More Pics From My Phone

 I think this picture is so funny, thought I can't really pin-point why.  For some reason, The Frog and Peach really like hanging out in the shower in the morning.  The Frog likes to hand down the supplies to his sister.  Whether or not she likes it, is unclear.

 My little diva playing dress-ups with daddy.  haha.

 This is my lap-top case that The Frog loves to carry around and tell me "I'm going to work, mom!  See you later!"  If I'm lucky, he'll put on Jay's hiking boots and drape some wrapping paper ribbon around his neck too.  On this particular occasion, he somehow managed to take off down the street.  (daddy usually walks to work too...)   Also, I keep a USB memory device in that pink bag and he likes to walk around the house and use it as a whistle.

We moved the kids into the same room after we got back from vacation.  Bed-time instantly became very very very painful.  (as opposed to semi-painful)  Then, The Frog discovered he could climb into Peach's bed.  We don't really care too much, as long as he stays in his room and he's not making her cry.  Sometimes we can hear wild laughter from both of them on the monitor- it's awesome.  And every few nights we find this: 

 (Side note: I took this picture in pitch-black with my iPhone.  I couldn't believe a) how well it turned out and 2) that the flashes didn't wake them up!)

Mass Trip Part 5

I don't sync my phone very much with my computer and I forgot about these photos I took with my phone that reminded me of a couple of unmentioned things about our Mass trip.  Bear with me.

 Peach absolutely LOVED having dogs around.  She crawled after them incessantly, and both Bless and Mickey seemed to be terrified of her.

 The Frog trying out the snorkel equipment.

 I never get photos of the kids sleeping because I'm terrified of waking them up.  (I don't like to mess with a good thing...) but in close quarters, it was hard not to need to sneak into where Peach napped during the day and I couldn't help but capture the memory for later.

Peach was equally excited by the cat.  It was equally frightened...

Welcome Iris!

We've been really busy getting things ready for our Japanese foreign exchange student.  We have decided to call her "Iris" on the blog because, though her name has no meaning, there is a Japanese homonym for her name that means "Iris".  

The main project I've been undergoing is changing her room from a nursery to a girls' room.  This will be Peach's room once Iris is gone, so it is a bit young, but I tried to keep it mostly white so it wouldn't feel like it's too too young.  I realized that I never took a real picture of how the nursery has always been, but I do have this picture of when we briefly had a toddler bed up for The Frog in the same room.  You can kind of see the end of the changing table just to the left of the doorway.  Normally the tall dresser would be in the corner where the crib is here, and the crib would be shifted along the wall where the toddler bed is (you can barely see the foot of it.) As you can see, my photography skills, though still aren't that great, they have improved somewhat in the last year.

I changed the curtains for some long white ones I found at Down East (and I lined them to make them block more light).  I tried to keep it pretty spare because I wanted Iris to be able to have her things around to make her more comfortable, and I had no idea what kinds of things she would be bringing with her.  I thought that mirror would make a good little place for putting on jewelry, because there are pegs below you could hang necklaces on and i put a little PB jewelry box my older sister gave me a long time ago on the shelf next to it.  When Peach moves in next year, I will lower the mirror to her height.

 The white bed and cupboard were refinished by me- thanks to my awesome neighbor lending me their sprayer.  That bed was IMPOSSIBLE to brush well.  I plan to eventually embroider something in the white embroidery hoop (yet to be determined) but for now, it stays like it is.  The fabrics on the wall match the quilt I now only need to finish hand sewing the binding.

 NW exchange sent us a few family photos of Iris and I framed 3 of them for the room.  I also used my Silhouette to cut out her kanji.  Doesn't it look like a work of art?  (thank goodness I am not Japanese- my handwriting is sooo bad already.  I can't imagine having to write kanji legibly...)

 Some flowers from the yard.

 Iris got in Friday morning and we've been keeping her busy and feeding her lots of typical "American" foods- hamburgers, spaghetti, pizza...  Iris brought us Japanese gifts.  Here are the kids in their awesome pajamas!

We've been having fun trying out some Japanese snacks.

 For some reason we thought it was a good idea to hike the Y on Saturday.  The Frog walked about 1/3 of the way, and then I carried him on my back the rest.  (I am quite sore today...)

 Iris was a trooper and didn't complain nearly as much as I did :)  I couldn't believe how out of shape I was!  I also couldn't believe how many people passed us who were RUNNING it!  We stopped to rest a LOT and one of the bends had this huge rock.  A couple of girls were posing on it for a camera and when they got down, The Frog said he wanted to pose too:

 Here we are at the top:

We decided to reconfigure the kids so we wouldn't have to constantly stop for every rock The Frog wanted to examine and "hide" somewhere.  As you can see, he wasn't pleased.  He ended up on my back again, about half way down the mountain.

Ice Cream for Breakfast and Peach's 1st Shoes

The Frog caught something while in Massachusetts (we think from a McDonald's play place) called "hand, foot, and mouth" (and bum) disease.  Basically he had weird blistery red marks on his hands and feet (and bum) and his mouth was FULL of white canker-sore looking things.  The poor kid couldn't eat ANYTHING without crying.  It didn't start showing up until the plane ride home and this is the next morning.  As you can see we tried 4 things until we found something The Frog could eat:

 Pancakes with syrup, pancakes without, grape-nuts cereal, and vanilla ice cream.
He ate nothing but vanilla ice cream and peach creamies for about 3 days (he wouldn't even have his favorite thing of all time- milk).  Finally, Sunday morning, he was able to eat again.  Hooray!

Peach showed some signs as well, but wasn't affected nearly as badly as her brother.  I think, probably because I'm still nursing.

 I forgot to mention that Nanie bought Peach her first pair of shoes!  They are so tiny and cute.  It's amazing that any foot could fit inside of them.  This is the first pair that actually stays on her narrow little feet- thanks to the laces.  Unfortunately, though, I must always double-knot them because she likes to untie them and suck on them, otherwise.

 Other things I've been meaning to mention.  She is a complete chatter-box and her facial expressions when she talks to you are hilarious.  I know she thinks she's really communicating.  My favorite is when she leans into you with her face really close and her eye brows raised, like she has something very important for your ears alone.  She often responds "yes" when you ask her questions (not matter the question), and can often be heard repeating something (over and over and...) resembling "do it?" or "do that?"  (she says it like a question).  These were all developed on vacation, but since she's been home, I think she's trying to say her brother's name- "Dak".  It's obvious that she can understand a lot of what you say to her already- recognizing her name or if you say "where's *The Frog*?" she will look where he is and smile, or crawl to where he is.  She will clap if you say "clapping" too.  It's amazing how much ahead of The Frog she is verbally- though I've heard girls are usually much faster at that than boys in general.  She really likes walking holding your fingers and can stand by herself, but when you try to make her, she starts whining and squats down.  I can't believe she's turning 1 this month!  It makes me so sad to loose my baby already...

The kids haven't been sleeping well since we got home.  (something I've come to expect after flying back East...) They have been waking up at 5:30 every morning since we got home, and won't go to bed until 8 or 8:30 (we used to be on a 7pm-7am schedule), even though we start getting ready for bed at 6.  It's quite aggravating.  We have officially moved them into the same room, too, in anticipation for our foreign exchange student-- that is probably the main bed-time disrupting, contributing factor.

And finally, I wanted to start trying some things on for Halloween costumes.  This year is gonna be awesome (I hope!)  Any guesses?  (I've decided not to use these old wings for her.  She hates them, so I'll probably make smaller ones for her instead)

Visiting Cousins and Goodbye (Mass Trip part 4)

One thing I love about visiting Jay's family in Mass is that I also get to see my older sister and her family!  I sued to see her all the time when I was at school back East and it was always so much fun.  I miss the frequent visits...

 We forgot to take many pictures because we were having so much fun catching up and the kids were having so much fun running around together, but here are a couple.

I love everyone's expressions in this one...

We spent most of the time playing with blocks and cars, eating delicious fresh foods, and playing with water balloons.  It's so fun now that our kids are old enough to play together.  I know our visits will only get better and better.

We had SUCH a great time and can't wait for next summer!

Jay wanted to make sure he packed the essentials.