Friday Friends Fun-day!

We had another fun Friday morning with some of our friends from church. The throng of girlies played great together in Greta's room (there were surprisingly few squaks given the small space for 5 toddlers/preK kiddos!) and then they moved outside to the pool, swingset & lunch. We made some summery cupcakes for dessert...beach themed. I may have loved them more than the girls. I think Jersey loved them more than all of us combined (aka stealthy cleanup crew). Enjoy a few pictures from our morning. As they were pulling out, Greta asked, "when can Z, I, J & C come back and play....tomorrow?" It has been great watching her develop friends and I about die every evening when she includes them in their prayers. That's right, they make it more regularly than me, the woman who carried that child for eternity. But truth be told, I love how attached she is to these girls and the momma time is 2nd to none. A great way to kick off the weekend! Have a good one!

Just when I think I know my kiddo...

she goes and changes things up!

So we conquered slides. I wouldn't say we were fearless...but they were definitely in our toddler reportoire. Recently we've regressed and slides have been our ultimate nemesis. That is until today. You can imagine my surprise when my child begged to go down this slide:

I of course spent 30 minutes trying to talk her out of this insanity. I did not want to be that parent who makes her kid go down the slide kicking and screaming once she's at the top and changes her mind. Luckily that's why God made Daddy's. The Preacher agreed to take her down and........she loved it. Well, she loved it the 2nd time. The first time, Daddy asked "Greta are you having fun" as they slid down the blue flume. Greta's response: "No, it is not fun" (in complete sentence form which cracked us up even more). But once at the bottom she told me, "that was fun. Mommy's turn!" There were 5 more turns after that. Go figure.

Happy Fourth of July!

We had a great weekend. Shew we're tired! Friends from Chicago (now Santiago, Chile) came up for a visit. They brought with them their little guy who is just a hair younger than Greta so you can imagine what it was like in our house....absolute mayhem! G & R played like fools in the backyard all weekend. The freezing baby pool, the Dora tent, the sandbox, the bathtub...serious fun was had by both.

We polished the weekend off with a family cook out with Grandpa Jay and Kelly in the park. Greta loves being with Kelly's grandkids and her aunts and uncle! Enjoy some fun shots from our great weekend.

Happy Father's Day!

We had a terrific Father's Day celebration even though it wasn't quite what we had planned. Tyler really wanted to go camping for his special day. However, tornados put the kibosh on that plan (mommy is grateful that she wasn't trying to put a toddler in the car, help daddy fold up the tent and dodge funnel clouds). So instead we bought 2 lovely fillets to grill and relaxed at home all together with a glass of wine. Well, we had a glass of wine and Greta had water but thinks it is awfully fun to say "cheers" and clink glasses. Greta LOVED presenting the preacher with his "mother's day card" (she is still stuck in May, but Gboo seemed to get that the card was for daddy and not mommy). She made it herself complete with a handprint for daddy to cherish. Gboo made daddy giggle when she pointed out her "pawprint" that she made for him.....we always wondered if she was part werewolf.... We hope all you daddy's out there had a great day, along with you men who have lovingly taken on the job of caring for our child and other children by your own choosing. We are grateful!

So our most recent silliness...we're *trying* to potty train Greta. We're only about 50% successful so far, but it's a start. We're posting a few videos of one of our potty training afternoons in the backyard for your enjoyment! Fear not, the videos are not of G trying to use the potty....it just explains why our child is running around in her underwear in our backyard.

Enjoy!

For all you Raffi lovers....G's rendition of "Baby Beluga"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL4rJMLDOsw

Greta olympics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_XYMfEGk9I

Everybody loves the weeeeekend!

We kicked our weekend off with a picnic in the park with friends yesterday. The girls discovered the tire swing which was a HUGE hit as you can see!

Today we've got some funny stuff going...

1) Greta has figured out that when the "plugs" (pacifiers...I know, its a horrible name) fall out in the middle of the night that they often end up under the bed. So...I've caught her under the bed with a recovered plug in her mouth in the middle of the day (plugs are only for bedtime now...). Today we caught that effort on film for your enjoyment. And yes, it appears that mommy needs to vacuum under Gboo's bed!

2) We're giving potty training a go today. We've been outside "al fresco" with no luck and now we're watching a little Sat morning TV whilst sitting on the potty. WISH US LUCK. I'm ready to be done with diapers!!

3) Funny story from yesterday, that is a bit of a dig at daddy (and if you don't like potty humor, do not read on!). Well, the preacher awoke with some rockin' gas. And by rockin' I mean it would make paint peel and noisy to boot. I had complained quite a bit about it, but Gboo had said nothing. Then daddy took Greta into the kitchen for breakfast. He tooted....again...and they laughed at the sound. Greta tried to "sniff" but didn't smell anything. Then all of a sudden she hit the wall. She wrinkled up her nose and said, "Oh noooo Daddy...I smew (smell) it now...it is very very very very stinky. Go use the potty." Ahhhhh, a girl after her mother's heart!!

We hope you are having a beautiful weekend.

Flabango

aka, flamingo, aka Greta's new favorite zoo creature. She liked watching them stand on one leg at the zoo last week and ever since she's been doing her best to imitate them. We captured it tonight (there is a nakey version that is even better...but we try to limit our nakey baby postings for obvious reasons)....think of it as a happy Monday gift from us to you.

In other funny news:

*Greta handed Daddy a crayon (without him asking or desiring it) and proceeded to announce that "you're welcome Daddy" before he had a chance to respond.

* Greta loves the question/sarcastic comment "Whaaaat?" (taken from her dad). Also popular she likes to ask/exclaim, "WHAT - YOU - DOING? and thinks she's being very funny.

* Lots of great makebelieve stuff going down right now. She's particularly interested in hospitals, instruments, and calling her bathtub walrus "grandpa."

* Lots of singing...and lots of made up lyrics. Among our favorites was "the cheese takes a wife..." (to the tune of the farmer n the dell").

Hope you had a good weekend!

Zoo, oh boo hoo hoo

Despite the happy faces in these pictures of us on our family trip to the zoo Monday, there was much in the way of two year old type behavior goin' on. Much nashing of teeth and boo hooing. Thankfully the "coooooogaaaar" (cougar) saved the day bringing Greta out of her funk (she didn't get to ride the fire engine on the way in the zoo). While Tyler and Greta reviewed the day in the bath that night, he said she had been a "pistol" that day....which Greta happily parroted back to him and insisted that we call Granny so she could tell her too. So we did. Granny and Gramps got a message from Greta on their answering maching that went something like this:

Hi Gwanny and Gwamps.

This is Gweta.

I am a pistol!

Bye!

This one is going to give us a run for our money isn't she.....