There are two lobsters in my house

BOTH, the kids have sunburns. My in-laws took the kids to the beach today and brought them home sunburned again. This is the third time in their lives they have taken them to the beach and this is the third time they have come home sunburned. So, three strikes and their out. I told Scott that his parents are no longer allowed to take our kids to the beach. I even commented to my MIL when I picked them up (and before their sunburned really showed) that they looked a bit pink and she commented that "my mother had lots of sunburns and lived to 89 without getting skin cancer". Excuse me? That's the reasoning behind not bothering with sunscreen. We have even spoken to her about it in the past and Scott put sunscreen on the kids before he dropped them off and gave her sunscreen to put on them at the beach. She did not even take it with her, but left it at home. I am religious about wearing sunscreen and putting it on the kids. We spend lots of time in the sun and I am very tan, but we never go out without sunscreen on and always reapply it every couple of hours. So it makes me really angry when someone else takes our children out and disregards our wishes. Aaargh!!

Baby names???

NO, we are not having another, but my niece is. Erica found out that the baby is a healthy baby girl. So during baby name discussions Riley came up with some wonderful suggestions and was seriously offended when Erica chose not to use any of them. So in case anyone needs some future baby name suggestions here they are.... Tangerina, Crepe Suzette, and Tea Blossom. I'm not quite sure where she gets these ideas, but I'm guessing the Strawberry shortcake dolls have some influence. LOL! Erica says she is going to write the names down and suggest them to Riley when she has kids. That would be a hoot!
Oh and the winning name is...... Presley Marie. Her big brother Luke says "Pressy"

Last night was the March of Dimes awards dinner

I took my mom as my guest since it was her birthday and I wanted to spend the evening with her. It was rather appropriate since the March of Dimes was originally founded to develop the polio vaccine and my mom is a polio survivor. It was a nice evening out and I met a lot of really nice people. One of our friends is the Southern California ambassador family this year and I finally got to meet his wife. Their 3 year old daughter is the ambassador child. Lauren was born 6 weeks early with the cord wrapped tightly around her neck twice. She suffered a brain hemorrhage and all her organs shut down. She was in the NICU for 40 days with many ups and downs. She is doing great now. She has been diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy, but she gets therapy 5 times a week and is thriving. She is a very inspirational little girl.
I ended up being the number 3 top fundraiser (I raised $3,610) and I'm happy to say that we have a new fundraiser in our region who took the #1 spot and raised a whopping $10,000. We have to keep her fundraising for us. The total raised in our region for MOD was $735,000 which was up from $695,000 last year.

I love the 4th of July

This year we had a really good 4th of July even though Scott was out of town. The kids, Erica, Luke and I went to the Quakes (AAA team for the Angels) game on July 3rd and they had fireworks after the game. Luke loves baseball and there is nothing cuter than a two year old bouncing up and down on my lap yelling, "go Quakes" and "catch the ball". Then on the 4th we swam, BBQ'd at Erica's and then we went to the Fireworks show at my old high school. It was lots of fun. You just spread a blanket and chairs on the football field. They had a band, bounce house and slide and tons of carnival games. All of which were free with your $6 admission. So the kids played in the bounce house, ran around on the track, danced to the band and we even played frisbee. I ran into tons of people I know since I work for the city. The kids even ran into their principal and you would have thought Riley saw a celebrity. Who knew it could be so exciting to see your principal during summer break. Then it was time for the fireworks. A 12 year old girl sang the National Anthem and I still get goosebumps everytime I hear it. Especially now thinking of all the men serving in the middle east that could not be home to celebrate the freedom they defend and the families who are missing them.
On the lighter side... Riley lost a tooth on the 4th and being the horrible mother that I am I forgot to play tooth fairy. We got home so late and I was so tired it completely slipped my mind. So when she got up this morning and said the tooth fairy did not come I reminded her that it was a holiday and the tooth fairy gets holidays off. LOL!

The new and improved bedroom

Well, here is the almost finished product. I spent most of the day installing the blinds on the windows since it required three trips to Home Depot in the 104 degree heat. We had absolutely horrid 20 year old vertical blinds in there that had yellowed plastic on them they were so old. I can't tell you how good it felt to get rid of them. I still want to get curtains that have the same stripe as the dust ruffle on the bed, but since I have one large window and then three in the bay window that will have to wait. I will probably ask my mom for those for my Christmas present six months from now. For now the new blinds are in, painting is done and the new bedding is on the bed. The picture above the bed says "Always kiss me goodnight" which is sort of a joke with Scott because I give him a really bad time if he ever forgets to kiss me goodnight. So I found it at Linens and things and it had a small scratch on the frame so it was 50% off. I paid under $10 for it. What a steal! Now I can hardly wait for Scott to get home and see what I've done.