tawbubby

Amelia and I had fun working on headstands this evening.

She played tic-tac-toe with herself last night. She won!

I really like this picture.

We’ll have to get her ready to snorkel with Grannie and Grampy!  (With the right sized equipment)

We went up to Rockville this weekend so I could run in a neat race (Rockville Twilight Run). We all got to see some old friends. 

We stayed in the palace-basement of Auntie Lynn and Uncle Ryan’s house…the land where kids sleep late.  Amelia slept until about 7:30 every day, on an air mattress in the same room as us.  We were woken each morning with a sweet, “Daddy, I have to go potty.”  Daphne slept until 8:30 and 8.  (We won’t talk about the times she cried in the night.)  Thanks for having us and we hope you enjoyed your peaceful Sunday afternoon! 

We especially enjoyed watching the girls slide down the stairs to the basement on their tummies.

Click here to see Daphne sliding down the stairs.
Here’s a great shot of Daphne in a pink cowgirl hat!

Auntie Melinda came to see us and Daphne really enjoyed reading Bad Dog Marley with her.

She picked that book up three or four times today, by herself- it had a lasting effect on her!

We had a bit of crazy sillyness this morning at Auntie Lynn and Uncle Ryan’s house. Amelia is being strict about her days-of-the-week underwear. The luxury runs out after tomorrow because Tuesday is dirty.  There is some history of Lynn and Ryan’s daughter naming a bear “Undie”, and it always wore her underpants. So, Lynn and Amelia went upstairs to find Undie, and dressed up Undie, and friends, this morning.

Wishbone is on Amelia’s lap. She named the polar bear “Polar Undie”.
We went by our old house and played in the park for a few minutes while we waited for Amelia’s rockville babysitter to return from the store.

Great memories in this park.  Lots of Amelia “firsts”.  It was fun to see Daphne romp where Amelia played so many times before, swing in Amelia’s old swings, all that stuff.

We love Rockville, but were reminded of one of the main reasons we moved as we sat still on 95S, on the way home.  Amelia asked Daphne to hold her hand several times.  Sometimes I’m not sure how we got two girls who are so sweet to each other.  They really enjoy each other most of the time.

 Daphne figured out “Yes” on Friday.  We were packed and ready to head out.  I took her  upstairs to change her into pj’s, and said “Daphne, do you want to go for a ride?”.  She said, “Yesh!”, like she’d been saying the word for years.  I like it.  Ethan likes her “no”s.  When she decides to answer “No”, she stops and just looks at you to see your reaction (before she walks away).

She came up with a ”Pardon me” this weekend.  And asked me “Mama, more piggies please”, in the car on the way home, while holding out her foot in my direction.

 Amelia went to bed looking at her “Where are the Dragons?” book.  She asked me to come back in 5 minutes to let her know to put the book down and go to bed.   I did, and she was already asleep with the book open over her face.  Unfortunately, I woke her up when I took the book off.  She came to me a few minutes ago and asked me to let her sleep late tomorrow because she was going to be tired.

While we were driving to Rockville, Amelia was talking and singing to herself. And we hear her break out with:

“Brown chicken, brown cow.”

You have to say it aloud to get the effect.

It’s a verbal version of a stereotypical instrumental soundtrack associated with, well, 70’s-era pr0n films. It made its circles in the 90’s standup circuit. The gist of the joke is that you knew things were “about to happen” when that music kicked in.

Amelia of course had no idea. We (laughing) tried to figure out who taught her that “funny song”. At first she said the weekly ice cream man at the day care but she folded under cross-examination and was ready to give up anyone from her teachers to probably the Easter Bunny.

Pretty funny, though.

Not together, they just happened to be on the same plate.She couldn’t get enough dinner on Sunday night.

I couldn’t stop laughing at her eating the very long noodles.  Her great grandpa Joe would have loved Amelia’s noodle slurping too.

She’s also become a big fan of peccorino cheese.  She had a pile of it before bed on Saturday.  She had peccorino cheese toast for breakfast on Sunday.  Several servings of it on this plate of pasta.  She told us tonight that she wants some more tomorrow.  Sometimes she calls it cheddar.

This one is for Jack Ragsdale! I went out for a run on Saturday morning and came home to this beauty.

She was a beautiful mess.  Turns out watercolors stick to our tub.  I need to scrub with something or get some bleach.  And wash the shower curtain.  She loved it and made a beautiful painting!  And ingested a bit of paint.

The girls enjoyed the fish tubes.

Here’s Daphne retrieving a ring off the bottom.

Going home…

Summer is passing way too fast.

My water baby…

Maybe tossing her around is why my back didn’t want to lift her in and out of her high chair this morning?

Amelia taking a rest.

I think I messed up Amelia’s enjoyment of the lake when I mentioned fish poo.  She wouldn’t put her feet down on the bottom to walk around because of fish poo.  Even though I told her it isn’t there.  She did enjoy swimming with a life jacket, and bonus! it kept her feet off of the fish poo lake bottom.

Ethan played Uncle Sam at the girls’ school today. It was very funny and very fun. He hammed it up.

He changed and I went to get the girls “to meet Uncle Sam!”. Both girls held back a little bit to figure things out. After a few seconds, Amelia asked “Are you Daddy?”.
He helped all the kids say the Pledge of Allegiance, walked around shaking hands while they danced to Rockin’ in the USA, read two books (including getting the kids to yell “Happy Birthday America 3 times), and did a couple more songs.

During the party, Amelia looked at him and laughed every once in a while, and Daphne kept coming up from her seat exclaiming “Daddy!”. (Or calling out “Hi Yaya!” across the room.) It was really neat, and he was very glad to be asked to do it.  Amelia apparently talked about him being Uncle Sam for the rest of the day.

Amelia learned the Pledge this week as part of the party preparations. She burst into the house yesterday “Mama! I have something to tell you!”, and this is what she told me- Click here: Amelia reciting the Pledge of Allegiance
Here is a bonus awesome picture of our 3 going on 16 year old talking to her daddy on the way home.  I had the camera in the car, and yes this is at a stoplight.

The other very cool thing today is that we all got to watch our Bluebird chicks leave their nesting box for the first time.  We were leaving for work, and decided to peek at them because Ethan thought they were getting big and about to leave.  Well, us peeking led to one flying out to a tree branch.  He closed the box, and the other three in sequence peeked out the hole, and took off.   The mom and dad Bluebirds checked on each one as they landed in a tree (four different directions!).  It was really neat to watch.

We were all talking about it as it was happening, and Daphne said “Boo bud fie!” as the third and fourth left the box.