Sonora's Summer Adventures!

Bathing Beauty

Wild Ponies and the Good ol' U S OF A

It has been a long time since I have been able to post. So many things are happening and God is showing me so many things! The neighborhood kids have firmly planted their roots here at our home. We have about 30 total, but there are about 20 who are faithfully showing up every day to keep me and Sonora company, and also to bug Daniel while he is trying so desperately to catch up on work while we both try and figure out a way to get the condo ready to rent. We still aren't finished unpacking, but I have learned that life goes on, even when we want it to pause for a minute!

I have corralled these wild ponies of mine into a neighborhood project and they are thriving. They have been coming to my door after school with eggs and sugar and what they think might be flour and asking me to make cookies for them. One kid even said to me, "you should make us cookies every Friday. I quickly responded, "And you should bring me flowers and Sees Candy every Wednesday." He had a baffled look on his face, it was worth it. Well, I began running out of supplies, as I am sure you can imagine, even a batch of cookies will not satisfy 30 kids, so I began making them smaller and smaller and that's when they began trying to come up with the ingredients themselves. One girl brought me rice flour and said, "let's try it!" so we did, and well, they were pretty flat.

I decided to enlist them in a project. I bought all kinds of red white and blue beads, and safety pins and they are making those safety pin flags.

We are selling them for 3 dollars each. One dollar will go back to me to for the supplies, one dollar will go to the kids for their work on the project, and the 3rd dollar will go into a community fund to pay for the snacks I give them all summer like lemonade, taco bell lunches for the kids who stay all day and work through lunch, cookie ingredients like vanilla, chocolate chips, eggs, etc ...

I figure that if we get started now, we will have a decent supply right before the 4th of July and it will be the perfect time to sell them. I am hoping I can find some people who work at places that allow this kind of commerce. I have a few friends who sell Avon and Partylite in their break rooms, so maybe if any of you are willing to take them to work and sell them for the kids, that would be a blessing. I have already had to discourage them from standing in the intersections and tried to explain there are better, safer and more tactful ways to sell things. I think we will just call the project Hope Family Housing Cookie Fund. Please let me know if you want to be a part of this adventure of ours!

As for Sonora, she is also thriving. She turned 8 months old on the 16th and she is such a "big girl!" She claps vivaciously, she says her ga, da and ba sounds. She hasn't conquered the la and ma sounds yet. She now shakes her head back and forth over and over as if to say "no no no" and she is such a delight. She LOVES to make people smile and laugh and does it with ease. She is definitely a people person (surprise surprise!) and is most content when everyone is paying attention to her. We left her in childcare at church for the entire service for the first time last week. She didn't even miss me. I said they should have given Sonora the pager for when I started to cry instead of the other way around! When I came back to retrieve her, she was cuddled up in Emily's arms enjoying one of her favorite past times ... reading. She loves to dance, and I mean LOVES to dance. She just began giving kisses about a week ago and is the best hugger now! I love her to pieces and am so blessed to be her mom!

We went to Disneyland this last weekend and she watched the fireworks for the first time. She was totally engrossed in the entire show. She also liked going in the tiki room and the jungle cruise ...

She had cheerios for the first time this week and loves her chewing motion. We always feed her when we eat and she sits at the table with us for every meal, whether in or out. She thinks it a kick that when we chew, she chews. She smiles and puts her hands in the air as if to say, "look at me, I am a big person, like you!" when she eats real food.

Daniel had an interesting Father's Day ... we had planned on going to Mickey D's before church, and we were a little late. Well, when we got there, I sat down with Sonora and was getting her situated in the high chair and Daddy was ordering when suddenly we were asked to leave the restaurant! At first I thought it was just us ... did we do something wrong? It's the Italian Catholic guilt-upbringing!! Then I realized that they were evacuating the entire place ... Mc Donald's had caught on fire! There were 3 big firetrucks, including the hook and ladder that came to the rescue, so Sonora got quite a show!