Blueberries!

Hey, didja notice, it’s August!! Whoa,
when did that happen?!?

We went
blueberry picking this weekend. The kids LOVED it! The field
was wet and muddy but we all had fun. I told them I wanted to
make blueberry jam and if we had enough left over we could also
make blueberry pie. I think that motivated Eve and Alan! We
came home with almost nine pounds of blueberries!! The only way
we got Lex out of the field was to promise we could come back
again soon. I made five and a half jars of jam yesterday (with
the kids “helping”) and today we’re having blueberry pie for
dessert. Yum!

 

 

 

Haircut

Lex likes to take things slowly, in steps,
which allows for lots of “firsts” :) Today he had his first
professional haircut in the big chair! The nice lady was
thrilled not to have to sit on the floor behind him again
:)

A few days ago we were talking about
how his hair is getting pretty long. I asked if he wanted long
hair or if he wanted to get it cut. He chose cut. By a
professional (not by me!). By Kristie at Vivo (that’s who did
his hair before). So I called an made an appointment. All week
he has been asking to go play at the toy store, so I decided to
see if we could combine the trips. Actually, earlier in the
week he was looking at the calendar and decided that on Friday
we would play at the toy store and on Saturday we would get his
hair cut. He was even going to write it on the calendar, but
decided not to at the last minute. Anyway, Kristie wasn’t
available on Saturday, so I made the appointment for today and
told Lex that if he sat in the big chair and let her cut his
hair with no fuss then we could go to the toy store. And boy
did he ever!! He was excited to go, waited patiently for his
turn, picked out a book to read and climbed right into the
chair. He put his head up and down as she requested and even
let her use the clippers!! All in an effort to earn a trip to
the toy store, I think :) So off we went. They played for half
an hour and as we were leaving Lex said, “Oh, wait, we need to
buy something!” Shoot!! So close!! I guess he’s figured out the
point of a toy store after all. It was bound to happen someday.
I told him that since he did such a great job with his haircut
and played so well at the store and was listening to me so
sweetly that I would buy him one small toy. He chose another
Lego playset and was thrilled to make the “emergency
helicopter” with Alan at lunchtime.

The long, curly locks.

Sitting in the big chair!

A clean new
haircut.

Summertime legs

Look at those poor legs! The photo doesn’t
really even do them justice. Summer has been tough of them,
lots of running (falling), blackberry picking (scratching), and
swimming (cuts on the toes). They are troopers and never
complain, but sometime I want to put padding on those poor
legs. Sometime I probably SHOULD put bug spray on them! Oh
well.

Problem solved?

Or at least delayed?

I have been having a really rough time putting Eve to bed
for the past two weeks. She’s normally such a great, and
appreciative, sleeper but lately when we put her to bed she
just bounces around, gets up, turns off the AC, runs around,
etc. I had to move her bed away from her dresser because she
was climbing up onto the dresser and playing with the CD
player. She actually successfully changed the CD one day and
started the new one playing. I was impressed with the skill,
but not impressed that she was sitting on top of her dresser.
So now her bed is sticking out into the middle of the room. The
only way she has fallen asleep for about two weeks now is when
we put her in our bed. Given the choice she always chooses her
bed, but she doesn’t acutally settle down until she’s in our
bed. It occured to me yesterday that maybe she’s getting too
big for her bed! She likes to be tucked in and have doggie and
both giraffes tucked in too, but the first time she rolls over
in her little bed with her little blankets everything gets
uncovered. In our bed she snuggles under the covers and passes
out. At nap time yesterday I put one of Lex’s top sheets on her
bed and tucked it in all around. She fell asleep in about two
minutes!! I was thrilled!! Bedtime took about 10 minutes
because she was distracted by a bandaid on her toe, but she
fell asleep in her own bed with minimal fuss. Yay!! I’m always
proud of myself when I figure things out :)

Roadwork

We have a lot of roadwork around our
house. Shovel-ready projects abound!! It has become a game for
the kids to point out and read the road work signs. Lex
surprised me one day by reading a sign for the other lane.
Apparently he can turn his head around enough in his carseat to
see signs that we passed. Yesterday he surprised me again by
reading a sign in reverse. We were approaching a sign for the
other side of the road, but it was a fabric sign instead of a
metal sign and you could see the letters from our side, but
they were reverse. Make sense? It said “One Lane Road Ahead”
and he read it backwards through the fabric sign. I guess if
you can read you can read, but it still surprises me :) This
morning they were both crying and I asked them to read books in
their room while I got dressed. I returned a minute later to
find them sitting together in the big chair, him reading to her
and her resting her head on his shoulder! Despite all of their
craziness, they are so amazing and sweet.

Bedtime stories

Eve was being a naughty
monkey tonight and I put her to bed with no stories. After bath
I asked Lex to go downstairs and pick out a few bedtime stories
while I got Eve in bed. I was surprised and amused at what I
found when I came downstairs. He made himself a library (be
sure to watch the video) and was very proud of himself. After
some negotiations we ended up reading just two stories. Maybe
we’ll get to the rest tomorrow. :)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojgnRp7fqcE]