Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2019 July

Arthur loves counting. He wants to count everything. He wants to know how many minutes. He did push ups with dad today and counted to twenty-nine, twenty-ten, one hundred.” He bothered me every three minutes on the drive home from Utah asking how many more minutes (along other whines), and he does it even when we’re driving around town.

This week, Dalton is doing tennis camp as well as usual swim team. He loves running and lifting weights with dad, and exercising in general. He has been begging to do swim team during the school year, which i think we’ll allow. There’s one very close to home, and very reasonably priced. As far as kids activities go, it’s a winner.

Follow up to my last post, about Arthur obsessed with counting. Yesterday, he asked me how many minutes until he starts first grade.

Arthur was asking for French toast with no syrup the other day. Not toasties (premade Frozen French toast). You make it in the toaster, mom. Not actual toast. Eventually we figured out he wanted hash browns (with no ketchup). The next day he called them “brownies. Then “crumbs.”

Arthur: Can I play a game not on the big TV (Wii)? In the closet.
Me: A board game?
Arthur: No, a fun game.

Today is our 16th anniversary. We celebrated by getting John a Flex annual pass and taking Arthur to Disneyland. He has recently passed 40 inches in height, which opens up 7 new rides at Disneyland. Today we went on Star Tours, Big Thunder (fast train! His fave) and the new Star Wars smuggler’s run ride. We waited an hour for the Star Wars ride, but he was so patient, and he had fun piloting the ship. We also tried the blue milk (delicious and expensive) and ate at the Mexican restaurant and had Salt and Straw for dessert. Then we went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant near our house. A great anniversary, and looking forward to the gift of another year of date nights.

Every summer, we do a reading chain where the kids wrote the title of each book they read on a strip of paper and add it to the chain. Then I give them a prize every 25 chains. Some prizes we’ve done this summer include ice cream taco restaurant, everyone picking out a toy at Target, going to Circus Trix, Valentines clearance toys I had leftover from our flashlight egg hunt, $1 candies etc. they are about to finish #250. I have to come up with a prize for that, then our last prize will be milkshakes at Black Tap with dad next week.

Other prizes we’ve done previous years was a new Beanie Boo for everyone, McDonald’s dessert run, a big LEGO set to share, $1 icees at Burger King, nano block sets, craft sets (the Ooz Os was a HUGE hit) etc