Good mornings

I'm not a morning person. Given the choice I would rather sleep in until I absolutely have to get up. I like my snooze button. However, a 3-month-old does not have a snooze button.

This past week it's actually been really nice, though. Erin is off from school so we've been letting the big kids stay up a little later at night. They've been sleeping in until at least 9 every morning. Caroline gets up at 7 and is back down by 8:30 for her first nap so I've had about 2 hours to myself each morning since she doesn't really talk that much.

Luke & Erin have been getting along and playing quite well together this week, which I am very grateful for and, frankly, a little surprised at. I was expecting the week to be more difficult. I guess having some new things from Christmas to play with helps. It's been especially nice and homey each morning- while Caroline naps, they play together (usually with Legos) and I work on sewing projects, something I don't usually have time for.

Today I took them to Brookside Gardens after Caroline's first nap this morning. A friend had suggested that they might like the model train display there. They did. Thanks, Bobbie!

The trains were mostly set up in the middle of the room, but there were a few around the edges as well.

A typical picture of these 3: Luke being goofy and not wanting to smile, Erin with a cute/cheesy grin, Caroline being . . . well, a baby.

The little dioramas were pretty cute and old-fashioned. There was a table with some papers that the kids could pick up - a sort of scavenger hunt for things around the display to look for. I appreciated that because it made the kids look a little closer at the set-up instead of just walking around following the trains as they moved.

Luke liked this trolley because it went into a little tunnel under all the other trains.

Fun, and free! Maybe next year we'll go at night so we can take the Garden of Lights Winter Walk. I'm not sure Caroline would have cooperated with it this year since she's decided to be cranky now every night from about 5 to 8. Next December she should be alert enough to appreciate a whole park full of Christmas lights.

Do we have a theme?

Luke and Erin hiding behind the ironing board a few days ago:

Luke and Erin hiding under the buffet this afternoon:

They also like to hide under one of the wingback chairs in the living room, I just don't have a picture of that yet.

Here are a few of them playing "Pony Boy/Girl" with mom:



And their favorite thing to do with Grandma (or Grandpa):

We had a good visit. Pretty much laid low the whole week except for a rousing visit to IKEA for breakfast. A good vacation, in my opinion.

Tomorrow: Erin eating hummus and saying "cheese."

Sometimes ignorance IS bliss

My mom brought a book for me to read when they visited last month - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It's totally got me in a tizzie now, feeling frustrated with our world in general and country specifically. I'm also feeling helpless, like there's not really a way (at least an easier way) to circumvent the problem. I can't easily sum up the book, but it's basically about food and how we are so used to eating out-of-season foods and don't even think about how much fossil fuel is used up so we can have salad in December and bananas anytime. Also about how corn and soybean products are in everything we eat so they can justify growing more than we need.

The problem I'm having is not only thinking about the food I buy with a more critical eye, but also that it's hard to be really frugal and stay on a budget when the farmer's market peaches are twice what I can get in the grocery store, although the grocery store peaches probably came from California and the farmer's market peaches are local and help a farmer in my community. How can I be a conscientious shopper and not spend more?

I've also started making plans for a bigger garden next year. I tried some tomatoes this year, mostly on a whim. It was good to do a trial because now I know that I will have to declare war on the neighborhood squirrels, who apparently enjoy eating green tomatoes. A friend from church told Alec about how he electrified the chicken wire around his tomatoes and fried a squirrel because the first wire he used was way too big!

Well, that's what I've been chewing over in my brain lately. Here are some pictures of what else has been going on around here:

Luke fell asleep on the couch right before supper one night and in his semi-wakefulness peed all over the couch. He was so upset and discombobulated that he didn't want supper and went right to bed. No more couch naps for a while.


Alec has been staying pretty busy around here. He cut down a bunch of trees next to the garage to get ready to put a small addition on it. Last week we hired our friend, who is a certified arborist, to come cut down a diseased pine tree. Luke wore a hard hat and "helped."

Jim cut off most of the branches first and threw them down to Alec.

Luke stayed out of the way on a lawn chair with a bowl of trail mix.

Here Alec is holding the line while Jim climbs down and gets ready to cut the trunk down.





I tried to get the tree in motion on its way down. It's almost down but not quite.


Here's what was left:


The next day Alec rented a stump grinder to take care of the stumps and roots from the few trees that were there.


It was so nice that the kids spent the day outside watching. They had books and toys in the pack-n-play so they wouldn't get in the way.


Alec also earned $75 taking a stump out for our neighbor across the street. What a resourceful guy!


A few weeks ago, Alec did a job for a friend and they gave us Redskins tickets. We don't really care about the Redskins but it's not something we'll ever buy for ourselves ($79 each!) so we got a sitter and went. It was a beautiful night out and we enjoyed ourselves, despite having the sun in our eyes for about the first hour. And it didn't hurt that the game wasn't a washout like the last time we went.





Last week some friends of ours rented a house at the beach for a week and invited us to come for a few days. The weather was great - not too hot and quite cool at night. The kids didn't sleep so well the first night, but they enjoyed themselves on the beach and slept well the second night.





One of the friends has LOTS of stuff for the beach and would go in the morning right away to get a good spot and set everything up. It was nice to have a place to put the kids - they have a 7-week-old baby and he slept on a sheet in a little sand divot, all nice and cozy.


And lastly, here are a few pictures of Luke and Erin yesterday morning "eating" breakfast before church. Mostly they were just playing with their food - Luke taught Erin how to wear raspberries on her fingers - and playing footsie.

I realize that it has been 2 weeks since we got back from Chicago. Dad reminded me that I hadn't put any pictures up so I'll start trying to update things now. I haven't been feeling very motivated to blog lately, but I'll try to keep up.

The first whole day we were in Chicago we took a trip to the Fair Oaks Farm dairy about an hour away in Indiana. It was quite a learning experience, including witnessing the birth of a calf, which I'll spare you the pictures of.

Here's Luke watching one of the displays about what they feed the cows.

This is the milking parlor - 40 cows on a revolving turntable. Takes 5 minutes to make a complete revolution and it runs 21 hours each day - 7 on, 1 off to clean, repeat.


Here's Erin on Auntie Beth's lap playing peek-a-boo with Uncle Bob on the bus ride tour.


Luke couldn't wait to jump on the "big bouncy thing" outside the barns after lunch.


Obviously enjoying it. By the way, see the green bracelet to show we paid our admittance? He insisted on wearing that for the rest of the trip. We finally cut it off when we returned to Maryland and he showed Daddy.


We had to sample some of the products from the dairy store. VERY tasty ice cream and a good variety of yummy cheeses. Luke gave his approval of the chocolate.


And Erin enjoyed her bites from Auntie Beth's whopper of a waffle cone (I had one too - my first waffle cone EVER).


Erin being silly on the ride home - before everyone fell asleep.


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And lest I fall behind again, I will also give some pictures from today. We went to IKEA this morning for breakfast and our mid-summer catch-up with all our CBS friends. I bought a cheap potty to keep upstairs to hopefully motivate Luke a little more (hasn't worked so far, but we'll see how tomorrow goes) and for $9.99 this lovely little igloo tent. Erin was pretty tired when we got home but she liked laying around inside anyway.


After naptime (and Luke playing for 2 STRAIGHT HOURS with a bucketful of new PlayDoh toys we picked up from a FreeCycler) the kids played non-stop in there until supper time. Erin's hair gets pretty wild when they run around and in and out.


Still both pretty independent players. Fine with me - no fighting then.


This is how Erin plays with Mr. Potato Head - tries to put on the glasses.


And a last shot of Luke's heiny. He thinks it's fun to try to stand on his head or do somersaults in the tent - until he moves it a little and bonks his face on the wall. Eh, he'll learn.

Christmas and the Beach

OK, time for the next set of pictures.

The first 2 are of Alec and Luke outside flying Alec's kite. Alec didn't want Luke to get in the way so he told him to sit on the mat. If he got up, it was so windy the mat would fly away so Luke stayed down (for a while, at least). It's hard to see in the picture, but Luke's hair was really blowing.



The next few are of Luke and Alec at the beach. Luke didn't really care too much about the water. He was more intrigued with the giant-sized sand box. Remember how all he wanted to do this summer was dig outside? Well, he dug.

You might not be able to see it, but one of his digging tools was a dustpan. I'm not sure how it made it down to the beach.


And here's one of Erin because she hasn't made it into this post yet.


David found some fireworks that someone had left so on Christmas Eve we had a few lights and noises.

Luke kept running into the kitchen to hide, but he liked them so he always came back out.


Christmas morning. Luke and Erin wore matching jammies, but it was pretty warm and everyone got dressed and had breakfast before we opened presents so . . . no pictures. Oh well, next year.

Here's Luke opening his new MatchBox cars.


Erin got this cute little fabric purse that has a stuffed cell phone, lipstick, and compact with puff. She spent the rest of the vacation chewing on the lipstick and the velcro on the compact.


Here are Luke and Erin enjoying their new books and toys. They are sitting on a pune'e (or hikie'e), which is a big daybed. It has lots of pillows and the kids, especially Erin, spent a lot of time on it.


This is a good picture to see how much light comes into the big living room. In the morning it is very bright since the sun rises over the water and comes right into the house.


Tomorrow: monk seals.