Mouse in the House

We have a big mouse problem in our pantry and his name is Ezra.

He likes to bite holes in bags of food. At the grocery store I have to put my produce out of reach because he will grab it and chew through the bags and gnaw on the food (green onions, limes, anything). The good news is his last 4 teeth have broken through the gums now, so hopefully he will get a break from teething for a while.

Rough and Tumble

That's how he rolls. And trips. And stumbles. And falls.
Its seems like when Ezra gets a head wound, he gets a bunch all at once. This week this is what he has accomplished.

And just so you know, I've moved the baby gate to the bottom of the basement stairs to keep him out of the basement, so now he won't be shaking the gate violently until he loosens it and falls down the stairs. He can go down stairs just fine.
I almost took him to get stitches for that one on the right. It's healing pretty well though, so I'm glad I didn't. It would have been unnecessary torture. He won't keep a bandaid on for more than an hour, so I had to put some "liquid bandaid" superglue type stuff on it and that seems to be working.
Its amazing any of us survive toddlerhood. I was no more than 5 feet away from him when each of these injuries occurred. I think I need to just bubble wrap his head for the next year or so.

Tough Mudder

Last weekend Ryan did the Tough Mudder. It's a 12 mile run with crazy obstacles. Crazy like stupid crazy. Crazy like running through dangling electrical wires while you are wet and muddy and getting 10,000 volts running through you and almost passing out. And swimming under barrels in ice filled pools of water. I can't believe any events company would even take on such a liability. And I can't believe any living soul would ever have a desire to repeat such an experience. You should check out their website, it looks like marine training for torture survival.

Yes, that's ICE they are pouring into the pool. In October. Not July.

Team Gretel & Pedal

A few weekends ago I did a bike race called Lotoja (stands for Logan to Jackson). Knowing that I myself could not ride 206 miles in under 12 hours without much more training time, I joined up with 4 of my friends to ride as a relay team. It was a really fun girls weekend and a fun ride, though marred in the end by tragedy.
Here is our old 200,000 mile truck which carried 5 bikes for us through the weekend. That was pretty awesome.

The morning was quite chilly. Summer was our first rider, all geared up!

 From left to right: Heather, Ashley, Tiffany, Me, Summer.

I rode leg 2, which was 47 miles with one big long climb. Thank goodness Ashley rode leg 3 (46 miles with 2 BIG steep climbs) and dominated. Seriously, she dominated. She passed everyone. When she came in to switch riders we were unprepared because she was 30 minutes earlier than our earliest "best case scenario" estimate! Heather rode leg 4 and Tiff rode leg 5.

Tiff getting ready to head out, waiting for Heather to come in. Ashley made this great logo so we could have team t-shirts and a big vinyl sticker on the back window of our truck.

And Heather coming in, putting the timing chip on Tiff, and Tiff about to head out.

 

We were all really happy with our times and had a lot of fun!
Ryan also did the race (the whole thing) with some friends and got his best time yet: 9 hrs 44 min. I think.

Excess details:
The tragedy I referred two in the beginning was a death, first one in 30 years of this race. Leg 5 had a lot of debris and road construction and mess on the road. About 15 miles from the finish line an experienced rider either hit-or swerved to miss-a pothole and went over the undersized guardrail over the bridge. Sadly, he did not survive. Really devastating. After that accident as everyone was trying to help, a well-intentioned person put a construction barrel over that pothole, right in the middle of the biking lane. When you are riding in a line of bikers, drafting, you can't see the road ahead. Only the biker in front of you. There are hand signals that are used to warn those behind you of obstacles, gravel, etc. Unfortunately after riding almost 200 miles people are very tired and don't always signal or react in time to signal the rider behind them. So when my last teammate came to this section, she wasn't warned of the barrel and barely clipped it and crashed. Fortunately the rider next to her was a doctor, but she was still out for several minutes. Thank goodness for helmets though. She was taken to the hospital and in the end broke nothing but got pretty severe concussion. She's a trooper though and has been really great and positive through the whole ordeal that followed.

A Fence, a Boy, and a Box

I finally finished staining our new fence! I think it took me 2 months. Our neighbors had their side done when their fence went up, so I only had to do the north side fence that we had to put up (thanks to the HOA that I so despise). The wood was pretty coarse though, so it absorbed a ton of stain. And I could only do it in shorter spurts while Ezra was sleeping, because he would get into it and put his hands all over it if he was awake. And I couldn't do it too early in the morning (too wet from neighbor's sprinklers still) or too late in the evening (sprinklers again). So that's the long story of why it took so long. And I wouldn't let Ryan do it (not that he wanted to) because I'm meticulous about such things and he is not. And if you saw the south fence that our neighbors had put up, you'd understand why I didn't want to hire it out either. I've never seen such a sloppy staining job in my life, and it was done by "professionals". Here's Ezra trying to paint the south fence (this is the best looking section of it by far).

And here he is on a little wagon with my toothbrush in his mouth. He loves toothbrushes. Until you try to brush his top teeth, he hates that. The bottom teeth he doesn't mind. Weird. Notice the patio chairs in the background that are on their side? That's so he can't climb up them and tip over, and so he can't reach the hose spigot and turn it on. Little rascal.

This is one of Ezra's favorite places to sit. He dumps all the toys out and climbs in the box. Yes, that's another black eye (#3 now).

This is his other favorite place to climb. My "desk" chair. I have to keep it scooted back from the table at all times, because one time he tried to lean forward to type on the computer and of course went face first into the table edge, giving him a nice bruise on the cheek to parallel the black eye. I try to keep an eye on him at all times, but sometimes nature calls and I have to step away for a moment, ya know. And that's when it all happens.

He's a really sweet boy and I just can't keep my lips off those chubby little cheeks!

A Grand Council

Ava was playing intently with her animals today. I came upon this. It appears to be some sort of council of the animals. Probably not the guy I would have picked to be in charge, but then again, he's the only one holding food (a fish). Maybe they are actually cornering him to steal his food! That wolf looks pretty hungry.

Ava's Birthday

Ava has been talking about her birthday, and what she wants for her birthday, for the last 6 months at least. Among other things on her list were a 4-wheeler (full size), a trampoline, an airplane (full size), roller skates (which she played with at her cousin's house in CA), and a scooter. The girl dreams big.

These were her invitations:

That's an actual balloon coming out of her mouth. I used little water balloons. The theme for her party was bubbles. Ryan brought home one of his bubble foam machines, which they use for the 5K Foam Fest, and we brought out our bouncy house. We filled the backyard with bubbles and let the kids go wild.

Ezra has got some sticky fingers. He swiped several hamburger patties and a 

cupcake without anyone realizing.

Rody got in on the fun too. Go Rody.

Keeping with the bubble theme, these were the party favors. Mini bubbles, gum balls, candies, and dum-dums (because they are Ava's favorite, and they are round {smile}).

I wasn't able to get photos of the treat table before the goods were consumed, but the star was the bubble cake & cupcakes (gumballs and Sixlets on top). Also we had Trix-krispie treats, Playdough icecream (scooped into balls, of course), and something else that I can't remember.

My favorite moment of the party was when Ava put on the fairy wings she received as a gift. She looked confused and said, "It's not working." Then she said to several different people, "I'm not flying. I'm not flying." Fittingly though, she also received a set of fairy dolls (including Tinkerbell) as a gift.

Some of her favorite gifts were the roller skates from her Michaelis cousins (by request) and the backpack from daddy (also by request). She thinks that if she has a backpack and she is 3 then she can go to school, and she really wants to go to school. I told her that after her birthday, no more Pull-ups at nap time, and she has remembered that and repeated that to me, and so far no nap time accidents! I may try bedtime soon too!

Happy Birthday big girl! Thanks to all her friends for sharing in the party fun!