Reasons for randomness

Can you tell the kids are napping and I don't have much to do?

My rain dance

I have a very special rain dance of my own. Hanging laundry on the line. Every stinking time I take a load out and hang it up, it rains. Like clockwork. If it looks like rain in the morning and I don't hang laundry, the day will magically clear up and be bright and sunny. I hung a load of laundry out today. Clothes that I REALLY need dry. It looks like monsoon weather... Eesh. I swear farmers could plant their crops by my hanging laundry on the line.
We went to the park early this morning (to avoid the inevitable rain....) and had a lot of fun. It was a different one than usual. We only go to the Wooden Wonderland park every day because there are usually lots of kids there. There wasn't one lone kid there today. So we went to a park I like better that I've never seen another kid at. Even tho it's across a parking lot from baseball fields... It's really nice and fenced in, so no one (LUCAS) can escape. And the equipment is all Lucas friendly, so he can roam free while Gwendolyn can wander around on her own merry way. The Wooden Wonderland park is so big that I can't let Gwendolyn wander around because we have to chase Lucas because you can't just sit in one place and see the whole playground area. It's actually a really nice park. For older kids. Not for two toddlers...
Lucas is actually taking a nap today. I was going to mow the lawn with him while Gwendolyn napped. (go figure..) Our lawn looks like it could swallow Gwendolyn whole. I wanted to mow it before it rained and grew more and our lawnmower just laughed at it. Ahem. Yeah, it's that long. I think we must have lawn on steroids or something for how quickly it grows. Oh right, I was going somewhere with that - despite my best efforts, I can't seem to figure out a way to mow the lawn with both kids. I really don't like them sitting on the ground when we mow because I think something is going to go flying and hit them in the face or something (yes, I might be slightly paranoid) With just Lucas, I can wear him on my back so he's pretty shielded from any lawnmower malfunctions.. And I can't leave them both inside napping. Lucas has a tendency to wake up and if I'm not around to deter him, he goes and wakes Gwendolyn up.. So how do you do it??
Hmm.. I think that's more than enough ramblings for one day.
No, wait. One more. I am totally coveting a digital SLR these days. I was sooo not convinced about digital when we got our digital point and shoot. But I love it now! Oh, how I miss my film SLR, tho. I want to take a cool picture of a bubble with a vari-cross filter (guess where I heard about that one) But that's soooo not happening with my point and shoot. And it turns out it gets kind of expensive to develop ALOT of film.
That's REALLY all for now.

Grandparents

The kids were so happy to see Grandma and Grandpa today :) Grandma was showing pictures to Gwendolyn on the Blackberry. and Grandpa and spinning wooden bowls for the kids.

Art and Neighbor Watch

The kids have been loving playing on the art table lately. Gwendolyn is really starting to take an interest in art materials. They mostly still go straight in her mouth. Today she actually drew a little bit with a marker on a piece of paper. Then she started licking it.. Thankfully it was a dark pink color, so you couldn't even tell that she had a colored tongue :) I'm trying to come up with more activities for her since she is enjoying it so much. But I'm not finding much of anything appropriate for a nine month old.. (any ideas????) So I guess we'll keep licking markers for now :) And eating crayons, of course. (In one of the pictures, Gwendolyn was playing with marbles.. I didn't realize she could reach them. LOL )

Lucas is teaching Gwendolyn how to neighbor watch. He stands at the window and watches for our next door neighbors that he REALLY likes to come outside. Then he screams 'HI!!!' until the neighbor notices him.. And then they talk for a while :) Did I mention that the neighbor is REALLY nice and exceptionally tolerant of Lucas? Anyways, Gwendolyn now stands with Lucas and waits for the neighbors... Lucas screams 'Hi, Gwos(nickname for Gwendolyn) here too!!!' It is really cute :)

They play

Gwendolyn was sitting playing by herself. Lucas came running up carrying his car carrier trailer. She tried to make a quick getaway. (wouldn't you be concerned, too??) She decided she wasn't quick enough, so she'd see what he had to offer. He deposited said trailer and ran away. He came back with the orange tractor for the car carrier truck. And deposited it. Then he went back to playing happilly in his own corner. This is a very regular occurrence around here (with various toys being deposited) Both kids are happilly playing on their own and out of nowhere Lucas will get up, carefully select a toy and run it over to Gwendolyn and leave it for her to play with. Then go back to whatever he was doing. He is such a sweet thoughtful boy.. He always picks out toys that Gwendolyn LOVES, and even though she's now mobile and can find her own, Lucas still thinks of his little sister all the time and tries to make her happy. :)
I was so happy to catch this with the camera - I was just randomly taking a picture of Gwendolyn because I LOVE the dress she's wearing, and Lucas didn't even notice the camera (or I would just have a picture of his nose or something else very close up) So sweet :)

Neighbors suck

Yes, they do. Our next door neighbors are redoing their roof. And it is LOUD. They didn't tell us about it... Had i known they were doing it today, I would have taken the kids out traveling today. Lucas just woke up from a 20 minute nap. Whining. And hassling. Oh yeah, this is going to be a long day. Neighbors suck. Did I mention I don't really like our new neighbors? Yarg.

Salt

This is Lucas's newest sensory experience. A cookie sheet filled with salt - and when I wasn't looking, he dumped some rocks in, too. :) It's kind of like a sand table, but with salt. (just for a different texture) It's really just to get him to stick his hands in weird stuff, but I think we might actually try tracing letters and shapes in there, too. Ah, multi-purpose.

See boy

See girl

Sand toys

We are loving sand toys these days. The park we go to all the time (Wooden Wonderland) has a nice big sandbox that the kids love to play in. We've always had a few sand toys to bring with us, but we recently got a whole lot more. Think shovels and buckets - also some unusual things like loaders and funny little bright things to hide in the sand and dig back up and cups - musn't forget the cups :) We just got a tiny little yellow bucket and a purple shovel today - can't wait to go try them out!! Hopefully it won't rain until after we've been to the park!

No pictures today

( DAD!)
We went to story time this morning. I'm pretty excited that it's going on again. Whenever we go to the library on a non-story time day, Lucas stands by the story time door insisting that it's 'time.' Anyways, woohoo for something that keeps up happilly entertained one morning a week!! Both kids love going and seeing other kids (tho I don't think they actually care overly much about the actual story time - it's all about the other little people) On the way home today, Gwendolyn fell asleep in her carseat and Lucas crashed not long after we walked in the door. And they've been asleep for two hours!! Nap time is awesome!!! Yeah, I'm singing the praises of story time today :)

Today

Gwendolyn is starting to be mobile. But she's really good at pretending that she isn't mobile. She sits in one place when you watch her and whines for toys. But when no one is looking, she flops over, scuttles a little, grabs whatever she wants, and sits back up - toy in hand.

I set her down while I was changing Lucas's diaper, so I wasn't watching her for a few minutes. She was quiet as could be. When I turned around, I found a Gwendolyn standing up on the cooler (that Lucas had previously packed with every toy he could jam in there). Baby can STAND!!!!!

And Lucas is just working at his art table. He does love doing projects :)

We have been playing outside ALOT lately, enjoying the warm weather. We went to the park today and walked around downtown Dixon. And of course played in the backyard for hours :) The kids are soooo happy being able to play outside all day. A few days ago I brought some playdough outside for Lucas to play with - he was delighted. I don't think he even realized that it could be played with outside (or anywhere other than his art table :) )

(and see the hugely messy house in the background of the pictures? It can be attributed to us spending all day, every day outside. It just never seems to occur to me to come in and clean when we could be outside...)

Eating crayons

Thankfully, this post isn't about Lucas eating crayons! It's about Gwendolyn eating crayons - and that's just plain happy!! I thought *maybe* she was ready to start coloring. I gave her a big disc crayon (that we made!!) and a piece of paper and helped her draw a few lines. It promptly went into her mouth and she grinned the entire time she bit chunks off. She sure did enjoy herself, tho!

Grandma at Relay for Life

Awesome!!

More crayons!

Since Lucas's crayons were such a hit, we decided to make more :) We ran out of stand alone metal muffin cups (and I didn't want to chance ruining our muffin tin) so we're trying a different method this time. We still peeled and broke up the crayons, but instead of putting them into the oven, I'm double boiling them on the stove and pouring them into plastic molds. Lucas isn't helping with this part, because I think there's a few too many hot things around... But I think he will definitely enjoy even more new crayons :)

The bank

The ultimate piggy bank. When you put change in, it gets sorted into tubes, while a train drives around making honking and chugging noises. 'Thanks Grandpa!!! Thanks Grandpa!!! I like train!! Choochoo!!'

Time spent by the river

A day

Who doesn't love swinging??

Lucas sitting on his car, playing with his monocular.

Girl can stand!!!!