Thursday, June 07, 2007

Hot Hot Hot

This past weekend it was really warm here. It got up to 88 (31C) on Saturday. On Sunday it was 93 or 94 (34C). Of course, starting Monday evening we had a thunderstorm and it's cool and rainy all week since then, hovering around 60 (15C).

On Saturday we did our yard work. Sydney helped out by watering the tree that got planted in Grandma and Grandpa M's front yard this year. (They own the house next door but haven't moved all the way in yet for the newer readers out there.)

Sydney Waters The Tree

Sydney is also in the mode where she likes to pour things from one container to another. At one point she took the hose over to the little yellow cup behind her in the picture and filled that up. Then she took that and poured the water on the tree.

Saturday afternoon we played with more water. Sydney got to play with her water table. It was a Christmas present. Mommy usually lets her play with it when they go outside in the afternoon if the weather is warm enough. It definitely was Saturday.

Once again Sydney showed her great proficiency at scooping water and pouring it into various containers. It eventually (mostly) ended up in a bucket.

Sydney Plays At Her Water Table

Sunday morning we teased Sydney by setting up her splashy pool that she got for her birthday. We set it up but we weren't ready to play with it yet. Our original thinking behind that was to set it up and let the water warm up through the day and play with it in the afternoon. However it actually gets the hose attached to it and constantly run. There's not much standing water in it to get warm. It's constantly in flow.

Anyway, we ran a few errands and then played inside for a little while before nap time. Sydney thought it would be fun to climb all over me (and it was) so Mommy went and grabbed the camera.

It's really strange, but she knows exactly what the camera is. She poses every time she sees it. I mean, it's like we take a picture of her every day since she was born or something!

Anyway, when she saw Mommy with the camera she ran over to Mommy. And Mommy snapped a shot of her as she ran up.

Sydney Smiles

(It might be worth noting that I have cropped and resized this photo into versions suitable for a desktop wallpaper. If any grandparent, aunt or other relative would like a copy of it let me know and I will email it to you.)

Sydney was quite excited about the camera and it took some coaxing to get her back over to play so Mommy could try to get some "natural" pictures. So she finally came back over to me. And posed for the camera.

Sydney Sits on Daddy

She then ran back over to Mommy so she could see the picture on the back of the camera. Eventually I got her back over so we could play. And eventually she ended up "uppa down". You can see how much she hated that in this picture.

Sydney Uppa Down

Sunday afternoon we all went outside and Sydney finally got to play in her splash pool. At first she had a good time exploring all the little parts of it.

Sydney Plays In Her Water Pool

But eventually she played as much as she could and, yeah, you guessed it. She started scooping and pouring water. She ran over and grabbed a bucket and started pouring water into it. She was quite happy and content to just stand there and scoop and pour.

Sydney Plays In Her Water Pool

Eventually, at the end of play time the bucket was full. It was used to water another tree.

We also did some minor projects around the house on the weekend. We bought a roll up shade for Sydney's room. Her window is on the west side of the house and it doesn't really get dark until 9:00 PM (or later) around here in the summer. So I took down her curtains, took down the Venetian blinds and put the roll up shade up then the curtains back up.

We got the thickest one we could find for sun blocking but it didn't really seem to help much. I think it is about as effective as the blinds were. So Anne's going to try to find some kind of liner for the curtains and sew that in to help keep the room cooler and darker for bedtime. (And in the morning. It gets light around 4-5:00 AM in the summer and that's way too early for her to get up. Which she has been sporadically.)

The Venetian blinds I took out of her room I put up in the office behind the curtains. This window is also west facing so it helps a little in the evening. Plus if I want the window open for a little air flow on warmer evenings I don't feel like I'm sitting in front of an open window for the backside neighbors to see in.

I'm currently re-reading all the Harry Potter books. I started Prisoner of Azkaban a few days ago. I've only read the books once each so this is very nice to go back and read them again. Especially the first few. There are small little details I've forgotten.

My original plan was was to start them in May (which I did). I figured I could probably finish reading them all around the time the new book comes out on July 21. And if I was lucky I could stretch it out a little bit and finish them a week or so after that so Anne and I wouldn't have to fight over the new book. She could finish it and then I could go.

But I've forgotten how fast of a read these are. I am generally a bit of a slow reader. And the only time I get to really read books is when I go to bed and read for an hour or so before falling asleep. But these books are fast reads and they are good enough that they can keep me up later than I should be (especially with Sydney waking up sometimes at 5:30 in the morning). But I'm only a quarter into the third book and have the really long next three still to go. We'll see how my timing works out.

If you want to see more Sydney pictures from the weekend you can check out my Picture Trail photo album. There's a link over there at the side of the page.

And something else that I just forgot. So too bad.

Place Holder

If you're reading this you may be interested to know that there are lots of new pictures over in my photo album. If you're really desperate for a Sydney photo fix you can head over there.

Otherwise, come back in 24 hours and I will hopefully have a whole new blog post up incorporating several of those photos and telling about our really hot weekend this past week. (If it's not up in 24 hours it should be up in 48 hours.)

Or you can do both.