** We had dropped Chris’ clothes off to the dry cleaners (the kids stayed in the car).  A few days later I told Tyler we were going to pick up Daddy’s clothes.  Tyler says to me,  ”I want to go in the drying store.”

** I told Tyler that I couldn’t find my sunglasses.  He asked me, “does sun hurt your eyes, Mommy?”  I told him “yes”.  He then tells me, “Close your eyes and the sun won’t sting your eyes.  When in the trees open them and the sun won’t hurt them.”

** He lives to go underwater in the pool these days and the other day he was upset because his eyes were stinging.  We since got him some goggles.  I told him we were going to swim and take his goggles and he tells me, “I don’t want to tingle.”  He says his eyes were tingling…

**  Another connection today.  He tells me, “trees are shade.  trees are shade, Mommy”

So Tyler is comsumed with the concept of eating these days.  What he eats, what could eat him, etc.  The other day he was playing with a chicken I knit him and asked where his eye was.  Then he said, “we eat chickens.  we also eat lobsters and fish and ducks.”  And we do, but for whatever reason, it made me a little sad that he has the connection that we eat all the cute litte farm animals he loves so much.  Of course what is in my head and  his are way different, but nevertheless.  It is just a sign of realities and he will come to know as he grows.   Anyway, the following are a few of the ‘eat’ sayings.

** His uncle Bryan told Tyler he was going to eat him up.  Tyler responded, “Don’t eat me. I love my Mommy and Daddy”

** He was outside my folks house and some ants crawled on his legs and bit him.  He later told me, “The ants are in trouble.  They tried to eat me into their tummies!”

Yesterday and today Quinn stood up and took a few steps on her own!!  I think be the end of September she will be walking tall on her own!

Both my kids are killing me with cuteness lately.  They both are such wonderful souls.  Here are a few “Quinnisms” for you…

**  She LOVES shoes.  Not to be gender stereotypical, but she does!  If she finds Tyler’s shoes or sandals around the house, she will try and sometimes successfully get them on her feet!  One day, I was getting Tyler’s shoes on preparing for an adventure.  She found her shoes and brought them to me!  She wanted her adventure shoes on too!   She loves socks too…

In fact, she tries to put clothes on too!  She is already trying to dress herself.  She lives anything that can be a “scarf”.  She will throw the tape measure around her neck like a scarf..

** I have a doll crib that my Dad built me in Tyler’s room.  Quinn loves to pull the dolls and mattress out and then climb in herself.  She loves emptying things and filling them back up.  She will pull all the laundry out of Tyler’s dirty clothes hamper or any laundry basket she encounters.  She will try to climb in the laundry baskets too.

** If I am sitting on the floor with my knees up, she will crawl right under my knees like a tunnel.  She will crawl one way and then turn around and crawl the other way - it cracks me up!

** She really soaks up everything we do.  If she finds a washcloth on the counter, she will wipe it up.  If she finds a brush, she will brush her hair.  This evening she climbed up to a drawer, opened it and pulled out the heavy lemon juicer.  I set her of the floor to play with it.  She then crawls back up the stool, opens the drawer and throws it back in.  There is a pot in front of her, so she changes her mind, pulls it back out of the drawer and throws it in the pot.

** Such a money girl.  She pushes the stool over to think sink facing the wrong direciton.  No matter..she climbs up and reaches for the sink.  She is now standing at an angle at the sink with one foot on the top step and the other foot wrapped around her ankle.  She is so sure-footed it is unbelievable to me.  She has a strong sense of her body and how to balance, counter-balance, etc.

** HUGS!  Probably since she was 13 months old, Quinn will give ME the great, wonderful, amazing bear hugs.  Hugs where she wraps her arms around my neck and squeezes so tight.  These are the most amazing hugs ever and make my day.

** She is a talkasaurus these days!  If Chase runs out of the door when we leave for a walk you will now hear not only Tyler and I yelling “Chase!”, you will hear Quinn as well.

She says “water” when she wants a drink and “Tyler” very clearly.  She also loves to say “hi” to people.  The other day I did kind of a whispery “hi” and she imitated me right back. 

She is now loving “bye bye”.  When we drain the water from the bathtub after bath, she will say “bye bye!”

Another day I was saying it was bathtim and I swear I heard her say “bath time!”  We love her voice - it is the sweetest little sounf coming from our sweet little girl!!

We have a 14 month old daughter who is almost walking, has gotten her first two teeth and has a fairly impressive vocabulary..”water” being her favorite new word meaning she wants her sippy cup.  She is also assertive, determined and stubborn as all get outs (she is her Daddy’s girl through and through).   Usually she is in a great mood when she fights sleep and Chris and I enjoy the one-on-one playtime with her.  She understands quite a bit, but when I asked her if she wanted to go to bed last night, and she shook her head, “no”, I was taken aback.  I was lucky enough to catch this on video..it is too funny.  Click on the picture to watch.

This is what we are dealing with folks.  Notice how tired she is as she sways around the train table.  She was asleep about 10 minutes after this video was taken (about 9:30pm).

I Love You From Your..

I told Tyler the other day that I loved him from the hairs on the top of this head all the way to his piggy toes (from “this little piggy game”).  He was sitting on my lap when I told him this.  He then tells me, “I love you all the way from your chest to your boobs!”   Hmmm…..

Is the Sky Hot?

We were chatting about something in the sky when Tyler asked me if the sky was hot.  I told him I wasn’t sure and asked him what he thought.  He said, “I think it is hot because the sun is up there and the sun is hot.”   Brilliant child. I just love this age.

Comforting Quinn

So we are driving in the car the other day and Quinn was funny and I mention to Tyler that I think Quinn has a poopy diaper.  He then asks me, “are you going to stop?  can you change her back there?”  I respond that when we get home I will change her and i couldn’t stop right at this moment.  He watches and he knows.  His little mind knows that if she needs a change, well, stop and change her and you can do it in the back of the car like you always do.

Today we were driving and again I was telling Tyler that I thought she may have a poopy diaper.  Tyler then turns to Quinn and says, “Quinn, it is okay.  We’ll be home in a minute and change your diaper.”  So, so sweet!!

Mommy is Driving!

So I think Quinn calls me like 100 times a day now.  “Mama!” in a very commanding voice.   We were driving home from the grocery store this afternoon and Quinn is saying, “Mama!” from her carseat.  Tyler turns to Quinn as says, “Quinn, Mama is driving!”

Missing Snack!

We attended this little Blossom program in the Spring and Tyler became quite attached to the brown rice snack we would have there.  Today we attended a work day getting the space ready for our autumn class.  They did have a snack for us, but it wasn’t the traditional one we enjoy during class.  Driving home from the work day, Tyler pipes up and says, “I am sad that we did not have brown rice snack at Blossom.”   Poor little guy - I had no idea how much he was looking forward to that.

Has a week really gone by since I last posted?  Geez!  Well, it has been crazy. 

Many Projects 

I have a lot of projects that are commanding my attention right now.  I am stripping wallpaper and have been cursing the previous owner of our house because when I began stripping the first layer of wallpaper, I found another layer of wallpaper. Nice.  One the positive side, this is a project I can work on during the day in small stints.  I simply use a steamer, so as long as the kids are away from that, they can help me tear or they just play around me.  I am still determined to get all my painting projects wrapped up before Christmas.

Quinn Back to Her Old Tricks

Now that swim lessons are over, Quinn is back to her old tricks of staying up until 9am or later.  So that leaves me with little time in the evening and I am usually too tired to do much.  I know this is a phase and once she is walking I feel confident she will settle back into a good routine. 

I mentioned a long time ago that I was going to run with her since her bedtime was later.  She didn’t like that plan very much and would cry while I ran so that was quickly scrapped.  I think the hardest part is that after a long day, I just want to relax and putting her to  bed is a very physical thing.  I am either walking her or if I am trying to nurse her to sleep, I have to stand up and rock her.  I like putting Tyler to bed some nights because I get to lay down!  How nice is that?? 

I just need to get her more activity in the afternoons.  I used to have to do the same thing with Tyler - get him to the pool for an hour or the playground.  I think a good hour outside before dinner will make a huge difference…I hope anyway.  At any rate, the days are slowly but surely getting shorter and I am hoping their bio rythms might follow suit..

Awake at 7am

I commented to Chris that our kids both wake up around 7am.  It took us almost 3 years to get to this place.  Tyler woke up early for years.  Quinn was waking up at 5am, then 6am, then 6:30am for the longest time.  It is nice because I can go to bed at 11 and so long as Quinn has a decent night, I am up at 7am feeling pretty good.

Wrapping Up August

The month that always seems to move the slowest is coming to and end and my little family prepares to ride our September “slip n slide”. 

I call it that because we have Labor Day Weekend, the next Friday Chris heads to Montana for 5 days, then right when he gets back it is ACL Fest for three days, then the next weekend we are headed to the beach for the weekend. 

Then I will wake up and it will be October and I will have to start thinking about Halloween since the last two years we haven’t really done much on this holiday for the kids.  This year I am determined to get costumes for the kids.  

It has been a nice summer…if you call it that.  I would almost say that we haven’t REALLY had a summer this year..not for Texas anyway. 

An interesting part of having kids is that nothing is yours anymore and it is anyone’s guess where your stuff can end up.  For instance, the other evening I decided to make my dentist proud and floss my teeth.  Hmmm.  The dental floss was no where to be found in the drawer it usually calls home.  The next day we get in the car..and sitting on the passenger seat is the dental floss..

Exhibit A

I remember Tyler finding these magnets (”Look Mom, they’re Santa’s!”) the other day and mumbling something about taking them to a safe place or them being tired.  The next morning, this is where I found the Santa’s - snuggling with the Octopus.  (and yes, it would be rude to comment on the dirty state of Mr. Octopus!)  Oh, and I should mention that this is the last picture of the top Santa as he met his demise with the vacuum cleaner earlier today.  I guess he had decided to head for an adventure off Mr. Octopus and didn’t get the memo about weekly Friday morning vacuum run.

Exhibit B

Tyler ran off with my not yet finished knitted horse yesterday evening.  When I asked him where the horse was before he went to bed, he said he was on the table.  I looked on all things that I call tables around the house, but didn’t find him.  Then this morning, my eyes located him…shoved into a bridge on Tyler’s train table.

These little ocurrences make me laugh my ass off and are some of the little things that bring a huge grin to my face in the midst of the challenging task of raising children.  I am learning to relish these great moments!