Super Sass

You see this girl? Her new name is Super Sass. Let me tell ya the estrogen has hit the fan. My friends have told me about how girls can be dramatic and soooo different from boys. We've always noticed a little more drama but now that the terrible twos are creeping up we are really seeing (and hearing) a difference. This is not to say it's all drama. There's still a whole lot of cuteness and sweetness going on. But life has definitely been a little more interesting lately. And it's going to be like this for a while. . .

Secret Stuff

Rich's job involves a lot of secrecy. I don't get to see where he works, I can't know about details of his job, his work laptop has a bunch of passwords so I can't even snoop, and he has some strange electronic password keychain with constantly changing passwords that he uses to get into other secret programs and do other secret things. It's all a big secret. However, one thing I know is that he helps do finance stuff for a project that's building military satellites. And he was totally excited to go to and show proof of the satellite he's been "working on". He got a picture with it and it's considered public domain so I can blog all about it. First, Rich got to put on a fun outfit to keep contaminants away from the satellite. Then he got to take a tour of the partially complete satellite. This is the payload of the satellite which is the part that has all the electronics. Oh, and the picture was taken back in his "mountain man" phase. It adds to the secrecy.

Shoreline

We took the kids to Shoreline for some. . .

rock throwin'




tree climbin'


bridge runnin'


grass sittin'


and trail walkin'


and had a good time. See the next post for some Shoreline grossness.

Grossness

Yesterday I was moving clothes from the washer to the dryer. I found 1 toy race car, 1 toy motorcycle, 5 rocks, a bunch of change, 1 Zumiez pin (not ours), 3 Corona beer bottle caps (not ours), and 2 tabs from cans (probably beer cans, again not ours). I guess I need to be better about 1. having Ryan empty his pockets before putting his clothes in the hamper and 2. telling him not to pick up gross trash and putting it in his pockets.

Then yesterday afternoon we took the kids to Shoreline. After we got home and put the kids to bed I walked by the pile of shells Ryan had collected. Something slimy and gross was sitting in the pile. Upon further investigation I realized that it was a live clam and it had opened and heaved part of it's slimy body onto my kitchen counter! This picture doesn't do it justice because its body had retracted some. I think that Lysol was invented because of kids like mine.

Amphibians--Take 2, First Smiles, and a Thousand Thank Yous

So, last week for FHE we went tadpole hunting again--except all of the tadpoles at the pond had turned into frogs. So, we caught 5 and headed to Petsmart. We dropped about $40 to provide these little guys with a home that would hopefully allow them to live longer than the 12 or so hours that the tadpoles did. I was hesitant to blog about it for fear they'd croak-ha ha. But they've officially lived a week so we're celebrating with a post. They're pretty darned cute and such a fun biology lesson for Ryan. We feed them lots of crickets and we all love to watch them hunt. They're about the size of a thumbnail and we don't know how big they'll get. Maybe if they start getting too big we'll take a couple back to the pond.

Juliet is growing fast. She holds her head up pretty well and has started smiling. Here are some of her first little smiles.

Finally, Ryan can be a handful at times but these last couple of weeks he has been such a sweetheart. A few days ago he crawled into our bed to say good morning and held my hand with his two little hands and just cuddled with me for a few minutes. I loved it.

Then last week we were driving home from the local amusement park and he said, "Mom, you're not mean, are you?" And I said, "I sure hope not. What do you think? Am I nice or mean?" And he said, "Mom, you're good." Motherhood can feel like a mostly thankless job and that one statement felt like the thousand unsaid thank yous for changing thousands of diapers, cleaning up toys over and over, making endless meals, and not to mention months of pregnancy and then painful labor.

Lastly, he's just been so great with Juliet. He sticks the pacifier in her mouth without me even asking, he talks to her, and gives her lots of kisses. I'm so glad that he's adjusted well to having another little sister. For the record, I didn't even ask him to kiss Juliet in this picture. I was really just taking pictures of her and he walked up and gave her this big smooch.

Enough sappiness, next post I'll get back to my kids' shenanigans:).