Chef, Doctor, or BMXer?

Once we got through birthday festivities, July has been a pretty calm month.  The kids are still enjoying Hadley's birthday goodies, including the chef wear,

doctor kit (they will play with this with each other for a long time!),

and doll stroller (though the doll doesn't spend as much time in it as the kids do).

Owen has stepped up in big brother duties a bit by putting on H's shoes for me.  This is a small thing, but so wonderful to see them cooperate with each other and be helpful to me at the same time!  H has reached the independent stage of wanting to dress herself, buckle herself in, etc., so it's really nice that she lets her brother help her do this.

I still love family reading photos.  You may notice that Hadley is sitting on her daddy's neck in this one, but he was still able to read the story, "It's Hard to be Five."  (Owen has great expectations for turning 5, by the way.)

Hadley loves yogurt.  She fed it to herself with a spoon, but then decided to go a step further by rubbing it all over her face.  Maybe she heard about yogurt facials...?

The weather has warmed up even more, and we are spending a lot of time outdoors at parks, playgrounds, and parties.

H's first bikini!  (borrowed from a friend at a spontaneous backyard pool party)

Rory lives in the neighborhood and is just a week older than Hadley.  He had a minion party, and his momma said she was going to keep this picture to embarrass them before their first date in the teen years. :)

H loves to swing on these kinds of bars at the playground.  Always makes me nervous, but she is my little adventurer.  (Today she climbed to the top of one of those multi-story indoor playscapes and wasn't sure how to get down.  Luckily her brother escorted her down for me!)  Owen was too long to keep his legs up.  Ha ha!

They refilled in the wood chips at our local playground.  But, it wasn't very consistent - check out the high/low swings O had to choose from.

Oh, and before I forget...  This happened!  See anything missing from the back of his bike?!?!

We finally lowered his bike seat, and with just a few pushes, he was off to the races without training wheels. Once he got going around the block, he did not want to stop.  He must have circled the block at least 6 times!  Since we didn't have bikes or proper running shoes on, each parent took opposing corners of the block to keep an eye on him.  It was so awesome to see the light bulb go off, and now he LOVES riding his bike at any opportunity.  Hooray! 

More Summer Activities

It's summer, so that means time to do things outdoors like swim lessons.  Owen had developed a fear of the water, so my main goal this summer was to conquer that. Lessons definitely did that!  He now loves to put his face in the water, so much so that he was often told by the instructor to get back on the step (because he was under water too much) while waiting for his turn.  I do have to mention that back in June we sat through a few days of temps in the 40s, but swim lessons continued because the pool is heated.

Sitting in the blustery, chilly day poolside is not much fun for H and me, though at least she had the iPad.  (Otherwise, she'd be trying to get in the water with O or running amok and I wouldn't get to even witness the swim lesson.)

We are also trying T-ball again, which is fun because we know everyone on the team this year.  (Owen's in the hat on the back row.)  The kids also seem a little more "on top of their game" this year. Notice though that the coach of the other team lined him up as a left-handed batter, which I don't think is the case...

And what's more summery than baseball and the 4th of July?  We took the kids to see our minor league team, the Chukars, play.  A good thing about the minor leagues is you can get a great seat just by being on time.  Right above H's head is the team mascot, Charlie. He was much more interesting than the game being played, at least to the kids.

But both paled in comparison to the junk food!  Cheetos and churros made for very wiggly kids who burned out by the middle of the 5th inning.

Finally, both kids loved the 4th of July parade!  We found some friends with a great set-up along the parade route.  The kids were absolutely riveted for the entire 2-hour parade.

The parade had a pretty good variety of cars, horses, dancers, bands, etc.  Hadley definitely noticed the cheerleaders and wanted to dance to the music.  Watch out!

Happy birthday, America!  We love you!

The two gents even went down to the Greenbelt that night to witness the Melaleuca fireworks show consistently rated in the top-10 in the nation.

Hadley Reaches 730 Days of Life!

That's 2 years for the math-impaired out there.  And it really did seem to speed up for the second child, though that's probably due to other distractions and activities with the first one cutting into all of that idle time, right?

Anyway, we had a little backyard BBQ to celebrate the last party before she has an opinion.  :) It was the end of June, but barely in the 70s and pretty gusty.  It didn't stop the kids from splashing in the pool and then rolling around in the sandbox for a nice sugar coating.

Hadley hadn't seen (or paid attention to) the whole candle-blowing-out part of a party, so it was kinda fun to try to get her to do that, while protecting the candle from the wind.  It was a team effort. (see the kids' faces behind me?) But so worth it for her "chit chit"! Yum!

 Good buddies wrestling on the front lawn.  It's a guy thing...

By the time of her actual birthday today, she was an old pro at the candle thing.  

I think we asked her how old she was in this pic.  She can definitely answer "two", but the two fingers up are way too complicated. :)

Someone enjoyed the gift unwrapping too.

As for her milestones, she is talking a lot, though she may still need a translator for newbies most of the time.  She has started calling her friends by their names when she sees them.  Other new words: birthday, "goss" - gross, door, fall, head, tub, bike, Biscuit, diaper, walk, ride, moose, "dobby" - strawberry, "I do it", and many others.  And if she's crying, and I ask her what happened, it's often "bhoslidlfkaskfn Owen sldfoidfhwoeeabp" between sobs. (Here she has pulled her arms out of her shirt and shimmied it down like a skirt with her bro's backwards hat to complete the look.)

Her personality is showing itself more and more, and she is definitely my climber.  One night while making dinner, I had a little head pop up over the counter on the other side. She had pushed her chair over and climbed on up to see what was going on.  Such a stinker!  We are also firmly in the terrible twos for stubbornness, independence, and testing limits.

Yellowstone, Day 3 with Grand Teton Exit

On our last day, we headed south to drive back through Grand Teton NP and Jackson on the way home.  Our only stop in Yellowstone that morning was at the West Thumb Geyser Basin, which had some more interesting geothermal features on the edge of beautiful Lake Yellowstone.

Our trip around the boardwalks was pretty uneventful, except for a stubborn toddler who refused to stay in the hiking backpack for longer than 3 minutes.  She also didn't want to be carried or even walk much, so our result was this (much to the delight of the group of Asian tourists who all snapped her picture):

She wasn't fussing or crying, just hanging out on the boardwalk and causing a bit of a traffic jam.  She didn't respond to our pleas, bribes, threats, or even our leaving (that speck in the middle is her).  If we touched her though, it set off much screaming.  In the end, we just had to carry her off and run.

The rest of the drive was filled with placating snacks and amazing views on the way back home.