Zonk

Just how we like 'em on long car rides:

 

 

Beach Trip with T's Parents

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures from a trip to the beach a few weeks ago with T's parents. It was COLD and WINDY, which explains the funny expressions and windblown 'dos.

 

 

 

 

He's More Fun than a Barrel of Monkeys

More quotes from D.L.F.:

(As he patted the couch under him): "I am sitting on the Christian!" (he meant "cushion").

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"The stroller stepped on my foot!"

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Updated to add:

When we were driving home from vacation this past Saturday, there was one stretch with lots of tall trees on both sides of the road. T and I were commenting to each other how pretty the landscape was and describing the trees, and all of a sudden, D.L.F. piped up from the backseat: "TOILET-trees!" I guess he'd acquired some of our vacation-packing lingo and had been waiting for an opportunity to use it.

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Whenever I am ready to get D.L.F. up, I stand outside his bedroom door and ask, "Is there a [D.L.F.] in there?" Usually, he simply says, "Yes." Today when I asked that question, however, he replied, "I hope so!"

And Another Quote

D.L.F. to Cupcake in the bath: "Don't touch the water, or you might get wet."

Quote from D.L.F.

"I don't like oats in my oatmeal."

Weekend Getaway

This past weekend, T and I left the kiddos with my parents and went camping! We took the kids camping with us last fall, but T and I had never camped by ourselves before.

We took off Friday afternoon and got to the campground around 4. We set up camp and T managed to make a fire, even with partly-wet wood. We roasted hot dogs over the fire and then drove to the beach, which was only a few minutes away by car. We walked along the beach and then sat and talked for a while. We headed back to the campsite and T went to sleep. I stayed up reading until midnight, because I'm overly noise-sensitive, and there were people talking and cars driving by until then. At that point, I attempted to sleep, but didn't end up dropping off until 2 AM...and then we were awakened around 6 AM by other campers getting up to start their day. The lack of sleep that night was the one part I didn't enjoy about our weekend away, but the rest of the time made up for it.

On Saturday, we browsed at a nearby outlet mall and bought a pair of work pants for T and a set of C.S. Lewis's letters to his friends and family that T is supposed to forget about, and I will give to him for his birthday in September. Then we had a quick lunch and went to see the movie "Up." I really liked it, but I was glad I brought a tissue...I bawled most of the way through. Then we hiked down to a different beach (where we sat and ate Subway sandwiches the night we got engaged 5 years ago...that was before I knew T had anything up his sleeve...actually, I didn't really suspect anything until T was practically pulling out the ring, but that's another story for another day). We each found a walking stick on the beach and used it to hike back up to our car. Then we drove a short distance to a state park and hiked out to the "rock" overlooking the ocean where T asked me to marry him. We didn't take any pictures this trip, but here's a picture of us hiking out to the rock the night we got engaged (apparently I had abandoned my walking stick at that point in favor of holding T's hand).

 

Then we drove back to a little side road where we parked and again hiked down to the beach and built a bonfire and sat and talked until way after dark. After that, we hiked back up to our car again and tossed our walking sticks in the bushes...and found the same sticks we had used the night we got engaged, still lying there in the bushes. I guess we're starting a collection. :-)

That night, we were so exhausted from miles of hiking that we slept much better and much longer. On Sunday, we packed up our things, went swimming in the campground's indoor pool, ate lunch at a seafood restaurant, and then headed home.

D.L.F. and Cupcake had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa (thanks, Mom and Dad!). They read lots of books and went to a park and a "sprayground." Here are a few pictures of their time together.

 

 

 

Isn't it cute how the kids are both snuggling their buddies in that last picture?

2 Pictures

Cupcake has discovered climbing, and she's pretty good at getting herself into awkward positions, but not so great yet about getting out of them. I had to snap this picture before I got her out of her predicament.

 

I got my hair cut short for the summer. I took this picture of myself, so it's not the greatest quality, but here it is.

 

Rose Garden

T is home sick, so I decided to get the kids out of the house so he could rest. We went to the Rose Garden. It was my first time there, even though I've lived in the area for six years. It was beautiful, but crowded, and there were so many stairs! Cupcake was in the stoller, so I had to carry the stroller up and down many different sections of stairs. I think there was supposed to be a ramp somewhere, but I never found it. D.L.F. did a great job of climbing all the stairs by himself. I didn't get many pictures, because it's hard to push a stroller and take care of two little kids and take pictures at the same time, but here are a few:

 

 

 

 

Ow!

I was in another room and overheard D.L.F. saying, "I am pulling your hair! Can you say, 'Ow!'?"

I thought he was talking to Cupcake, so I hurried in and was relieved to find that he was only pulling on the yellow yarn hair of Rosie, Cupcake's lovey (the feminine equivalent of Baseball Guy).

From His Perspective

Today D.L.F. was looking at the book Go Dog Go and saw a picture of a dog wearing roller skates. He said, "That dog has car sandals!"

Beach!

With the hot, muggy weather we've been experiencing, we've been itching to visit the beach for quite a while, and today we got our chance. D.L.F. remembered the beach from last year, and he was so excited when he figured out that's where we were going. It was such fun to get our city children out into God's creation where they could move and explore to their hearts' content.

When we got to the beach, I set Cupcake in the sand, and she was off! She practiced her gymnastics moves...



and checked out a big stick...


ate some sand...


and liked it so much she attempted to cover every square inch of her body with it.


D.L.F., on the other hand, mostly wanted to hang out with Papa...


and everyone played in the water.

Rhododendron Garden

Sleeping Baby

 

 

Precious One-Year-Old!

 

Cupcake turned one on May 5. She has been a joyous addition to our family! I am so grateful to be the mother of such a sweet, special little person. If you follow this link, you can read her birth story and see pictures of her as a newborn.

Things that make her happy at this point are her family and friends, bananas, cats, stuffed animals, baths, and music (she does the cutest little boogie whenever she hears music!). She is a super imitator and tries to copy sounds and people's movements. She is crawling and pulling up on things, but is not walking alone yet. She says, "Papa," "Mama," "nana" (banana), "ca" (cat), something resembling "cracker," and she refers to both books and socks as "k."

Her soft, downy hair is getting longer. I love to snuggle her and kiss the top of her head over and over. She puts her thumb in her mouth and leans against me. I treasure these days.

End-of-April Update

-T accidentally reformatted a hard drive with ALL our pictures on it--wedding pictures, baby pictures, everything. But he found some software to reverse the damage. It cost $40 (grrrrr), but it's worth it to have all those pictures back.

-We have a new church. Have I mentioned that? We used to be part of a house church, but God led people in different directions, and so that house church is no more. Our new congregation has about 150 people, and it's within walking distance of our house.

-This past weekend was the church women's retreat. Cupcake is eating solids so well now (she literally will eat anything and everything you put on her tray), and she'll be a year old in two weeks, so I decided she could live without me for a couple of days. T said she did great, and other than looking around and saying "Mamamamama" sometimes, she didn't seem to miss me too much. There were about 40 women at the retreat, and I learned almost everyone's name. I felt blessed that so many welcomed me, talked with me, and even wrote me notes! I did nurse Cupcake when I got home, but she just doesn't seem all that interested any more (and hasn't for a month or two), so I don't know how much longer I'll keep it up. I'm kind of looking forward to being done with nursing (until the next baby), as I've been either pregnant and/or nursing for the past 3 1/2 years.

-D.L.F. has, of his own volition, started walking everywhere lately! This is good because 1) the umbrella stroller (for Cupcake) is WAAAY easier to haul down and up the stairs than the double stroller, and 2) walking wears D.L.F. out, thus he takes really long naps!

Misheard

Yesterday while we were eating dinner, a car honked loudly outside, and D.L.F. imitated the sound perfectly.

"He was right on pitch," I said to T.

D.L.F. giggled and said "ARMPITS!" and started flapping his arms like a bird.

Easter 2009

I took the kids to my parents' house for Easter, and T stayed home to work on some projects around the house. I really enjoyed going to the church I grew up in and seeing lots of folks I hadn't seen for a while. We went to the early service, and then went down to the fellowship hall for brunch. As we were almost ready to leave, my mom started coughing and choked out a request for something to drink. My dad got her some juice, and by that time, I was coughing, too, with a horrible irritation in my throat (three hours later, my throat is still bothering me a bit). We looked around and realized that everyone around us was coughing, too. So what was the deal? Apparently someone had sprayed pepper spray (or something like it) in the men's restroom, I guess as a prank, and it just filtered out all through the church. So that's a little Easter adventure I won't be forgetting any time soon. My mom got Easter outfits for Cupcake and D.L.F. Here are a few pics:

 

 

 

Don't Eat Pistachios!

A lot of stores are recalling pistachios that are possibly contaminated with salmonella. Here's an article with more information:

FDA: Stop Eating Pistachios, Salmonella Feared

Not a Bug Boy

When I was pregnant the first time around, T and I joked that we'd better have a boy so he could kill all the bugs and spiders for me when T was at work. Well, we have our boy now, but it seems there is little hope of employing him as my on-call exterminator. Even the tiniest fruit fly sends him into a tizzy of panicked, blood-curdling shrieks. Today I wanted to show him a cricket that was on the outside of our sliding glass door. I thought he would think it was neat, since we just checked out The Very Quiet Cricket, by Eric Carle, from the library yesterday, but no, he had the same response as usual, even though I explained that the cricket was outside and couldn't hurt him at all. I had to pull the blinds closed before D.L.F. would stop screaming. Hopefully he will outgrow his bug phobia soon!

Free Audio Book Download

You will not want to miss this! Ten P's in a Pod is the true story of a family with eight children who traveled around the country in the 1950's giving gospel presentations, singing, and reciting huge chunks of Scripture. Their family was very dedicated to reading and memorizing God's Word, and their example of living by faith (they almost never knew where their next meal or money for gas would come from) is so encouraging.

I read the book a few months ago and really enjoyed it, so I was so excited to see that it's free to download this month at Behemoth.com. The audio book is read by the author, Arnold Pent III, and it includes some bonus material that is not found in the printed book.

You do have to input a credit card number, but the audio book is completely free:

Here's the link:

Ten P's in a Pod




HT: Kim at Life in a Shoe