Birthday ideas, by request

Birthday ideas for the munchkins have been requested, so ask and ye shall receive.

At a toy store the other day, Alex found a Lego Pirate set that he liked, and when I went back for it later they had sold out. I just ran a search at target.com for "lego pirate". Target.com tells me, "No items match 'lego pirate'. These results are for 'leg pirate'." Just so we're all clear, Alex does not want to pirate anyone's leg.

ALEX: back to school clothes (size 5), LegO pirate set, more or less anything else pirate-affiliated, DVDs of Madagascar, Robots, Monsters Inc., LeapPad books, regular books. I think he would like board games -- there's a Tripoley for kids, a 3D Chutes and Ladders, probably some other neat ones out there. He is probably old enough for a computer-based educational game. He continues to like construction toys and outer space themes. For something unusual, he could certainly take a "sponsor" for karate or gymnastics classes -- he changes his mind about which one he prefers and it is on my list to find a place and sign him up for something. I hope that helps.

MOLLY: Boy, what doesn't Molly want? Greedy baby. She's gotten loads of hand-me-down clothes, but could probably use some shoes at some point, but I don't know the size yet. I would like to get a bookshelf that I could paint and a toy box/toy storage system for her room. Maybe an easy wooden puzzle/game or two, as most of Alex's are missing pieces by now. She seems to, and I really dread saying this, enjoy musical toys a lot more than Alex did. Beyond that, I would say have fun shopping.

Molly on the piano

Josh's uncle John visited when Alex was little and gave him a toy piano. The piano and music in general are important to John. Here we are years later, and Molly is on the same piano. See more pictures.

Molly almost walking

Molly took a couple wobbly steps yesterday, at exactly 11 months old. She did that a few times. She's not ready to commit to walking yet, but very soon.

Alex Amusingness

Me: "Well, this is the last squeeze yogurt so if you eat it now, you can't have it in your lunch box tomorrow."
Alex: "Well, last week it got taken and eaten anyway so that's all right."
Me: "Your yogurt got taken?"
Alex: "Yes. Two things. Trevor is my friend. And Trevor is a nice guy. And Trevor took and ate my squeeze yogurt while I was in the bathroom. And I don't know why he would do that."

Also after watching a documentary on bears:
"Do you think when Molly's older we can wrestle like bears? Like maybe when I'm 8 and she's 4, can we wrestle like those baby bears?"

This picture of Molly was taken by her soon to be uncle Fred Stutzman. How darn cute can one kid get? I can't tell if she was captured in blissful meditation or if she's just in the middle of blowing raspberries...

Okay, so Alex doesn't pronounce everything except triangle right. Add "callapitter" to the list. This can be either the insect which turns into a butterfly or a piece of heavy earthmoving equipment.

Three faces, three kids

Serious kids...


Happy kids....



Messy kids....

Funny husband, funny son

Some of Alex's bon mots:

He is looking at Molly's dirty diaper and the materials therein. "What are those?" "Um, cherries, I think." "She didn't chew them up really good."

I told him that right now, we were thinking that he and his daddy and his Papa Jeff would go to Honduras this winter. "Is Molly going?" "Well, right now we're thinking that Molly will stay home with me." He looks right at me and doesn't miss a beat. "If Molly's not going, I'm not going. I want to be with her all the time."

Now for my cute husband story. Josh has my permission both a rebuttal and to publish one about me. But it's all in LOVE, and possibly as a warning to anyone thinking of hiring him as an event planner.
On Monday nights I have to pack lunches, snacks, drinks, and diaper bags for Tuesday's long day at school for both kids. Sometimes there are pool days and it takes me about an hour to get everything together, not counting sunscreening the next morning. I kind of dread it and I empathize with women who have to do this every day. So I hit on a novel solution which was to ask my husband to pack them lunches for tomorrow. Josh has the same general approach to nearly all household tasks which works very well for him. He assumes they will be approximately as complicated as your typical space shuttle repair, and is completely willing to do them as long as I spend twice as much time explaining as it would take me to do it myself. Tonight is no exception, but I am feeling game tonight. Come teach a man to fish, he tells me.
So I go to the kitchen and figure I'll walk him through it, one kid at a time. "Molly gets three six-ounce bottles of milk and two or three snacks." "Do you mix the chemicals or do you just send the stuff?" "What?" Eventually, I figure out that he is asking if I send the bottles with formula in them. Yes. Yes, I do.
"What kind of snacks?" "Oh, baby goldfish, crackers, fruit..." "Can you just do this with me?" Ho-kay. I take out small plastic containers and demonstrate how one places baby goldfish in them. "Now you have to label them with her name." "Why do you have to label them?" "Because there's a lot of babies there. You have to label the bottles too." "Okay, what other snacks?" "Well, we've got blueberries and cherries." Methodically, we conquer the placement of the fruits in little labeled plastic containers, and it's on to Alex.
"Alex gets a lunch, some snacks, and three drinks." "Okay, okay, back up." After I explain what kind of drinks, what kind of cups they go in, and why I started buying Gatorade in the first place, we've got that done. Lunch, unless I have something better, is usually a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. There is a prior foundation for that and it goes seamlessly. "What kind of snacks?" "You just pick out some snacks from whatever we have on hand. We've got yogurt, squeeze yogurt, string cheese, crackers, cheerios, cookies, apples, blueberries, cherries, carrots..." "You give him all of that?" "No, you just pick out a few things, see? Let your creativity soar." "Okay, a yogurt. Do you give him a spoon?" Yes. Yes, I do. "So throw an apple in there, some string cheese, some crackers, and the sandwich, and you're done." After I do those things, we are done. And hopefully we have taught a man to fish, or just maybe to pack a lunch.

See, I told you they were cute!

Molly loved the beach, the sand was yummy, but she hated her hat...


In this picture you can see the beginnings of the curl there.

There was a man at this birthday party (above) who was doing magic tricks with Alex that were very impressive for the under-5 set. He was just a dad and partygoer, no one was paying him or anything, fortunately. He could disappear and reappear potatoes if you didn't look too carefully. Then he disappeared a little puffball and told Alex to look for it in his left pocket while he was busy stashing it in his right pocket. The expected response was that Alex would say, it's not in there and then Chris the magician would say, oh, look in this other pocket then. Instead, Alex's eyes got really wide and he said "It's here.....and it turned into a POTATO!"

Someday I'll get pictures up, but for now...

A few random thoughts...

I am sitting in a chair at Nana Mary's birthday party when Alex jumps behind my back and tries to push me out of it. "I want to sit here, Mom!" I start lecturing him for the 10,000th time on the way to make a civilized request. Alex: "Okay, okay, okay. Can someone please help me get my mom out of this chair?"

There is only one word I can think of that Alex still mispronounces, and when he learns it it will be the end of an era. He still says "triangle" like "tri-nickle."

Molly's hair is starting to stick out in some telltale wings on the side of her head. She remains astonishingly cute, though. She has started to make this sound that is sort of like a lip smacking sound that cracks us up. If it were Alex, it would be annoying, of course, but since it is a cute little baby it is just part of their plot to capture your heart forever, thus preserving their hide when they are older and try to evict you from your chair.