I had a party-rific weekend! I had my
first Pampered Chef party (as the consultant) last night and it
went really well!! The show went smoothly (if a little long),
my hostess (my neighbor) was very happy, and I booked two more
shows from it! Today I hosted an Arbonne International (make-up
and skin care) party here. I did it as a favor for a friend and
was a bit hesitant because my make-up/skin care routine
consists of Clinique face lotion and Softlips lip gloss. The
party was a lot of fun though! We had a nice crowd and everyone
but me knew a lot about make-up so I got lots of free advice.
By the end we were all dolled up with nowhere to go. :) So we
ordered pizza and just hung out. It was great.

Life is pretty busy these days. Working to get
the Pampered Chef business off the ground and simultaneously
working hard to not get too caught up in it. I was aiming for
2-3 shows a month and I currently have 5 on my August calendar,
10 total over the next 3 months, and several others I just need
to schedule dates. Whee!! A good problem to have, I suppose.

And here I am again, up too
late!

I gave Lex a kiss the other night before I
went to bed and he startled and said:

LEX: “Mom the monster had a bed. The monter had a pillow.
The moster had the same pillow that I had.”
ME: “The
monster?”
LEX: “yes” (with a happy little
sigh)
ME: “What monster?”
LEX: “The bunny
monster.”
ME: “Are you having a good dream?”
LEX: “yes” (with a happy little sigh)

The next morning I asked him about the monster and he said
it was the bunny monster in the hat in Between the Lions (his
favorite show). It’s really the Announcer Bunny puppet in a top
hat at the beginning of the show. I wonder if he thinks puppets
are monsters? I was surprised that he remembered the
dream.

And speaking of remembering
things… we went into the Co-Op for the first time in ages
today. Lex looked around and said “Mommy, do you think Popcube
is still here or do you think he went home?” It took me a
minute to remember that last time we went to the Co-Op (ages
ago!) we randomly met Grandpa. Then Lex said “I didn’t say hi
to him, I just looked down.” True, true. Amazing memory on this
kid!

When Lex was about a year old he kicked a
slat on the crib and broke it in half. We thought we had a
super strong boy on our hands. Since we couldn’t really afford
a new crib we relied on some packing tapes and Alan’s
handiwork, and it’s held up well. Recently I saw a recall
notice for cribs much like ours, but not exactly the same
model, for problems with babies breaking the slats. Guess other
people have super strong kids too! Anyway, I emailed the
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to see if they were
investigating other models. They pretty quickly got back to me
and sent an investigator out. He gave me $250 in cash and took
my crib! (of course I agreed to all of this ahead of time) So
now we have a few dollars (rare for us these days) and are
debating the wisdom of switching Eve to the toddler bed now :)
Just for kicks we got it out tonight (notice the pack-n-play
right near by) and figured we’d try it for the weekend. Tonight
went rather well, says Alan. We’ll see how nap time goes
tomorrow. They were both super excited to see the toddler bed
out again and Lex was climbing up on the tall edges and jumping
off. She was using it like a trampoline. I’m not really
expecting much, but we’ll see. She’s awfully cute anyway.

I’m so far behind on the blogging, but there are
a few past thoughts I wanted to be sure to capture. These
pictures are from last week. Lex and I decided to make
blueberry muffins with the blueberries we had picked, but I
told him I had to load the dishwasher first (so we had clear
counters to work on!) Then my friend called and we got to
chatting. Lex decided to take matters into his own hands and
load the dishwasher for me. Isn’t that helpful! I don’t
normally let him help with the dishwasher (too messy), so I
think he was pretty thrilled that I wasn’t stopping him this
time. I did, however, stop him from opening up his sippy cups
to put them in. Visions of day-old milk splattered around the
kitchen got the best of me.

This may have also been the first
time he ever spoke on the phone. My friend’s 3yr old daughter,
Josie, loves the phone and always want to talk. I was talking
to her for a minute and Lex wanted to know who it was and then
decided that he wanted to talk to Josie. I put them on speaker
phone and it was pretty funny. They needed a little help
understanding each other, but overall it went well :)

For awhile now I’ve been trying to get a
nice picture of the two of them together. I’d like to update
the one on the top of the blog here and I’m getting requests
from others as well. Obviously I’ve been very unsuccessful in
my efforts, but I thought I’d share a few of those unsuccesses.
They can be pretty silly!

Perhaps it’s
time to call in a professional? :)

I’ve been so super busy lately, but I know
people are suffering from blog-withdrawal, so I’ll do my best
to keep up :)

Eve’s
first trip to the Atlantic

Eve and I took a last minute trip
to the Atlantic Ocean last weekend. My friend called Friday to
see if we wanted to join her and her baby (my daycare baby) for
a weekend in Wells, ME. It was fun. Alan and Lex stayed home
and ate PB&J; and the girls hit the beach. Ok, we really
hit the beach for about 10 minutes one day and 15 the next and
that was about it. Then we hit the outlet stores :) The weather
wasn’t exactly beach-worthy.

Fun on
the kiddie ride at the outlet malls. I’m a boring mommy and I
don’t put quarters into the machines. They’ll figure it out
soon enough and start bugging me, so I figure it’s best to save
my quarters until then :) Eve had a great time just
pretending.

We
got there Saturday afternoon and took the girls to the beach.
The tide was low and it felt like miles from the rocks to the
water. Eve had a great time running on the sand and chasing the
seagulls (she called them ducks). She did not like the water
though! It was COLD and I think the wave may have scared her.
On Sunday we had a brief break in the rain and we slathered on
the sunscreen and headed for the beach, only to find it was
high tide and the few feet of beach area was packed with people
and their stuff, all crammed up and waiting for the tide to go
out. We had fun for about 20 minutes, but then the clouds and
storm rolled in so we headed back to the hotel for naps. Again,
Eve was happy in the sand but screamed when I took her towards
the water. She didn’t even get wet but she cried and said
“cold, cold” when I carried her towards the water. Oh well.
Baby Lyndsey loved the water and the sand. She rolled around in
the sand, snuggled up to it, rubbed her face in the sand and
then laughed when her mommy brought her into the ocean. They
both even went under and Lyndsey was happy! Crazy baby :)

Possibly
Eve and Lyndsey’s favorite part of the trip was the cabinet
under the TV (suitcase storage, we guessed). It was the perfect
little place for them to hide and made a nice little bench for
them to sit on. Made for hours of entertainment.

Lyndsey
really liked the sand! :)

We came back late Sunday night. It
was really nice to have some girl time and a little one-on-one
with Eve. So rare these days. I’ll confess that I missed my
boys too :)

Eve in
her new hat from The Children’s Place Outlet. It’s a little
big, but she picked it out and seemed to love it. She also
picked out a t-shirt for Lex that says “Whiz Kid” but he
doesn’t seem to love it. He doesn’t really love much of
anything new. Maybe she’ll wear it some day.

Here is a little movie of Eve repeating
one of her favorite words (right up there with yucky and ouch).
If you listen carefully you can also hear Lex in the background
asking the lady her name.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg9JRax2yFc]

Lex has suddenly had a real social burst.
We went to the doctor this afternoon and he was talking up a
storm to the lady. Telling her about his bike and carrying on a
real conversation. At one point he even said, “The phone is
going to ring in a minute and I’m going to talk to someone.”
The doctor asked who was going to call and he said “Daddy is
going to call and I’m going to talk to him.” She asked if he
was at work and Lex said, “No, daddy is not working. He is at
the office eating peanuts!” Cracked me up! She then asked if
Lex liked peanuts with salt on them and Lex said, “No, we don’t
eat peanuts in our house.” I told Alan the story later and he
reminded me of a candy machine type thing that they have in the
office and keep filled with peanuts. Lex LOVES it and eats
peanuts by the handful when he visits the office. :)

After the doctor’s appointment we went
blueberry picking and he was chatting with everyone in the
field. He followed one lady for awhile asking her what she was
doing, what she was going to do with her blueberries, whether
or not she likes blueberries, etc. It was so funny. Reminded me
of some of our other toddler friends who are very chatty…
unlike Lex. I wonder if this is a new phase or just a random
occurrence :) I guess we’ll find out!

A very
happy Eve

Lex
running after this nice lady who talked with him for quite
awhile.

We’ve been busy and I haven’t really been
motivated to blog lately. Sorry. I’m sure that will change
soon. Any day now you’ll probably see a book! Anyway, real
quick…

I love the manners on my kids
(most of the time!) Lex just fell out of bed and I went up to
check on him. He was 99% asleep and mumbled “Can I have some
water?” When I handed him his cup he said “Thank you.” How
sweet that he’s polite even in his sleep :)

More later…

Lex can kind of ride his bike. He still
struggles a bit with the forward part of peddling.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEExPh4cZ-4]

Lex and Eve love this car. Sometimes he pushes
her, sometimes she pushes him (tries to anyway) and sometimes
they like to ride together. Last week they had a blast when
Joshua came over and pushed them.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUmR2dqIHAo]

Eve was riding on Parrish’s big wheels thing.
Of course she got off when I turned the camera on. In the very
beginning though you can hear the “rmm, rmm” noise she makes
when “driving” any vehicles.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KIW_id1pYs]

At Parrish’s party they had a circle of flower
petals and Eve was fascinated. She can almost say “flowers”
too. She tries awfully hard anyway :)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJLBvaYq0EA]

Fun in a box. This big Pampered Chef box has
entertained him for days. She scoots in there when he’s
distracted, but otherwise it’s all his. I think it’s so cute
how he closes himself in and all you see are his hands. Then he
says “where’s Lex?” and giggles. The longer I “look” for him
the more he giggles.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27zV3YJj8o8]