On a bit of a whim today we jumped into
the stroller (well, I jumped into sneakers) and we took a walk
to the playground. It was a day of firsts. Lex climbed to the
top of everything, made it to the end of the balance beam, and
successfully kept himself going on the swing by pumping his
legs. Such a growing boy!

Eve
discovered sap at the playground today. Got it on her fingers,
realized how sticky it is, and went back for more! Silly girl.
She also made it all the way to the playground with pants, but
no diaper, peed in the woods (first time!) and made it home
again. Such a growing girl!

Lex shocked and amazed me yesterday when
he decided to write Happy Birthday on pictures we were making
for Caitlin’s birthday party. Lex first decied to draw a
picture of a birthday cake with candles. After I wrote “Happy
Birthday Caitlin” on the picture Eve was drawing, Lex decided
he wanted to write it on his card too. He wrote “HAPE” and was
very excited. He asked if he spelled it correctly, and I had to
tell him no, but I said it gently and said it was a great try
and Caitlin would love it. He got frustrated anyway. For a
moment I thought he was done, but then he decided to get
another piece of paper and try again. Following my writing, he
wrote “Happy” on one side of the paper and “Birthday” on the
other. Then he wrote his name on both sides. I was so excited
that he was interested in writing and interested in trying
again and, AND he knew how to write most of the letters!!! I’ve
seen him writing his name a few times, but I didn’t know he
knew how to write so many letters! They weren’t all perfect,
but it was exciting anyway. Then we made an envelope out of
white paper and he wrote Caitlin’s name on it. We folded it up,
glued it together and he was very excited to bring it to
Caitlin. She smiled :)

It’s so rare that Lex hams for the camera
(or even looks at the camera!) I had fun and it looks like they
did too :)

Dential hygiene is very important around
here and Eve is preparing for her first dentist visit in
January. Mostly she just likes floss :)

Have I told you about Lex
lately? How sweet and amazing he is? How wonderful and lovey he
is? How very, very fortunate we are to have him?

For about a week we’ve been playing a silly
game. He says, “Mom, do you know who I love most?” and I
proceed to make silly guesses… “Mickey Mouse?” Each guess is
sillier and makes him laugh more. After three or four guesses
he says, “It’s you mommy!!” and he runs over to give me a hug.
Then I say “ooohhh, I’m such a lucky mommy!” We do this so
often that sometimes I can’t even make breakfast because he
gives me so many hugs! Eve likes to play too, but her version
is more like, “Who I love best? You!! Ooo, such a lucky mommy!”
all in one stream. :) Yesterday he decided that he also loves
Eve and Dad most too. So the game now ends with “I love you
most! And dad. And Eve!”

After bath tonight I sent them
into the living room to pick stories while I put the dirty
clothes in the laundry. I do this most nights and I usually
return to find them both playing. Tonight I came into the
living room and found them sitting together in the chair and he
was reading a story to her. He told me that he was going to
read her all of the library books for bedtime stories. I, of
course, grabbed the camera and made a movie of him reading. I’m
sure you’re all bored of movies of him reading by now, but I
love to hear it. I love his voice. I love how he reads. After I
put the camera away I asked if I could sit with them and Lex
decided we all needed to move to the couch, with him in the
middle. He read us three stories and then Eve got too crazy and
I had to put her to bed. Sadly she isn’t very good at going to
bed these days, but Lex was super sweet and read stories to
himself while I tended to her. After awhile I told her I had to
go take care of Lex (left her crying in her room). We played
with his trains until the clock chimed (our life revolves
around clock chimes) and then he went right to bed. I was
dealing with her for quite awhile and he stayed calmly and
quietly in his bed. I think it took him awhile to fall asleep,
but he was just soooo sweet!

I’m so
proud of the nice person he is growing in to. We are all so
lucky to have him in our lives.

I got the kids new lunchboxes last week.
They are called Bento Boxes. The kids love them. I like them.
They are a little small, but we have a serious shortage of
storage containers here so I was having trouble finding little
containers to put their food in each day. So far they are
working out well. One thing I have to figure out though is how
to insulate. For twice the price I could have gotten insulated
lunchbags with the Bento Boxes, but I was hoping for something
more compact as I’m already carrying a lot of stuff to daycare
when we go. Anyway, like ’em?

These are the videos Alan took at 10pm
while the kids were actively not sleeping. The last one is
pretty long, but cute.

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

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfQLEWUg4vA]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srwty9VleQ8]

I think summer has finally arrived… only
a month past it’s official date! This morning we had our first
day at the beach. Hopefully with many more to follow. We met
three other families and spent the morning at the lake’s edge
and had a picnic lunch followed by some playground time. I
think everyone had a blast! Eve promtly conked out in the car
on the way home. I was hoping for Lex to sleep as well, but no
such luck. I was really impressed with how well they both did
in the water. I’ve been having fears of them running in
opposite directions, under the water, losing one while trying
to keep track of the other, etc. Eve is known at the Aquatic
Center for having no fear and I really didn’t want to test that
in the lake! Lex did an awesome job of following the belly
button rule. Several times I thought he was too deep, but then
he would put his feet down and stand up and what do you know,
right at the belly button! Eve is still learning the rule (we
went with skirt because her belly button is a little harder to
see) but she did good. I was mostly pleased that she stayed
calm, stayed with us, and listened to me. Can’t ask for much
more than that!

Nate and Dylan in front, Eve and
Caitlin in back

Lex

Anya, blackberry-faced Eve, and Lex’s
belly

I just heard Lex call down,
“Dad, we have a problem! Eve fell behind the chair! You need to
come get her out!” Hahaha… they are so funny, even at
9:40pm!

So much for “fun mommy” making
pancakes for dinner. They were in bed by 7:30pm, normal time,
and they are STILL raring to go up there. I thought they were
asleep a little while ago, then I heard a big thump and went
upstairs to find this (photo). Lex smiled and said: “I’m
reading Eve a nice story.”
Me: “What are you going
to do when the story is done?” (expecting something along the
lines of get back in bed)
Lex: “Umm… read her
another one. I think I’m going to read to Eve until six o’clock
in the morning when we can get up.”
Me: …

What do you say to that? So cute, so
impracticle, so silly. I went downstairs and told Alan. He took
the camera up and took this picture and a movie I’ll post
later. Now he’s dealing with them so I can blog :)

Note to
self: No pancakes for dinner!! (especially after handful after
handful of berries!)

Eve has a funny fixation on
birds. I think it’s a combination of two events from earlier
this summer. The first being when my dad hung a birdhouse on
the tree and I was explaining to Eve that the birds can go into
the little hole and build their nest. Then, at the 4th of July
party when Lex lost his balloon, Eve asked what would happen to
it and I made a comment about how maybe a bird would get it.
Now she seems to be fixated with birds. Not real birds, just
her birds. Whenever she sees a hole (including the one in my
pajama pants!) she says “for the birds to go in?” She is
convinced that a bird lives in a tiny hole in our bathroom
ceiling and she talks about the bird coming out and flying
around and taking things. We couldn’t find her milk cup
yesterday and she told me the bird took it. Where is the marker
cap? The bird took it. Hmm…. She also frequently talks about
the bird that took Lex’s balloon away and made him cry. We
didn’t actually see a bird, mind you, I just commented that
maybe a bird would get the balloon. She has a great
imagination!

Speaking of imaginations,
at nap time today she asked me to make the monster go away! I
said “what monster?” and she pointed to the corner of the room.
A few minutes later she pointed to the curtains tucked around
the AC unit and said “what’s that?” I explained, she looked
skeptical and said, “please just lay with me mommy.” :) So
sweet!! We never had monster issues with Lex, but maybe Eve’s
imagination will be a positive and negative. Or maybe she was
too young to watch Monster’s Inc.! She definitely has been
exposed to more media than he ever was at this age. They were
watching Wall-E yesterday while I made dinner and about five
minutes into the movie she came into the kitchen and told me it
was too scary for her. He watched for another 20 minutes while
she played in the kitchen with me.