Happy Birthday Papa Posch/Mia's First Tooth!

July 23 - 25

Since Mia has become a full-fledge walker she has become obsessed with basketball. This is particular intriguing given that she is itty-bitty in height. She loves trying to dribble and when we were on a play date the other day she would pick up the basketball and put it in a bucket (which happened to house a frog) over and over again. Maybe Daddy is going to get his athlete.

Every night this summer after dinner, we just leave the dishes on the table and take the kids outside to play. It's something they look forward to all day and something Mike and I really enjoy. The tricky part is that I bathe the kids before Mike gets home so Tyler usually ends up getting a second bath in the utility tub in the garage. This is Tyler getting messy looking for frogs - his favorite summer past-time this year.

What he didn't realize is that he was wearing his new "Max and Ruby" shirt (from my mom) and that it would have to go in the laundry, meaning a whole day he couldn't wear it. If I would let him, he would just rotate between his hideous purple Barney shirt and his actually-pretty nice Max and Ruby shirt and maybe when both were in the laundry he would wear his Go Diego Go shirt. And BTW, if this is Tyler's summer of frog-catching this is my summer of laundry. I do crazy amounts of laundry, dishes, cleaning and picking up and while I am doing this Mia and Tyler work together as a team to get into as many things as possible. Here they are with what used to be a cassette tape.

Ty 3 year, Mia 1 year picture

These are proofs so try to get past the watermark...

Our First Zucchini

The garden has been so much fun and now we are finally reaping the rewards of weeks of watering, fertilizing and weeding. Our first zucchini is huge (in my humble opinion) and we already ate it. Although so much for the "experts" saying that kids will eat foods they grow. Neither child was the least bit impressed by this prize-winning zucchini.

DONE!

I AM A FULL-FLEDGE WALKER NOW!

July 15 - 20

A Week of Fun with Papa!

My dad was here this week for a short visit with the kids and I was fully prepared to make it as action-packed as possible. We took the kids to a local downtown area one day and fed the ducks and ate ice cream. We also visited a store specializing in rustic decor that I almost had to drag Tyler out of. He wants this bear for his room.

We also went to a county fair and saw the animals. Tyler rode the same car ride over and over again and Mia rode a carousel horse for the first time. The highlight of the fair for the kids - funnel cake and deep-fried oreos. I tell you that if you have never had deep-fried oreos you don't know what you are missing.

Here is Tyler with his new Spiderman umbrella from Grammy.

Love the fake smile.

My dad and I spent a great deal of time hitting all the nurseries in the area and buying the saddest looking plants and trees on clearance. I need quantity not quality at this point because I have an 1.5 acres to landscape. It's amazing with a little water and fertilizer how great everything is coming back. I will post some pictures later this week.

Summer Fun!

We seem to have something new to do every day this summer. We went and feed the ducks and were lucky enough to find some brand new baby ducklings. Tyler was having so much fun until some of the insidious geese came along and were so aggressive that they actually swarmed the stroller and one them bit Tyler as he was trying to throw them bread.

Tyler was so taken with the hole in this tree and trying to guess what my live in it. We finally decided it must be home to a woodpecker because it didn't look big enough for anything else.

Tyler has developed a fear of storms, specifically thunder. He keeps telling me, "Mommy, thunder freaks me out." We have had a lot of storms rolling through the last few weeks. This storm hit last night just as Tyler was trying to fall asleep and as you can see from these photos it was a doozy.

Our local library had storytime with Clifford today. I could not believe that Mia let Clifford hold her. Tyler was so excited but when it actually came time to sit next to Clifford he was a little more cautious than his sister.

Pillow mountains are my most valuable tool when I am trying to clean the house. It keeps them occupied for at least a half an hour which is like an eternity around this house.

I weaned Mia onto a bottle this week. It was bittersweet for me. I was losing my milk so instead of going to extraordinary means to keep breastfeeding for another couple of months, it seemed like the best option. She has always loved bottles so it made no difference to her but it was sad to see that chapter closing. She is getting to that fun age where she learns something new each day. Today when I was giving her a hot muffin, I said, "It's hot!" and she started blowing on it like I always do with her food. She is growing up too fast!!

4th of July Weekend

Mike took off work on Thursday so we had four packed days of fun. On Thursday, Mike took Tyler to see his first movie in a theater - Kung Fu Panda. Mike was worried that Tyler couldn't sit still for 1 1/2 hours but with enough popcorn, lemonade and skittles anything is possible. We went to the park on Thursday afternoon because we were just blessed with beautiful weather the entire weekend. Friday, we took the kids to a local festival/carnival. Tyler rode the tilt-a-whirl for the first time and I truly thought it would be the last ride he would ever take. He was white as a ghost the entire time and Mike kept asking him if he was ok and Tyler was completly unresponsive but he got off the ride and said, "Let's go ride the cars now." You can see Mia has entered the kissing phase - open mouth of course. She also started saying "hi" this weekend. Anything that vaguely resembles a phone she puts up to her ear and says, "hi!" over and over again with the cutest little smile on her face.

On Saturday, we went to my sister and brother-in-law's house. They have a pond stocked with fish and it was Tyler's first time fishing. He loved it and we literally had to drag him to dinner kicking and screaming.

Sunday was a day to unwind at home. Mia now has her own swing and she just has the cutest little girl giggle. It used to be that I could stay inside with her and get a few things done while Mike and Tyler played outside but now she just stands at the sliding glass door and cries until I take her out. It was wonderful long weekend but by Sunday evening the kids and Mike and I were just completely spent. I read on a friend's blog that in Chicago you have to pack 12 months of fun into 12 weeks of summer. Exhaustion or not, you have to keep going because unlike Arizona, you never know when the weather will turn.