So I forgot to mention... you know how Jackson was so scared during the fireworks.. He was so scared he peed (how the heck is that spelled?) on Luis' lap! It was hilarious! Haha!

Last night, Jax was playing on his castle outside and I let him take of his socks so he could climb up the slide. Becky's german shephard, Cindy, stole one of Jackson's socks. I told him to go get it back from her (I was holding Jake so I couldn't)... but of course, it was a lost cause. She would not let go of that sock. So, first she was licking it, then she started tearing it with her teeth... THEN I looked over and saw her swallow the sock whole! She kept gulping and I thought she was going to choke and die right in front of me. It took her at least 5 swallows to get it down! I was cracking up b/c it was such a shocking thing for me to see. I have heard of dogs eating things whole, and I guess a sock really isn't that big, but it was still so funny to see! Someone is going to have a surprise when they pick up dog poo from the yard. Thankfully... that's not my job! :) Now Jax has an unpaired sock! I should have given the other to Alsatian just to be fair, haha! Didn't think of that till now, although seeing the choking hazard it was for Cindy that probably wouldn't be a good idea. Alsatian is a trouble maker though, so maybe I'd be doing Silvia and Lew a favor! (Just kidding, guys... If I kill off any of the animals it will be that wretched bird, Sabrina!)

We had a fun fourth of July. Well, a fun third of July! Saturday night we went over to our good friend's the Lyons. We had pizza and the kids played in the pool for a while. They bought some fireworks and we watched from the driveway. Jackson was so scared! We knew he would be... from last year, but Luis held him and he eventually settled down. It turns out while we were doing fireworks in the street, we had an awesome view of the fireworks show the city was doing! A perfect view! It was so much fun! I have been so desperate to hang out with friends lately, so this was a life-saver for me. I feel like such a castaway since moving out to the Silvia and Lew's house! It is so far from my friends and it feels like such a chore to go into town! So I really enjoyed hanging out! And it was good for Jackson to burn some energy with their 5 kids. The only downside... my feet were eaten up by mesquitos... not fun.

So Jackson ruined my experiment. Lately, Jake has been waking up at 4-6am needing to eat. So he gets a bottle and goes back to bed. It's frustrating because he has always slept through the night! Jackson never woke up like this. But when I go get him out of his crib I can hear his little tummy growling. Poor thing. So I am officially feeding him solids now. I tried to do an experiment, like I said, last night. I fed him a bowl of rice cereal with pears at 8 followed by almost 8 oz of mild. I put pants on him so he wouldn't be cold from the A/C. I did everything I could to make sure he wouldn't wake up early. Well... around 6 Jax comes into my room! I hear his tummy growling and so I get him a poptart :) and juice and we sat on the kitchen floor together while he ate. It was a cute moment, but annoying that it was happening at 6am! When I put him back to bed, Jake was awake... RUINED EXPERIMENT. I don't know if Jax woke up Jake or if Jake woke up Jax. I guess we will try again tonight!

Ok, there is a houseful of people downstairs that I need to go hang out with while learning how to make pazole (a mexican soup). The Hernandez family... and extended family... is here. Yay! I get to practice my spanish!

Well, still no news about the job yet... still waiting for that phone call.

Lately, I have loved cooking homemade soups. I made a homemade chicken noodle soup a few weeks ago and Luis loved it! So I made it again tonight! It's one of the few things that I actually enjoy cooking! And a few weeks ago Mom told me about Goodhousekeeping's Amazing Soup Diet to help Luis lose weight. I really enjoyed making that as well! Probably because it really doesn't take that much talent! And it's healthy! Jackson loves soup also! He does make funny faces at the carrots though :) If you have any good soup recipes, please send them to me!

The bad news... I think our camera is officially dead. Not just batteries, the whole camera. We have known for a while that it was going out. It was acting all funny and turning off at random times and the buttons don't work all the time and the lens freaks out and goes on the fritz every now and then. The camera is over 6 years old. Luis got it when he got home from his mission. Is that a good life expectancy for a camera? It was a Sony Cybershot. Well, the next camera we get will probably be a nice one like Megan's... just not so advanced. Maybe I will copy Alan's Christmas present for Liz last year and get Luis the one he wants this year. If he's a good boy, of course! This just means that you guys won't get to see many pictures of my beautiful boys! I will keep trying to use the camera, but no promises, it is seriously messed up.

I made a discovery tonight. Jackson goes to bed 100x better if he plays with Luis for a while before bed. I think having some Daddy time calms him down and makes him feel satisfied enough to go to bed without a fight. Luis is so cute with the boys! He is such a good Daddy. Jax and Jake just love him and I see a long future of wrestling and bruises and fun for Luis and his boys!

Made-up apple crisp recipe results

Ok, Megan brought to my attention that the 2 videos are the same. My bad. I will try and fix that this afternoon.

So, I got an apple crisp recipe from Food Network. It sounded pretty similar to Grandma's. Problem #1- we had no brown sugar... so I decided to use regular sugar instead :) Problem #2- we had no cinnimon, only cinnimon sugar. So I used that. I found out after it was in the oven, when Silvia woke up, that we did have both brown sugar and cinnimon. One was in food storage the other was in a cupboard that I totally forgot about. So I sprinkled it with real cinnimon when it got out of the oven. We used Silvia's canned apples and it turned out ok, but you can definitely tell the difference. Nothing beats fresh Granny Smith!

Anyways, Megan called me halfway through my culinary disaster with Grandma's recipe so I combined what I had already done with Grandma's. Like I said, it turned out fine, we all ate it and enjoyed it. BUT... we all knew it wasn't "just right"!

I posted 2 videos. Jackson and I have been reading Dr. Seuss' ABC book lately. He loves it and he is getting really good at saying letters. Some are hard for him like G, H, and J... I didn't have very much time on my camera left so they are short, but the other video is of Jackson saying "snack". It is so cute how he says it. It's not even a word, just a sound really, but that's the best he can do apparantly. It took a while for me to figure out what he was trying to say... I always ask if he wants a snack before bed and finally realized that this "word" means snack! You may even hear Jake talking in the background... if you are lucky! We made it through our hurricane of course! Just some heavy rain and wind. Some areas of town have flooded streets, but as far as I know, it's nothing serious. Some people lost power, but it's back up tonight... we didn't. Ok, enjoy the videos. I am off to make apple crisp. I was going to call Grandma for her recipe, but I don't want to bother her on the vacation... and I don't know if she is in Canada... out of country calls and what-not! Don't be jealous of my delicious dessert tonight!

Waiting out a hurricane

Hurricane Alex is going to get close but it the eye of the storm will miss us completely! Thank goodness! We are just getting "tropical storm" weather, 50 mph winds and very heavy rain. I feel very safe here at Silvia and Lews. We aren't worried about flooding or anything. Their land is much higher than all around them, probably by a good 5 feet. They are totally prepared for the worst also, so again, not worried. Plenty of food storage, water, gas and even a generator! Talk about following the church's teachings!

This is however, the worst week for a hurricane! I have rent checks to collect and 2 families moving out of Luis' houses and 2 new tenants moving in... one of which still hasn't signed the contract! I have been working frantically today! You should see me. I had to stop by one of our houses that will be rented out next week and pick up glass that someone dumped in the front yard! We got a phone call from a city official saying he was going to issue us a citation... so I worked that out and he removed the citation, but that's how the valley is... people know it's vacant so they dump their crap on your lawn or in your garbage can! I hate it! That will all change next week, but their I was in the pouring rain, in my hoodie sweatshirt b/c everything else is in storage... picking up big pieces of glass and putting it in the back of my SUV. I also ad to go pick up broken tile that our tile guy left in our yard... so annoying... I was SOAKING!(I am especially bummed b/c 2 of my friends invited me to separate Eclipse showings and parties and I have to miss both!) Why am I doing all this work, you may ask??? Because Luis is at boy scout camp in San Marcos... 5 hours away! And yes, it has been raining there too almost the whole time. He comes back on Friday night, right when the storm is supposed to be leaving. I hate being business woman and mother... it is so difficult. jackson gets so attention starved on days like this and drives me up the wall with all the whining. I know he needs me, but there are things that MUST get done! This week has reinforced how important it is for mothers to be in the home! I love my boys and can't imagine working full-time and not being with them to raise them and see them grow up.

Jackson is making major progress with speaking. He says or attempts to say pretty much every word we ask him to. He even says new words on his own, without prompting. He usually throws a fit and screams and cries when he can't reach something or is stuck or something like that. Now he says "help". I am so proud of him. Next step is to get him to combine words into phrases. We are trying easy things like "juice please" or "help please"... he even says thank you. It is so cute. The words aren't perfect... but he is doing great!

That's about it! Hope you are all doing great.