The Baby Turns Two

The Baby turns two next week week. I'm totally mixed on this, but my feelings aside, it's clear she's no longer a baby, The Baby needs another name. She calls herself Zsa Zsa, and it fits her. Also, it sounds nothing like her actual name.  Plus, I've gotten used to typing it. 

I tried to write her a poem for her birthday, something that captures the essence of Zsa Zsa.
I failed miserably. Here's my first attempt, a limerick, which wasn't my intention. I was trying to write couplets to do a sonnet.  Sadly, I haven't written any serious poetry since high school. We are SO not going to talk about how long that's been. At least two years. Eh hem.  Feel free to laugh at my rusty poetry skillz.

Zsa Zsa, A Poem

Sweet and playful, loves all things pink,

Enjoys washing up in the kitchen sink.

Pretty opinionated most of the time,

Connoisseur of books that rhyme.

Running in circles around the room,

Causing things with wheels to “vroom”.

Loves her brother and mommy too.

Dad’s the favorite, we get the clue.

                           

Spends lots of time with crayons: Color!

Loves to eat just plain old butter.

Stuffed dogs and cats, red pandas, too

Hauls them around, what hullabaloo!

Softly asks for 'Blankie' and nap.

Curls up so sweetly on mommy's warm lap.

Gently tucked in with song and kiss,

Zsa Zsa, sweet Zsa Zsa, in nappy time bliss. 

Sick Baby

The Baby woke up this morning screaming her head off. (not literally)
She screamed through a diaper change and breakfast (ie one bite of cheesy eggs).
So I did what any good parent of a screaming child would do at 7 am.
I put everyone in the shower.
Where The Baby continued to scream.
The water was too hot.
The water was too cold.
She wanted up.
She wanted down.
I figured ten minutes of shower screaming was the upper limit of what any of us could tolerate, so I pulled out the last trick up my sleeve: Tylenol.
She kept screaming.
At this point, I was nigh unto despair, so after making an appointment with the pediatrician and dropping The Boy off at preschool, we headed to The Chiropractor.
She fell asleep on the way there. Blessed silence. But you should know, she never Never NEVER sleeps in the car.
I've not ever taken a kid to the chiropractor, but I was desperate and pretty sure she had a sinus infection. Once upon a time, pre-sinus surgery, I suffered from chronic sinus infections and chiropractic was the ONLY (short of surgery) thing that helped. Never having taken a kid in for this type of care, I didn't know what to expect.
Neither did The Baby.
After about 15 seconds of modified Logan, she melted into my chest and let the good doc do whatever he wanted.
AND she quit screaming.
Bless the chiropractor.
Bless Modified Logan, whomever he may be. I hope nobody else in that family had such a weird name.

Then we went to the pediatrician, because, why not? Plus, this was the second day in a row she was saying, "eyes. HURT!" while pointing to her maxillary sinus.
This is where we found out poor The Baby has a blister on her ear drum. Bollous Myringitis. :(
No wonder she was screaming.
This doc gave us numbing drops, which is a lot cheaper than chiropractic, and antibiotics.
Poor baby is sleeping now. I irrigated her sinuses before bed. You can pretty much imagine for yourself how that went, BUT she was breathing through her nose for the first time in two weeks as I laid her down.
Sweet Sweet baby, wake up feeling better.

Katydid Funeral

A while ago I wrote about our impromptu Katydid Funeral.

Here it is, in pictures.

Poor, poor dead Katydid

The pallbearers 

(As a side note, if you would like to tell The Hubs I need a new, non-broken camera go here)

Even the gravedigger is sad.

(side note dos: if you would like to tell The Hubs to get me some photography lessons ASAP, go here)

This is my favorite photo, but I'm not saying why. 

(Let's just say it's a shame The Hubs isn't wearing football pants.)

Cute Stuff

1. The Baby says "zip it" like this, "Yip it!" I love putting on her jacket for this reason alone. :D
2. The Boy woke up Sunday morning and asked for muffins. Then he said, "First, I'm going to eat muffins, and then pop-eyes and then go trick-or-treating and then to sleep. Wake up, eat muffins and pop-eyes AGAIN and the go to sleep again AND trick-or-treat again!" I think this is funny, because he NEVER wants to sleep. 
3. The Boy LOVES singing time in nursery. He does all the actions to the songs and sings very loudly. He's pretty much the only kid that sings during singing time. He's gotten quite good at memorizing. 
4. The Baby has started to take turns saying prayers. She's very good at it! The Boy gets reasonably upset when it's her turn, but I think he's catching on that we all get a turn at some point, even if it's not right then

Halloween 2010

     I don't care which major holiday it is, it does NOT start at 4am (NOTE: my birthday being the major exception. Say, for instance, you bought me a surprise trip to Cancun for my birthday. I would cheerfully get up at 4am to make the airport on time.)
Can someone please tell my son this holiday rule, because he did not believe me when I informed him of this fact...at 4am. He wanted breakfast. He wanted oatmeal. He wanted to watch a show on the wii. He wanted to go trick-or-treating. I wanted to go back to sleep! Finally we told him to get some grapes from the fridge and be happy we weren't locking his bedroom door with him inside.

He left us alone... for 4.2 seconds. 

Then he started playing the piano. 

Loudly. 

At that point I caved and turned on Caillou via the wii, changed The Baby's diaper (because she too, found it hard to sleep through the bad piano playing) and settled my kids on the couch with a sack of grapes, and went back to bed. 

It was 5:30am. 

We attended a seriously lame Halloween "Carnival" at the local community college where my kids picked up just enough sugar to make the ride home bearable. 

After naps we tricked everyone out in costumes and headed to a chili feed and trunk-or-treat. I think next year we will just eat at home and trick-or-treat in the neighborhood. 

We did a Wizard of Oz Theme, obviously. The Hubs is the Wizard. Brother-in-law one is the Scarecrow, Sister One is a citizen of Emerald City. Niece One is Dorothy. The Boy as a Cowardly Lion, The Baby as Glenda, me as The Wicked Witch (it was a stretch to really sell the role) and Sister Three as a flying monkey.

At one point the Hubs says, "Don't believe anything The Boy says tonight." I asked why, of course. 

The Hubs says, "Because, he'll be lion."  

This cape is totally vintage. My mom wore it when she was little. It's from Germany. 

(Mom, I'm so sorry Zsa Zsa got chocolatey drool on your super awesome cape. I will have it dry cleaned!)

My sweet baby niece who totally likes me better than almost anyone but her mom and dad. :D

This may be the only pudgy-cheeked photo of one of my children you will ever see. Sadly the cheeks are artificially puffy due to the tight hood on this super sweet cape. 

Ah well. 

Also, this is the perfect photo that captures what Halloween is all about.

You can see it in the sugar-glazed eyes and the intense focus on the chocolate in her hand.

It's Over

My Stat counter and I seem to agree, people are over me telling the internet how awful my life is and what a terrible person I am. Back to delusions of perfect-ness!

That being said, I have one last thing to add. Today I went to library after lab. My big toe *MAY* have turned off an entire bank of computers. Several students may or may not be very angry with said toe, depending on whether or not the above scenario took place. I say, if in fact the aforementioned event DID occur, I performed a valuable service. I'm pretty sure from now on they will all hit the save button more regularly. You know, assuming I *actually* turned off 30ish computers...

OK, back to how I'm *so* fabulous.
Got a math test back today.

99%

 Yeah, I'm rocking my inner geek. I really needed it after last week's 88%.

The Hubs picked me up from school and we grabbed a pizza from Costco. Even though we called ahead to order, they gave us an old pizza. I was seriously hungry while picking up the pizza so I decided to order a churro as well. It was speaking to me. It said, "don't buy me. I'm old and crusty!" It turns out churros don't lie. It WAS old and crusty. Next time, I will listen to the churro. You'd think he could have given me heads up about the pizza...

We went home and that's when I noticed it: The Baby has started to talk in sentences! I KNOW! I'm so excited! We can start treating her like a real person now! I'm going to put her on next week's dish-washing rotation. She said, "I want pee-za!" Which I think means, "I want mommy to take me to Italy." It's a good thing The Hubs has me to translate. He thought she meant she wanted pizza. 

After dinner, The Hubs and I were feeling guilty about our plans to ditch our kids and go on a date, so we took them (and two of my sisters) with us on our "Race The Sun Hike". The Boy thought it was great fun to try to finish our hike BEFORE the sun set. I'm not sure he fully understood the concept. The Boy thought if he kept telling the sun he was winning, he would win. Um...yeah. The sun won. Thank goodness for twilight! (Not the kind with sparkley vampires.)

Not Perfect-Day Four

Today I decided to take a slightly different approach to parenting; it was basically the same as yesterday, except I paid even less attention to my kids, which could be why The Boy hit The Baby in the head with a screw driver.
I guess it's back to the drawing board...

To even it out, The Boy spent nearly the entire day singing "The wise man built his house upon a rock" over and over and over... repeatedly. I kinda don't think he knows what this song is about, because in his version, the foolish man also builds his house upon a rock. I believe this relates directly to The Boy's love of pounding his fist into his palm while singing the word 'rock', not that The Boy believes in relative morality.

The Baby and I got to practice letters while The Boy was sleeping. She's pretty good at 'T' but everything else is fair game. You're just as likely to hear 'B' for 'A' as for 'B'. The REAL fun part of play time was putting everything in the toy bucket, taking it out again, putting it away, well you get the idea.

The Baby spent the day caring for her baby. She told the doll that she (Zsa Zsa) was the momma, and the doll was a baby and here was her "han" (hand) and "no" (nose) and wrapping the doll in a blanket. She alternated all this cuteness with yelling "NO!" at the kitty, which I think was supposed to be the doll's big brother. I'm pretty sure this counts as a parenting fail.

When my mom got home she discovered that The Boy had found another use for her brand new Christmas decoration blocks that spell out the word "PEACE". He used them to trace his letters. At least it was with pencil, right? And how could we get mad when we ask him to trace letters once or twice a week? Blocks...paper, they're both wood products.

***

I didn't make dinner tonight. I told my family it was because our fridge was absolutely full of left overs and we needed to eat what was in there, but really, I just wanted Peanut Butter Puffins for dinner. The Hubs roasted some veggies, but I think only he and my mom ate any because by the time I felt guilty enough about not making dinner and got around to making sure the kids got at least one serving of vegetables today, they were gone. Ah well, there's always tomorrow. Assuming we've fixed the glass top stove we cracked yesterday, that is.

Following "dinner" we took everyone on a walk. Afterward you'd think we were trying to send our kids to the gas chamber, but really, we were just trying to get them to bed. Our son was SO upset by the injustice of not drinking a gallon of water right before bed that he wet his pants while crying. Yeah. This would be later on the same day he wet the bed during naps. The Hubs is so frustrated with all the night time wetting that he's threatened to go out tomorrow and buy actual diapers. Honestly, because it's EVERY FLIPPIN NIGHT, I'm leaning toward agreeing. He used to be dry 5 out of 7 nights.

Honestly though, my kids have their moments. Today The Boy took the front half of my jogging stroller, basically a wheel and two metal polls, and was running around the yard pushing it in front of him and calling it "riding my motorcycle". I'm not sure how that qualifies as a motorcycle OR riding, but he was having such a good time. Both the kids came in covered head to toe in mud. The Baby had mud in her ear. I think that takes talent. Want to know what else takes talent? Writing about how awful your day was, when really it was pretty fantastic. I got to spend most of it with my kiddos, and the parts I was away from home were short and filled with exercise. Not a bad day, really

Again, Not Perfect

There has been a rash of recent mommy-blog bashing wherein everyone is sick of the "perfect mom" pose people are taking when writing their blogs. The notable exception among blogs I read regularly being Erin over at Things I Learned Talking To Myself. (Erin I really hope you don't mind me sending traffic your way or referencing you in my blog, dang girl, you are funny and I totally feel all your new mom pain. It's only been three years since I went through that but it DOES get better, promise.)

So in an effort to alleviate the pressure everyone feels from reading how perfect *I* am (commence laughing now) this week is going to be "Not Perfect" week. I'm going to document all the stupid things I do and/or caused through shoddy parenting. Starting with today.

Today the boy said, "Oh my Go" and the end really sounded like 'd' but may have been 'sh'. Did I mention we were in CHURCH NURSERY?!?!?! NO? We were. I would like to point out that he has never heard this particular expletive from a parental unit, but I *may* have exposed my son to another kid who uses, eh hem, *salty* language on occasion. Oops.

I have a strict "No Homework On Sunday" policy, Sunday is a FAMILY day. Today I did homework. Lots of it. For all the classes I'm currently taking. In my defense, Saturday was spent traveling to and from Utah for my aunt's funeral. I brought my books. Heaven knows why because I get sick if I read in the car, but I brought them!

The Baby thinks its funny to blow raspberries with her tongue sticking out. During Sacrament Meeting. No amount of tongue-pinching deters her. She also thinks it's effective to throw a major hissie-fit any time she doesn't get EXACTLY what she wants EXACTLY when she wants it. She may be right. I have absolutely no idea what to do about this or WHY Cheerios, or the absence thereof, can cause such drama! I also do not remember anything even remotely similar when The Boy was nearing two years old.

I think I just figured out why people never write about the stuff that goes wrong in their lives. I'm feeling a bit depressed...

Backyard Camping

Ever since the fiasco that was taking-The-Boy-camping-when-he-was-just-over-a-year-and-I-was-hugely-pregnant-with-The-Baby-and-we-didn't-actually-sleep-because-The-Boy-didn't-sleep-and-it-rained-THE. ENTIRE. TIME. and-our-tent-nearly-floated-away-and-we-packed-up-and-left-at-2am-because-we-weren't-sleeping-anyway...

that time.

We've (read: I've) been scared of camping (with kids).
The Hubs took The Boy to a Fathers and Sons overnighter in May and he did alright (he LOVED peeing outside) but I'M still scared.
So instead of a full-fledged camping trip, we set up the tent in the backyard! It was great.
Setting up the tent was interesting. The tent is OLD. It came from my grandpa. It's at least 50 years old and I LOVE the way it smells. It smells like summer to me. I camped in this tent every year of my youth until Dad got too sick to tent-camp and we switched to hotels.

(It's kinda lop-sided)

The Baby thought it was great fun to lay on the tent while we were trying to get it to stand up. This could be why it's lop-sided.

We called some friends over to roast marshmallows and make s'mores. The Baby enjoyed sitting in the dirt-filled wagon we used for our fire.

The Boy roasting sugar...I mean marshmallows.

Doesn't she look like she's just entered a sugar coma?

The Hubs is SOOO Handsome

(Me, trying to work marshmallows out of my teeth while The Hubs had the camera)

Then we snuggled up in the tent (after a VERY good tooth scrubbing) to watch Dr. Who on the laptop courtesy of Netflix.

A GREAT night, other than the part where we actually had to sleep in the tent.

The County Fair

We decided to take our kiddos to the county fair. I LOVED the fair as a young person (not that I'm old NOW or anything), and I thought my kiddos would enjoy it. 

I was right. (I love it when that happens!)

We saw lots of animals

Fed lots of animals (which I didn't manage to get even one picture of, since I was holding the feed)

Visited the train shed

Rode a few rides

And managed to escape the fair without eating ONE SINGLE ITEM of fair food.

I'm pretty proud of that fact. :D

One of the funniest moments was when We took The Baby on her very first ride. She LOVED it, of course, but screamed bloody murder when we took her off the ride! We showed her EVERYONE had to get off, but she still screamed.

Next ride, same story. 

It took three rides for her to get the fact that Mom was not, in fact, being incredibly cruel by removing her from the ride. 

It was a super fabulous way to spend a Monday. 

My Kiddos

I keep wondering what I should write about. Serious, serious writer's block.

So I've decided on the old stand-by, The Babies. 

Except, I'm really mad at The Boy today. 

He was VERY naughty at nursery, taking toys, pushing, stealing marshmallows....I sent him to Daddy-twice. Daddy sent him back. Then I was mad at The Hubs. 

But now they are both napping and so I like them better.

THE BABY

My Baby is the sweetest little girl, mostly. 

She cuddles, she loves to sing, 

and she has this really cute habit of babbling a lot of things only she understands and adding a word we know at the very end.

"badabadabada bankie."

"badabadabada sippie!"

She loves shoes and putting on her own pants and scissors. 

She loves Daddy and her brother (I don't even know why, he's so mean to her)

She loves Mommy

Today at church she kept pulling out the hymnal and saying 

"SONG!" 

and

"badabadababada SONG!"

really loud, during the talks.

It was cute.

THE BOY

My son is very into knights, dragons, fire birds and castles.

His auntie keeps buying him knights, dragons and fire birds and making him cardboard castles.

Now at bedtime he doesn't want a normal book, he wants a 

"pretend story" wherein he's the Star, Sir The Boy.

And we, the parents, have to come up with new and interesting story lines 

EVERY

NIGHT.

Last night it was my turn.

The story starts out with King Daddy and Draco (the good dragon) getting lost.

Queen Mommy, Sir The Boy, Baby and Buttercup go looking.

Prince Humperdink has captured Daddy and Draco. 

He wants Buttercup.

Queen Mommy has a plan.

But she needs a wheel barrow and a Holocaust Cloak. 

King Daddy and Draco are saved. 

The End

 

 

Funny Stories from the Weekend

1. Sitting in church was VERY hot this Sunday so I turned my ward bulletin into fan. The Boy promptly took it from me, unfolded it, handed it back and said, "Now make a ROCKET SHIP!"

2. The Hubs and I went out to dinner without kids. He told me the following story.

His friend, "George" had a very odd boss. One day George and the boss end up at the same stop light, George in his parents station wagon and the boss in a souped up sports car. The boss challenges George to a little race. (I did mention he's odd.) So when the light turns green George sticks it the metal and about the time he's half way through the intersection the boss in his fancy sports car in clear into the next block. The boss figures he's won, so he slows down to the speed limit and George, punching the gas the entire way, catches up to him...a MILE later. It may have been the time of night, or The Hubs telling of, but I ROARED.

3. This one's not funny, but it is sweet. On our way home from Utah, The Baby started asking a question. It took us a while to figure out what she was saying but it came down to this, "Momma. Gramma, where go? "Momma. Where Gramma?" She was asking where my mom, her near constant companion, had been hiding all day. We think. I thought this was very sweet. For a while, it also sounded like she said, "G.G. here". G.G. is what my kids called my paternal grandmother. But that's probably not what she was saying, since she can't really talk anyway. She's also recently started saying the following words: duckie, yellow, blue. For blue, she started out having to strum her lips to get the 'b' sound out. A few days later she started calling me Becky. I am a little unsure what to think about that. I would probably be mad, if it weren't so darn cute.

Art In The Park and A Parade

What a busy day! It's been a while since I posted pictures. What I lack in picture taking fineness (which I'd like to blame on the fact that all I ever use is the cell phone camera but what is actually my complete lack of skill) I make up for in volume.
Here we go!

This Saturday the Magic Valley Arts Council hosted their annual Kids Art In The Park. I LOVED this program when I was growing up, so naturally, I signed the Boy up for their toddler class.
He We made a plate-loom weaving in which The Boy had little to no interest, and we he painted a kite, which was THE highlight of the morning.

See how proud he is?

While The Boy and I were making Art (yes, that's a capital A) The Baby and The Hubs went to King's to pick out a special present for The Baby. She's been feeling rather neglected of late, and to assuage feelings of guilt, I authorized the purchase of stuff. (I KNOW! Now I'm one of those parents. Please don't judge me.) Of course she picked something plush, because that's just the kind of kid she is. I knew it would either be plush, or a laundry basket, since those are two very favorite things.

(Not a great picture of The Hubs, so...)

(here's The Hubs as his normally cute self)

Because that wasn't enough of an adventure for one day, we swung by Fred Meyer for some food and groceries and then headed out to Kimberly for the Good Neighbor Parade. By this point The Baby was pretty tired, but we soldiered on. 

Arriving after the parade route was closed, we parked at the start of the parade and walked along the parade route with the first police car until we met up with our friends. Luckily Kimberly is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sized town, so it didn't take long. The parade was just about what you'd expect from a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sized town. (which makes it even funnier the actual name of the town is Kimberly City. Someone was over ambitious...) The best part for the kids was the shear volume of candy being lobbed in their general direction. Both The Hubs and I got hit on the head with sugary confections, so enthusiastic where the throwers. Our friends came prepared with grocery bags, which their kids filled in short order. The Boy ended the parade with both his and The Hubs pockets bulging with sweets. He even got a Popsicle! (that went directly into his mouth without the pocket detour) Luckily the Giant Twinkie handing out edible Twinkies missed us. I can handle my kids eating sugar, but not if I can read the ingredients. I can't in good conscience allow them to consume any quantity of high fructose corn syrup. 

notice the candy wrapper in his hand

again, classic case of candy-mouth

notice the stickers given to my son 

by politicians we don't support, but which are stickers

 and thus VERY important to three-year-olds

The rest of the day was taken up by studying at the library, a trip to Costco and the city library and setting off the last of our fireworks stash. (at least until they go on sale again for the 24th of July)

The Boy did about half our sparklers stash, and wanted to do more fireworks after we'd lit everything. I'm glad he enjoyed it!

Boating

This week at church we had a service auction. Two of the services were for family boating trips. My boy LOVES boats. So...I bid hard and fiercely for a boating trip. I saved all my points until the end. I borrowed my momma's points.

 I lost. 

It was sad. 

Then Saturday morning one of the ladies who had put up a boating trip called my momma and invited ALL of us to join them for an afternoon on the river, since all my sisters were home for the weekend.
The Boy was is hog heaven! I was a little less thrilled because honestly, I didn't have TIME to boat. (refer to previous post) but how could I say no?
So at 3:30pm we piled into the van and took a (5 minute) drive to the river. One of my other sisters and her husband met us at the launch.

This is what I brought:

1 Diaper

4 Kleenexes

2 Water sippies

1 cooler of water bottles

2 hooded towels

2 regular towels

sunscreen

2 toddlers

1 sister

We had a blast. However, we were on the river until just after 7pm which, as many of you know, is The Baby's bedtime. Which means my kids missed dinner. You may notice from my list that I did not bring one edible thing. Not one. Not even gum. I also didn't bring a camera. (It was in the car)

Starving my children aside, we had a terrific afternoon on the river. I will NEVER NEVER own a boat, but it was sure fun to play in one for an afternoon! The couple we were with was super funny. The boat is brand new. It's a replacement for their old boat, which slammed into a rock last year. (yeah. that happens in rivers, especially first thing in the spring)
So they kept saying things like, "take off your shoes. No. BEFORE you get in the boat." and "Watch those rocks!"
I got to try boat surfing and The Boy got to drive the boat. The Baby was pretty much not a fan of the life jacket, but she thought the whole thing was interesting.
I couldn't get The Boy to take a tube ride or get in the water or anything like that. He just wanted to drive the boat in circles. Which he did. Very Well.
The End  c

A Perfect Day

Sometimes I wish I could live forever if all the days could be like yesterday. Here's what we did.
Before I was even dressed, The Boy, The Baby and I did a "science" experiement involving water, food coloring, extra bowls and a turkey baster. :)

Momma went grocery shopping by herself ( I would rather have taken The Baby with me, but the car seat covers were in the wash) and the kids stayed home and made frosting with my sister, because when I got home

we made sugar cookies shaped like our hands. The one in front on the left is The Boy's. His hand isn't really that puffy, it was the dough.

And then we made lunch.

I bet you wish you were invited to lunch yesterday so you, too, could have millet with Alfredo sauce and peas topped with a veggie dog cut to look like an octopus complete with mustard eyes and GOLDFISH. Yes, Gold Fish, for lunch. Come on, I KNOW you're jealous. :)


After lunch the kiddos took a nap and I ran over to the college to get some paperwork signed, met with my adviser and got yelled at for taking too many summer credits...again, but I didn't care because when I got home, the kids were up and

frosting hand-shaped cookies with their daddy. :)
And they made me one too. It was sugary.

Then I made Stuffed Eggplant for dinner. It was awesome. My mom ate it and did not barf, which says a lot because she usually barfs after consuming eggplant.

After dinner, I went to class, where I answered all my questions right (which makes me happy), got asked by a classmate to review his essay (which also makes me happy, since it means OTHER people think I'm smart) and then I came home and got to nurse The Baby and then snuggle with The Hubs.

The only way the day could possibly have gotten better is if someone had handed us a million dollars. That may not even beat it, because it was a pretty swell day.

Zsa Zsa eating the gumdrops off her hand cookie.

(also the cat trying to get out and AWAY from the kids)

Did I mention that there were ZERO temper-tantrums yesterday? Yeah, it was awesome.

All Grown Up and Going to Nursery

 The Baby is 18 months now, and WOW has she blossomed into her own little person. She's finally decided to begin talking for real, starting with giving herself a nickname. It will only make sense to those of you who know her in real life, but it's Zsa Zsa. Yes, like Zsa Zsa Gabor. I have no idea how to spell that soft 'G' sound, but Zs seems as good as any.

She's getting to be even more opinionated and just a little mischievous. She likes to run away from Mommy in the store. Heaven help her if I don't notice right when she dashes off, because she is FAST! She also likes to steal The Boy's toys and then cry when he steals them back, which makes The Parental Units think The Boy initiated the stealing, if you can follow all that. I know the machinations of the toddler mind are beyond some. 
She's really quite sneaky. Good thing I already know all these tricks, having invented them YEARS ago when I was a young child. Well, maybe not that many years ago...

Also new is her clingy-ness. I blogged about that here. Obviously that has been not as much fun as the talking and singing. We found out she's allergic to all humus, not just the roasted red pepper kind, which probably means she's allergic to sesame/tahini. You should see the hives she gets when a little bunch of hummus gets smeared all over her skin!

 
Happy 18 Month Birthday (a few days late) Baby!
  Mommy is so excited to go to Relief Society with out you tomorrow. Maybe you can show your brother how to behave in Nursery. I heard you were stellar last week. :)

Tree House Museum (Warning, Picture Overload)

We met up with some friends while in Northern Utah and hit up The Tree House Museum.

Here's way to many pictures of that visit.

Of COURSE there was a fire engine. 

And of COURSE The Boy had to drive it. 

Since he did

So did she.

And since my camera is old and stupid, it over-exposed even on automatic adjust.

Plus, I need to learn to take pictures.

Teaching him the proper way to bull ride was a trick. He didn't want to use the left hand to hang on, but he figured out the underhanded grip pretty quick.

Milking this cow was my favorite part. When stripped, the udder actually expresses liquid into the pail. VERY cool! Sam got wet, but I think that's because his daddy squirted him.

Here's the Prettiest Rodeo Princess EVER.

And here's her brother.

Here's the Little Momma. For some reason, all my pictures of her are over exposed. Do you think it could because she's SO white?

Here's my Scientist Son. 

He had a great time looking at slides and didn't really want to leave this station.

Which was OK, because it was right next to the baby area...

Which little miss, LOVED.

The Boy thought he'd try out the baby station, since The Baby liked it so much. 

But I can't tell if he's feeding or suffocating the doll.

Can you?

I have to say, I was a little irked at this display. I kept thinking, "yes, let's show that putting the babies in little sterile plastic boxes away from their momma's scent and heartbeat is A-OK!" 

Truly, it made me mad.

Moving On...

The Boy, with a monkey on his back.

The Hubs thought this was VERY funny.

Little Red. 

My camera died, despite two-day old batteries, so I had to switch to the cell phone camera.

More Fire Engine pictures, because we had to come back and play here.

The Hubs art project. 

He's so talented.

(Notice it's a winking imoticon.)

All the kids together. 

See that other baby next to The Baby?

She's only two months older.

Just say'n.

You made it!

THE END.