Stains,Squirrels, and Perspective.

Pallas is in that stage now where I have to be an expert at removing all sorts of weird stains, it’s been coming for some time now, she’s a very involved eater - we moved from those cute little bibs to more of an all over bib, but and even when she wears the bib-blanket she manages to get her hands messy and then under the bib - sheesh! Since I’m running out of clothes I can deem "play clothes" (IE-things that are stained but would look worse if I bleached them to get the stains out) I figure I’d better step up my game when it comes to laundry or start buying baby clothes in bulk. So today the Shout was set aside (after failing me horribly on the orange-ier variety of stains) so I could audition replacements in the laundry, and because I don’t have total faith in the Zout yet, I played it safe by serving a breakfast menu of pears to a baby wearing a t-shirt in a size too large. Here’s the shirt - (in case you can’t make it out, the caption says, "My brother did it!")

And Tayne’s reaction to seeing the shirt for the first time? It never occurred to him that the shirt meant to shift blame from her onto him, instead he took it to be sort of a cheer as in -
Yay for him! He did it! Way to go! Whoo-hoo!
It must be nice to be 7 years old and to have your first assumption be that everyone is cheering for you instead of blaming you for things gone wrong.

You go Tayne!

On an unrelated note, as I was putting away the Easter stuff today I decided to make Pallas’ basket into a holder for her pacifiers and burp cloths since I can never find either when we are headed out the door. I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing it before, but I’m really pleased it occured to me before I got the baskets put away -now I can keep her towels separate from the kitchen ones and I have a place for the pacifiers to hang after they’ve been cleaned.
And on tap for the weekend? Clearing squirrels from the attic- sadly that's not a folksy way of saying something else, we really do have squirrels in our roof. I'm not sure how long they've been in there, but let's just say that bird feeder we put up after Christmas was not our best idea -what's even more annoying is that they chewed a hole from the inside so they could get out easier - so now we have to clear them out and patch/touch up the house (note the expanding foam that will have to be sanded and painted which is covering at least one of their previous entrances & where they like to play (which is just off our bedroom-sigh!)) - the fun of home ownership never ends I guess.

-

Grandma Dee's gonna run out of printer paper...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. Here's some pictures from our weekend (sorry grandma - this is as condensed as I could get it! )

We colored eggs. (I let Pallas inspect each of mine - and her breakage record (eggs broken: 0) is better than mine or Troy's - I broke 1 before we even started boiling them (I swear it just jumped up out of the carton and onto the floor!) and Troy broke at least 2 when we were coloring them (he swears he was just holding them - must not know his own strength -ha,ha,ha!)

Easter baskets were filled with fun -although I think the entertainment value for Pallas was greatly increased by the people presenting (for Grandma and Grandpa that plastic chicken got great chuckles of laughter, when I squeeze it she just looks at me like it's the stupidest thing I've yet to offer her).
Eggs were everywhere (see Tayne shaking it to determine if the contents could be moolah -which would elicit a smile an the declaration, "Yes! Moolah!" - or merely candy -the disappointment at finding "Candy - (dramatically sad sigh)." was tempered only by the sheer number of eggs and the possibility that the next one would again have that tell-tell rattle of cold hard cash!)
Here Tayne and Pallas are looking over their findings
(Tayne thought they should be divided this way - *of course those generously placed in front of Pallas contain candy and not moolah ) (Pallas felt this was a better distribution, as long as she also gets that blue egg too...)
We played some outdoor games (This one consisted of waiting for plastic bunnies and eggs to spring up at which time you catch them in a little basket -they figured out if you wet the suction cups first they would take longer to pop up giving a better chance to net them)
Or if you are little like Pallas you don't worry about waiting for them to pop, you just grab them while everyone else is distracted.
Here's the group shot of those with Easter Hats - Pallas' bonnet was still a bit big so she swapped it out for her puppy jacket (with the cute puppy face hood) which made people think she was wearing a bunny costume - Who would have thought the only jacket that fits her would be so perfect for the season?

There were games to be played at the Easter celebration as well - we'll call the theme of these next 4 picts "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"...

Tayne: Hula Hoop?
Troy: Why yes I do, just a little...
Tayne: Jump rope?
Troy: That's nothing, check me out! (ouch?)
Pallas decided to stay out of the fray - this picture was all snuggle, no bunny (jacket ears not visible)

I don't know what Tayne was more excited about here -getting to play with the animals in the petting zoo, or the fact he made it through the line and inside for his turn before the egg hunt started...
Here's the shot of the Easter Egg Scramble (it's not really a hunt when the eggs are just laying on the ground) - he got that far away, picking up eggs as he went of course, before I realized I wasn't taking pictures.
After all the outdoor fun, we decided to walk through the aquarium...
Here they are in a penguin line-up...
After all the fun we drove home and had a nice dinner, which everyone was really still too full to eat after brunch, and reflected on the day. Now I just have to figure out what to do with all those hard boiled eggs since our guests left early this morning without eating any breakfast and Pallas is too little to have them, and Tayne classifies them as a "yuck food."

Good Friday

It's been a sluggish week, but I think we are ready for a great Easter weekend. This morning when Tayne got up he was so excited because the calendar said it was Good Friday - he wasn't sure what that meant, but since they had labled it special on all our calendars he thought it must be something pretty great. He might have been a little disappointed in our morning, but with the arrival of Troy's parents this afternoon I think he perked up. I hope to get a lot of cute picts. of the kids this Easter - with Pallas sitting up by herself and interested in whatever someone else has I think it should be a fun one. I'll leave it with a series of attempts at a group photo on the couch. ( I never got everyone looking my way, but with the egg in his hair what would I have done with a "nice one" if I did snap it?) The collection gives you a sort of stop motion look into the deterimation of a baby sister when there are Easter baskets about ~

Chicken or egg? -In our house the chickens came first...
Then the egg in Tayne's hair? One down,
5 more to get...
-Easter morning should be fun (as long as we all guard our baskets from Little Miss Grabby!)

Park day

What did we do today (other than try on headbands and pretend to be jazz dancers from the 70's and 80's)? Sensing a little bit of stir crazy (and you'll just have to trust me on this -I'll spare you the photos of the rest of us trying on the headbands to see if they could really be worn by all ages), we decided to head out the park!Tayne's first attempt (of the day) through the tubes -Yep, he still fits (and still hates stopping so someone can take a picture)!

Pallas' first attempt (ever) at the park swing - It's interesting how an action shot managed to capture her dead center so it doesn't look like the swing is moving at all. Let's just assume I meant to do that and all be impressed. Or you can marvel at how pink her stroller is (don't look at me, Tayne picked the color).
Her first (and probably Tayne's 1,450th) trip down the slide - as you can see, she was unimpressed and he was a bit jaded, you can tell he's thinking, "Seriously, why do we need a picture of this?"
Tayne: "Hey Pallas, let me show you how to cheat on a pull-up!"
Pallas: "No, Tayne - let me show you!"
As you can see by his finger, Tayne is in 1st place - yes, he beat out Pallas, who stopped to eat, me, who stopped to feed Pallas, and Troy, who stopped way back to take this picture documenting the sweet, sweet victory over all the people who didn't know they were racing. Way to go #1!

It was very humid today - so, sadly, no static hair at the bottom of the slide today -just the face of a surprised child who wasn't expecting someone to stick a camera up the slide to capture in photos his trip down -why do we do it?
After all that outdoor fun, I felt we needed something to remind us it's not truly spring yet (1st day of spring isn't until March 20th) -Behold the carrot cake snowman living top shelf in our fridge. I think he looks about as sad and deflated as any snowman you could make this late in the season and, given his delicious composition and covering of pineapple coconut cream cheese frosting, he'll probably last about as long too. Winter was fun while it lasted, but I'm ready to move on to spring.

Another Thursday Night.

Troy's working late tonight, Pallas is asleep early, and Tayne has discovered he can play his 2 player battle game wirelessly over the Internet against people who are much better opponents than I
- and what do I do with my free time?

Online Kaleidoscope Designer
of course!

- Yep, if someone ever bequeaths me a magic toy 'Emporium' it wouldn't take me the equivalent of 93 movie minutes to realize, "Hey, this is a pretty cool job and I should keep it!"

A New Friend.

~ A baby is sunshine and moonbeams and more, brightening your world as never before. ~


Some friends of ours had their first baby this week. In the pictures she looks so perfect! Squishy big cheeks, lots of fluffy hair, and so tiny - (Ok, so an 8lb. 21 in baby isn’t exactly tiny, but when I look at my little baby, who’s getting pretty hefty these days, 8lbs is tiny) - when I was looking at the pictures I couldn’t help thinking about how fast they change - Pallas has only been around 5 months, and some days I can’t believe the chubby ball of mischief she’s becoming compared to the sweet little sleeping thing we brought home last October. To illustrate my point: This was taken Monday (She got there after being placed on the black blanket to play while I went to help Tayne in the other room -2 minutes later this is were we found her happy as can be)

And Tuesday, in an attempt to accesorize her outfit, she rolled herself into this belt while I was in the kitchen fixing lunches.
Yes, yes - you look much more fashionable now! (Sheesh!) Even when they are full of mischief, and loudness, little girls are always a pleasure! So welcome to the world Katherine Renee Owens -

I'm sure your parents are in for more trouble and joy than they realize!

Spring Forward (and onto the beach)!

2 days of semi-warm and sunny weather in a row this weekend - How could we not end up at the beach?

Let's start with a montage...



Pallas having fun and hiding from the sun!

A little soccer can help a body warm up between ocean runs.

A cute puppy jacket can save you from the wind (not the other dogs on the beach though - at least 2 doggies came over to see if she was a puppy!)

Troy and Tayne braved the waves while Pallas and I stayed on the beach!

(I thought I was clever and getting off easy staying on the beach -I didn't count on the wet sand under the tarp being ice cold.)

Cold or not, Tayne went in anyway. Look how happy he is!

A little more soccer to dry off and warm up!
Springing forward may have cut an hour out of our weekend, but the nice weather let us have enough fun to make up for lost time...