Apples and trampolines…

"I love my buddy.  Even though he pulls my hair sometimes, I still love him.  I love you buddy."
-Ashlyn

Ashlyn is still being a great big sister.  That doesn’t mean it’s rainbows and unicorns all the time, but we can usually count on her to watch over James.  For his part, James continues to follow her around and do what she does.  Here’s James leaning how to eat an apple, big sister style.

I mentioned before that James is an eating machine.  If you have a piece of food, you will see James coming at you, and he will continue to show you this sign, his version of “eat”, until you feed him.  We are very familiar with this particular sign.

The weather was nice Friday night so we went outside to enjoy the end of the week.  I gave James his first guitar lesson, but all he wanted to do was bang the side of the guitar and laugh.  He also thought it would be to drop the pick in the soundhole and watch me spend the next 5 minutes trying to shake it back out.  While I continued trying to get the pick out, Mom took James up on the trampoline.  He’s still too little to jump without his head flopping off, but he likes stomping around.

Time go inside for a bit, and when we’re inside Ashlyn enjoys playing with stickers.  If you take a walk around the house and look closely enough, you will find stickers in every room.  They are on windows, on the floor, and on toys.  They end up in all sorts of places.

Back outside again, it was my turn to get on the trampoline with Ashlyn.  While we were bouncing around, James sprayed water all over the garden.

PePa came over on Sunday morning and once again we ended up outside for a little swimming, catch, and baseball.  Ashlyn can really knock that baseball across the yard when she hits it.

Nina and Papa came over in the afternoon, but we managed to not take any pictures while (you guessed it) the kids were back outside making a mess.  Next time!

Slides and chalk…

“The playing adult steps sideward into another reality;
the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.”
– Erik H. Erikson

I admire the creativity of children.  We bought a new car seat for James who has outgrown the baby carrier.  The box was in the living room and Ashlyn thought it would be fun to lift one side while James was sitting on it.  James slid off of course, and this gave Ashlyn an idea.  The box became a slide, and over the next week there were children constantly rolling and sliding down it.

Ashlyn is dangerous around water.  The kids wanted to go outside and play, which is fine.  Unfortunately, we forgot the water table was still filled with water after the rains.  When Mom looked out the window to check on them, she saw two soaked and happy children.  They were having fun together, and that far outweighed the work required to clean them up.

James is become more and more the mimic.  If one of us does something James wants to do it too.  One notable exception is his refusal to mimic sleeping in on Saturday morning.

He tries to follow Ashlyn too, but she’s a little more difficult to keep up with.  For example, she is in a phase where she likes to mix strange food combinations.  This is Ashlyn putting pears on tacos.  James can’t do that, so he just shoves as much of the food in his mouth as he can.  This kid is an eating machine, and he signs for food constantly.

On Saturday we hosted a scotch tasting event.  Our friends wanted to see the kiddos so we volunteered to do it at our house.  Ashlyn helped Mom make some chocolate covered pretzels, and James learned that it’s fun to put olives on your finger.

For the record, nobody drank too much and everyone drove home safely.  But isn’t this pretty?

Sunday was a great day to be outdoors, and we spent a good portion of the day making a mess on the back porch.  By “we” I mean Ashlyn and James.  Ashlyn showed James how to get chalk all over his hands, and it spread to other areas of his body.  I included a before and after picture for reference.

And that’s all she wrote this week folks.  Adios!

Water balloons, and more water balloons…

"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water."
-Loran Eisely

James is completely walking now and won’t crawl unless he’s looking for something a few feet away.

Mom thought it would be fun to get a bag of water balloons for the kids to play with.  Ashlyn feel in love with them immediately, and we had to fill the bucket back up three times before we were able to convince her to go back inside.  James was not as excited, probably because he didn’t quite understand the throwing concept.  Instead he squeezed them until it broke in his hand.

More pictures of outside water fun, this time with a water hose.  Ashlyn sprayed herself, then sprayed James.  Afterwards they ran around the yard to dry off.

After the day got too hot for the kids, it was back inside for more play.  James can’t run yet, but that doesn’t stop Ashlyn from trying to play hide and seek with him.  The laughter of two kids running around the house is a good sound to hear on a hot afternoon.

Ashlyn is getting older and more independent every week.  Lately she’s started to want to dress herself, and the result is not always what Mom would have chosen for her.

PePa came over Sunday morning so we can cook some breakfast.  James toddled right over and wanted to be picked up.  PePa didn’t mind.

She’s also turning down her kid dinnerware in favor of adult plates and forks.  Sometimes this means that Mom uses Ashlyn’s, because we’re usually too lazy to get up and get more.

After breakfast it was time for more water balloons.  This time James was more interested in watching Heather than throwing them himself.  When Mom handed him a balloon he would shake his head and hand it back.

And here are a random group of pictures taken with the new camera (the top left was actually taken by Grandpa Wolfe, but the rest were taken with the same model of camera).