Have I said this lately? I love my house.
The inside is comfortable and roomy enough for my little family
and the outside is just right. The lawn is a bit of a jungle
(it’s hard to find time for mowing, especially when the boy is
afraid of the loud noise), but that’s ok. It’s soft and good to
run around in. My garden is growing like mad and my pea plants
are out of control. Lex eats peas on a daily basis and is
eagerly awaiting the green beans and tomatoes. We have lots of
toys and the kids are easily entertained outdoors, and lunch
always tastes better on the picnic table. Today we took a walk
to the post office, and the playground to meet some friends,
then walked up to Alan’s office to pick him up after work. Now
the kids are sleeping in their comfortably air conditioned room
and Alan and I are enjoying all the comforts of home. Life is
good and I love my house! :)

My out
of control peas! I’m not sure if they are supposed to grow this
tall, but they have way exceeded my trellis and they don’t seem
to care!

Our new
clothes line. Before you laugh, let me explain. It’s a
retractable line and has a little hook thing to keep it tight.
About 3/4 of the way done I put a pair of jeans on there and
the hook came undone and the line dropped. Ahhh! So I had to
hold it up with one hand and reattach/adjust the hook with the
other, which resulted in a very low line :) We put it up mostly
for diapers, but I couldn’t resist hanging out this load on the
first sunny day in weeks. It was mid-80s and sunny with a
slight breeze. The clothes dried in no time!! Lex loved it and
happily handed me clothes pins. I, of course, had to stop him
from running back and forth under the (low hanging) wet
clothes. A good time was had by all :)

Cool
dude decided to wear shades instead of a hat today so “my eyes
don’t get sunburned.”

Eve was
fascinated with these flowers in the neighbors garden. She
“smelled” them and played with them and touch them and felt
them for a very long time. They are very nice flowers with
interesting buds (you can see one between the two pink flowers)
and she loved them.

This is
a silly picture to post, but I just love how cute they are in
the stroller. He was holding a snack and she was cuddled in to
him (to reach the snack) and they were just so sweet.

Tomorrow we go in for Eve’s allergy testing.
Wish us luck! Fingers crossed we can celebrate with
PB&J; and a big glass of milk!!

Not much. I haven’t been in a blogging
mood lately, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Nothing terribly
exciting has been going on, just life. I’ve spent a lot of
mental cycles trying to figure out why first Eve, then Lex, got
really horrible diaper rashes. I think I’ve got the cause
figured out (bad inserts in the cloth dipes) but the poor boy
has been in disposables and slathered in diaper cream for
several days now. If only he’d learn to love the potty :) Once
the rash is gone (and it’s a really bad one!) I’ll try him in
cloth again with the new inserts I just bought. Fingers crossed
we can keep all the little bottoms happy and healthy going
forward :)

We’ve had sunshine and
thunderstorms every day for about two weeks now, and the 10-day
forecast looks about the same. Blah! At the moment it’s sunny
and thundering. Crazy times!

We had a
nice weekend, rain aside. In a brief moment of sunshine we had
dinner with my grandparents by the lake. It was the one day in
forever that Lex chose to wear his sneakers instead of his
crocs and, of course, he walked straight into the lake! So he
spent the rest of the evening in soaked pants, sock, and shoes.
Eve got mad because I wouldn’t let her walk into the lake too.
She’s getting a real personality lately. Alan’s parents braved
the weather and came up to visit on Sunday. We were hoping for
a nice BBQ dinner, but the thunderstorms prevailed and we got
pizza instead. Maybe next month or the following we’ll get some
sunny, dry weather. (though my plants are LOVING this weather!)

Actually, there is some big news that I
just remembered I wanted to blog about. Eve can talk!! She’s
got a whole bunch of words now, including “happy,” “walk,” and
“Lex.” Well, “Lex” is more like “yeck!” but she’s trying. She
also says a somewhat passable “thank you” and even uses it
appropriately sometimes. The other day Lex gave her a spoon
(another favorite word of hers) and she said “dah do yeck!!”
With gusto! She’s funny and silly and becoming more and more
strong willed by the day. Always a pleasure though. She walks
around at my WW meetings saying hi to everyone :)

I’ve been kind of meandering though life these
days. We don’t have much of a routine, so some days we’re just
hanging out at home, but other days are jam packed with
playdates and playgrounds and all that stuff. The WW thing is
going, slower than I’d like, but going. I struggle most with
motivation… and my desires to drink Coke! Ahhh… yummy
delicious toxins… :) Since I’m the only one who seems to have
a problem with my weight (several docs have said not to worry
about it :/ ) some days I find myself really motivated and
other days not so much. I’ve started feeling a little sciatica
pain again too, which worries me. Perhaps from the increase in
exercise?

I went for a walk this
morning with Lex in the backpack. That’s a good workout! I
liked it though because we could talk. When he’s in the
stroller I can’t hear him. I let him choose which direction to
go each time we came to a decision point. As we turned down one
road he said “This road has a drain. A blue and brown drain.”
Sure enough, when we got to the sewer drain it was brown (of
course) with blue spray paint. I said, “you have a funny
memory” and he said “we were looking for wolves at the zoo, but
we couldn’t find any.” A true story from our trip to the Ross
Park Zoo. Alan teases me for verbalizing my streams of
consciousness and I think Lex has inherited that from me. Or
perhaps it’s a toddler thing that I never outgrew.

We had a terrible WW meeting this morning.
I’ve been taking them to afternoon meetings and they do ok, but
I thought I’d try a morning meeting instead. Lex didn’t sleep
much last night (perhaps diaper rash related) and Eve slept
right up until the meeting, so she was hungry and he was tired
and they both just walked around and made noise. He was cute
though because he walked around reading all of the posters on
the wall. Full volume voice, but reading really well. We ended
up leaving a few minutes before the end.

I think this post just proved my stream of consciousness
point…. so here’s a picture to close. What’s a blog post
without a picture? :)

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