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!!

Tonight is Lex’s second night in his new bed,
and his second night falling out of the new bed :) Alan was
very smart and put the mattresses on the floor without the
frame. Lex loves the bed and didn’t come into our bed at all
last night. Yay! I don’t even think he knows he falls out of
bed. Both times I heard him fussing and found him still
sleeping and trying to get comfortable on the floor. I scooped
him back up and put him in bed and I don’t think he woke up at
all. Notice he still has his collection of blankets and
doggies. He’s so sweet!

Follow-up: I jinxed myself with
this post because he ended up coming into our bed several times
that night. Oh well, we’ll see how tomorrow
goes.

Lex has entered a weird, though probably
normal, hitting phase. He does it more out of curiosity than
anger, it seems. And he frequently announces his intentions
before actually doing anything. “I’m going to hit Eve,” he’ll
say. Or “Mommy, sit down so I can hit you.” Ummm…. right. He
also likes to throw things and has started doing weird role
playing sometimes, like this morning when he put Snoopy Dog in
a bucket and then put the school bus on top of him and told me,
“I’m hitting Snoopy Dog with the school bus.” All very
experimental and not angry, but I still don’t like it. I need
to reread the Love & Logic books because we are definitely
getting into new territory here. We were visiting with friends
tonight and Lex picked up a plastic snake and flicked it at
Tallis, not knowing how much it would hurt. Poor Tal ended up
with a welt on his neck and we headed home. Oddly enough, at
that same moment, Mike (Tallis’s dad) and I were talking about
the book Raising
Cain and another similar book they had read, both of
which discuss the nature of boys. I’m definitely going to have
to work on my parenting skills in this department. Sometimes I
miss the tiny boy he used to be. Sometimes he’s still a tiny
boy that curls up in my lap for stories and says, “I love you
mommy.”

This is super dorky to post, but I’m going
to anyway :) Lex and I had a great time this morning playing
with the K’Nex toys he got from his friends Luca and Tallis for
his birthday. We made lots of things, but these are what we are
most proud of. Lex made the car with the red bumper and helped
with the garage. I made the “creature,” but he made it do
Tae-bo. We had fun.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK65lw61rP4]

Lex hasn’t had a nap since Monday, which
was a nap on me on the couch. I decided this week to stop
forcing the issue and see how he does. Lesson learned: still
not ready to give up naps! He has been falling asleep between
6:00-6:30 each night and usually half asleep all day. He’s also
been getting up at 5:30am all week, possibly because of the
early bedtimes. These past few days he even takes pretend naps
and tells me that he’s sooo tired. But when I offer to let lay
down in his bed and listen to some music (code for take a nap)
he always says no. We are going out tonight (bringing dinner to
the Diehn’s with their new little bundle) and I decided that a
nap is a requirement. I figured I’d fight the fight if
necessary. Instead he was taking play naps all morning and went
upstairs about a half hour ago and went right to sleep. It
would be nice to think he’s starting to appreciate the value of
a nap, but we’ll see.

Along the lines of
sleep (or lack thereof) we are moving him into a twin bed this
weekend. He’s been coming into our bed a lot lately and I often
find him sleeping in his bed with his legs hanging off the
side, or hear him bumping into the wall a lot. He started
coming into our room in the morning a few months ago and it was
sweet, then he came in earlier and slept with me for a bit
before we got up, now he comes in several times a night. He
just crawls into the bed next to me and keeps sleeping, but it
wakes me up. Then I have to decided if I should bring him back
to his bed (knowing he’ll be back again anyway) or just let him
sleep with us for the rest of the night. I think a bigger bed
is definitely in order. He’s very excited about it too. We got
new sheets this week and I was going to set the bed up
yesterday, but it’s so buried in the storage room I decided to
wait for Alan’s help this weekend. Maybe we’ll all get a little
more sleep after that.

These are each about a minute long.

Lex and Eve wrestling. She’s such a trooper.
It’s fun to see them playing together and she even initiates
the rough-housing sometimes :)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zqur5Vg1EI]

Eve’s new skill, climbing up on the chair to
full standing position and letting go. She usually does this
quite quickly and ends up very giddy and proud of herself.
She’s a little cautious in this video though and I suspect it’s
because big brother is so close by. You gotta be on guard with
him around!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Dbx_9gcF0]

One neat thing about watching them
grow up is seeing how they handle the attention the other gets.
Some times Lex is indifferent to our attention to Eve, other
times he jumps in and praises her too, but some times he seems
to want the same attention and it’s interesting to see how he
goes about getting it. In this video he climbs up on the chair,
but even he knows that’s not much of an accomplishment for him.
Kids are so amazing to watch.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tTld1-7xaY]