 6 years ago, we ended up with 5 sets of Rubbermaid containers, 3 sets of Corning ware and a ton of measuring cups and spoons. Of course, I returned most of the duplicate sets. Now, I am regretting it. I could really use another Rubbermaid container set as we always have leftovers. And, my measuring cups are slowly breaking or disappearing. And, I can't find my teaspoons. Which means when I make a double batch of chocolate chip cookies, I have to use the 1/4 measuring cup to add 4 1/2 cups flour, which means I am bound to lose track of my counting, which means I had to make a 2.5x batch of cookies.

-This is my all-time favorite picture of Erika.

We were at our friends, the Slates', house on Lake Coeur d'Alene. She was 3 months old and even though she didn't go in the water, I still put her polka dot bikini on her. She was crying because she was tired and hungry, but I like to think it's because she didn't want me to take a picture of her in a bikini with those thighs!

Have a great Tuesday!

Bathroom Remodel

Here are the long awaited pictures of our bathroom remodel! I love our new bathroom....Matt did an awesome job. Now, if it only had a self-cleaning option....
Lovely brown linoleum.

Smelly, brown and orange vanity cabinet.



Complete with clutter



New cabinet, vanity and backsplash.

New tile floor!

So much brighter and prettier.

New door and trim.

New toilet.

Holiday Weekend

We had a really fun 4th of July! Our holiday fun started on Friday, when Erika went to her friend's birthday party at a fun indoor play gym. She had a blast....as did Mommy and Aunt Sarah who got to climb around with her and play Skee-ball! While we were having fun, Matt and his dad were back at the house installing our new windows. That's right, Matt has been quite the handyman lately, doing projects that he has never done before, but they turn out beautifully! The new windows are awesome! They look a lot nicer than the old ones, they have screens on them so we can now open our windows, and they make the house a lot more quiet. He still has 6 more windows to install, which we hope to get done this week/weekend.

On Saturday, we went to our good friends', Casey and Allyson, house. We had a really fun time visiting and eating. Erika found a new friend in Allyson....she wouldn't leave her alone! On our drive home, we saw some fireworks going off here and there, and our neighbors put on a little show that we watched as well.

In other Hammar baby news, Laurel is now rolling from her back to tummy, and from her tummy to back. Which means she is now mobile. Which means I need to get out the pack 'n' play so she is contained. She seems to roll herself over to things that she is not suppose to touch, ie, the baseboard heaters, fans, Wyatt. But, it's a lot of fun to see how happy she is with her new skill.

Here are some pictures from the 4th!

Patriotic family.

Erika's paying attention....

....and now Laurel is paying attention.

One of the guys.

Little Swimmers

Laurel got her first taste of swimming yesterday. Since the thermometer soared up to 90 degrees yesterday, the girls and I went to swim in Aunt Sarah's pool. Erika took swimming lessons last summer so I knew she loved the water! I was a little more skeptical of Laurel, as she is much more of a delicate flower than Erika is so I thought she wouldn't like being wet. But, alas, she loved it! She looked like a little frog just kicking her legs all over. And, Erika rediscovered her love of a swimming pool.

Can't wait to go swimming!

Aunt Sarah and a timid Erika.

Laurel is gearing up for her big swim.

She likes it! Or, she likes the rings.

Just a little at a time.

Swimming Hammars.

My Crack

Sarah received a water bottle full of different candies as a thank you gift for working at VBS. This afternoon, we discovered that sticking our nose in the water bottle and inhaling the candy mixture scent is our form of crack. Now, for as long as I can remember, Sarah and I have stuffed our heads in Halloween candy bags to inhale that wonderful scent. But, this is the best we've ever smelled. We just keep trading the water bottle back and forth smelling the sweet goodness. We're addicted!