Farmer's Market Fun

Highlights of the Farmer's Market today included star cookies and the Capitol. We almost got asked to leave the Capitol, but as we were not pouring beer on any legislators, they let the boys continue their hide and seek and echo games with only a hairy eyeball. Believe it or not, we actually made it through 2.5 of the 4 blocks, but in an effort to limit my purchases to what we wanted instead of what Daniel wanted, no pictures were taken.

Little Logic

Daniel asked me if he could use his Thomas puzzle tin box to bring his lunch to school. In lieu of just saying, "No Daniel, that's rediculous," my response was to ask him where the puzzle pieces would go. He responded in a not so subtle way.

Thomas puzzle box in the lunchbox cabinet

Thomas puzzle pieces in Daniel's lunchbox.

He's got it all figured out doesn't he? I guess the idea of a lunchbox with Thomas and wheels on it was just a little too exciting.

I guess I'm not in charge

Sorry for the infrequency of posts. Everytime I have something to blog about I get sidetracked. Life is pretty fun these days, but on occasion, things fall apart. Like today for instance. Here's the play by play:

9:45 am - Ok, time to put Chrisopher down because I have a conference call at 10 am.
9:58 am - Time to dial in for the call. What's that I hear? Christopher crying from upstairs.
10 am - Start conference call and cue "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"
10:45 am - Oh no, someone is digging in the pantry. *6 was mute for the call right?
10:46 am - Use food to distract the boys during the last f 15 minutes of the call.
11:10 am - Finally done. Boys were fine. Time to regroup so we can go out to eat for lunch.
11:45 am - Alright, out the door and headed to Dumpling Haus. Very excited to treat the boys to lunch and hopefully birthday shopping for Matt.
11:46 am - From the backseat, "Mom, are we going to Noodles?" - "No, we are going to a new place called Dumpling Haus." - "Mommy, I don't like dumplings, I want macaroni and cheese" - "You are having macaroni and cheese for dinner, will you try dumplings at lunch? It will be fun. Is Christopher sleeping?" - "I don't want dumplings. Yes, Christopher is sleeping."
11:47 am - Enact plan b. Cluver's drive through. I suspect Christopher will be asleep for a while.
12:15 pm - Home for lunch. Relocate Christopher to the crib. Daniel eats nothing for the next 20 minutes.
12:35 pm - Daniel finally starts to eat.
1 pm - Put Daniel down for a nap only to hear Christopher start to wake up as I walk in front of the door. Seriously?
1:15 pm - Daniel is down, but not happy about it. Now it's time to get Christopher and feed him lunch.
1:57 pm - Here we are, blogging together, Christopher being a small tornado in my lap. Daniel sounds quiet. If he's not asleep, he'll come down at 2 pm. If he is asleep, great.

The real question is, should I attempt birthday shopping again when Daniel comes down? The way my day is going I think that might lead to a reapeat of what happened at 11:46 am. Christopher is going to need more sleep. Wouldn't that be fun? Online shopping, here I come.

Day Out With Thomas

Yesterday we surpised the boys with a trip down to Union, Illinois, to do Day out with Thomas. The boys had a blast. I was really amazed that they did not even start asking about where we were going until we were on the road, and then a simple, "Illinois" was sufficient for about an hour. Then Daniel started to get curious. We told him that it was going to be a surprise. His list of guesses as to what the suprise might be was quite entertaining. First on the list was a marble race track. I've forgotten the rest of them, but one might have been getting peanut butter and liversausage sandwiches. Seriously, who could eat that? I have Matt to thank for that one. So here are the pictures. The boys got Thomas tatoos, and have been avoiding baths ever since Saturday in hope that that tatoos will last longer.

Our first Thomas sighting. Unfortunately, it's impossible to get the boys to look at me when Thomas is nearby.

Having a warm-up ride on the streetcar.

Ready to go!

Someone scary must have been walking by.

Tickets!

My squirmer.

Boys

I don't even know where to begin on the blog these days. So much is happening so quickly that I just have not had time to share much. Sorry. I think this is mostly a result of Daniel virtually giving up his nap. I say virtually because he is actually napping as I write. Probably the reason why I'm writing. Anyway, they are both growing up and changing so quickly. I'm enjoying the freedom of having slightly older children whose eating and sleeping needs are slightly less demanding. Like today, we want shopping, then we went out to eat lunch, and we finished by walking over to our new library. It was a lot of fun. Not to mention the few hours before leaving that the boys played together in the living room. It's been a fun day. I'm sure the evening will be difficult just because I'm jinxing myself by writing about it. We shall see.

We have been swimming a ton this summer. Daniel can do amazing things in the water, and he loves it. I'll have to take another video soon. He was jumping into the deep end today! Maybe he will be able to do the diving board this year. He can't wait. Christohper loves the water just as much. His favorite thing is jumping in the water. He likes to count to three instead of having me do it. After about half of his class he usually starts asking for his towel. When I don't clue in right away, he starts clarifying by saying, "Thomas" and pointing to our chair where his Thomas towel is. Usually I can distract him through 2/3 of the remaining swimming lesson time, but sometimes he gets his way.

Here are some pictures from July!

Farmers Market!

Neighborhood bike parade. Neither boy made it the block on their vehicle.

Cousins!

Conversations

When you receive pictures like this in emails, you end up with interesting dinner conversation.

Christopher is talking up a storm these days and Daniel is starting to read. I'm having trouble keeping up. I think that is because Daniel has recently quit napping at home on most days. We will get the occasional nap on a Saturday, but naps rarely come on the days we are home. I was very spoiled with almost 3 years of a 2 hour nap in the afternoon. The boys have been napping at the same time in the afternoon for as long as I can remember. It's so different now and my learning curve is steep.

Christohper mimics everything and is a real studier. He will listen, repeat, look for the thing again, and tell us about it. You can almost see him thinking. Backhoe was the word he learned in the video. His long babbling sentences are starting to take form. One of his favorites is, "What is this?" I'm also impressed with his ability to know what he wants. Christopher has been asking to go down for bed or a nap for many months now, and has been requesting food when he is hungry since his first birthday. Now that is extending to finding a certain picture in a book or a specific kind of food. It can be frusterating as a parent to figure out what this specific thing is, but he's a good enough communicator to get the point accross without too much distress, usually.

You will notice that Daniel is singing the chorus to American Pie. That is his latest bedtime song. Matt was really happy to move on from "Outdoors" to the tune of "I'm Yours" which he's been singing for almost two years. Daniel loves the song so much that I had to print the lyrics off the internet so that I could sing the song, too. We need to teach him more songs. He really seems to enjoy singing. His imagination is starting to blossom. The stories and roleplaying that I get to overhear are wonderful.

Alright enough of this rambling. Matt was accusing me of being an infrequent poster, so I've responded with a double post today.

The Definition of Dammit

On Monday I received a panicked call from Matt as he was on the way to school with the boys, "Rachel, Daniel just said 'dammit'. What do I do?" Not knowing the situation or the use, I thought we should just see how it evolved from that moment. Well, tonight Daniel tried out the word again. He just said it as we were walking up the stairs to go to bed. So Matt and I decided to have a little chat with Daniel unrehearsed. I asked Daniel if he knew what that word meant. He thought about it for a while and responded, "When you forget something, you say 'Oh Dammit' Then you turn around and you go back and get it. Then you say, 'Here it is.'" Matt remembered all the times that happened in Daniel's presence and in a moment of irony had to restrain himself from saying, "Oh, dammit." There was no debate over where Daniel picked up that nice token phrase. We told him that it's much better to say, "Oh darn," or "Oh gosh, oh gee." He seemed convinced. Hopefully, we won't be hearing from the teacher about this one.