Pajama Time

Mallory had her first sleepover last weekend. Her neighbor friend, Cami spent the night with us. Here they are working a puzzle LATE at night.

Happy Birthday Clara!

I can't believe my baby is two! We celebrated Veggie Style! Nana did a great job on the cakes. Here's Bob & Larry:

Clara & Jacob in their matching shirts:

King George's Ducky Pond:

Throwing water balloon's at Dave's giant pickle!

Mommy & Clara:

Blowng out her candles:

Back from Vacation

We all had a great time on our vactation. The girls were great. Here are a few highlights:

Meeting Baby Rose in Dallas (will post better pics from the other camera later).

Visiting the Texas State Capitol in Austin:


Hanging out at the Children's Museum in San Antonio:

And of course, Sea World.

Much Change

There's been a lot of change at our house this past week. The girls each got their own room, which meant reorganizing the playroom, ridding the "other" playroom of all the extra odds & end toys, and making a space for Lila's new bed. We gave Mallory the choice of which room she wanted, and she wanted to keep the one she had, so Lila moved into the Veggie Tales room and now she and Mallory both have their own rooms. They're both very excited.

Another change, not quite as exciting for Lila, is that we lost our nanny and the kids began to go to a day care facility. During the school year, they use a preschool curriculum, but during the summer it's a little less structured. Mallory's doing great. She already knew a few of her classmates from school, and she's made the transition fine. Clara, who I was the most worried about has done great. They say she's doing wonderfully. She does fuss a little in the morning when we drop her off, but by the time we reach the lobby, you can see on the screen that she's already settled down and is doing fine.

Lila on the other hand is having a pretty rough time adjusting. She cries when we leave, and frequently has been crying when I pick her up. She cries at home at the mention of day care. It's not pretty. We're hoping that it's just an adjustment and that she'll settle down soon. This morning, she took her American Girl doll and a backpack full of her books to read during rest time, and she said she wasn't going to cry when Kevin dropped her off. (Which didn't hold true, but at least she's trying). Say a little prayer for Lila and her adjustment. She could use it!

(Kevin walking the girls to day care this morning).

National Neighbors Night Out

Just got a couple shots - and none of the neighbors.... I'm so bad! The kids had a good time eating hotdogs, watermellon & chocolate chip cookies, playing with the neighborhood children & running from house to house!

Happy Retirement!

My Dad retired last week from Dow Chemical, where he worked for... well, let's just say since I was 18 months old, and I'm not young.

He's now free to piddle around the house as much as he likes. I offered him a job as a babysitter for my kids which he promptly declined. Oh well, it was worth a try, I suppose.

For the celebration, we had steaks, grilled by my brother Travis in the rain, & potatoes. Good stuff. Also celebrating were Travis and Rachel, who were engaged the night before! Congrats!

SDF

The kids (instigated by Mallory) started their own "no adults allowed" "Super Duper Friends Club". This was their secret hideout.

Taken with my new birthday gift, which after several failed attempts finally arrived today! It's a new Canon Power Shot G7 Point & Shoot. Pretty nifty! (I love the diversity in this picture! How 4 children can be so close yet look so entirely different!)

The Common Fruit Fly

Warning: Post not for the weak-hearted...

We had a recent infestation of fruit flies in the house as of late. Thankfully, there are only a select couple of fruit flies still left in the Odom household. Two weeks ago, however, there were swarms! It started in the pantry. We noticed a few fruit flies in there when we'd go in to get something. Kevin thought maybe it was the potatoes sitting in a basket in the floor. We removed & eventually discarded the potatoes, but the fruit flies just grew in number. Like all things that sneek up on you if you don't attend to them (laundry comes to mind), all of a sudden, we had fruit flies everywhere. At any point and time you could spot half a dozen resting on the faucet, another dozen hanging out on dishes left in the sink. You would run the water and a swarm would be disturbed. One even found its way upstairs in the playroom. Something had to be done.

So, I pull out my trusty laptop and found this helpful information on wikihow.com.

http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Fruit-Flies

We opted for the soda bottle trap. Of course, I still had to find the source. I roll up my sleeves one evening while Kevin's at school and the girls are already in bed & tackle the pantry. Since that was the first place we noticed them, the source is sure to be there, right? So, an hour or so later after cleaning out, throwing out, and a lot of clorox wipes, I came to the corner in the pantry where they were the thickest...lo and behold there was Mallory's lunch bag. Mind you, it hadn't seen the light of day since the end of school in May. Flies covered the lunch bag and several empty grocery bags lying around it in the floor as well. I didn't even want to know. I carefully picked it up, moved it to the trash and took it outside. The source had been found. Finished cleaning out the pantry, put another home made fruit fly soda bottle trap in there and called it a night. After three soda bottle traps and a couple of days, things were almost back to normal.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I told Mallory later that I was going to have to get here a new lunch bag because there was something in it that attracted all those flies. She replied with "Oh yeah - there was a lunchable and a banana in there. I forgot." Yep. Since MAY. Yum-o.

Beach Babes

I had a portrait party in Galveston tonight & I took my girls with me! Amanda (our babysitter) came with me so that she could watch the girls while I took pictures. I got some sweet ones of the girls on the beach & then let them change & play in the water & sand. They had a BLAST. It was Clara's first trip to the beach. I think it's safe to say she loved it.

Out of the mouth of babes...

Yesterday:

Mallory: Mom! There's a spider! There's a spider!
Me: Well, get a shoe & smash it.
Mallory: But we're supposed to love our enemies. (then tries to scoop it up with a piece of paper... bringing it over to me).
Me: Love your enemies doesn't count with spiders. (SMASH).

Today:

Lila (helping me in the kitchen): I wish I was a mommy.
Me (feeling all proud): Well, someday you probably will be. Why do you want to be a mommy?
Lila: Because then I won't have to stand on a stool.