Graham Cracker Cuteness

While Ethan was still taking his nap, Emeree decided to be cute while eating a snack.

This is a face she makes when she copies me.  I close my eyes and smile at her and this is what she does back . . .

Strange Children

When Emeree drinks her water, she reminds me of a gerbil or hampster. . . since she holds the bottle straight up and doesn't tip her head back. Why should she have to work for it? I was on the computer checking my email and I heard Ethan digging through his room for something - and since the baby is taking her nap, I rushed into his room to help him before he woke her up. When I came into the living room, he had set up these wood blocks as a fence and had been looking for his horse to put in the fence. How does he know horses get fenced in? Smart boy.

Oh, and the boy knows how to count to 10 . . . he was outside helping Michael work on the back yard and he counted the nails on the ground. How did he learn to count? I haven't worked with him on numbers yet and all the shows he watches just do letters. If he lines his toys up, I count them for him, but that's really the only exposure he's had. He's a quick learner. And just now, he is playing with my phone and one of the apps is a puzzle and he ran over to me to show me and said "four, mommy, four" and sure enough . . . the puzzle he finished was the number four. I guess I breed smart children :)

I guess I raise criminals...

So I guess I raised a couple of criminal children. Ethan ripped out the tag from the bottom of the chair in Sunday School when he was 10 months old...you know, the one that says it's illegal to remove. And today, Emeree (9 months) decided to join her brother in a life of crime and rip out a tag as well. I guess girls are more advanced than boys. I'll blame this mischievousness on their father.

Such Good Manners

So Ethan is eating his breakfast slow today . . . this is our conversation a few minutes ago:

Me: Eat your kiwi
Ethan: No
Me: Yes, please
Ethan: No, please

How can I help but not smile when he's so politely declining my request?

Mt Rainier 2010

We go to Mt. Rainier every summer - since I was a baby (except the 5 years we were in Nebraska). Part of the tradition is we've always taken a picture of us 4 siblings on this log bench. Our family has grown quite a bit since it was jus the 4 of us kids.
We put this child leash thing on Ethan so he doesn't run off the cliff when we are at the top of our hike. And Michael wrapped it around his head so it looks like a sweat band.Here's my little family of 4 . . .
Another tradition pose is this one at the top of our hike with Mt. Rainier in the background. This one has always had the whole family (with Mom and Dad).

The weather was beautiful that day. We got a great shot of Mt. Rainier.

Cousin Photos

We had all 5 cousins in the same place . . . so we decided to take that opportunity to get photos of them. It was tricky getting all 5 of them to look/smile at the camera at the same time, but I think we got some good shots.

Here are all 5 . . . Emma, Lorelai, Max, Ethan, EmereeI absolutely love this one of my kids . . . Emeree has been in a "stick your tongue out" mood lately, so this was a fun face for her. She had a cold, so she was fussy and hard to get to smile. She smiles the best for Michael and Emma, so I credit any smiles she gave us to Emma that day. Here are the girls . . .

Here are the boys . . . we only got one shot of them cause Max kept trying to lay back and Ethan kept looking at the tv where the photos showed up, so we didn't get more than one shot of them. But we didn't need it since this one turned out so good.

Bummer Brownies

So Michael tried to make brownies with black beans . . . inspiration from Kari :). She said it was good - you just substitue mashed black beans for the oil/eggs that the box says to add. It's healthier and you can't taste the difference.

But the problem was that it was Sunday, so we couldn't go to the store to get a brownie box. So Michael tried to make them from scratch (the brownies and the beans - we had dried beans but no canned beans). . . they were gross! And it took him almost all afternoon/evening to make since he had to soak and cook the beans for a few hours before mashing them.

He made frosting to help sweeten it up and that made it worse cause it was a weird frosting since we didn't have any powdered sugar. So I decided to let Michael suffer alone in eating them.

But he gave Ethan one a few minutes ago and Ethan came running to me making a gag noise and holding his mouth open for me to take the brownie out (he doesn't spit out food if he doesn't like it for some reason - he just tries to get me to take it out).

So you know it's bad when a 2 year old won't eat a brownie covered in frosting. Maybe we'll try it later with the box mix and canned beans instead of trying it all on our own.

Trip to the Zoo

We went to the Pt. Deifance Zoo last week with Debbie . . . It was a beautiful day and both kids were excellent. Emeree was as perfect and happy as can be. Ethan was great until the last half hour or so when he was just getting restless and tired of walking. But he was still great - I just had to chase after him a bit.

Here Ethan is at the goat grooming area. We tried feeding the goats too - worked great last year, but this time Ethan just kept throwing the food in the pen instead of letting them eat out of his hand. Emeree seemed to like the Seals the best. She kept tracking them as they swam around their tank.

Ethan and I went to the underwater viewing area for the walrus' and this one kept doing the same thing over and over. He would swim toward the glass on his back then swim up the glass and head the other way - basically a U-turn but right along the glass.

Ethan went down the slides a few times at the kids zone, but once he got to this point in the picture below, he would stop because the slide was hot, so I had to slide down after him to get him off the slide so the other kids could go after him.

Here he is climbing the spider web.

He loved the Meerkats - you can tell from his huge smile in the reflection. The meerkats were staring straight up for a long time since there was a big bird flying overhead - I'm guessing they were waiting to see if they needed to dive back in their holes for safety.

The zoo has some 8 week old tiger cubs - it's hard to tell in this photo, but they are in the back along the wall with their mom.

Strollers weren't allowed in the Shark Feeding Tank area, so I had to stay outside with Emeree while Ethan and Debbie went in. So she just ate her cereal puffs and was happy as a clam.

I think my expectations are always high for the zoo and I come home a bit disappointed each time. Barely any of the animals were out and the monkeys weren't even out that day - just some goat looking thing that wasn't interesting. And this zoo doesn't even have giraffes, or bears, or lions (some of the basic animals). The water animals were the best ones this trip since they were swimming around. We're hoping to go to Woodland Park Zoo later - and hopefully their animals are more fun and actually out in their pens so we can see them. Anyway, Ethan and Emeree had fun, so that's what counts.

. . . oh, and they now charge a dollar to ride the carousel! It was free last year - what's up with that?

And we are in the process of fixing the bathroom. The previous owners had painted it all BLACK. And it was very tight and had no counter space, so we are fixing that. Michael cut a door in the drywall that we are tearing down, so here he is coming through the wall that is about to be demo'd. I had painted all the other walls so there wasn't anymore black - except for the wall that was coming down.

Ethan's 1st Somersault

Sorry for the blurry video - came from our phone . . . but here is Ethan's first somersault! He skids on his head at the beginning.

Crawling and Standing and Swimming, oh my!

This is how my little MacGyver turns on light switches. These tongs are quite useful to him. He uses them to eat pop-tarts and turn on lights so far.Emeree started crawling a week and a half ago . . . she started by going up on her toes and then putting one knee in front of the other, but now she just crawls normal. Then yesterday, I came into the room to find her standing up against Ethan's Tonka Dump Truck. Luckily he was down for his nap, otherwise I don't think he would have taken too kindly to her using it. This was the first time she pulled up to standing. She's been pulling up to her knees for about a week. As you can see, she likes to stand on her toes - with them folded in. LOVE that dimple!We got a little plastic swimming pool - Ethan loves it. He stands and scoops water out with a cop or funnel. But Emeree hated it. She screamed bloody murder when we dipped her toes in it. She has no problem with baths, but this water was a little colder. I do love her swimming suit, but since she won't touch the water, I don't think she'll get to wear it again.

Neither of my kids have a solid belly laugh (Max has a great laugh - I'm so jealous of that). Emeree just lets out a heavy breath since she holds in her laughs, but now she has switched to a funny sound that sounds like she has a small air leak.