I submitted Lex and Eve in the Parents
Magazine cover model search. You can view their pics and
recommend them here:

Lex’s
pictures
Eve’s
pictures

I posted six of each
of them and you can click on each picture and vote for them
individually. I don’t think the viewer voting actually affects
the judges’ choices, but it’s fun anyway and there are over 63K
entries, so I’m not expecting much :)

It’s late and I really should be sleeping,
but Alan is out and I am terrible at putting myself to bed, so
I’ll post some pictures for awhile instead :)

When
Eve feeds herself. (Notice the two bowls? She finished off Lex’s :)
)

Hungry
toes?

Lunch
today on the picnic table. The kids LOVE eating at the picnic
table. It’s always such a treat.

Look at
that healthy lunch he’s eating! Some days I’m very proud of
what I feed them. Some days I’m extra proud because they
actually eat what I feed them!!

Eve
loves this car and I love when Lex pushes her :) They are so
fun together. She got up from the table, mouth still full, and
sat in the car, so he jumped up and ran over to push her around
the yard. She honks the little horn, he works so hard to push
her, I enjoy the moment.

Both of these series
involve food and I have to point out that we *might* be
entering a new eating phase. It’s still early and I’m probably
jinxing myself just by writing this, but in the past two days I
have made two meals, outside of Lex’s normal 3-item repertoire,
that he has tasted! This really is a big accomplishment because
normally he’s happy to go hungry before tasting anything. I’m
talking pretty basic foods here, I’m not exactly a fancy chef.
In the messy Eve pics they had Hawaiian Sweet Potatoes for
dinner and he ate about 5 bites!! The lunch series was
sunflower butter on a bagel (we’re avoiding peanut butter until
the allergy testing) and a peaches/kiwi/Kix mixture. He ate
almost the entire lunch, except for what Eve helped herself to.
She is a very good eater :)

And on a
somewhat related note, he put himself on the potty tonight (I
think it was a bedtime procrastination, but it’s been weeks
since he’s used the potty so I didn’t argue) and he proceeded
to pee and poop! It’s been forever since he’s done that! I
don’t want to get anyone’s (ok, my!) hopes up, but we *might*
be entering a new phase here :)

No more
excuses now, off to bed!

I know I’ve mentioned in the past that Lex
is getting very independent, and this morning I have a shining
example. I went out for a walk and got back to find Lex, by
himself, standing on a chair at the sink. I was a little
freaked out by this scene and immediately asked “where’s
daddy?” Lex said he was upstairs sleeping. Lex can’t open the
baby gate at the top of the stairs, so Alan must have let him
down, but then Lex took care of himself. By the time I got home
he had gotten a sippy cup from the cabinet, filled it with
water, added some ice (a trick I haven’t seen before), and put
the top on. He’d also gotten out his snack foods (goldfish,
annie’s bunnies, dried fruit) and a bowl and had started
preparing the snack. Dried fruit makes his hands sticky, so
after he put it in the bowl he got a washcloth, wet it in the
sink, and washed his hands. This is where I came in. The whole
scene is a little scary, but impressively independent. I’m not
sure I’m ready for this to be a regular thing, because of all
the “what ifs” but I guess it’s another stage of growing up.
Eeek!

We made corn on the cob
for dinner tonight. Lex was very excited to help prepare it,
shuck it, wash it, cook it, etc. I was excited that he even
tasted it! Only a few bites, but that’s better than he usually
does. Eve, on the other hand, LOVED her corn! Tonight was her
first experience with corn on the cob and I think we’ll
probably do it again some time. A few minutes after she got
down from the table I turned around and saw her carrying an ear
of corn around with her :) She had reached up and grabbed it
off the table and was munching on it as she wandered around.
Silly girl.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr86L0BPf-U]

PS. I added two
other movies in the movie box over there. They are from this
morning when we were playing with Thomas (Lex’s age) and Martin
(baby).

We were down at Jim & Julie’s
house this weekend and Lex ate all of the peas out of their
garden. When Alan couldn’t find any more ready ones, Lex said
“I’m watching the peas grow. When they’re ready I can eat
them.” I’ve been so excited to get peas in our garden and today
we found some! Yay! Lex ate the ready ones and loved them! The
garden is coming along so well. I hope we get lots more veggies
for his eating pleasures.

On a bit of a whim we
went to the balloon festival today. We had other plans (grocery
shopping, etc.) but the balloon festival and “balloon
playground” was more appealing. This is the third year we’ve
gone and the first time we’ve actually seen the balloons
launch. The kids had fun running around and playing at the
playground. Lex was even interested in the balloons! He had no
nap though so he was pretty tired and it was very hot. I bought
him a balloon, similar to one that hangs on a porch of a house
we frequently walk by. He always points it out and admires it.
I’m going to try to hang his in their bedroom.

Eve,
offering Lex some food.

Also of interesting note, I put
Eve in the Ergo backpack today (I love that thing!) and took
her for a walk. I went with the intention of walking as long as
she was happy. About 20 minutes in to my walk I could tell she
was tired and wanted to sleep. I untucked a hood feature of the
backpack that covers baby’s head and keeps it snug against my
back, instead of bopping around. Lex would never let me use it
when he was in the carrier, but Eve made a few happy noises and
snuggled right into my back. My walk ended up being an hour and
10 minutes! Yay!

We wrapped up our playground week with a trip to
the playground this morning, where we met Andi and her boys.
Lex loves chasing around the older kids. Afterwards I decided
to brave a trip to the shoe store for some new summer sandals.
I’ve become addicted to pricey, but very comfy shoes. No more
cheap stuff for me (I hope!) So we went to the shoe store and I
got a very comfy pair of sandals. Lex and Eve did very well. I
turned around at one point and saw this scene. Lex had removed
Eve’s shoe, moved the stool over to the bench, and got the foot
measuring thing. He’s so sweet! Unfortunately she was tired and
didn’t enjoy the game as much as he did.

Hmm… where to begin. Nothing exciting
this week, just one playground after another. My calender is
covered with “playdate with X at Y playground.” I think we’ve
hit every one in the area this week! Some days we even hit more
than one!

On Tuesday it was sooo hot at the
playground that on the way out I asked Lex if he wanted to go
buy some ice cream. I was envisioning a little kiddie cone with
sprinkles and all that good stuff. I’m pretty sure it’s his
first ice cream cone. However, it was only 10am and apparently
none of the local ice cream stands are open at 10am on a
Tuesday. Not even a Tuesday morning that’s already pushing 100
degrees! So we ended up at McD’s (sad, I know, but we had fun).
They both liked the ice cream, but Lex absolutely did not like
the cone! He cried (too much ice cream, I’m sure) and said no,
no, no cone! So Eve tried to eat it instead. The ice cream was
melting quickly and they are slow eaters so I ended up
“cleaning up” their cones on a regular basis and therefor
probably ate more of the ice cream than they did :) Probably
for the best.

Today we went to a fun playdate at
my friend Sarah’s house. It was us, her, and two other
families. It was a lot of fun and my kids were very well
behaved. Later that afernoon I was complimenting Lex on playing
so nicely with the other kids and acting so sweet. Then
this:

Lex: “I think I hit
someone.”
Me: “You did? Who did you hit?”
Lex: “I think I hit Alice.”
Me: “Why did you
hit Alice?”
Lex: “Because I wanted to give her a
hug.”

Sometimes his conversations don’t
always make sense and this one left me wondering if this was
one of them or if things really happened as he said they did.
He said she didn’t cry and when I asked why he hit her instead
of hugging her, he lost interest in the conversation. Is the
little flirting process beginning already? :)

Hmm… I guess I’m going to just add
a few random pics. I love the colors of summer and I’ve been
taking tons of pics. I’ll probably get them all up on the
photos site just in time for winter :) Here are a few to tide
you over ’til then.

We got
out the water toys this weekend. Eve was not
amused!

Lex
was!

Lex
helping me dig a hole for the clothes line post.

Eve was
smiling away until Lex climbed on, then she got fussy. I’ve
been trying to get a nice photo of the two of them together,
but no luck so far.

Josie
and Lex on her swing set.

Another
attempt at a photo of the two of them together. It’s tough to
get them both look at the same time (Lex has become camera shy
again lately) and then almost impossible to get them both
smiling. I’ll keep trying though!

Eve and
Ezra

I think the sweetest thing in the world
these days is when the kids are playing together and I hear,
“Hi Eve, I love you.” Melts my heart. He talks to her a lot,
telling her what he’s doing, giving her toys, and reading to
her. They are amazing.

We are off to a
picnic with some friends this afternoon. I know I’m behind with
the posts but I’ll try to get to it again soon. Nothing
thrilling going on these days, just lots of beautiful weather,
playgrounds and walks. We have a busy weekend too, but I’ll see
if I can get a few pics or something posted soon.

I had a really nice day with the kids
today. We started with a trip to the grocery store this
morning, which was just supposed to be a quick trip to pick up
more fruits and veggies (eating lots of them these days!) and
ended up costing me over $100! Everything is so expensive these
days! Gas topped $4/gal today… but I digress. Alan was home
all morning because we had a home energy audit. Results TBA.
There was lots of excitement in the house though and big fans
and red doors and we all stayed busy. This afternoon I took the
kids to a Weight Watchers meeting, mostly as an experiment. I
think daytime meetings would be more convenient than
coordinating with Alan for evenings, but I was worried how the
kids would do. Kids are apparently very welcome (they even had
a bag of toys) and mine did AWESOME! They were happy and sweet
and quiet. I was doling out Zone bars for most of the time and
hoping all the dieting women didn’t mind. After the meeting I
had several women come up and tell me that the kids were so
sweet and how nice it is to see such well behaved kids. The
leader lady said that I was welcome to bring them anytime. Yay!
And even better news, I lost 2.5lbs. Yay! :) Off to a good
start, me thinks. Lex slept in the car on the way to the
meeting, but otherwise had no nap. Alan had to work late (since
he took the morning off) so we hit the drive-thru and picked up
some dinner for him. When we got to his office Lex said he
wanted to go in. He was tired and Eve was tired and hungry, so
I said we could go in if he promised to act sweet and just give
daddy his dinner and leave. No arguing. The boy literally
climbed the stairs, opened the door, marched over to Alan’s
desk, handed him the bag, and turned back to the door. I
cracked up. I said “we can stay for a few minutes and say
hello,” but I had to go get his attention and stop him from
opening the door :) He was a man on a mission to obey! We ended
up having a nice dinner (dry cheerios, blueberries, and
yogurt), a good bath, and an easy bedtime. I love it when
things go smoothly and everyone is happy!!