The Dawnzer Lee Light

Kate has been listening to Ramona the Pest at bedtime. If you're familiar with this book, you'll remember how Ramona learns a song at school about "the dawnzer lee light." When I picked Kate up from school today she was very excited to tell me, "Mom! In music class we sang the dawnzer song!" Ha.

Andy at 21 months

I got some really cute pics this time! (In between Andy trying to push buttons on the camera, or put my lens cap back on.)




Andy is fascinated with letters--fridge magnets, signs, license plates--and likes to point to the letters one at a time and pretend he's reading them. He also loves anything with buttons to push, so lately he's been very interested in the computer keyboards. (Letters and buttons! Exciting!) Sometimes we open up a WordPad document and let him type away. 

 He's saying a few more words, like "ball" and "apple," and he's getting really good at "uh-oh!"



"Mmmmwah!"



"Lens cap?"

Bye-bye pillbugs!

We have released the pillbugs back into the wild, so they can get ready to do whatever it is that pillbugs do in the wintertime. When I say "back" this is not precisely accurate for many of them, since we had several litters (clutches?) of babies born in captivity. Hopefully they will know what to do outside!




Kate found a worm, too, and wanted to keep that for a while.

We enjoyed having the pillbugs with us for a few months--spraying them with water a few times a day to keep them from drying out, and feeding them things like lettuce, carrot peelings, and melon rinds. It was impressive how quickly they could devour a leaf of lettuce.

We had a few pieces of rotting wood that the pillbugs tunneled into. We thought it was cool the way they would pack into the grooves, so I got some pictures before we let them go. Don't click if you are disturbed by creepy-crawly things up close!

untitled

Doug went back to work today. The two weeks went by too quickly, and my painting outside plan didn't work out too well. I did manage to get a bit done. The weather has been pretty drippy. Kate and I have been enjoying finding slugs on the way to school in the mornings. We like to poke them and yell "Aaagh! My eye!" (Easily amused.) Now she wants a pet slug.

A friend mentioned that I should expect Kate to be more tired than usual, with her new school schedule. That does seem to be the case, but I'm also finding that I'm really tired. Getting to bed around 9:30 does not seem too early.

Somewhere in there we passed a milestone, too. I realized that we've been here for ten years now. Ten years since we drove out in our old green truck, Lukey, all the way from Newfoundland, and Doug began his adjunct faculty gig. We're on our third apartment now, all in the same zip code, and we've doubled the size of our family. It's been a good place for us to be.

Andy had some kind of intestinal trouble today which led to me doing laundry all day. Hopefully he's feeling better now!

Popcorn Popping

This cracks me up. (Even cuter is watching Andy watch the video.)

en plein air

I've been painting outside!



Finally got started on the model train backdrop. Doug goes back to work in two weeks, so I'm trying to get as much done as I can before then. I've set up shop on the back porch.



Getting a nicely blended sky across eighteen feet of plywood takes some work.



I don't think there's any way I could work on this in the house, with Andy running around and climbing on things and "helping." Painting outside is also not without its hazards, as I find myself flicking stray aphids off the boards, or scrambling to move everything when the sprinklers come on unexpectedly. (Yep, that happened. It was like some cruel joke. They never turn the sprinklers on during the day.)

After this I may relocate to Rebecca's basement and see how much I can get done on Saturdays. I'm also getting an MP3 player so I can listen to audiobooks while I paint.

Felt Snake

Look at this cute little snake that Doug and Kate made!  Kate drew the pattern and Doug put it together. Kate named it Slithery. Yet another reptile for the menagerie!



Poser! ("You too can win this snake!")



Kate was really hamming it up for the camera (which Hardly Ever Happens), so of course I had to take lots of pictures!

14 years

It's our anniversary! Larry Golden came over and got a quick picture for us (very quick--he only took three shots. The kids were less than enthused and it was starting to rain.)

Since it was also Labor Day, Kate was home from school. We went down to Lakewood for an Indian buffet lunch and then went and hung out at Borders for a while.

How time flies!  We've been feeling rather sentimental this past week, with Kate starting school.  (When we were getting her ready, the morning of her first day,  Doug put on the ABBA album with "Slipping Through My Fingers."  *sniff*)  Parenting is such an adventure.  I'm thankful to have a great partner for the journey!

First Day!

Kate decorated her lunch bag the night before. I packed her a lunch in the morning, and wrote her a little note (since she's reading so well!) "I love you! Have a great day!"



All ready to go, and so excited!



Doug picked out this wheeled backpack for Kate. He thought it would be easier.



Since Doug's home right now (between quarters) we made a family event of it and all walked to the school together!

We arrived a little bit early, so Kate got to play on the playground for a few minutes before going in.



Doug whipped up this tag for Kate's backpack while we were getting ready to go. He's so resourceful.

Doug stayed with Andy out on the playground while I went with Kate into her classroom.



Putting her things in her cubby.



She looks so grown up!



In front of each child's place was a sheet to color, with a teddy bear and the words "Welcome to Kindergarten!" Kate immediately turned hers over and started drawing a picture of Toothless the dragon on the back.



When we stopped by the classroom the previous evening, the things with Kate's name on them all said "Katherine." When we got there for school her teacher had changed them to say "Kate."



She had a good first day! I think she will like her class and her teacher, and she said she made friends with the girl who sits next to her.

When I picked Kate up at the end of the day, she said, "Let's go home and play school!" and that's what we did. I guess that was her way of processing everything. (We used to play school with her stuffed animals a lot, but it had been quite a while since she wanted to do that.)

She only ate a quarter of her peanut butter sandwich, so today I sent home hummus and lavash rolls. Maybe those will go over better. (They have lunch only two hours after school starts.) We had a little mishap yesterday because we neglected to tell Kate not to put her not-quite-empty juice box back into her backpack. Oops.

So now Kate's at school for her second day. Andy's napping, and the house is quiet.

Before School

Last Gasp of Summer

Kate starts school tomorrow. We're still coming to grips with the idea that we're going to be parents of a Kindergartner. How the time has flown!

I've heard a lot of people in the area say that they feel like they kind of missed summer this year. Perhaps because of the weather. It hasn't been very summery.

We celebrated our last-day-before-school-starts with an outing to Owen Beach.



Throwing rocks is fun!



Kate went that way.




The water was cold, but we figured we wouldn't be able to keep Andy out of it, so he wore his water shoes. Good thing!



After a yummy dinner provided by I Love Bento, we went over to the school to take in Kate's supplies and talk to her teacher. She's so excited!

Andy at 20 months

Getting pictures outside is tricky! He just keeps moving.  I only got a couple where he was actually looking at me (and in focus).



He's been wearing that jacket for almost a year. It certainly fits a lot more snugly than it used to. I guess I'll be looking for a new coat soon.

It's funny to see how different Andy is from Kate at this age.  Kate really liked animal toys and was happy to just hold them and play with them.  Andy's always looking for buttons to push, or things to open, close, or pull off.  He likes to look at books but frequently wants to turn the page before we've finished reading it. 

Still not really talking, but doesn't have much trouble communicating.

He's really enjoying doing the motions to "The Eensy-Weensy Spider" and "Popcorn Popping," and clapping along with "If You're Happy and You Know it" and "Bingo." It's so cute to see him get excited when he recognizes a song. ("I know this one! It goes like this!")

We love our happy little boy!

So, it turns out I can't crochet and read subtitles at the same time...

I have this crochet piece, begun last year, which has been languishing untouched for months. I pulled it out and decided I should try to finish it up in time to enter the fair. This put a damper on my Korean drama viewing for a while. I got the ends worked in this afternoon and now it's blocking. Hopefully it will dry quickly!

I finished watching Coffee Prince on hulu. (I wasn't sure how appropriate it would be, after reading the description, but it was fairly PG, and cute and sweet.) I remarked to Doug that Korean dramas are like the new Shakespeare--unrequited love, ridiculous coincidences... cross-dressing....

Wednesday (the 18th) we commemorated my coming-home-from-mission day by going down to one of the Korean restaurants in Lakewood for dinner. I got some kimchi jjigae. Yum. It's now been seventeen years since I got home. It sure doesn't seem like that long. (It's so weird to see people that I served with on Facebook with big grown-up kids now.)

Doug gave his final on Thursday. He'll be home for about a month before the fall quarter starts. My plan is to do a lot of painting. I put some sky on the model train backdrop on Friday, while Doug took the kids to the zoo. That was the first I'd touched it since February. Time to get to work!

Kate starts school in less than two weeks. I don't think I'm ready for this.

I'm not ignoring you (on purpose)

I was getting some annoying spam, so I turned on comment moderation. I must have messed up something in the settings, because I just discovered a backlog of comments awaiting moderation. Sorry about that!

Bowl o' Fun

Starring Andy!

Kate's haircut, mark 2

We got Kate's hair cut right before I went to Utah (mostly so Doug wouldn't have to deal with all the brushing trauma). It had been over a year since her first haircut, so it was getting pretty long again. Doug took her to Wild Child and she came home with this cute little braid.



I can't braid her hair for swimming and gymnastics anymore. She finished her first swimming lessons at the YMCA, and yesterday she started another session of gymnastics. Andy and I went along and had fun kicking balls around during Kate's class. In the drop-in zone I ran into some of the kids from my photography class, and some of the leaders who helped me out. That was kind of fun. (The photography class seems like a long time ago, already!)

Andy at 19 months

July 27th was the day we flew back from Utah, so I got some pictures at Barb's house and some at the airport.



Andy doing "The Eensy-Weensy Spider" (a current favorite).



In the stroller at the airport.



"Is this your lens cap? Here, let me put that back on for you!"

Andy loves to draw, just like his big sister. Here's a masterpiece from that morning:



I don't know what it is but it's nicely varied and expressive. He recently graduated from only doing back-and-forth scribbles to also doing round-and-round scribbles. He goes for Kate's markers; we deflect him with colored pencils (slightly less hazardous). So far the walls have escaped unscathed, though our fridge is currently sporting some decoration.

He did very well on the plane, and he's feeling a lot better now. Yay!

He's trying to say more words, though they're not really clear. I've caught "ball" and "done." (Easy to figure out, in context!) And a couple of times he's said something that could be "Let's go!"

He's gotten really good at climbing up slides (and sliding down them). That's his favorite thing to do at a park.

He continues to be a really good eater and will often eat more at a meal than Kate does.

And, as always, he's a happy little guy and such fun to have around!