big brother strikes again

 In addition to her doll, Micah thought Lydia would enjoy some (8?) of his toys for a change. I think she felt a little overwhelmed by all the loving attention, but she played it cool.

Thanks big brother!

afternoon naps

 We took lots of pictures of Micah when he was little sleeping, and I realized the other day that we don't have any of Lydia.....because she only sleeps in the carrier. After 10 attempts holding the camera behind my head, I finally got this shot without much of me in it. She's much cuter in person, but this gives a fairly accurate picture of what I see 3 inches below my chin 5-6 hours of the day. :)

And this is what I usually feel like after both of the kids "go down for their naps". What can I really get done without killing my back or burning my child? Here are a few things that work well:
-watching Turkish soap operas
-peeling potatoes
-folding laundry (because our dryer is on top of our washer - making it such that I don't have to bend over!)
-ironing Rick's shirts (isn't he so lucky!)
-posting blog updates

what doesn't work so well:
-baking things that need to come in and out of the oven
-picking up toys
-sweeping the floor and trying to use the dustpan
-napping
-sitting on the couch for more than 10 minutes (someone gets restless and threatens to wake up early)

I'm open to suggestions!

finally summer

hooray! We've finally hit weather warm enough for the pool to open again. Micah is taking advantage of another location to play his favorite game: copy cat.

old and new words

Good parents are supposed to record every major milestone in their kids' baby books....but I question, how do you know when your kid finds her fists? Don't you just do a double take and see it one day and wonder how long she's been gnawing on those?

So, Lydia has found her fists.

And Micah has gone from one word pointing, to three word sentences that form mini-conversations! This makes my eyes bug out as I am amazed at all he thinks and says...and how soon he'll be graduating high school.

So, I want to memorialize on our blog the following words that I hope he doesn't replace too soon:
motorcycle: gree-ah
airplane/bird: ku
train: toot toot
farm: e-i-o
dog: how
frog: bey
Lydia: ee-ah

I'd also like to just state how confusing it is to have these three words:
mom: mom
driving cars: mum
time to eat: um
especially when he is yelling Muuuuum from the living room....where he is contentedly driving his matchbox cars.

strange request

Yesterday, before nap, Micah was sooooo tired that he was just making ridiculous request after request in order to prevent naptime from starting. He finally asked for juice…but he wanted it mixed. He has often requested milk and juice together and he has noticed that we are now mixing his juice with water.

When I brought him his juice/water drink, he had a fullblown face on the floor meltdown.– He wanted it mixed with something else from the fridge.  We walked into the kitchen to play the pointing game.What was that something? A can of Efes beer that has been in there since last October.  Who’s kid is this???

I said no, that is Daddy’s. Meltdown. No, that is for adults. Meltdown. No, sorry, you just can’t have that. Meltdown. Streams of tears. Crying shrieks. I can’t even remember how I finally got him to drink his normal juice and go to sleep. But I did. And he did. And we survived another day.

mo peeze pleeze

Another fun day of shelling/podding/whatevering peas. Except this time, my little worker bees got to help! Micah thought it was good fun to pick those little peas out of there...and I caught Lydia gnawing on the end of a pod. Gotta love those veggies!

science experiment

so...this is what happens when you don't eat up your fresh fruits and veggies in a timely manner. And this is why people typically buy only what they are going to eat in the next couple days! This will be your first and last (I think) picture of things gone bad in our fridge.