Gran visited for a week this July.  She and Lucy worked on basic sewing skills and Lucy made some great squares from fabric.

Gran also brought Lucy a dress that was originally made for Toby.

Roly is excited about something!

We attended the wedding of our good friend, Miss Hannah.  I should say that I attended and Toby helped to make sure thing were smooth.  There was a face painter at the wedding for the little kids, and Max was eating so much candy we didn’t get a picture of him!

The Salem company picnic was a hit!  They had a juggler, a face painter  and lots of contests.  Lucy won the limbo contest, and Max was a bingo fiend.

We were privileged to spend a weekend with our good friends, the Dokolas family.  We went to the beach both days and the men/boys got to do a little target shooting one morning.

Finally, Roly loves being read to.

Mom & Roly working the grill.

A short order cook in the making.

Roly really likes puzzles.  Mom was able to get a dozen or so wooden puzzles from the homeschooler’s used curriculum sale recently.

Every Summer, St. Joseph’s church hosts a festival.  Since Max was at Jr. High Summer Camp, Mom & Lucy went for a few hours.  Do you think Lucy was having a good time?

Roly has moved to only 1 nap per day, but will usually spend an hour or so ‘resting’ quietly in his crib, playing with toys and listening (with ears only, not watching) to Dora the Explorer episodes that have been ripped to MP3.  He calls this Dora Music, as opposed to Dora TeeVee.

Recently, I was watching Roly for the day. He had been ‘resting’ in his crib for 20 minutes or so when I heard a series of blood-curdling screams from his room along with wails and sobs.  When I opened the door, he was standing in his crib, backed all the way into the corner, pointing at something in the bottom of his crib and babbling.  The only word that I could understand was ‘NO’.

As I stepped into the room, I heard some unidentified electronic chirping and fresh wailing and gnashing of teeth from Roly.  I looked at what he was pointing at and saw, at the bottom of the little box that holds his toys, partly covered by a puzzle piece and a book, the cause of his distress.

It was a Zhu-Zhu pet.  I carefully extracted the offensive creature, but Roly was disconsolate.  No more resting for him that day.

He seems strangely sensitive these days.  We were at The Habit for dinner, sitting outside and a bird landed on the back of the chair at a nearby table.  Roly freaked out.  ‘No bird’ ‘No bird’ ‘Noooo Biiiiird’.  Luckily, the only other patrons in the patio were a family with toddlers, so they seemed understanding.  Roly also does not like it when Ginger licks his feet while he is in his high chair.

The city of Carpinteria has a long established summer day camp program for kids ages 9 to 17 called Junior Guards.  This is a fitness oriented day camp with lots of swimming.  This is Max’s first year and he was very nervous.  It turns out he needn’t have been.

He was very successful at keeping the surprise.  Toby opened up the local weekly Coastal View News and was flipping through when she saw the below article.