roofless!

And it begins!  The roof is officially gone.  (And tonight a crazy storm went through.  Amazingly--thanks to the good tarping job by Dan, Mike and Dad--no rain came in!)

When cousin Aidan comes to town...

My sister's son Aidan is here visiting from Houston.  Because of our remodeling, the kids and I have been staying at my Mom and Dad's this week.  Nedy is not much missing home, what with the constant snacks, constant late bed times, and, most notably, the constant companionship of her much adored cousin Aidan.  They are soooooo cute together. 

See what I mean?  Cuteness.

"Mehzuh, mehzuh..."

"2 inches 80 degees twenty."

"Mehzuh all day yong..."

 

A boy and his Baba's tape measure.  It's a beautiful thing.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strawberry picking...the painting.

In mid-June, on Kam's 2nd birthday (blog post still coming on that), we started our day strawberry picking with Nana, Papa, and a smattering of cousins at Polzen's.  I grew up strawberry picking every summer--good memories!  As we all violated the "stay in your assigned row" farm rule, Dan noticed a woman off to the side of the field painting our chaos.  Turns out she was painting for an upcoming art competition, but we asked for her number to see if we could buy the painting after the show.  

And here it is!  I have just the place planned for it.  (Now if that second story could just magically appear...)

My little readers.

The girl just loooooves frogs.

We went to Cedar Creek Park in Cedarburg yesterday for our church picnic.  In the midst of a carnival-like atmosphere of games, prizes, water balloons, wild and crazy kids and a giant castle-like bouncy house, my little girl was drawn to the little green creatures in the creek.  She is so kind and gentle with slimy creatures and crawly bugs of all sorts...well, except centipedes because, "...it's just they have so many legs they're creepy!!"  I totally agree.

 

  

Green Beans GOOOOOO!!!!

We have lengthy commutes in our house to Nana's or Grandma's each day, so we have lots of contained quiet time to chat.  We chat about this and that, play games like "I'm thinking of an animal...", eat Annie's rabbit cookies, look for wildlife, call out trucks and trains, comment on people who ride motorcycles in shorts/tank tops/no helmet (even Kammy says, "No hehmut!  Not safe, dat guy!"), etc.  It's a full-on Chatfest.  Lately, Kam has been participating often what with his yelling out, "Mama!  Yook der big twuck!  Guy in der dwive!" or "I sink amnal...yong neck...giraffe!...yong neck..." (he always gives away the answer in his description), or his random announcements that he sees goats, brown ones, much to his sister's irritation because calling out goats when there are no goats is totally against the four-and-a-half year old code of ethics.  Ahem.

So Kam is getting into learning his colors, though he has the whole "too cool for school" attitude at times that results in him purposefully reporting a red marker as yellow, all with a twinkle in his eyes and dimples in full pop.  (Again, much to sister's annoyance.  Because the marker is red and calling it yellow on purpose, well, "makes no sense at all.")  Anyway, so Kammy's latest is traffic light monitoring.  Just as Nedy did at his age, he eagerly awaits traffic lights for the sheer surprise of their status as we roll up.  If they're red, he's quick to instruct me, "Yight RED!  Mama, means STOP!!"  And so we sit at the light, Kammy tapping his hand on his shorts saying, "Wait foeyit...wait foeyit..." until the light changes to green and he excitedly announces, "GREEN BEANS GOOOOOOOOOO!"  So, I guess when we started talking about green lights and I told him, "green means go", he sort of morphed it into vegetables.  (I wish he's morph his taste buds toward vegetables, but that's another post.)

Summer!

Thanks to my friend Kris who e-mailed me a photo of the kids; my laptop is close to functioning again, I'm told.  (That's my way of blaming Dan for the lack of photos on the blog.  Ahem.  Soon, good people, soon.  Don't give up on me.)

What?! An actual blog post?!

Deary me, how'd it get to be July?!  Things are busy around our little house, what with the two little beings getting bigger and bigger and our house about to follow suit with our second story addition planned to start in a few weeks.

So, without further ado, some updates:

Nedy turned 4.5 on May 9; an important milestone for her.  Something about "fourandahalf" makes her feel monumentally bigger.  Her favorite activities of late are wearing flip-flops ("Pleeeeeeeease can I wear my flip-flops??  Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease?!?"), riding her balance bike (she'll be ready for a two-wheeler by summer's end I'm thinking), playing games (Traffic Jam, Jr. and Sequence are favorites), playing baseball (she can hit 80% of pitches thrown to her--amazing!), pondering life's mysteries ("So, if the moon is out in the daytime here does that mean it's new moon in China?"), eating olives and cornichons (even forgoing chocolate for them), learning to read (Hop on Pop!), and preparing to start pre-school in the Fall at Morningstar Montessori ("When exactly do I start school again?  How long will she give me to eat lunch?")  She is as bright and chatty as ever with all sorts of funny things escaping her mouth.  She has also recently developed an attitude that resembles what I might expect from a thirteen year old.  Between that and her occasional regression to the Land of Baby Talk, I am working hard to keep up.  "Mama, I'm not a baby!"  "But Mama, I'm just a baby!"  Fourandahalf is apparently a time of inner conflict.  ;)

Kam turned 2 on June 14.  He is reeeeeeeeaaally 2.  He is growing up so quickly.  His baby chunkiness is all but gone, in its place a tall, handsome little manly man.  So, I'll admit it.  Kamron and I spent many months--say, from 15 months to 22 months--mostly at odds, what with him pushing my every button and me reacting like he was pushing my every button.  It became apparent to me (with some input from a few more seasoned mamas) that I either had to disguise my buttons better and react less, or risk a lifetime of torture.  :)  So a few months ago I began my pursuit to choose my battles more carefully.  And I'll be darned.  Either their advice totally worked, or it was timed perfectly to a random developmental adjustment, because we're doing soooooo much better and having sooooo much more fun.  Kam is such a goofball.  He looooves teasing (Just ask Nedy...), jumping (he can get both feet off the ground now), all things truck and machine related ("Yook, Mama!  Big twuck!  Guy in der dwiving!"), reading books (Speedy Little Race Cars and Curious George are favorites), and eating chocolate ("Ooohooohoooo, CHOCYET!")  Kam is Nedy's ever-present shadow and when she slips out of sight you can bet this will soon follow, "Deeedddddyyyyyy!  Where Dedy go?  Kammy find her."  His language development has been such a joy to witness.  He moved from one word to stringing two and three words to sentences very quickly.  He is forever telling us about things he sees, what he did that day, on and on.  He listens carefully as other people talk and loves to take part in the conversation.  The other morning Nedy was in her bed reading and he came by to say "Hi, Dedy", but then decided he'd stay to chat, so he says to her, "Dedy, scootch over.  Make woom Kammy on bed."  As he gets older, they are spending more time playing together (read: chasing each other around the house at full speed), which is both delightful and occasionally terrifying.

And the house.  Later this month we will embark on a crazy adventure in the form of ripping off our roof and adding another story to our house.  The plan is finalized, we've gone before the design review board, the building permit is issued and the bids are rolling in.  And just so you know, this terrible drought is about to end for sure. Right about the time the roof is tossed into the dumpster below...