Everyday there must be something new with these kids. Which is a good thing. Just this evening, I was getting them ready for a bath, so I turn on the water and then had to go out to the living room to get Isabelle. David was excited to take a bath, as always, and was waiting just outside the bathroom like he does every night. Except tonight, he has figured out how to open the bathroom door, or maybe I didn't close it adequately, and in he goes. And before you know it, he climbs into the tub, with his clothes on! Then he just sat there like it was nothing out of the ordinary.

I guess I'll have to change my m.o., and get them both in there before I turn on the water.

In other news, it seems the most fun thing these kids like to do is put on their rain boots, and stomp-run around the house.

The other most fun thing is to go outside first thing in the morning (well, after a cup of warm milk) and help Julie water the plants. And yes, that could go on for hours, but Julie reminds them that the plants only need a little bit each day.

David is really starting to talk now. It's so fun to hear him putting words together and speaking more clearly. He likes to repeat (or at least try to) everything we say. He's also saying short sentences like " I do it," but mostly it's just two words together like "truck gone" or "Belle, Belle snack." He likes to point out what belongs to everyone now.

I came home from work one night and this is what I found in the middle of the living room floor. Apparently Isabelle had decided that all of her critters needed baths and set about finding appropriate tubs for them. My favorite is the chicken in the cup, although the ones in the open purse are pretty creative too. John suggested she go to bed when she couldn't finish sentences..."ok bear, now you take a bath... so bear and you bear...." rubbing eyes... "now bear, you..." sigh
(click the picture to see all the details...)

Happy Father's Day!!!! We had a fun day! John's Mom, sister Susan, and brother-in-law Greg came up on their way to the Lake and stopped in for lunch. The weather was predicted to be hot, but luckily it stayed pretty mild for our little BBQ. We also have a great tree that provides shade, so even when it's hot in the sun we have it pretty nice.

It was nothing elaborate, just some garden chairs, salads and other good food, bubbles, sunglasses and a nice afternoon. It was fun to see family and the kids had a good time with a casual picnic and interacting with family they don't get to play with too often. We meet for lunch often but there just isn't time or room for very much playing, and usually involves too much time in the car.


Isabelle also helped me make a cake for John. She is quite a good helper! She added things and stirred and even washed the bowl afterwards. The best part was eating it after lunch. Everyone complimented her on what a good cake she made!

In case you can't see in the pictures, the kids' shirts say " I listen the 80's heavy metal music with my Daddy!" I thought they were quite cute and appropriate! Rock on!!

David had his first real haircut on Friday, June 15th. I trimmed his bangs, and a little off the back before, but he had that really weird layer in the back because the top baby hair falls out, but the bottom doesn't really... He had the most adorable curls in the back, which lucky for me, also cover up any crooked cutting. I would have loved to keep the curls, but then he would've have had a mullet and well, that just wouldn't do.

He didn't want to sit in the chair by himself, so he sat on John's lap. Sitting still was tough, but he was good most of the way through. At the end he wanted to tear off the cover-up thingie and run around. His haircut is really cute though. He looks like such a big boy!!

Just a quick note to let you all know that I uploaded more pictures to the dotphoto sites for the kids.

Lately, the kids have been a little photo shy. Maybe too many flashes. But the other day Julie caught David during a time when he must have been feeling very glamorous, or flirty, photogenic, or whatever. He's such a ham.

One of the things I love about raising these two kids is watching the development happen. Or wondering how the development happens. I was thinking about this just the other day when Isabelle was making a connection between two unrelated things. I don't remember exactly, but it was along the lines of,
"Look, Daddy, that looks just like Lion King!" Just as you have no idea what she is talking about, neither did I. But I was able to quickly peer the surrounding area, and saw a yard which had a lot of tropical style plants in it, as many of the scenes of the Lion King do. And I congratulated her on her keen eye site, and powers of recognition, only with slightly different words. But she does continue to learn so many new words. And this is what prompted me to start this post.
In retrospect, it seems very difficult to learn the distinction between first and second person. When her picture comes up on the screensaver, sometimes we say, "There's a picture of you." Or at other times we say, "Do you want us to hold you?" And mix in the occasional, "Please give that to me." So Isabelle is having trouble with the correct meanings of 'me' and 'you'. They are crossed, as I'm sure you can see from the above examples. When we are talking about her, we are using the word 'you'. And conversely, we use the word 'me' for whichever of us is not her at the moment.

I know she will learn this one day, I'm not worried about that. but I wonder how long it took me, or you, to grasp that distinction.

Since you love to see pictures of these two, here we are last weekend at the local farmer's market with some friends. David didn't want to have any pictures, I guess.

A few weeks ago, actually, we decided to pretty up our entryway. The kids got so excited when I arrived at the front door with a bunch of flowers and a couple bags of dirt. Oh boy, dirt! So I made a big pile of dirt on the sidewalk, and asked if they could help by putting some dirt into the flower pots I lined up. David didn't really fill any of the pots up. But he took his little gardening shovel and scooped up a lot of dirt. And threw it in the air. I think he's going to be a astrophysicist, I mean, the way he's already studying gravity and aerodynamics. And maybe chaos theory. But he did carry his trusty broom around with him, and did a good job of clearing the edges of our little gardening adventure.

Isabelle was a big help though, as long as the help meant putting dirt into pots. She would have been happy to do that all afternoon. She even started to dump out the pots, telling me that she needed to do that one over again to get the right level of dirt in it. Every now and then, I pulled a pot about half full of dirt from the filling/dumping station, and planted a flower. Eventually, I got them all planted. "But Dad," her little voice would say, "we need more dirt in this pile over here on the sidewalk for me to put into the pots today."

But I had lots more fun in store, for it was then time to water! "Dad! Can I hold the pitcher?"

"Of course, dear." And she did. She was a very good waterer. She poured it out very slowly and cautiously, so as not to send the newly planted flower on its side or out of the pot. When reminded, she concentrated on not pouring water right onto the flower, but instead onto the dirt at the base of the flowers. When we were all done, she naturally want to water all of the plants again! However, we were able to conserve water, and only use just enough. After looking at the lovely flowers all in pots around the front of our house, she looked up with a big smile and wanted to know when we could do that again.

Probably pretty soon, as we have a few snails that also liked our arrangement.

Couple more sprinkler shots:

We've had a couple of weeks of warm weather, so that means the sprinkler games have begun.