Maddie to the rescue

Have an emergency? Maddie can help! You may wonder how a mere one year-old can help in an emergency. Well, we discovered today that Maddie is able to dial 9-1-1. Whoops.

She apparently tested her skills this afternoon while we were webcamming with her grammy and grampy. Our e-conversation was rudely interrupted by a rather insistent knock at the front door, where Phil discovered four (yes, four!) squad cars worth of heavily-armed law enforcement officials. Imagine our surprise. This all transpired about 5 mintues after Claire had a very loud meltdown in the backyard when I told her it was time to come inside. I'm pretty sure all of our neighbors (most of whom we have yet to meet, and many of whom Phil works with since we're on-base) think that we beat our children and got arrested for it.

All joking aside, we are aware that dialing 9-1-1 on accident is no laughing matter. We are pretty embarrassed.

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas to all!

We hope everyone out there reading this has had a wonderful Christmas, full of love and happiness. It was a very merry Christmas for us this year. Phil's parents were able to stay until the afternoon on Christmas day. We were actually able to spend Christmas with family this year! It was so fun to have them here.

We went to mass yesterday evening, then came home and let the girls open one present each. Then the kiddos went to bed and we adults enjoyed a quiet Christmas Eve dinner (complete with homemade eggnog - yummy!) before going to bed. Santa ate up the cookies and milk that Claire left out for him and they must have tasted OK because he left a bunch of presents here. Claire and Maddie spent the whole day playing with their new toys. After Phil's parents left we felt a little lonely, but it helped to finish up the day with a webcam with Nikki and then with my family over at Bill's house. We sure wish we could see everyone in person more often. We miss you!

Grandparents Phase II

Phil's parents left for home today. We kept them busy too, playing with the girls and helping with odd jobs around the house. I know Claire had a great time baking and playing with her Grammy. Poor Sandi really put in a lot of play hours as "Grammy-Mommy", playing house with Claire and LeRoy got tasked with all kinds of Mr. Fix-it jobs around the house.

It's been so nice to visit with family over the past few weeks. The girls absolutely adore their grandparents and have so much fun playing with them. Already our house feels a little less "homey" without the presence of family.

Our new house

OK, for those who are curious here's what our new digs look like. I'm hoping the brick will be nice and strong against any tornadoes that come our way.

Click the photo for a few interior photos

Say "Cheese!"

The other day Maddie was really talking a lot. It was nothing that we could decipher but we got out the camera to take some videos of her babbling. Unfortunately, when she saw the camera all we could get her to say was, "Cheese!" She has really perfected her cheesy camera smile.

Altus Christmas lights

We took advantage of the warm weather and packed the girls in the car to see the Christmas in the Park display in Altus. Maddie oohed and aahed at the lights and contentedly saw the sights from the stroller. Claire, on the other hand, thought she was in heaven and set out to enjoy it all on foot, dancing around and picking which path to take whenever we came to an intersection. I'm pretty sure that this is the stuff 3 year-olds dream about.

Click the photo to see Claire pick which path to take

Grandparents Phase I

Boy did we keep my poor parents busy the entire time they were here. They were real good sports about staying in the hotel, then on a blow-up mattress (that we dragged them an hour each way to buy) in our new house, painting bunches of walls (including a pretty castle mural courtesy of my mom) and watching/entertaining the kids for countless hours while we unpacked. My mom came loaded with fun activities for the girls, which was good because they were pretty tired of the things I had come up with! My folks never complained about the take-out food and unending work. We were so thankful for all of their help; I really don't know what we would have done here if they hadn't come to help. We'd probably still be buried under boxes. We did find time to let the girls open their presents from them before they left.

Click for more pics!

We were really sad to see them go, but took solace in the fact that Phil's parents were coming the day after mine left. Woohoo! More helpers! :)

We're back!

It's been over a week now and we finally got television, internet, and phone service this morning thanks to Cable One. Moving is such fun!

Breakfast with Santa

Phil's new squadron hosted a breakfast with Santa this morning for the kiddos. The kids were supposed to go in their PJs and we figured you can't go wrong with a Santa/pancake combo so off we went. They had a great turnout and we got to meet a lot of the people in the squadron. Claire had a nice time and told Santa that she'd like a teddy bear for Christmas. Maddie was much less enthusiastic about Santa (read: screamed until we took her off of his lap). The bouncy castle was a big hit too and hopefully burned off some of the energy Claire seems to have in abundance lately.
The squadron here seems like a big family - I think we're going to really like it here.

We're here!

The girls and I managed to escape the crazy snow, rain, floods and power outages that Washington threw at us in our last weekend there and we have settled quite nicely into our room in Oklahoma. The sun peeked out long enough for me to take a few shots of the girls in front of our house as we pulled out of town.

Our move would have been much more difficult had it not been for the help of many of our friends. They watched the girls, fed us, let us stay in their house, loaned us their van, took us to the airport and were there to help us with everything. It's going to be hard to make good friends like that again.

Anyway, once we were on our way our flights went well, though I can't say that I'd like to fly all day by myself with both children again anytime soon. Thankfully, there were really nice people on both of our flights to help me get all of our necessities (diaper bags, DVD player, car seat, Happy Meals, blankie, baby carrier, two girls, etc) onto and off of the planes.

Claire and Maddie have been real good through all of this adventure. Claire has asked to go "home" several times and they're definitely ready to get their toys back. Otherwise, though, they're hanging in there.

In our quest to find ourselves a home we looked at houses on-base today. Hopefully we'll know our address for sure tomorrow. In the meantime, please keep your fingers crossed that our household goods found their way past the floods and out of Washington!

Road Trip, Day 3

Albuquerque, NM to Altus, OK


View Larger Map


Well, we made it. Roughly 2,222 miles from there to here.

Bailey is now enjoying a suite at the local dog kennel, and I'm trying to prep our temporary living quarters for the arrival of the girls tomorrow.

More to come as we figure out our permanent housing situation.

Road Trip, Day 2

Fresno, CA to Albuquerque, NM


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1773 miles behind, 442 miles to go (a little over 900 miles today...).

The weather cooperated again and we had a nice tour of California agricultural facilities along CA-99 and then really enjoyed going through the Sierra foothills east of Bakersfield. The Mojave Desert was scrubby and sunny, and I can see the home stretch now.

Katie and the girls are dealing with four inches of snow, followed by rain and wind, plus collapsing outdoor furniture and power outages--in addition to hurricane force winds blowing along the Pacific Northwest coast. Nice way to finish their time there...

On the Road Again

Day 1 - Tumwater, WA to Fresno, CA


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861 miles behind, 1357 miles to go.

The weather was nice and the driving easy for Bailey and me. Hopefully the next two days will be as good.

Boxes, boxes everywhere!

The move is very close. All our belongings, except a few precious blankies, books and toys are in boxes!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a very nice Thanksgiving over at my Uncle Rick's house this year. Claire and Nathan got to play and it was nice to visit with family - the last time we'll get together with them before our move. The menu was GREAT! I wish we had taken a photo of the spread. Uncle Rick, Aunt Mary, Michelle, Shannon, and Melissa did a great job fixing some yummy food. Claire had fun playing with Nathan, Maddie had fun climbing the stairs, and they both had a great time with the cat.

Happy Birthday, Girls!

Claire has an opposable thumb!

Claire had surgery this morning to correct a trigger thumb. It was a short procedure but required a general anesthetic so I got all worried about it. She was very brave and did GREAT before, during, and after her surgery. The first thing she requested upon waking was the strawberry popsicle that the orthopedic surgeon had promised her. She's making the most of this whole thing and using it as an excuse to sucker us into letting her watch lots of TV.

Before

After

Another birthday party and a big farewell

Claire went to a birthday party this evening at the local gymnastics studio. Maddie was not going to tolerate being held in a carrier during open gym time, so both girls ran around like crazy people. Claire was a bit intimated by all of the equipment at first but she quickly warmed up and was soon jumping into the foam pit with all of the other kids. Maddie ran on the long trampoline for pretty much the entire party.

Sarah came over after the party to print up boarding passes for their flight out to St. Louis tomorrow morning. I know we're moving soon too, but it was really hard to say goodbye to her, Weemo, and Daniel (and I admit I shed a few tears). I'm not sure that Claire really understands that she's not going to see them again. We sure will miss them.

I needed some cheering up this evening, so here's what I did.

Everything's falling into place

It seems like this move is coming up quickly. We accepted an offer on our house shortly after getting home from Hawaii. Woohoo! We had the home inspection on Thursday and are still waiting to hear back about that (keep your fingers crossed that nothing is wrong!) and have found out that Altus has plenty of housing available on base for us. It's tiny housing, but most of it is recently renovated and there's no waiting list, so that's a good thing. We won't have an address until we get there because we want to pick out a house in-person, but at least we know there will be somewhere for us to live. Then on Thursday the preschool in Altus called and said they would have room for Claire as soon as we got there. I was pretty excited about that because Altus seems to be like L.A., where the preschools all have crazy waiting lists. She was 9th on the list for the spring class, but they fit her in this fall so she'll (hopefully) make some friends right away. Everything is coming together.

Claire's 3rd birthday

We celebrated Claire's 3rd birthday today with several of her friends. It's a bit early, but our good friends are moving next week and we wanted to make sure they could make it. We had a luau (figured we'd still be in a Hawaii mood) and she requested chocolate cake with strawberries. It's pretty safe to say that she had a good time. Our house was CRAZY until all of the kids sat down to eat cake. You could have heard a pin drop while they gobbled it up. It's hard to believe that our little Claire-Bear is three years old!

...or click here to see the slideshow with videos.

A meteorologist wedding

So, when meteorologists get married what happens? We found out this weekend: rain, floods, lightning... an exciting weather day and a beautiful ceremony. Sam and Cindy were married last Sunday in Hawaii. They quickly changed their outdoor plans to a semi-indoor venue to protect everyone from the rain. The bride was beautiful, the ceremony was touching and everyone had a nice time. Click the photo below for more photos.

Happy Halloween!

After dinner this evening all of the youngsters got dressed and went trick-or-treating around Susan's house. Halloween in Hawaii is so fun! The girls were able to wear their princess dresses without coats and we were in shorts. It even sprinkled a little and we still weren't cold. Lots of people sat outside on their porches to hand out candy. It's so different from the chilly winter-coat Halloweens in the Midwest that I experienced as a kid.



The biggest surprise of the night for us was how much Maddie enjoyed trick-or-treating. She insisted upon walking around all by herself and she dragged her pumpkin bag on the ground as she went, refusing to let us carry her or even her bag. The bag is absolutely filthy now because of the dragging, but she really enjoyed herself. She followed Claire and Ethan up to as many doors as she could, hollering at the people who lived there (hopefully she was hollering, "Trick or Treat!" and not, "Give me some candy!" but I really couldn't decipher it for sure). She finally tuckered out when we were about 3/4 of the way through and asked to be carried, but she did much more than I had expected.

When we got back to the house everyone got to pick a few pieces of candy to eat. Mike & Ike's then Sweet Tarts for Claire; Maddie had a 3 Musketeers bar. Claire was very intersted in learning the names of all of the candy. She'd ask us the name of each piece and then repeat it. I'm pretty sure she's storing all of that knowledge for the next time we're in the supermarket check-out line. They bounced off of the walls for a little while and then were coaxed into bed. It was a very busy day.

Sea Life Park

Susan (our friend we're staying with) suggested we go to Sea Life Park on the other side of the island for some fun. It's a really neat park - sea lion show, dolphin show, lots of aquariums to looks at, penguins, sea turtles... We had about three hours of fun and then all of the kids seemed to tire out at once.

They slept nicely on the way home and then all continued to sleep in their beds when we got back. How often does that happen? I seriously didn't know what to do with myself with BOTH girls napping. I need to learn how to make a mei tai. Anyway, it was a good thing they rested a bit because they had an exciting evening of trick-or-treating ahead of them!

Waikiki

OK, so what's the first thing you do when you get to Hawaii? Well, if you have kids you install carseats into your rental minivan. And if you have our complexion you slather on a bunch of sunscreen. But the next thing you do is get on a swimsuit and enjoy the warm weather! We hit the pool at the Hale Koa in Waikiki and then tested out their beach. All of the kids seemed to enjoy the pool. Claire really liked the ocean once she got used to it; Maddie really had fun in the sand and wanted nothing to do with the ocean. Lots of fun.

Pumpkin patch

Today Claire's preschool had a field trip to a local pumpkin patch. Of course we woke up this morning to pounding rain instead of our usual misty rain. I bundled up the girls and got ready to get wet. Fortunately the rain stopped before we got there and didn't start up again until we were walking back to the car. Great timing!

There was a maze:

...and lots of animals to pet:

...a hayride around the farm (OK, it was straw but I'll play along), and of course, pumpkins. They got to run around in the mud and pick out a pumpkin, and if they could carry it they could keep it.

It was pretty darned cold, but we were just happy to stay mostly dry.

(Clicky photos!)

Cookies and "Dat"

Claire has been begging to make "star cookies" for several weeks. Phil made chocolate chip cookies about two weeks ago and she was so disappointed that they weren't stars. Not disappointed enough to refuse to eat them, but disappointed nevertheless. So during Maddie's nap on Monday we made sugar cookies and rolled out the dough and cut out stars, bats, pumpkins, and flowers. Then Claire got to decorate them (her favorite part, after eating them). It's the first thing she asks for in the morning and now they're Maddie's favorite food too.

And Maddie's favorite word this week is "dat?!", which translates in grown-up English to "what's that?". She's pretty proud of it and loves that she can elicit a different response by simply moving her finger a few inches in any direction and repeating the word.

Sunny day

It was a beautiful sunny day here today and that's so uncommon this time of year that we just had to get outside. I packed the girls up and took them downtown to play around the waterfall and see the totem pole. Claire can see both of those things at the Capitol campus every time we go to her gym and she always points them out to me. She was really excited to be able to get out and get up close. And Maddie had fun tottering around. She didn't seem to mind an occasional fall on the concrete or wet grass. After that we went and watched the fishies jump (the salmon are still swimming upstream). It was a nice, fun day!

St Joseph our helper and some videos

We put out a statue of St. Joseph two days ago to help us sell the house. Claire helped put him into the ground (she's pictured here standing next to where he is). Hopefully he'll help!

And here are two little videos of the girls to help get that "cat, kitty cat" song out of your head:

Funny

I know funny. And this, this is funny.


This catchy little tune has been bouncing around our house the past few days. I can't imagine it won't stick in your heads either!

Maddie's on the move

Last Friday Maddie really caught onto the idea of walking. On Wednesday when I took that video she was getting confident. By Wednesday evening she had stopped crawling entirely. She has been walking everywhere ever since (except for a brief period first thing each morning when she forgets that she knows how to walk!). It's really fun to watch. She has also given up her baby food. She refuses to eat moosh and insists on eating whatever we're eating. She especially enjoyed beef stew tonight; she took down three helpings! It's as if she turned into a big girl overnight.

Speaking of big girls, Claire completed her homework this morning. Yep, they had homework. She had a little paper pumpkin picture that she was supposed to decorate. She prettied it up with a bunch (and I really mean a bunch) of stickers and seemed very proud of how it turned out.

And Phil says I should put GO BEARS!!!

By popular demand...

OK, maybe not "popular demand" as much as grandparent's request... Anyway, we present to you a gratuitous cute movie of Maddie walking:

First day of (pre) school

Claire had her first day of preschool today. It was actually mostly just for registration and to let the parents and children meet the teacher, but she was really excited. She's been asking to go to school since she found out about it two weeks ago. They played indoors, did a craft, then played outside. She was already asking to go back as we got into the car for the trip home. She'll go to school once a week until we move - I'm already trying to get her registered in a preschool in Oklahoma since she's so excited about it.

Maddie's well-baby appointment

Maddie had her one-year well-baby appointment last Tuesday. She tipped the scales at 17lbs 4oz and was 29in tall. If she doesn't watch it her little cousin Keira will soon be bigger than her!

Go Bears!

Root for Victory!
We think Claire is playing "Bear Down Chicago Bears" and Maddie is leading the cheer!

Press the pink "Play" button to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra play the tune from the glory days in 1986...

Four Teeth

I can't really think of anything clever to say.

Count 'em, there's four!

Grandparents

My parents left for home on Tuesday, much to the girls' dismay. It was really nice to have them here and I think Claire and Maddie had a great time. If Grandma and Papa thought they were going to have a relaxing vacation here they were sure mistaken! Claire enjoyed having more people around to talk to (I tend to wear out too quickly for her) and craft time with Grandma is always fun. Maddie really took to her papa (of course she loves them both but she is really attached to her papa). I think she may have preferred him to me by the end of their trip!

(The slideshow widget is having problems,
so just click the picture or here to go to the show!)

In order to help with the post-grandparent-visit blues, we webcammed with their Grammy and Grampy Tuesday evening.

Happy 60th Birthday USAF!

It's a couple of days early, but we celebrated the 60th Anniversary of the USAF last night at the AF Ball. We figured it would be a nice chance to get dressed up and we had built in babysitters with the grandfolks in town! Be sure to raise your glass on the 18th and say "Happy Birthday Air Force!"

Happy 1st Birthday Maddie!

Our little Madeline turned one year old yesterday. I can't believe how quickly this year went by. She's growing up so fast! My parents were in town to help celebrate, so we invited a few of her friends over and had a little party. The kids had lots of fun and Maddie definitely knew what to do with her cake (or at least, the frosting).

Also, we wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS to my cousin Lori and her husband Tom. Their little boy, Matthew, very narrowly missed sharing a birthday with Maddie. He was born last night at midnight! We can't wait to see pictures!

Elk and bears and wolves - Oh my!

My Uncle Rick called with a great idea a few days ago: he wanted to see if we'd like to go to Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. I had just been talking to some friends about wanting to go there, and it seemed like a great outing to take with my parents while they're here. So we loaded up the family truckster and set out for the park. Boy did Claire, Nathan and Maddie have a great time! Claire and her cousin Nathan ran around the whole park, racing ahead on the path and then running back to us. They got quite the workout. We had a great time seeing lots of neat animals that are native to the Pacific Northwest, in their natural environments. We'll definitely think about going back there again before we move.


Maddie rocks out

Last night Maddie was getting ready for bed when Phil started playing some fun tunes on the computer. Not about to miss the fun, Maddie came out of her room to dance. We especially liked the crawl/head shake dance. Don't know if you can hear it or not, but at the end she points to the screen and says, "Do", which I'm pretty sure is her version of "you".

Anybody want to buy a house?

It's official. Our house is on the market. I am slaving away, trying to keep this place clean. OK, we actually paid some nice ladies to come clean it yesterday, but I do have to maintain it! Hopefully someone will come by and see it soon before all of the clean wears off.

Bailey has been unimpressed by this whole process. Our agent actually asked us if he was "always like that", pointing at him as he lay on the floor like a log. He's actually been a little more playful than usual, thanks to Claire taking an interest in his toys and (more importantly) giving him treats. I suppose he is a seasoned mover by now. He's had 6 homes since I adopted him, but this is the longest he's lived anywhere. He'll probably miss his backyard.

Poor Claire was sick this afternoon. She spent the day on the couch, snuggled in an afghan, watching her shows, and defending her special blankie from Maddie. Hope she feels better tomorrow.

First steps!

Maddie took her first steps today. She did about 6 Frankenstein-esque steps in a row before plopping down on her mama. She's getting to be such a big girl! I suppose she'll soon be running around with her big sister. It's really hard to believe.

Phil and I spent our 6th anniversary here at home, enjoying our last weekend of being able to be slobs (the house goes on the market this Wednesday). Claire helped out with a few last-minute projects around the house. She really enjoyed using her tools like Daddy!

*sigh*

This is just a tiny sample of how my day goes:

Mommy to Claire: "Claire, are you being contrary?"
Claire to Mommy (with arms folded, in her best two year-old sassy tone): "Nooooooo!!!"

Is it too early to talk to her about irony?

Hands full

I had my hands full this morning with four kiddos under my care. This may be an everyday occurrence for my brother and Heidi, but it's definitely not the norm here. They were all reasonably well-behaved, with only a few minor squabbles over toys and some whining by the little ones to indicate hunger.

Sick

Ugh. I'm sick. Why is it that I only manage to get sick when Phil is out of town? I don't even have a phone number for him right now, so I can't even call him to holler at him for being gone. Fortunately the kids were pretty well-behaved today. It's amazing what a constant stream of TV shows will do for the mood of a two year-old. Thank you Tivo!

Even though I was feeling under the weather, the girls cheered me up quite a bit. They were both being really funny today. Maddie spent most of the day playing in the Cozy Coupe. She likes to crawl in there, get herself all turned around and half hanging out, then start to fuss that she needs help. And Claire tried her best to take care of me. She would kiss me on the forehead and remind me to take my medicine. She cuddled on the couch with me for most of the day.

Garbage day

Thursday mornings are full of excitement here. It's trash day. Every other week it's also recycle day. And once a month it's trash day, recycle day, AND glass day. This may seem like just another day to most people, but to our toddler Thursday is definitely the coolest day of the week. Claire can hear the truck coming and any activity (breakfast, playing, harassing the dog) is interrupted while she runs to the front window at top speed. From there she is able to watch the garbage truck hoist the can up and dump it, then lower it back down to our curb again. Yesterday the performance was repeated an hour or so later by the recycle truck. With entertainment like this, who needs Disney World?

Finally asleep

Claire has been trying really hard to give up her afternoon nap. She took a little nap yesterday, but hadn't napped during the whole week before that. We've been having her go in her room to "take a little rest" everyday, and she generally reads books or plays with her toys quietly for an hour and a half to two hours. That works out OK for me, but the lack of sleep has been making her a bit ummm... overtired. ("Overtired" when used to describe a two-year-old means "crazy") Anyway, Phil checked on her this afternoon and found the poor girl like this:

It looks like she had been reading her books and just fell right asleep in her reading chair. I'll bet money that my mom is right now saying to my dad, "They didn't leave here there, did they?" heeheehee. Nope we didn't leave her there. After chuckling a bit and taking some photos we broke the 'don't move a sleeping kid' rule and moved her into her bed. She barely noticed. Guess the lack of sleep finally caught up to her.

And since I'm posting on the good ol' web today, I want to take this opportunity to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dad! :)

Clean, clean, clean

We have a real estate agent coming to look at our house on Monday to help us with pricing, etc, so it will be ready to go on the market at the end of the month. We've been really busy getting it ready to be seen. Even Claire was busy stacking her books into little piles yesterday. She told us she was "organizing".

It's crazy to think that our house is going to have to be clean and organized enough that I won't be terribly embarrassed for someone to drop in with little notice and poke around here. The house has to look nice enough for them to a)open all of my closets, and b)actually want to live here. We have the front yard looking good; we're still tackling the inside.

It makes me a little sad to think that we're going to move soon. We brought both of our girls home from the hospital here, we've made good friends, and this has been our home for almost 4 years. We'll miss it.

Before marketing

After marketing (can you see a difference?)

Maddie & Chair

Maddie gets a kick out Claire's red suede rocker. Lots of possibilities for playing, rocking, climbing and the such. Check this album for the movies.

Child Labor Begins!

We're looking forward to the beginning of utilizing our built in labor-force here in the family. Claire has a new chore she really enjoys: feeding the dog. She goes into the pantry, opens the dog food container and digs out 3 scoops of puppy bites and takes them to Bailey's dish. Then she carefully replaces all the tools, closes the container, puts it back in place in the pantry, turns out the lights and closes the door! The key here, is that she thinks it's fun!

What a worker!

Golden Oak Leaves

I think autumn arrived early this year. A couple of oak leaves fell on my shoulders this afternoon.

Scenic Railroad

The train excitement continues...we took a ride on the Mt Rainier Scenic Railroad this afternoon. We convinced Claire that our engine was a friend of Thomas' (she actually said we were riding on Percy), and Thomas was off doing other work. The whole family enjoyed the ride. The scenic portion definitely reminded us that we were in the Pacific Northwest--it rained nearly the whole way and the mountains (especially Mt Rainier) were hidden in the misty clouds.

The "Brawny Beetle" was a real live steam locomotive -- it was neat to see and hear one in action. As we started up the hill and across the trestle you see in the video, he was putting out a lot of steam, noise and soot that came showering back down on the open air crowd!

Look at our big girl!

Claire's tricycle (or try-sa-cycle, if you ask Claire) finally arrived yesterday evening. We pulled it out last night and had it waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Claire this morning. She was pretty excited to see it, and spent half of the morning trying to ride it inside the house. The traction's not so good on the solid surfaces inside and she couldn't pedal on the carpet, so I took her outside as soon as Maddie laid down for her nap. Boy did she have fun! She started out timidly, but was soon tearing up the asphalt (concrete?) on the sidewalk. She barely noticed that it was misting and about 55 degrees outside (though I sure noticed!). I hope the sun comes back, because it looks like I'm going to spend the next week outside, watching her ride her new trike!

still singing

Just wanted to add that I'm still singing in my head
"They're two they're four they're six they're eight,
Shunting trucks and hauling freight,
Red and green and brown and blue,
They're the really useful crew,
All with different roles to play,
Round Tidmouth Sheds or far away,
Down the hills and round the bends,
Thomas and his friends"

Ack!

Thomas!

OK, Western Washington experiences a lot of rain throughout the year. A LOT of rain. But every July the clouds part, the sun comes out, and the sky is a beautiful shade of blue for the entire summer. The temperature hovers around 80 or so. It's absolutely perfect. Unless, of course, you have purchased tickets to go to Day Out with Thomas where most of the activities are outside. Oh well, at least we all own rain gear.

We met up with several of our friends and braved the weather and Thomas together. Boy did the kids have fun! I even got a little caught up in the Thomas excitement and bought each of the girls a wooden train engine for the train table they don't have. Claire didn't let go of her new Thomas engine until bedtime tonight.

Afterwards I just had to stop by Ikea since we were already so close, so we didn't start heading home until around 2:45pm. Since today is Friday the traffic was absolutely horrific. We got drive-thru food for dinner (looks like I'm cooking from scratch this weekend to make up for all of this fast food this week!) and STILL didn't get home until 6:33pm. But it was evidently worth it because Claire asked to watch a Thomas video as soon as we walked in the door! There are some marketing geniuses working for Thomas...