Joy

I just love the picture that I posted yesterday. This one...


It was taken while the littles were playing together in the play room. Most of the time they play nicely together but some times they get mad with each other. The little lady likes to play with the little mans toys and the little man likes to take toys away from her.


So I put the little lady in the jump up so that I could do the dishes in peace and not have to worry if she was eating legos or not. There was no crying from either one as I got a few house chores done.


{My one legged jumping girl}
It brings me so much joy to see and hear them play together. The little lady will just giggle and giggle as they play peak-a-boo. The little man loves to get a reaction from her.
The little lady just loves to pull the little mans hair and cheeks. She just squeals with delight.
I dont blame her. Who would not wont to pinch these cheeks?

This moment

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. - Amanda Soule

Are you ready?

We are getting ready.
To celebrate World Breastfeeding Week and my birthday I am going to host a give-a-way and spend the first week in August talking about (what else) breastfeeding.

Simple gifts

Sleep is a gift in our house.
Lately I have not been getting much of it but the littles have and I have been enjoying there naps. But I just cant stop myself from taking pictures of them as they nap.


Here is the little man napping in his place of choice, resting his head on a large pile of books with is pants on backwards. Priceless.


And the little lady napping in the rocking seat, not strapped in, with the hubbies shirt as a pillow while toys cover the floor just of the cameras view.

Those are just a few snapshots from my life. And I am loving every minute of it.

I received another gift today. An early birthday gift from my Mom and Dad. This one is just a little more tangible than peace and quiet, a bike trailer.


I am super excited. I could hardly wait for the hubby to come home so I could take it out for a spin. It hooked up to the bike really easy and I could hardly feel it back there.
The littles liked it also. The little lady even sat in there and played for a while after we were done riding. I guess it was so relaxing for her that when I took her out she just had to poo. On herself, me and the ground. So then it was bath time. She was still so relaxed that she forgot to cry while she was in the big bath tub or maybe (hopefully) she likes the big tub now.
While she was in the tub playing with her brother I was able to wash her wool soaker in the sink and relanolize it. I think that I am really starting to like wool.

This week...

Has been very busy. I thought having the little man away at VBS would give me a little more time to blog, relax and do house work (in that order), but I was wrong. I have not found time to blog since Tuesday, the sink is still full of dishes and relaxing I dont know if that will ever come.
It was a fun week even though I did not get the things done that I wanted to.
The little man enjoyed his VBS. He cried the first three days and it was only five days long. I knew that he would have fun so I left him crying. When I got there to pick him up the first day he told me he had fun. So I did not feel so bad. We went back last night for his last day performance and play time. We got there early so that he could jump in the bounce house but he did not want to. When it was time to sing he did not want to either. He just stood there.
What a stubborn boy.
He even woke up this morning singing the songs and when I asked him why he did not sing yesterday he just shrugged his shoulders.
Sometimes I wish I knew what was going through his little head, but only sometimes.
About day number two of VBS he came home with a runny nose that now the little lady has it. Maybe it is the runny nose but she has not been sleeping well at night.
The little lady has always enjoyed sleeping on her belly but lately when she rolls to her belly she then thinks she needs to push herself up. So this is what she is doing at night. This is making for some really long nights. Hopefully she gets it figured out soon. Night time is for sleeping, daytime is for playing.
I just had to move her up to her medium pocket diapers for night time. Tear. She is just growing up so fast. I only have a few so I think that I am going to venture out and try wool at night.
As for diapers during the day we are going through very few maybe three, or less. Over the past month and a half I have only changed something like a hand full of poopy diapers. This I really like.
She is still really enjoying sitting on her little potty. She has completely destroyed a plant that I had sitting on the counter next to her potty. She still does not really like the big potty though. I really think that it the sound of her pee hitting the water that she does not like. She will start to go and as soon as she hears it she stops. Sometimes she will continue going but other times she wont. This makes it hard when we are out and about. Sometimes she will hold it until we get to the little potty that in the car but other times she will just go in her diaper.
Well I guess its about time to lay this sleeping baby down and try to get some sleep. Hopefully this is a good night. My fingers are crossed.
*Sorry about the lack of pictures. I tried to upload a video but an error came up and I am much too tired to deal with it today. Maybe tomorrow.

Boys, boys, boys

The little man has two friends from church that he is super fond of. He talks about them all the time. He does not really play with them too much outside of church, but a few days ago they got together.


The little man is just a little younger and smaller than the other boys. Most of the little mans friends are older than him. I have always been a little worried that they would just boss him around but after watching him a few days ago, the worries are gone.


My little man knows how to stand his ground. I was so happy to see the leader in him come out.


These three boys have such different personalities that they are very entertaining to watch. I just sat on the side lines and watched them play. I only stepped in once when one of them thought it would be a good idea to throw rocks.
The little lady enjoyed playing in the sunshine while I watched.


And of course my kid just had to be the one that thought it would be cool to do this.

Good thing the others did not follow his example.

This week...

was filled full of naps. Not by me of cource but by the little man.
He does not always nap even though most days he needs one.
When he does nap he seams to stay up later at night and when he has had a late night a nap is a must. Its a vicious cycle.
His favorite place to nap is the couch. Blue couch, green couch or covered in diapers he does not care.





His second favorite place to sleep is in the car. This is just one picture of the three car naps he had this week.


Tomorrow is the little mans first day of VBS, so hopefully the naps will continue. We will see.

Bubble, bubble, bubble POP!

Yesterday we went and saw the bubble man.
I was so excited.
I saw him once before when the little man was just a few months old. So now this time he would really get to enjoy him.


He liked him but there were just so many kids there that he really did not get to fully experience all that he had to offer.


The bubble man is a washed up (washed out) peace, love and joy hippy who blows bubbles and preaches about recycling and reusing. He is great entertainment.

It was so nice that the weather was nice and I was able to take lots of pictures of the littles. You know you take way too many pictures when your 4g card has 16 pictures left on it.

Baby wearing toddler

Most of the time he is 'all boy.' All he wants to do is drive cars, build legos, mow the grass, work on things and do just about anything that the hubby is doing.


I am not complaining. I love it. It is super cute.
Tonight his toy of choice was not something that can cut down trees or drive real fast, it was a baby doll.
He was playing with it for a little while before he looked up at me and asked if I had a sling for the baby.
We looked around in my overflowing fabric cabinet before we found the right piece of fabric. A one foot wide strip of orange left over from making his duvet cover for his bed.


It was perfect. And the baby fit so nicely right inside.


Once his baby was all snug in the sling he asked me very nicely if I could put the little lady in the sling also. My ring sling was in the car that the hubby took so I tried out my pocket sling for the first time with the little lady.
She seamed to like it. I am still a little to large to use it and wear it comfortably. I used it all the time when the little man little but I was a few pounds liter.
So we did a little house work with our naked babies in our slings.


But as soon as the hubby got home the sling was traded for a power tool and he was back to being 'all boy.'

Peas please

The little lady and I were out picking peas.



And I guess that they looked so yummy that she just had to try one.


She reached out her little hand and grabbed one right out of my bucket.


She had fun gnawing on it for a little while. She had no idea it was food.


It will still be a while before we start solids but it was fun to pretend for a little while.

The letter S

Today we packed a lunch and spent most of the day at the park.
We met some other moms and there little ones there that we have not seen in so long.
We got to catch up. Chat about babies, birth, shampoo, schools and everything else under the sun. We had a great time. Before I knew it 4 hours had passed by and I knew we needed to head home. Hopefully we will be able to get together again here real soon. The kids had a blast playing together also.
This was the first time we went to this park but I see us coming here more often. It had a nice playground tucked back in the woods and it even had a little creak running through it. Our afternoon was filled full of


Sticks


Splashing


Smiling


Sliding and Swinging.

Barefoot bandit

All the talk lately around here has been about Colton Harris-Moore and how he was captured yesterday.
Just a few days ago I was going through the little mans camera and I saw this photo


and it reminded me of the infamous photo of Colton Harris-Moore. You know this one.


Last month one of the local talk radio stations was talking about him and people that live off the land. And my hubby just had to call in to enlighten the talk so host about freegans.
He spent about ten minutes on the radio talking about my brother, a freegan, and about how he lives off the land. I would not really call Colton Harris-Moore a freegan but he has done a pretty good job of living off the land over the past few years.
I have wrote about him here and recently my mom wrote about him here.
I am really not trying to compare my brother to this fugitive but I guess they do have a few similarities in the way they choose to live.

Faster than a speeding bullet

More powerful than a locomotive.


Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.


Look! Up in the sky! Its a bird... its a plane...


nope its just the little man.
He has just been blowing me away lately with his creativity. I just cant believe how big he is getting.
Today he was sitting on the couch having a conversation with his toes. Yes his toes. It was so cute. His toes were a family complete with a crying little baby that the mama was trying to calm down. I could not help but listen in. As I went to reach for the video camera he stopped and moved on to something else.
When he is not having conversations with his feet he is playing Lego's, or cars or pretending to be a rock star. There is never a dull moment in our house and I love it!!


The little lady wants to be a part of the action to so she is working very, very hard on crawling. I know she is only 4 months old but this girl knows how to move.
When I set her down on the ground she rolls over to her belly and pushes her self up. She is ready to get moving. She does really well at moving in a circle and log rolling. It is still hard for her to move forward and most the time she ends up going backwards. But if there is something just out of her reach she will find a way to get it. Before I know it she will be exploring the house and our lives will have even less dull moments.

Staying cool

I guess summer is finally here in the great state of Washington. It is crazy that just last week it was barley reaching the 60's and now its in the 90's. WOW!!!
Here is a short list of the things we have been doing to stay cool the past two days.

1) Keeping a nice cool jar of fresh brewed ice tea around. Having the fans on helps also.


My teas of choice for the past few days have been passion and green. So refreshing. Ahh!

2) Go for a ride with the top down.


It was so nice of Grandma to come over today and take the little man for a slow ride around the col-de-sac. Thanks Grandma.

3) Take a dip in the pool.


The hubby finally opened up the pool yesterday and today the little man was brave enough to test out the very cold waters. It should warm up here over the next week if the weather stays nice and then we will all be venturing into the waters also.


The little lady enjoyed playing in the little pool.

4) Have naked time.


We are a clothing optional house but nothing really cools you off better than being naked. I had to do a little convincing to have the little man put on shorts tonight before our guests arrived and even more convincing to have him keep them on the whole time they were here.

Next weeks keep it cool plans involve more water, swimming and hopefully a trip to the movies to see Toy Story 3. What are some of your favorite things to do to stay cool in the heat?