Outside.

We've been playing outside as much as possible.

Who wouldn't when it's somewhere between 65 & 85 degrees.

Yes, a 20 degree spread, that's Indiana Spring for you all.

Actually, it dipped down to 30 something the other night.

:)  My air was on one day and my heat the next.

Moving on...

Little Dude is completely digging the outside play.

I thought maybe he'd be motivated to chase Sesame.

Nope.

He was motivated to eat:

dandelions

clovers 

and

grass.

It will make for some interesting 9 month old poops here in the next few days. :)

He also may have taken a wound to the head.

Sort of.

He may have fallen out of this chair like .5 seconds after I snapped the following photo.

And landed smack on his head.

Hey, I figure Sesame rolled off her changing table around this age.

Every kid needs some head trauma in their life, why not have a photo.

Okay.

I don't really think that about head trauma.

It just sounded funny at the time.

Now it's not.

Why can't I just use the backspace button?!

Moving on.

I'm going to attempt to take real  photos of my children in the next week.

You know, the kind we're they're in nice clothes

and I take them to a spring-y looking field

and actually pose them

and take their photos.

It will be a first.  :)

Love These Kids.

She giggles with him.  He pulls her hair.  She reads to him.  He squeals with delight at her stories. She shakes rattles up in his face.  He bats them away and screeches.  They seriously love each other.

Spider vs. Shingles

So.

Wednesday morning. 5:30 am. Half an hour before the alarm goes off.

Little Dude wakes up. I continue laying in bed

Please go back to sleep.  I just want to laze about for 30 more minutes.  Please.

Cute-cooing cry turns into bloody-murder get this wet diaper off of me cry.

Ugh.  I give up.

I stand, slipping my feet into my maroon, grandmother-esque house slippers.  Because I'm 80 like that.

Wow. It's insanely dark in our room.

I stumble into our bathroom, flip on the light, and see my left eye is completely swollen shut.

Well, that explains the darkness.

I try to open my eye.

It won't budge.

I try to Jedi mind trick my eye into opening.

Open eye.  Open.

I try to Harry Potter wand my eye open.

Dissendium!  Alohomora!

Nothing.

"MY EYE WON'T OPEN!  I CAN'T SEE!" 

I finally yell out to husband above the shrill, "someone is stabbing me in my crib" cry.

He calmly rolls over.

"Turn on the light, so I can see."

I do so, standing directly in front of the light, which doesn't do any good.

"It looks fine."

When the left side of my face started burning later in the day, I decided maybe I should go see the doctor.

Turns out I either have an "exotic spider bite" or shingles.

Now that little bumps have appeared behind my left ear and my left arm is aching, I think it might be shingles.

My eye, however, is significantly less Quasimodo-like.

It now looks like I was hit in the eye with a wooden spoon.

Anyway.

Whilst I was going all hypochondria-cal on myself, My kids were playing together:

She's trying to teach him to crawl.

She really does repeat everything three times to him.

Little Dude's newest tricks:

1. Acquired hair.

2. Two teeth just peeking through on top.

3. Has started first rock band now that he can bang things together.

4. Learned to pull Sesame's hair.  (This is now one of my favorite things to observe. hehe.)

5. Expert in toy manipulation I.E. he uses a toy to coax out of reach toys to within his grasp. (forget rolling/crawling/movement - he is a ninja master of reaching and creative coercion of toys to within his reach)

Sesame's latest accomplishments:

1. Writing/performing own songs into her "microphone" aka vacuum cleaner.

Her newest song goes like this: "Praise Jesus Holy!  His Windshield Wipers Sing!  Praise Jesus Homer! AHHHHH!"

She's a lyrical genius.

2. Dressing herself.  That's right.

Check out her sweet outfit.

Momma, I promise we wear the cute outfits you purchase us.

Grammy, we do match in the sweet dresses you send.

But there are some days when I allow, red shoes, pink polka dot knee socks, navy shorts, wild flower shirts, an orange hoodie and her rainbow star hat.

She's 3.

She needs to live a little.

:)

The Reading Chair.

Ever wonder what I do with the kids when I'm on the phone with you?

If you can hear Little Dude, chances are he's chewing on the telephone cord.

What can I say, I'm a paranoid germ-o-phobe.

Not.

We have this rockin' chair in our living room designated as the "reading chair."

Half of my pay check to whomever guesses what we do in the chair?!

That's right.

Read. :)

It also serves as the perfect place to photograph a baby that enjoys launching himself out of chairs/couches in a kamikaze-suicidal fashion.  He doesn't move much, but when he does, he makes it count.

So our "photo shoot" went something like this the other day:

"Sesame, look at Mommy.  You can't close your eyes.  Z, *snaps fingers*  Hey, Z *blows raspberries*  Little Dude, loooook at Momma!  Sesame stop picking your nose!"

Sesame laughs because I said 'picking your nose.'

"Z!!  *strings together random syllables in a pitch not audible by adult humans* HEY!  HEY!  *waves maniacally*"

I think okay...this could work...at least they're smiling at Sesame's knee...

"Sesame, what are you doing!? What is that face for!?"

"It's my sad mad scientist face."

"What!?  Well don't be a sad mad scientist.  Be a happy Sesame.  Or a goofy pirate Sesame."

*she does the same face*

"Sesame?!"

"The mad scientist is sad because he is not reading in the reading chair."

*sigh*

All in all, I love this crazy string of photos.

Why?

They are so us.  :)

Saturday Mornings.

Saturday mornings are a special time around here.

Formerly, Husband spent them snuggled under the covers until the kids finally pounce on him = around 9:30.

But lately, Saturday morning has become the day Momma luxuriously lounges in bed until...EIGHT!?

Can you believe it!?

It's a miracle.

Amazing how my view of "sleeping in" has changed since college.  :)

Anyway, Husband dedicated Saturday morning to be the official "Pancake Day."

He and Sesame bond over pancakes.

She stirs.

He flips.

They even have matching Star Wars aprons.

Every once in awhile they let a little mad scientist laugh rip too.

Lately, Little Dude has joined in on this adventurous vocal trill.

Love.

He's expecting his matching Star Wars apron come June.

I told him you had to be able to roll over to wear one.

He gave me the "that's not funny mom"/Ed Asner look.

For all the Star Wars pancake molds and kitchen cutlery, only Daddy dons the Darth Vader spatula.

It even sounds like James Earl Jones when you flip too late: "This one has come to the dark side."

Get it.

Dark side.

Waited too late to flip it.

I.E. its burned.

Yeah...that was a stretch.

The explanation ruined it.

All in all, I love my little, mad, kitchen pancake creators.  They make art they do.

Edible art.

That gets covered in butter and syrup.

And that, my friends, is the best kind of art.

Sabbatical.

So.  I took a blogging break.  :)  It started out as unintentional and then became...well...intentional.  :)  No worries though, we are back and kickin'!  :)

New look here.  Obviously.  :)  Just give me a week or so to work all the kinks out and it will be working like a well-oiled machine.  :)

Until tomorrow (or tonight) dig on this sweet photo of Little Dude and his doppelganger!

Love.  :)