There she goes

Eleanor has just totally taken off walking in the last week or so. It now seems to be her preferred mode of transportation and she's getting pretty good at it. While I'm certainly happy and proud that she's hit this developmental milestone, it's also a little sad. It won't be long before she's walking into kindergarten, then across the stage at a graduation and out the door headed to college. I'm really not trying to be overly dramatic, it just all seems to go by so fast. As I heard someone say about newborns - the days are so long, but the months and years so fast. It's true. And my little people are growing up.

Thankfully, Will snapped me right back into reality when Justin asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.
"For Halloween, you mean?"

Ahh -- still a child.

Who is the parent here?

Will was full of funny lines tonight! First, at dinner he mixed all 3 of his condiments (ketchup, BBQ sauce and honey mustard) into a delicious looking concoction that he happily ate on his chicken. Justin was commenting to me about how disgusting it looked. To which Will replied, "Guys, don't talk about me." J & I giggled to ourselves uncontrollably. "Just talk about your guys' selves." Do you think maybe he's heard that a few times?

Immediately following this, Will asked us each what we did at work today - as if in an attempt to redirect his childish parents to a more appropriate discussion. After we discussed our days (he found great humor in Daddy "filing a motion to quash a subpoena"), Will told us about his day. In addition to playing in the mud, coloring, eating, and taking a nap, he also "wrote 2 e-mails and went to 14 meetings". Busy day!

Finally, during their bath tonight we were asking Ellie Kate to find her ears, eyes, etc. as she is learning her body parts. Will was an eager helper. When we asked about the belly button, Will announced that he had 2 belly buttons -- the correct one and one um..a bit..lower. "We all have two belly buttons!" announced my oh-so-observant child who was in a bathtub with his sister. I thought J & I were going to lose it. Clearly no parenting awards won here tonight.

My other job

My "real" job includes working with a great group of college students. I hosted our end of summer dinner last weekend - so fun!


Then I enjoyed 4 days off work this week, including our 8 year anniversary. I didn't get a whole lot accomplished, but I definitely enjoyed some down time. And J & I had a great anniversary together. The 4 of us went to the pool early that evening and had a blast! Both of the kids really enjoyed the water and we had the whole pool to ourselves for awhile so it was awesome! We were too busy having fun to take pictures, though.

Eleanor is turning into a very ornery little girl! She is so sweet and turning into a ham for the camera or new faces, but she knows exactly what she's not supposed to do and tries to do it without getting caught. Luckily, she's not very stealthy at this age! She has 8 teeth in and I think she's working on the molars. She's been grinding her teeth (one of my biggest pet peeves!) and drooling like mad.




The 4 of us went to a Royals game Friday night and had a great time! Both the kids loved the carousel ride! Ellie Kate sat in her seat like a big girl eating her pretzel and cheering whenever the rest of the crowd did. Will's friend Jason (imaginary) was also there playing baseball. Turns out he's a pitcher for the Royals - who knew?!

This is just a cute picture of both the kids in new outfits - thanks, Grandma!

The joys of home ownership

Thankfully our water heater was repaired quickly and fairly inexpensively last week. Today, the washer quit working (with a full load of clothes and water in it). After flipping switches, un-plugging and re-plugging and finally jiggling some hoses it started working again. Meanwhile we discovered the wet carpet in our closet. Yes, that would be new carpet. It's only a small section near the wall by the shower. After removing the drain cover in the shower and seeing the pool of cloudy water we deducted that perhaps we have a drainage problem. We'll be calling the plumber again tomorrow.

To deal with all of this we decided we needed some pool time after naps. As we were pulling out of the driveway, J & I noticed a dangling metal item hanging from the garage door, which promptly quit working about a foot from the ground. The garage door openers no longer work. Thankfully, we can still raise and lower the door manually. At least J was planning to be home for the plumber anyway. Now we can have the garage door repair person stop by tomorrow, too. Ugh.

In totally unrelated news - 2 funny quotes from Will. Last night as I was preparing dinner I asked Will what kind of fruit he wanted.
W: "Chocolate fruit"
K: "Huh? I don't know what you're talking about."
W: "You know, the kind you put chocolate on."
K: "Will, I have no idea what your talking about. Do you want blackberries? They're dark like chocolate."
W: "No, mama. Chocolate. I will show you." And he goes to the fridge and gets out chocolate syrup. "This, mama, you put this on fruit."
K: "Where did you learn this, Will? We've never done this at home."
W: "I learned it in college, mom."


Then at dinner tonight after Ellie Kate so politely screamed at the top of her lungs and pointed for more chicken (followed by signing "please") for about the 3rd time, Will says "Ellie Kate is one sassy girl tonight." Agreed.

Hair-do's and Monkey Bizness

The hot water heater does not appear to be working...Justin is downstairs working on that. Let's hope this goes ok...

Yesterday Will went to a friend's birthday party at Little Monkey Bizness. He was mostly in an "I need a nap. I'm going to disagree with everything you say." mood, but he did play a little.


Ellie's hair is long enough now that I can play with it a little. I've learned I have to be very quick putting in ponytails, not to worry about straight parts or off-centered pigtails, and that the high chair (with food to distract) is the best place to style.
Yesterday was the single side pony with a ribbon bow - yay! (I think her little mouth is so cute in this picture!)


Today we tried little pigtails. These didn't stay in quite as long.


And I do believe we have a walker now. Elle has been stringing together several steps and does really well when she doesn't think about it. If she focuses on it, she's still pretty shaky. Now on to the vocabulary. The screaming until we figure out what she wants (usually a carb-filled snack of some kind) is getting pretty old.
No booms from the basement yet. I guess that's a good sign.

Will-style

Ok, last post of the day. Just a couple funny pictures of Will. The first is "playing golf" in the kitchen. Generally, not a good idea. But this actually more closely resembles floor hockey. The second is him getting ready to go on a walk. We were not going that far, but he seems prepared for a hike!



Isn't he a handsome little boy? Can't believe how quickly he's growing up.

4th of July

We had a fun (though rainy) 4th of July weekend. We were so glad to get to see some friends visiting from Texas. Cooper & Will are about 5 months apart - they had a great time.


Getting a picture of this many kids is tricky...


Ryan got a turn helping Ellie Kate walk - it seems that's all she wants to do sometimes!


Isn't Jackson so cute?!


We spent the fourth with Justin's family. Again, getting a picture of kids is not easy...

Elle kept a little ponytail in for the first time that day - hooray!



It ended up being too rainy for fireworks, but we saw a great rainbow on the way back home. It was so bright!


Can you see the second rainbow just to the left? It's fainter, but still there! Will thought it was pretty cool.