Is anyone left?

If there's anyone still reading this, please accept my semi-sincere apologies for ignoring blogging this summer. I wish my excuses were my extensive jogging regimen, making wildflower art with the kids, or serving my friends exquisite cuisine al fresco. But instead it was work, travel, work, and serving some burnt burgers in the backyard that seemed to fill my days. And lets face it, after a day at work who wants to come home to...more time on a computer?  That's why I have HBO!

So really it the temperature drop that you have to thank for my trimphant return. After a whole week of no air conditioning we are ready for the furnace. And ready for a roofer, thanks to an unfortunate meeting of our decades old roof and record setting rainfall. The one who showed up today viewed the damage to our guest room and...left. Just left. Hard to believe that this is a terrible economy when I can't even keep a guy around long enough to write him a check.

Anyway...onto the zoo that is our house! Gabe turned FOUR in July and has really matured physically (he's tall!), verbally ("that is a really interesting and beautiful sunset, mommy"), and behaviorally (at least on occassion). He also apparently has a shellfish allergy which we discovered after a trip to the ER last week. And our boy has become quite the homebody - his absolute favorite place to be is home, and you have to really bribe him to go anywhere. Except when it rains, because for some reason he equates rain to Chuck E Cheese's opening hours. This could be my fault, as I vaguely recall a promise during the long drought that was our summer that we would to see Chuck when it rained. Damn kid's mind is a steel trap. Anyway, his 2nd year of "big boy school" is going pretty well, with the big news this week being that HE GOT HIS OWN WORKBOOK. Okay, I don't really know what that means (are workbooks normally reserved for AP math?) but how he told me definitely required all caps.

Riley Roo on the other hand is not quite so verbal (everything is Da-Da, except "shoe" and "bye"), but miss thang is eating me out of house and home, with most of that food ending up on her hair. In the summer we'd just hose her off**, but now her yogurt deep conditioning treatment is requiring an average of 2 baths a day. I love being clean, but who has that kind of time? I barely have time to use a hairdyer more than once a week because I'm too busy giving Riley baths. And don't get me started on lipstick. But I digress. Riley is a huge daredevil just like her brother -- she will climb on anything and would put any 3 year old to shame how she can walk up and down the stairs. And she and Gabe really get along because a) he loves to make her laugh, and b) she loves laughing at him. And its so perfectly adorable to watch, except that what sparks her best laughs are lots of splashing in the tub. I'm talking on-the-ceiling and in-the-hallway spashes. Which makes the twice daily bath ritual all the better. Making me wonder if that hairdryer of mine even still works?

So that's my big update - just living life! We're very busy, but very happy. And being busy is no excuse - I updates more often! And no, Megan, this is not just because my birthday's coming up.

** Best quote of the summer was when I hosed her off after she spread cupcake from head to toe, and Gabe said "When you're done watering Riley, can you push me on the swing?"  Love it! My Riley plant!