Micah's First Day of Nursery

Micah went to nursery for the first time today! Last week was suppose to be his first week, but he was sick. Robert walked him in, showed him a toy and after that Micah was fine with Robert leaving. In the middle of Sunday School Micah had a blowout so they brought him back to us and Robert cleaned him up and sent him back to nursery. Robert said he just walked right back in. When I picked him up at the end he was sitting in his little chair like a big boy watching everyone sing songs. On the way home he loved to look at his little paper coloring book (in his hand in the picture) that he got...until he fell asleep halfway home.

LA County Fair

Thursday was Claremont Day at the LA County Fair so we decided that since it was beautiful weather and we have never been to the fair despite living ten minutes away from it, that it would be a perfect time to go. I feel bad for everyone who went at the beginning of the month when it was 100 degrees out because it was a beautiful mid-70's the day we went.  So Robert took the day off and we also invited a friend from Virginia who just moved to Pasadena to join us, so our girls had fun together.

First we visited the farm animal barn with a very large petting zoo area full of lambs and calves. Julia loved walking around petting all the animals, but her little friend who came with us was pretty terrified by them at first, and only slightly so after a while. When you think about it though, it would be pretty terrifying to see a mob of animals almost as tall as you are coming up to you expecting to be fed. They had feed for sale there that you could buy to feed the animals and you can tell the animals were hoping for a hand out from you because they would walk up to you and wait.

The animals were bigger than Micah so he probably could have gotten knocked over by accident if he walked through there on his own.

The girls discovered what these were. At first they just saw the backside and stuck their heads in, so I took a picture and then told them to walk around to the front to see what it really was. I think they got it...

 They got to milk a goat.

And watch a sea lion show. Julia said that was her favorite part.

They could have spent hours at the Knights and Princesses area. Dress up dresses with every Disney princess, complete with tiaras, wands, dress up shoes and purses, plus an area to have tea parties and a little play house.

We took Micah and his little friend over to the knights area, but they really weren't that interested. They both just have an older sister so they were much more interested in playing in the play kitchen than dressing up as a knight and playing with swords because that is what they are both used to. They had no idea what this knight stuff was all about, but play kitchens they know. They did like the chalkboard easels though.

Deciding on a tiara. It wasn't crowded at all, so they could go back as many times as they wanted to change outfits.

We got some fair food (hot dogs, bbq sanwiches, funnel cake, ice cream, fried oreos, fried twinkies, fried cookie dough) and the girls went on a couple rides. We ran into the Claremont Days Parade on our way to the African Safari place and stopped to watch the parade.

Our friends left after the parade, but we still visited the African Safari (a few large animals, zebras, emus, and camels, and lots of snakes and lizards and spiders.) We trudged on to see the historic trains and then decided we could not walk any farther. I was almost limping back to the car and it took me two days before my feet felt the same. It was worth it though, as a last hurrah as a family of four.

Rex Sandberg Family Reunion

It's a good thing we haven't had much going on this summer because this happened almost three months ago, but after this I'm all caught up on blogging! Time has been simultaneously going fast and slow these past few weeks as we get ready for the baby to come, so it's a good thing we haven't had too much going on so we can just relax a little.

The theme of this years Rex Sandberg Reunion was Star Wars. On Friday most of the family went to Panguitch to fix up my grandparent's old home that the family is trying to sell. My Mom and I stayed at the Ranch most of the day with the kids and went over in the afternoon to see the progress.

Later that night we had our hot dog roast with glow sticks and campfire songs.

Julia and Micah in the tent the next morning. The water and bottle of Tylenol remind me that I was sick that week with a cold that took me forever to get over. I think I spent half of June and half of July being sick.

The next day the females made washer necklaces, and to fit with the Star Wars theme we called it making "galactic bling." Julia made one for herself (but she chose a dog tag shape) and then I made a few for her and I. It was pretty addicting because there so many different things you could do with them. Then anyone who wanted made light sabers out of pool noodles and went to Jedi Training Camp. Robert made light sabers for the kids but didn't go to training, so he's not a real Jedi. Which is okay because as you will see he wasn't aiming to be a Jedi.

Part of the Jedi Training was a slackline. Some of the older boys helped Julia across and she was very proud of herself.

Here, Reah just finishes her turn as chaos goes on around her.

Later the young Jedis defeated the Death Star (piñata).

Julia had a lot of fun playing with the other little girls there.

There were a lot of light saber fights that weekend. Even little Micah loved it.

For the dutch oven dinner Robert and I made a Raspberry Fudge Cake that was delicious. I premixed all the dry ingredients before we left and made a ganache and chocolate sauce to go on top. Then Robert did all the work at the Ranch mixing the wet and dry ingredients, cooking, and adding the toppings. We didn't take any pictures, but it was worth remembering so maybe we can make it again someday.

 For the talent show our family dressed up as Padme, Han Solo, Young Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leah. My Dad, Darth Vader, and Uncle Don, Obi Wan Kenobi, joined us for a picture before the talent show started. Everyone was cute, but when you think about the real relationships between the fake characters it was kind of weird. My real life Dad was my husband? Julia's husband was her Dad?

Julia sang a song again this year, The Itsy Bitsy Spider. She loves to get up and perform so maybe next year we will actually prepare a talent beforehand for her to do.

At the end of the talent show we did a tribute to my Dad and Uncle Don who both retired from the Utah National Guard this year after many years of service, including multiple tours of duty overseas, and many more humanitarian trips over the years. We sang The Star Spangled Banner and...I'm not really sure what else happened because before we started singing (and while we were standing up at the front of the room) Julia whispered to me, "Mommy, I have to go potty."  So Julia and Micah and I missed that part, and also the costume judging contest.

Sunday after our testimony meeting we took family pictures. I wasn't sure which was better because each one has someone not looking or smiling who is smiling in the other.

My parents wanted pictures with the grand kids, and Dani wanted to be part of the picture too. So here are my parents with their only two grand kids plus a grand-niece.

I had to laugh at this sequence of pictures because the first couple pictures it looks like Micah is smiling, when actually he's just trying to wiggle away.

Julia and Dani, wiggly four year olds. They are both sporting the necklaces they made the day before.

We stayed an extra day to avoid Sunday traffic past Vegas. We took a walk up to the reservoir to see the work they were doing leveling it out in preparation of filling it up again. 

This was on the way back. We ended up being one of the last families to leave the reunion.

It rained a everyday, but not so much that things were miserable. Just enough actually to keep the temperature moderate and make everything not dusty. For Julia this meant plenty of mud puddles to splash in. By the end of the weekend she was just wearing whatever clothes had dried out in spite of the rain after I had washed her muddy clothes out and hung them out to dry. One time Robert and Julia and my Mom were up by the reservoir when it started to rain and the had to hurry back in the rain.

Julia-isms

Some Julia-isms from this week

• Julia: "What are you doing Mom? You only do that on Sundays!" I was putting on my makeup before heading to the ob/gyn. I know some ladies really do only wear makeup on Sundays, but I'm usually the kind to wear makeup everyday. Except lately, I guess.

• We had a disposable water camera in with our pool toys. I showed Julia how to take a picture with it and after she took the picture she said, "Now where's the picture?" She had no concept of film, all pictures she has ever known show up instantly on the screen!

• As we were getting ready to go meet Robert at the train station. Julia: "You know why I'm getting ready so fast? Because I really really really love Daddy. I want to marry him, but he's in our family so I guess I'll find another boy to marry. Maybe I can marry Micah."

Also, Micah learns how to say Julia..and get's distracted by his own image.

Julia's First Day of Preschool

 Last week Julia had her first day of preschool. The first day she was semi excited about it. She had done a month long summer session so she already knew what it was going to be like, and she knew that she didn't like to be away from her mommy that long. It's only three hours long, so if anything that makes me want to send her to school longer to get her over her mommy separation anxiety.

I also kind of wonder if that's just what she says because she knows "I'd rather stay home and play with my toys" isn't a valid excuse. She doesn't cry and she seems fine when she gets picked up, she just tells me before hand she doesn't want to go and misses mommy. But she didn't mention anything about that on the first day and was a happy little duck picking out the clothes that she wanted to wear.

 Clothes that made me a little nervous. She chose pants with a zipper and snap button and a belt. Usually when she has to use the restroom when she wears those pants I help her because she doesn't know how to do it herself. But she really wanted to wear those pants and couldn't be persuaded to happily swap for another zipper-less pair. Figuring I had to trust her to do hard things and we might as well start doing hard things on the first day of school, we practiced pulling up the zipper, closing the snap, and unbuckling and buckling the belt.

The zipper was fine, but there was no way she was getting the snap closed. It was a pretty hard one to push together. So I told her to just not worry about the snap and we left it undone, the belt would hold up her pants.

The belt was iffy. She could do it, but it took a little bit of patience on her part to get everything aligned just right. I had thoughts of her peeing her pants because she was too nervous to try to get the belt off, or breaking down crying in the bathroom because she couldn't get it back on, but I let her go with the belt anyway. And she did just fine! Silly me for worrying. She said after recess everyone had to go use the potty and she was able to get her belt off and back on all by herself.

taking a break from taking pictures to pick up a potato bug and put it back in the bushes.

You may not be able to tell, but she has her shoes on the wrong feet here, which I think is just perfect. Trying to be big and independent, and not caring if it's not perfect.

She also said the day went by really fast, so there's hope she gets used to it soon! The next school day, by the way, she was back to saying "it's too long without my mommy."  

She says her favorite part about school is recess and her favorite part about recess is going down the slide. But she likes to tell me about the stories they read in class and the jokes her teacher tells them too, so she must enjoy class time a little as well.