After what seems like forever and a day, we
finally got outside to play! It was 85 degrees and sunny, so we
broke out the kiddie pool. It has definitely seen better days,
but the kids had fun anyway. Eve even ventured into the pool!
The first time we filled it up she just cried, the next few
times she checked it out and splashed her hands a bit, but this
time she climbed over the edge and slid right in. I was
expecting her to scream when she realized how cold the water
was, but nope, she just got right up and started playing. I
took dozens of pictures, mostly in an attempt to get a nice one
of them together, but no such luck. Oh well. It was fun anyway.
They even had dinner by the pool — Zone bars, Triscuts, grapes
and fresh picked blueberries. Then asleep by 7:15. Yay!

If only
she were smiling! So close.

With Aunt Rosy in town we took a little
drive to our local-ish county fair to celebrate her birthday.
It was fun. We ate funnel cake and french fries (Eve LOVED the
funnel cake!) and Lex went through the fun-house twice and then
rode a little ride. Then we were out of money so we went to
visit the animals. Lex very excitedly pet some cows and Eve got
to pet the horses. Both were pretty happy. When the light
drizzle turned into more of a downpour we decided it was a good
time to head home. Overall a good time was had by all :)

Rosy
reading morning stories to the kiddos. I think a 3 grownup to 2
kid ratio is handy at times :)

There
was a bubble machine filling the air with bubbles at the fair
and it entertained the kids for awhile. Here’s Lex chasing the
bubbles.

Lex’s
first kiddie ride. He liked it until the game booth next to the
ride started making a loud ringing noise. Poor Lex started
crying and I asked the guy to stop the ride so he could get
off.

Eve,
looking at the sheep.

Rosy
didn’t get a birthday cake at my house, instead I tried out a
Pampered Chef recipe on her. Chocolate-raspberry cookie trifle.
Tasty but VERY sugary. Not sure I’ll make it again.

Here’s how we found Eve sleeping the other
night. So cute. She must have fallen out of the bed.

Lex and Eve have always
been soft babies. So much so, that other parents regularly
comment on our much softer Lex and Eve are than
their own kids. We give most of the credit to Burt’s Bees Baby Bee
Buttermilk Soap. The fact that we also bath our kids
almost every day (which most parents find excessive and
rightfully so) doesn’t hurt either.

Anyway, Lex is soft and was
softer as a baby, but he always had the gecko hands and feet:
moist and grippy, almost adhesive,
very useful for getting around, particularly for running and
climbing, usually on me. On the other hand, er, the other
child… particularly the hands and feet there of… the palms
of Eves hands and soles of her feet are stunningly soft. When
she comes over and puts her hand on my arm or leg, it often
feels as if I am numb where she is touching. I can feel a
slight pressure from her gentle touch, but she is
so soft, I feel nothing else. It would be creepy if I was not so
familiar with the source. As it is, after a few seconds, I have
to remind myself to breath.

I added all of the pictures from our trip
to the Atlantic. View them at photos.datdec.com.

What started out as a diaper rash, so we
thought, turned out to be a nice case of Coxsackievirus.
Bummer. Apparently its similar to Chicken Pox and highly
contagious. Eve has a spotty rash all over her bottom, around
her mouth, on the back of her neck, and it comes and goes on
the rest of her body. Lex has it on his cheeks and tongue (I
think, he’s been complaining of a sore tongue for days now but
refuses to open his mouth for me to see). The diaper rash
started Sunday evening and I took them in to the doctor on
Tuesday, after it spread to her face. I thought, “Hmm…. now
it’s on the face, probably not a diaper rash…” :) I’m a smart
mommy!! Lex had a high fever all day Monday too, and they are
both running low fevers now.

Fortunately
neither of them are too bothered by it (other than the sore
tongue issue). The bigger annoyance is that we finally have a
bit of sunshine and we can’t be social! I had to cancel a
blueberry outing with friends tomorrow and poor Eve spent much
of today at the front window, watching the neighbor kids
playing and saying “oside? oside?” She even went so far as to
try and put my shoes on for me so I could take her out. I had
to say no though, since I don’t want to be infecting the whole
neighborhood!

Hopefully it will clear
up soon and hopefully we won’t miss our sunshine
opportunities!

I’m waiting for stuff to print (Pampered
Chef is gonna cost me a lot in ink!) so I figured I’d post a
quick update. We had an exciting day at home today. After a
busy weekend we need a few days to catch up. Lex and Eve both
had fevers today, his worse than hers I think. He slept for
most of the day and cried a lot that his mouth hurts.
Unfortunately he wouldn’t open it enough to let me look. So I
spent the day cuddling the kids and cleaning the kitchen. Nice
and relaxing. They are both sleeping now, though not
peacefully. I think I’ll probably dose them up with the baby
tylenol so we all make it through the night. Hopefully tomorrow
will find them happy and healthy again.

Eve is doing surprisingly well in her toddler bed. I’d say
she sleeps in it probably 85% of the time. We still have the
pack-n-play out and will probably keep it out for awhile, as a
back up. But for the most part she’s happy in the toddler bed.
I can’t say I mind being able to snuggle her before I go to bed
too :) I like giving them both little cuddles last thing at
night and it’s tough to do that with her in a crib.

Off to put together Pampered Chef host packets
to send out tomorrow. Maybe I’ll catch a glimpse of the
Olympics on TV too!

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.