Spring Break 2012

Favorite play spot: trunk of Mama's car
(yes, I am aware that Julia is in long sleeves and pants on a ridiculously warm Spring day, but she chose her outfit and didn't want to change. And I am picking my battles!)

Lunch ...

Rollin' With The Changes

We are once again changing things around here. Due to some issues with accessibility, we'll be moving back to an open blog.

*ahem*

If those of you who have been able to access the blog would kindly stop rolling your eyes and refrain from commenting that the others haven't missed much, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank You.



I have a little bit of an excuse for the past couple of weeks.

I headed West ...



And my traveling companions were ...

Sporty Dwarf

Disgruntled Dwarf

and

Fuzzy Dwarf

We didn't do much sightseeing.

Although Echo kept trying to see beyond the backyard ...


And who could blame her? Things were so interesting out front ...



We did get in some shopping ...



And Julia played her first computer game (I love the way she nods her head to tell Natalia that "Yes, she can take that lawn mower and mow the lawn") ...





Dax was busy, too. He showed Grayson how to walk :)


The kids were super helpful on the way home ...


And didn't complain at all about not being able to sit in their high chairs to eat their peanut butter sandwiches ...



But lest you think I'm some kind of SuperWoman that drove the nine hours straight by myself, think again. We took a little detour to a lovely lake house in Gallatin, TN where Julia was able to ride the "little boat." (She remembered going out on the boat the last time we were at Aunt Bev and Uncle Richard's house. When we got to their house this time, she told him all about how she was going to put on her "pinck like jackek" (pink life jacket) and go out on the boat. And there was no way Uncle Richard could refuse! But the big boat wouldn't start so he ended up taking Julia out on the "little boat" aka the jet ski.)





The kids did really great on the car ride(s), but Echo was by far the best traveler of all of us. Next time, maybe I'll take her with me and send the kids an alternate way ...


(And, yes, I did take my nice Nikon with me. I just didn't turn it on. In fact, it hasn't been used much this summer at all. Which is a little bit of a bummer, but I'll try to do better!)

And just to make this post even longer, I'll tell you that my brother finally installed Photoshop on my computer and so I zipped over to Pioneer Woman's website to download her Action Sets so I could play with our pictures. (The one of the kids in the box went through her "Boost" action and the "Slight Lighten" action. She's going to make my photos look good!)

The Seventies Action is by far my favorite ...



But I also like the Old West ...

Has Anyone Seen Our Echo Dog?

(alternate title) "Ways We Continue To Make Echo Lose Her Puppy Dignity"

We took Echo to the groomer with explicit instructions to shave her down. Dax and Julia did not recognize her when she came home ...

(sorry for this unattractive view, but it's the best picture I have of her shaved tail)

And in case you're wondering where I've been all week ... My time has mainly been spent watching Julia asleep on the couch. Poor monkey has been so sick. She's had a temperature ranging from 102-104 degrees all week. Tylenol has been our best friend. She has no energy and is just so limp. However, you will be delighted to know (since you are not here having to take care of her) that she was decidedly cranky yesterday evening which means her antibiotics are starting to work and she is on the mend!

Please click on the photo above to enlarge it and take note of the following things:

1) Julia's Monkey Socks -- she loves her set of monkey socks above all other socks and chooses them to wear daily. She cares not if the day of the week printed on the bottom of the sock actually is the correct day nor if the color of the socks matches her outfit. They have monkeys on the top and that makes them perfect.
2) The little blue band-aid peeking out above the sock on her right foot. She woke up one morning at 7am screaming her head off. I rushed in sure that the ceiling had (silently) collapsed on top of her and she told me "Band-aid off!" Sure enough her band-aid had fallen off and she "needed" a new one.
3) The "I've been Krogering" stickers decorating her pants. Girl loves her stickers.



And in happier news (to me) I got a new camera lens (and a remote for my camera) with my birthday monies so you should be seeing even more pictures of My Cute Babies.

Happy Easter!!!

Uh, no, I don't have a picture of our precious family all dolled up in our Easter clothes.

Why?

Because during the 11am Easter worship service at our church, I worked in the toddler room at the nursery. And David worked with the three-year-olds. And when we got home ... we were tired! Exhausted, really.

Thankfully, I had prepared our lunch casserole that morning. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn on the oven before we left for church. So when we got home, I turned on the oven and we heated up some leftover pizza for some Very Hungry Kids and their Very Hungry Parents. And while Dax napped (cranky!), Julia entertained her Uncle Christopher.

She hunted for eggs in the yard ...

Please note: The basket is purely for decoration purposes only.
One, maybe two, eggs made it into the basket.
None for longer than five seconds.

And each time she found one, she carefully carried it over to her Gathering Spot and put it in line ...

EchoDog didn't care much about the eggs, she preferred her ratty, old tennis ball ...

Once Julia got all her eggs lined up, she spent some time jumping back and forth over the line ...

After Dax woke up, she shared a few eggs with him ...

Mom, it's bright! Don't make me look up!

Of course, we had Easter baskets ...

Julia's had her two favorite things ...

Yum! Chapstick!

And stickers!!!

Dax liked his stuff, too ...

Mommy may regret the foam swords :)

And then there's this picture. Which I include not only to show you how big our boy is growing (He can stand up! And bend over to grab something without losing his balance!), but also to show off his new shoes that he wore all day without whining!

And afterward we all sat down to eat Easter lunch/dinner ... which turned out to be more of a soup than a casserole. Ah, well, I tried. The kids ate off their new trays (oh melamine plates and bowls and divided trays from Target! I am powerless against your cuteness!) Then everyone relaxed for the rest of the evening!

(Aunt Jamie, we missed you!!)

Snow Day!

Dax still takes a morning nap for about an hour or so. With the cold weather and him being sick, this has provided a great opportunity for Julia and I to be able to play outside for a bit. (Dax is still not walking and since we've had nothing but rain for what seems like a month and temperatures have been in the low 30s for a while, there's no way he's getting down and crawling. BUT, he no longer sits still in my lap or the wagon so it's a very frustrating thing to try to take him outside.)

Yesterday during our outside time, we had the added attraction of SNOW!! After wet, drippy, cold days, we finally had a wet, flaky, cold day. Julia enjoyed running around in it and shovelling it off the chairs and table on the deck. The snow fell the entire day, but the weather and ground were warm enough that it didn't really pile up (except on the tables and chairs). It apparently continued to snow during the night because the ground appears to be covered now. We'll see if it sticks around through the morning.

(For those of you who are misled by the fact that we live UP in Tennessee, Knoxville is actually in a valley. Which means it stays warmer than the rest of the state. And we really only get one snow fall a year. It doesn't matter if one hour to the east or west of us has twenty million snow days. Those areas are either in the mountains (east) or on the plateau (west) and therefore get the snow. This suits me fine. Snow is not inevitable nor a constant presence; it might show up once a year and when it does you can enjoy it knowing that in a couple of days (if not hours) it'll be gone and life will go back to normal.)

Shoveling off the table
(I know, we need to get that girl some gloves. And a real coat.
She does have two jackets on [layering!] and I ended up putting socks on her hands.)

Shopping

Peeking out at the yard

Echo helped clean off the chairs

Our Current Nominee For FUNNIEST VIDEO EVER

'Snot Funny

Echo came home shaved and clean on Wednesday after a trip to the groomer. She looked really sharp ... until Julia wiped her snotty nose down Echo's back. Yuck.

Our Hero Returns

Nearly every day Monday through Friday, Our Hero heads out to brave the evils of The World and fight for Truth, Justice and The American Way ... or at least he heads out to work 8-5 in order to bring home the bacon so Julia, Echo and I can play all day in our fabulous house and have food to eat. In return, when he arrives home, two of the younger members of our household treat him to a welcome worthy of a, well, hero ... Echo notices his car first and begins whining as soon as she sees it. Can you tell when the two of them spot Dave?

First Words

Last month at Julia's pediatrician appointment, the doctor seemed a little taken aback that Julia could walk as well as she could, but wasn't saying any words. I tried to explain that she understands what we're saying and carries on conversations with us, it's just that she only uses noises, not words. And recently several people have asked what words Julia knows and expressed the opinion that once she figured out how to talk, she'd start out with complete sentences! So I've been paying a little more attention to her "speech" this week and two things made Dave and I laugh:

1. When you ask Julia to "Say Echo" she breathes out really hard through her nose. We'll try to get that on film this weekend. The really funny thing is that often Echo makes the exact same sound when she sneezes. Julia can fake cough and fake dog sneeze!

2. Dave's had to work late this week trying to get a project finished up at work. He wasn't home on Tuesday to go through the bedtime routine with Julia so I did it. After I put Julia in bed, she spent an hour saying (really loudly) "DA DA! DA DA! DA DA!" over and over and over! So Dave came home on Wednesday and Thursday for a bit to put her to bed :) On Thursday when he opened the door, Julia was sitting in her green chair staring at the door. It opened and she broke into a BIG grin and said "DA DA!" crawled down and came over for her hug. Too cute! And the first time she's called one of us by "name."

Another Video ...

This one is Julia in her room again playing with Echo. If you watch carefully you can see the nice open-mouthed kiss smack on Echo's nose :)
(let me know if these make the page annoyingly slow to load)

Snapshots

Can you handle the cuteness?

Yes, we still have a pup. :)

I'm Behind

I'm so behind on posting photos (again) and writing about our fun visit with Grandma and Grandpa Brown. I'll get there. I'm making progress and have managed to get pictures off my camera and onto my computer. Now I just have to get them organized on the computer and then I'll be able to put them up on the website. In the meantime, Dave took these pictures last night that cracked me up ...

Buddies

Wait ... what are we looking at again?