Her expression says it all.

 

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.

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 :)

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.

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]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_pQkxs_8j4]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_u1j536NHc]

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 :)