Frankie update

I have told and told Frankie not to put Miss Peach in a headlock.

Frankie is doing great lately, grandma. He loves school, and has a whole scoop of new friends over there which is a great relief to me knowing he has adjusted to another move and a new school. Half way between school and our house is a Krispy Kreme, which has his donuts and my fabulous iced coffee. Nuff said. He is actually getting straight A's so far in school. Cool Beans!!

He spends most of his time camped out in the living room where he has made a nest of controllers, papers, books, more papers, wrappers and have drained glasses and plastic bottles, and balled up dirtly socks. Yes, this is in the common living area.

Since I am the maid, I usually pick up all of that myself. I find it very rewarding to clean up after the boy. Grrrr....

Frankie has announced to the family that he is going by Francisco now at school, but we can call him Frank still if we want. But I like to call him Mama's little Frankie-Bear. It is nice to still have options.

lil Tater

Here is little Tater wrestling with the Akita girl. They are like two puppies together. First, a pillow fight which includes one of the (smaller one) couch pillows that I made with my friend Yuri for our sofa. (You might notice that Cricket has the good sense to take his toy and hide under the coffee table) These is one of our little pillows that have already seen some hard times. We had the good sense to chose a machine washable cotton with batik-print dirt color for two of them, and a dark reddish-brown print for the other one, both envelope backs. Anyway, the dogs and boys really like these pillows. Grrr....

Nate has recently announced the household that he is expecting to commence puberty at any moment, being about eleven and a half. He has found a small red bump on his stomach and showed me, Jose, and my friend Yuri, what he declares to be his first pimple. He asked my if I would buy him some Axe deodorant spray, please, the next time I go to the store. He is getting some armpit odor, you see, since he is a big teenage boy now. Hee hee....not....but he wants to be :) I do wish he wouldn't grow up so fast!

just cleaning up around here

Life around here has involved alot of cleaning up, including our furry friends. On more than a few occasions we have woken up to a fury of tiny red ants. One morning on going down to the kitchen, all Jose would say is "That. Is. Impressive." After promising me that if I just went to bed, he would take care of the dishes, then forgetting said dishes, we woke up to the mayhem.

Jose then, wanting to be on time for work, sprayed ant spray everywhere and left the carnage. It was fabulous. I vacuumed everything rather than wiping it in order to leave as much of the deadly stuff still sprayed around. There were ants all over the kitchen, in a trail around each window, leading across the stove, in a ring around the ceiling, into rivers down the walls, and around the living room pictures. Wow! Next time I would be tempted to call some pest control.

I washed the dishes, as usual, vacuumed the walls, floors, counters, etc, and then went to WalMart, or as we call it, Walm-Apart, to get some plastic bins for the food in the cupboards that I hadn't tossed away.

Apparently ants are a huge problem for people around here. They are desperately looking for water, trying to survive. Almost makes a person feel sorry for them. If only we could come to an arrangement. I'd gladly leave a bowl of water out if they would agree to stay out of the house.

Anyway after this excitement, I took Cricket to the groomers we found, who love Pekingese dogs and between the owners, have 6!! Here is Cricket, with a red scarf, with two other Pekes, including Dulce, his evil twin.

In the meantime Natsumi gets an old fashioned bath with a hose in the backyard.