Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2012 August

are silly! They are silly every day but it got kind of ridiculous this morning. Dalton insisted on eating his peanut butter sandwich with a fork. But the really funny thing was they were playing "catch the light" with a flashlight. It was a lot like playing "catch the laser" with a cat, except Dalton was the cat. Complete with pouncing, crawling, and crazy noises.

Last night, we took the kids to see Fantasmic again before school starts. We left at 3 to beat traffic. It was so hot and crowded. Rides were closed everywhere. We got dinner, and a great spot, and Dalton (mostly) stayed awake. Maggie kept updating us: "I'm still not tired!" After the show, and the fireworks: "I'm getting a tiny bit tired." As we walked to our car: "I'm a little tired." As we waited for Daddy to bring the car around: "I need that blankie to lie on."

Fantasmic is SO much better than World of Color. World of Color is just showing off technology. Fantasmic is actually a story. Sorry, imagineers: stick to storytelling.

We had an awesome last minute visit from Franco, Jodi and Kyli this week. We went to the beach on Wednesday, walked to the pier, and then went to the pool to wash the sand off and do even more swimming. On Thursday we went to Disneyland. In the morning, I organized Jodi and Franco onto as many adult rides as I could, while watching Kyli. Then, they did lots of family rides after I left to take my kids to swimming lessons.

John was able to take work off on Friday, so we all went to California Adventure. John and Franco made great partners for the rides that were too much for me and Jodi. My kids especially enjoyed watching song/animation clips while waiting for Turtle Talk with Crush. We also went to Dancin' with Disney and Dalton and Kyli danced with King Louie, Captain Hook, Cruella, the Big Bad Wolf and more. Maggie scowled.

And, of course, we got some fun pictures of three cute little cousins. More cousin fun to come! Pat, Shannon, Joel and Leah are coming to visit tomorrow.

Nothing much to say other than I feel great. This is the awesome part about pregnant. Everyone is nice to you 'cause you've got a baby belly, but there's no sickness. I've even been sleeping better since getting out my body pillow. The only downside is that I don't have very many maternity clothes, since I borrowed with my first two pregnancies. Oh well.

We had a really fun stake Relief Society activity tonight. Everyone placed orders for three MRE type meals, then the ingredients were bought in bulk and we all put them together assembly-line style. I love doing this kind of project. We made hundreds of meals, sealed in mylar bags, in about an hour. I only bought four meals, but we don't really have any long-term food storage, so better than nothing. And there was cheesecake for dessert. Win-win.

Sometime early in the night, Dalton came running into our room, scrambled up on the bed and over me, and settled in on my pillow. Huh. I went in his room and got his alligator and elephant and let him sleep there. I didn't want to make him go back to his bed if he was afraid. John was pleasantly surprised to wake up to a cute little face, having not noticed Dalton come into our bed. Not surprising, since John ran 6 miles after we went to Disneyland yesterday, and since Dalton insisted on sleeping rightnexttotme the whole night.

Dalton still worries about alligators in the closet. When we put him to bed, we tell the alligators to go back to the zoo, then shut the closet door. That seems to work just fine. Last night I went into the kids' room to put some laundry away after they went to bed and I left the closet door open. Maybe that's what spurred my bedmate last night.

Also, Leonard commented previously about an alligator story about Dad, which he later emailed to me.

This was before Dad went into the hospital, but he didn't get out of bed much. One day he and I were the only ones home. He called me in and said "there's an alligator outside. chase it away." I was terrified because either a) Dad had finally gone totally crazy, or b) there was an alligator outside and I had to chase it away.

Well, I went and checked, and surprise, there was no alligator. So I told him this and he kind of nodded and went to sleep.

Something clicked for Maggie after her swimming lesson on Thursday. All of a sudden she wasn't afraid to put her face in the water. She was swimming back and forth in the play area with a kickboard, and then just plain swimming! I took the kids to the pool on Friday, and we went on Sunday as usual, just to make sure. Today she was so excited to show her teacher (she has a different teach on Mondays). Sure enough, she would swim the entire width of the pool, rolling onto her back to breathe, just like she's supposed to.

Miss Maggie skipped level 2 and is now level 3! I've never been so proud of her.

She also enjoyed her first dance class last week. She wanted to go back the next day, but it's only once a week. This class is just three weeks - I wanted to see if she liked it first. I guess she does!

We are working on teaching Maggie her last name before Kindergarten starts. I think she's got it down now, but for a while she would answer "Margaret". She knows her whole name, so once I pointed out I was asking her last name, she was able to figure it out.

She's also learned how to spell it, which means she's ahead of the game on the ch and ck letter combinations (though she can't say "CH" very well).

Yesterday we were playing with ABC stamps and she stamped out her last name. I quizzed her on her names, then asked Dalton. He knows his last name, but when I asked what his middle name was, he answered "Target!"

We never use Dalton's middle name, and we do go to Target a lot, but I realized much later that he was probably trying to say "Margaret."

Five minutes later I informed Dalton he was going to have a haircut and a bath before bed. He responded, "A haircut and a bath? That's amazing!"

Today was a long-awaited pediatric dermatologist appointment for Maggie. She has white patches in a streak that started behind her knee and spread up and down her leg, showing up more and more as she tanned this summer. (That girl has some serious tan lines, by the way. No idea where she gets that from.)

The doctor took one look at it and said, oh that's Lichen Striatus. Rare, harmless, and will go away soon. Also, genetic, and the abnormal skin cells are formed in utero.

In related news, yesterday she was running around and whacked her head on an IKEA toy shelf. We went to the emergency room, which is right down the street, and an hour later we were home. Maggie screamed the whole time, so we opted for the hold-her-down-and-do-it-quick method. She's got three staples in the back of her head! Gross. Once the actual doctor part was over, she was fine. She even asked me which side of the head it was on. She did whine quite a bit about how it's going to hurt when they take the staples out. Hopefully she'll forget about that until we head to the doctor next week.

Also, she has to miss two swimming lessons, which is a bummer. Based on Dalton's lesson today, they'll both be level 3 by the time she gets back.

Maggie had her Kindergarten assessment today. She said the teacher just asked her to name letters and to make their sounds, and to sound out a few words (nut, ch, and sh, according to Maggie). The teacher said she did great and knows all her sounds (yes, she does). I hope this means we aren't being sent to another school. I can't believe she is starting school in a week! Dalton won't know what to do with himself.

In "practicing" for her assessment, I made Maggie count to 32. She really gets stuck on 30. The very next day out of nowhere she counted to 132! No idea where she picked that up. Smart girl.

Maggie also had her staples taken out today. She did really well and only screamed for the actual staple removal and a few minutes afterwards. Not that I blame her. I am amazed at how far apart the staple holes are now that her skin has gone back to its correct shape. Yuck. Staple-free Maggie convinced me to go swimming this afternoon. It was significantly less crowded than previous days we've gone in the afternoon. Summer must be ending.