eureka!

You may have noticed that I haven't posted much this week. This may or may not be due to time spent on this brilliant website. The results were totally worth it.

I started with this:



And, (ten trillion tries later), ended up with this:

So cute. You know you want to try it. Leave me a link if you Simpsonize yourself or your kid, I'd love to see the results. Be forewarned, it takes a while. But how often do you get to be a CARTOON?

15

Dear Claire,
Today you are 15 months old. To celebrate, I ran out of gas. You didn't seem to mind. We had a great time eating Cherrios and waiting for your dada to rescue us. Probably the best thing I have learned from being your mama is to slow down.

Everything is still kind of a thrill to you, so you make great company. Later, when we went to fill the tank, the people at the gas station just seemed especially friendly. I looked back to find you waving your brains out at everyone that passed us. I love that you are so ridiculously friendly. When I go places without you I notice that the people around me don't smile as much as they do when you're there.

At 15 months old, you want to walk everywhere, but your legs are still miniature and sometimes I have to carry you. I watch as you work on your little signs and attempt to communicate. The latest one is the sign for "pain." Now you do it not just when something hurts your body, but when your feelings are hurt. If I pick you up and you would rather walk, you push your tiny index fingers together indicating, "Mom, I'm offended."

Thank you for teaching me to be a little bit more friendly to strangers, to ask for help and that a red hat is always a good choice.
Love,
Mama

miss independent.

This weekend we went out of town and accidentally forgot the cage. I mean, we forgot the pack-n-play. Thankfully, Nate enjoys rigging up stuff and he McGuyvered a crib for the girl in the back of the camper bus. Two shots of the weekend, taken of my two favorite people:

She is officially a walker now and is over being held, but will gladly ride on Dada's shoulders for as long as he will allow it.

all out of catchy titles.

There she goes again.

ohmitoddler!

It seems that the girl is making the transition from two naps to one. It has been a rough couple of days. People who don't have kids can't understand the significance of the nap. The nap is the lifeblood of the stay-at-home-parent. Around here, we order our day around the nap. It is when I showerbreathecleanwritereadprayexercise. I am a giant fan of the nap.

I have never been great at change. Every time I feel like I know what I'm doing, she becomes this whole other person. Today we struggled as I interacted with the toddler as if she were still the baby. I love the toddler. She is loud and demanding and funny and opinionated. The baby would cuddle and coo. The toddler laughs at her own farts. To me this is the biggest indication that she is no longer a baby. Where is that in the developmental charts? Clearly, laughs at flatulence is as significant as able to stack blocks. I'm just saying.

three things i love:

1. Talking with old friends while new babies crawl about.
2. Driving with the windows down and the AC on.
3. Most of all, you:

he hates it when i post his picture.

But what can he say about a shot of his hands?

Since I have been given specific instructions about the future of a certain 35 seconds of hilarious video footage, I will give you the transcript instead.

To help Claire become comfortable on the throne, we started placing her on the potty a few seconds before bathtime. A few weeks ago, my friend Erin advised me that if I sang to her, Claire would probably stay on the potty without trying to get up and walk around. Amazingly, this strategy worked. A few nights ago, I came into the bathroom to find Claire sitting on the potty and a certain hand model singing, "that is where we go poop poop. Go poop poop. Go poop poop. That is where we go poop poop all day long."

That's right, folks. All day long.

summer, i love you.

This week has been a blur of playing outside and wearing as little clothing as possible. Here are a few shots from our days.
My cousin, Kristin and her son Brayden came for a playdate and we visited the carousel. I'd have nice angry baby shot of Claire screaming, but I was busy unstrapping her from her pony and making my exit.
Following her carousel freak out, the girl enjoyed a smoothie at Starbucks, and all was right in the world.
A couple of days later, looking hard, while swimming with Uncle Austin.

*In a totally unrelated note: my Jetta is in serious need of repair and I just heard Nate mutter the "m" word. I could do it, but it might not be pretty.

new and exciting uses for the hyster.

Did you know that we own a forklift? Did you know that forklifts are the ideal place for a low-budget (legal) fireworks display?
Yesterday we ate brauts, burned stuff, dressed up in colors and played with friends. I'll post photos of the festivities soon.

and he's really, really ridiculously good looking.

We watch a lot of kids' movies. This is not because we are parents. We just like kids' movies. Most of the time. Last night, we watched part of Happy Feet together. Lately, unless a movie is Zoolander-awesome, I'd probably rather be asleep than watching a movie, so I went to bed before it ended. This morning, I asked Nate about the rest of the movie. In complete seriousness, this was his response:

"It was a completely inaccurate portrayal of penguin life."

Oh, Nate. I couldn't love you more.

party of two.

Thank you to Oma and Papa for watching our girl for us this weekend so that we might get a chance to hang out as friends instead of as parents, with one of the most exquisite backgrounds I've ever seen.

We slept late, caught part of a concert in a park and stayed in a lovely room at a historic inn that was far from toddler-proof. We laughed and talked without distraction. All with a soundtrack by Johnny Cash, because he's been everywhere, man.