Dutch Wonderland 2011

On a whim, J and I decided to take the kids to Dutch Wonderland this morning. It was a great time, especially because R was even more into the rides than she was last year. They had some new ones, including this one where you lay down on your stomach to ride. It was like pretending we were SuperGirls.
Here's our family photo, complete with J's hand standing in for my face.
And then the kids wanted to be the grownups!
J and RUS riding the train. This is a great way to start off the park adventure because you drive through and see a lot of the rides as you're riding. RUS, surprisingly, was not all that into the train until after we started moving. He seemed a little unsure of many of the rides--he needed some time to warm up to them, really.
After we'd been at the park for several hours--including watching one of the diving shows, "The Frog Prince" complete with three diving frogs who save the day--RUS finally rode some rides he got really excited about. The pandas and the bulldozers were his favorites, judging from his reaction to them.
I was impressed R was brave enough to ride this ride by herself. The frogs actually bounce quite high! And here's the other jumping frog. She wanted me to ride it with her, but only one adult per ride. If we had waited for me to ride with her we'd have had to wait through three other adults whose children really wanted them to ride with them--and I wasn't feeling it, so I convinced her I would stand and cheer her along on the sidelines.

This is why I love asking RUS to blow on stuff

He always makes this face and it cracks me up every single time.

A Lovely Saturday

J had an all-day work event that he needed our car for, so I had the kids at home to myself. It was the most lovely day. Here's what we did:

We played in the backyard pool. (Unfortunately, in a fit of absent-minded photo deleting, I accidentally deleted the two pictures I took of RUS in the little pink baby pool. Oops :( )
We colored on and played inside the awesome cardboard house that JW and C sent R for her 3rd birthday--I hope it makes it through at least one more summer!
RUS napped, and R and I played three board games--Hello Kitty Bingo, Dora Memory, and a Zoo Animals Match-Up game.

Then R and I made S'mores Cups while RUS ate graham crackers.
The S'mores Cups were actually a trial run-- R's daycare class is doing a 2-week unit on "camping" and I saw this recipe online and thought they'd be perfect to bring in as a little treat for the kids. R loves them! I do, too. YUM!!

Here's a closer look at them. Basically it's a graham cracker base with a Hershey bar rectangle on top, then 1/2 a marshmallow and then once they are cooled, you dip them in more Hershey's chocolate. Did I already say YUM? Here's the recipe.It was so lovely!

Dreaming

J told me this morning that last night R knocked on our bedroom door at 2:30 a.m., saying, "I have to tell you something." Turns out she had a dream:

I was on the beach with Grampie. Then Mommy and Daddy came too. And then a whale came and swept us all away. After telling about the dream she lay there, falling back asleep, and asked, "Did that happen?"

Then after she got up this morning, she talked about a different dream. We were in our bathing suits. We were all there at the beach, and then a shark came and ate us up.

J was quick to reassure her that that had not, in fact, happened.

Love and Marriage

I used to be really really really great about keeping photo albums. I had album after album with just about every picture I'd ever taken, many of them lovingly labeled with locations and dates and people and even comments about what was happening in the pictures. Then I got really lazy with that and stopped labeling but still putting pictures in albums. Then came digital photos, and for awhile I was great about ordering pictures online and organizing them. But now? I don't print any pictures, like, EVER. The blog books I make are pretty much our only photo albums.

Anyway, long story short, I have two large photo boxes chock full of random photos. And I do mean random, because when my house burned down in graduate school a bunch of my albums got wet and the photos destroyed. So I went through them and salvaged what I could, but I never really put things back in albums. And when we moved away from Texas, I spent one afternoon going through a whole lot of old albums tossing pictures I didn't want or need and keeping only the best ones, just stuffing them in a box. There are all kinds of pictures in there, from childhood photos to pictures of me and my friends going out in college to pictures of big family moments and get-togethers.

But anyway, all of that is really just a very long-winded way of saying, I have a lot of pictures just sitting in a box. I finally decided to put them in albums again, so that I could actually look at them and show to the kids. I bought some cheap albums and--with no organization whatsoever--just started putting pictures in albums. It's been QUITE a trip down memory lane.

A lot of stuff has happened. There have been a few weddings in there. Including Surf and Cali's wedding, from which I have several really nice prints. R saw them and we spent a bit of time talking about why I was wearing a long brown dress and what was going on. We explained. Pointed out a few other pictures.

R listened carefully. Looked very intently at the pictures. And then announced that she wanted Grammie and me to be her bridesmaids. She's going to marry RUS.

Is this Even the Same Child?

Before:

After:

College Reunion!

This is me and a bunch of my college buddies in Ocean City, MD. For my birthday we went down for half a day, wishing we could stay longer and taking hours to say goodbye. (It really stinks that visits together are so few and far between. Somebody needs to get married or something! (love ya, H!!))

Due to wrangling the kids I took almost zero pictures while there, but am hoping to get digital files from D and H and M, who all took many more photos than I did. Here's the best one I got, of D and R on the beach. I LOVE it!

More Silly Songs

Wheels on the Bus

RUS: Ba ba ba ba ba ba uh uh uh ba ba ba

J: All through the town

R: Can I do it now?

J: Uh huh

RUS: uh uh uh ah ah ah

R: Wheels on the bus go round an round

RUS: No Romay No!

R: round and round round and round

RUS: No Romay

R: Wheels on the bus go round and round

R: My fair lady.

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

R: O l d M a c D o n a l d Had a farm. RUS: My da na my da na

R: EIEIO RUS: Romay

R: And on that farm he had a sheep RUS: duck

R: EIEIO

R: And on that farm he had a sheep RUS: ba ah ah

R: EIEIO

R: With a baa baa here and a baa baa there

R: Everywhere a baa baa

R: Old Macdonald had a farm RUS: mmm ba

R: EIEIO

Rock-a-bye Baby

R: Rock a bye baby on the tree top RUS: ahh ba by No My Ba Ba

R: When the wind blows the cradle will rock

R: What else? Can you tell me?

J: when the bough. . .

R: When the bough breaks the cradle will fall and then

R: Then baby will fall

J: Down will come baby. . .

R: And down will come baby cradle and all

J: Thank you RUS

Some Silly Songs

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

R: Twinkle twinkle little star RUS: Wah wah wah aaa ra wah

R: How I wonder what you are RUS: Wah wah wah wah wah wah

R: Up above the world so high RUS: Ra ra

R: Like a diamond in the sky RUS: wah ra ra waa waa waa

R: Twinkle twinkle little star aaaa RUS: Hmm mmm mmm

R: How I wonder what you are RUS: mmm mmmm mmm

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

R: Baaaa Baaaa black sheep RUS: Baa Baa

R: Have you any wool RUS: Haa maa My my

R: Yes sir yes sir three bags full RUS: my ba eep my ba eep my ba eep

R: One for the master, one for the dame

R: One for the little boy who lives down the lane

R: Ba Ba black sheep have you any wool

R: Yes sir yes sir three bags fullllllllll

R: RUS, you weren’t singin

Rock-a-bye Baby

R: Rock a bye baby on the tree top

R: When the wind blows the cradle will rock RUS: my ba ba

R: What? (sigh)

It's Hot.

Swim Lessons 2011

R absolutely loved her swim lessons this year. She made huge progress, too! She went from refusing to even dip her chin in the water to realizing that she loved going under, and she can swim herself around holding on to the noodle. We're still working on pushing off from the side of the pool and getting her head more fully underwater while dog paddling.

RUS 21 Months

Dear RUS,

I was just telling Daddy tonight that you are my little ninja! Your favorite thing to do is slip silently and stealthily into the shadows and escape out of whatever room you are in. Sometimes you're not so silent, as when you announce "bye-bye! bye-bye!" over and over again as you walk away, but I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I've gone to get something and then turned around and gone, "Where's RUS?" and had to search the house for you.

At home this is no big deal, because we live in a ranch house and the number of places you can be--now that we've locked you out of the two hall closets, our bedroom, and the bathroom--is fairly limited. But when we were on vacation, oh man, you were a little escape artist. I lost track of the number of times we had to run around the house (and outside) looking for you. It was so bad that Uncle A asked me at one point, "Do you ever watch your kid or what?" He had a point. Nobody else's kid was always disappearing!

Your favorite place to escape to? The bathroom in Uncle Surf and Aunt Cali's bedroom. Once Grandpa found you in there sitting on the toilet reading a magazine. Another time Grandma found you in there having opened all the drawers (so that nobody could open the bathroom door) and shaking baby powder all over the place.

It's not just us, either. Twice Daddy has gone to pick you up from school and happened to find you randomly wandering the hallways.

Now, in both of these episodes the teacher came running out looking for you right away, but you really are a little sneak! Now, you talk a lot but it's often hard to tell what you're trying to say. But the teacher said that in one of the cases, it really sounded like you said, "I'm going to find Daddy, Bye-bye!" and sure enough you ran into Daddy in the hallway. Kind of eerie!

Lately your favorite word is "Outside!" which I am starting to be able to recognize. Most of what you say is tough to understand although you are very clearly trying to say a lot of different words, and you have a lot of fun imitating things we ask you to try to say.

You absolutely adore spending time outdoors and every chance you get you put on shoes and knock at the front door demanding to leave. I am dreading the day you figure out how to open our front door. Thankfully it's kind of hard to turn that knob otherwise you would ALREADY be escaping out that way.

I love you, my sweet RUS,

Love,
Mama

Philadelphia Zoo With Friends

"Write it on the blog"

While washing her hands just before bed, R says to me, "Mommy, where's the sink?"

Mind, at the same time she's saying this she is rinsing soap off of her hands, in the sink.

"Right there," I said, pointing to her hands.

Then she says, barely hiding a huge grin, "Mommy, I can't find a towel."

I said, "You know where the towel is!" and then the laugh she's scarcely holding in erupts and she laughs and laughs.

Then she says, "Write it on the blog!"

Bedtime Stories

I just love pictures of J reading to the kids. These were taken at bedtime and you can tell it's summer by how bright the room is at 7 p.m. (Please excuse the rumpled bed. We are really bad about making the kids' beds except when we're changing the sheets.)
I just love how goofy RUS gets by the end of my little photo shoot here. He's focusing on me more than on the book by this point! R, on the other hand, has acted this whole time like she hasn't even noticed I'm there.

40th Anniversary Photo Shoot in San Diego

My dad organized our San Diego get-together as a surprise for my mom for their 40th anniversary. As part of the surprise Cali and I arranged for a professional photographer to take pictures of all of us together on the beach, along with pictures of Mom and Dad to commemorate 40 years.

Here's a link to the photographer's website and blog post about our photo session.

This picture of Mom and Dad with all the grandchildren is one of my absolute favorites.
The pictures we ordered of RUS and R really capture them perfectly. I just love them.

Family Gathering in San Diego

Reason #4,723 that we love Philadelphia

So, the day we were set to leave for San Diego, we received an unwelcome voice mail from American Airlines letting us know that our flight had been cancelled and they'd re-booked us for the next day. To make a long story short, after many tears were shed, fists shaken in the air, several phone calls to unhelpful AA representatives, and much help from online resources, we got booked on a flight leaving that evening (instead of morning) that would get us in at midnight, California time.

Determined not to waste our first day of "vacation" we decided to try out Smith Play Place in Philadelphia for the first time. It is a free park in Philadelphia with a TON of things to do for the kids. We had a blast, and honestly, I was astounded that all of this is open and free to the public (they do accept donations but they're not required).

Both R and RUS had a great time, and there was a lot of playground equipment I'd never seen before. I only snapped a few photos with my iPhone, and they don't convey at all the size and scope of this place--it is supposedly the size of five or six football fields, just jam packed with things for kids to do and play on.