Hairnets?

So Izzy came home with a "free" goldfish from school. I would like to know who it is "free" for, becasuse $30 later we now have our very own fish habitat. It is supposed to be her prayer buddy, and how would it look if she went back and said her parents killed her prayer buddy (who is named after an actual person from youth group)? Hi, Angelika, my parents didn't want you and they let you die. Hmmm...doesn't sound quite right...

Maria is stoked to have anything that resembles another pet in the house. She feels however that she should have been the one to get the next pet. When the kids were little I put off their begging for a pet with "You can have your own pet when you are 12". Shooooot, they have long memories and have brought it up no less than 73 times a year ever since then. Isabelle got Annie at age 10 because of extreme circumstances (read: free purebred pet coming our way).

Maria has been working the beg/pester/wish train for the better part of 12 months now even though I have assured her, that her pet really has to come at age 12. We are all FULL UP at the moment. She was not happy about this. THEN, her sister comes home with her very own pet fish (which nobody asked her mom about) and Isabelle now has 2 pets before Maria can even get her first one. This is not looking good. Can we just name some of the birds and squirrels outside or something?

So we have this "free" fish. It is a little shell shocked and not swimming much. Morrie and I are trying to make sure that the cats don't go fishing for lunch. We were discussing ways to cover the opening of the fishbowl for extra protection. Morrie said "We could get some flexible wire mesh and rubberband it around the lip of the fishbowl". I replied "Oh, a hairnet could work too". He came back with "Why don't we think of something even MORE GHETTO and do that??". I still can't stop laughing. Can you think of something more ghetto?

Oh Dog!

I am convinced that nobody even reads this blog anymore, so I am doing this more as a diary entry for the kids to look back on and giggle.

Dear Diary,
Annie, our dog, is a rascal. She loves her squeaky tennis balls. She stands in the kitchen and whines while starring intently at the cupboard in which they sit. When we pull them out she hops all over and races out the door to play.

So, there I am the other day. Playing in the back yard with her. I stand at one end with a tennis racket and lob them over to the other end and she races like she is in the doggie Nascar. Top speed across the yard, back and forth, back and forth.

Sometimes she will decide that one of the three squeaky balls is somehow better than the others. She hoards it. She will race for the flying ball, find it and realize it is the love of her life and keep it in her mouth while finding a quiet spot in the yard to mouth it. She will not give it back to me. Unless of course, I start to play with one of the other balls and convince her that what I hold is indeed much more valuable than what she holds. This sometimes works. I giggle.

The other day she races across the yard for my tennis serve, gets the ball, comes across the deck (why she can't just run over the lawn I have no idea, she prefers to run up and over the deck to me) back to my side, but no ball. I walk to the other side of the deck and look and look. I finally find it under the stairs of the deck, get it out and resume flinging tennis balls.

This happens several more times, she return to me with no ball. Each time it is under the stairs. I test her. Turns out this is what she is doing: Every time she grabs a ball that isn't her beloved, she comes over the deck to me. BUT, before she runs up the stairs to the deck, the drops the ball so it will go under the stairs. She runs over to me thinking that I am now forced to throw her favorite ball and not that yucky ball that she has hidden from the evil mommy forces.

I think I can hear her giggling.

Opening Weekend!

Our first fall game, and the girls played right next to eachother at the same time! It was a little charotic for me to watch. Here is Captain Maria.

She runs really really super fast.

Can you hear the thump of the shoes on the ball??

Here is Isabelle protecting the ball, she rocks!

This girl came down the field to score a goal, and Isabelle as sweeper ran and cut her off. The ball went wide of the goal, well done Izzy!

Here she is clearing the ball, she did that a lot during this game. Both girls lost, but they played fantastic and the weather was suuuper warm. It was fun. We then headed to one of Izzy's teammates homes for a pool party and bbq. What a day! Then the Sounders won, really, having our cake and eating it too??

Today: Henna Artist

I empowered the girls for their first game of the fall season by "tatooing" their hands. I am thinking that not many moms encourage this type of thing. Hmmm...too late!

School?

Someone wants to go to school with the girls. She misses them all day long, and just imagine how much more fun it would be to hang out with the whole school instead of just Mom!!

Sleepy Time

This is how we have felt the last few days. I think the girls are tired because it's the first week of school and they are not used to being up so early. I think the dog is sad that everyone is gone most of the day now. I think I have had a headache for 2 days and also don't like getting up at 6. I think we may already miss summer around here.

First Day of School!

I can't believe Isabelle is a 7th grader, and Maria is a 4th grader! They both had an awesome day yesterday. Well, Maria's was awesome until she had to have a tooth pulled. However, it took the dentist somwhere around 6 minutes to do it after the novicane took effect, so it couldn't have been too bad.

We plan on having a nice, rainy Labor Day weekend, complete with a few BBQ's. Last weekend we went and saw the women Husky soccer team play - it was so fun - and this weekend Morrie will go to the football game. We're hoping for some great things for the Huskies this year! I hear they have even painted the endzones like they had them in the early 90's when we kicked pac 10 booty.

Our most exciting news about yesterday is of course that the Sounders won the US Open Cup Championship! Verrrry exciting game. The kids are happy because Mom is in a good mood after the Sounders win - kind of like Dad when the Huskies win!!