Dear ...

Dear Rain/Mother Nature,

Why is that you decide to visit Twin Falls every time we (finally) decide to water our lawn. It would be really great if you'd let us know you were coming ahead of time.

Sincerely, Sick of Paying to Water Our Lawn

Dear People Who Stay At the Days Inn Jerome,

Please stop using the hand towels as toilet paper. I don't know what kind of mother you had, but I'm pretty sure you don't do this at home...don't do it at the hotel either. It's just disgusting and the laundry person does not appreciate washing up after you. If you don't have toilet paper in your room please call the front desk.

Sincerely, Totally Grossed Out

Dear Will,

I wish your last tooth would come through. I don't like it when you're teething.

Sincerely, Sad for my Sad Baby

Dear Raleigh Bicycle,

Thank you for coming home with me. You complete me.

Sincerely, In Love

Transportation

I am overjoyed to finally be a bike owner. We splurged and got really nice bikes and a trailer. The kids enjoy it, although at first Will hated his helmet (which was baffling since it is a Spiderman helmet!). Ruth on the other hand could wear her helmet all day...it's pink with stars. We can't wait to take our bikes everywhere with us! And now I finally have a way to get around town that doesn't require walking. Granted I won't be able to go grocery shopping without the car...but at least we can go walk around Target if we need to get out of the house...until it snows that is! Oh, and of course I get great exercise that I actually enjoy.

In other news: the kids are still cute, I joined Facebook after years of avoiding it, I'm almost done with a quilt for Will (pictures when I'm actually done) and I am somewhat successfully growing zucchini in a pot...fingers crossed on that one.

What's Wrong with my Kids?

I got a new...and my first...smartphone. It's a Droid Incredible, and in the first 17 hours of ownership I have slept and played with it for 10 hours...so I suppose that's why my kids are screaming and bouncing off the walls!

The only disappointment so far is that there isn't an app for laundry or other chores.

Brooklyn Babe

The last week or so Ruth has started talking in a Brooklyn accent. (When I was 2 I had a southern drawl...but that made sense since we lived in TEXAS!)

For instance, "Mawm, I got mah shoes awn. I wahna go to da paahk." Translation, "Mom, I put my shoes on. I want to go to the park." It's pretty funny, but sometimes I can't figure out what she's trying to say. Like today she was trying to tell me she was "alright," but in her pronunciation there was no l, r or t and a whole lot of "aw" and "ee." Good thing she's cute.

Today

Today Ruth was astonished when she learned that food goes into your belly. At first she was incredulous and thought I was pulling her leg! Now she is constantly asking what goes into her belly, i.e. "Does water go in my belly? Does juice go in my belly? Does the fridge go in my belly?"

Today Will started making animal sounds. He knows that cows "moo" and cats "meow" and it's adorable to listen to him. He also adores sign language and now knows the sign for "food."

Today, while Brad was at work, we walked to the grocery store and discovered a love for Lara Bars. Tomorrow I'm buying dried dates so I can attempt to make them at home. Yum!

Independence Day and such

We were given all of these! It was fun to make them all explode. Unfortunately Will got too cranky around 8:30 so he missed out on all the fun. It took 2 days to get Ruth back on a normal schedule, but she LOVED it. Her favorite part was climbing up our tree and onto the roof so she and dad could watch the big city fireworks.

Note the glow-in-the-dark bracelet she's sporting.

Earlier this week we went to the ice caves. We all had this idea in our heads about what it would be like based on a picture from the turn of the 20th century. The following picture demonstrates the best part of the ice caves:

Running through the sprinklers

I'm finally keeping flowers alive! We're all happy about that.

What Do Ya Do?

Brad works Friday nights so I try to come up with fun stuff for the kids and I to do. Tonight we made fishy sopapillas! Ruth has become a great helper in the kitchen. She loves to help me dump ingredients into the bowl when we're making dough or batter and she's great at putting the toppings on our pizzas...although she usually eats more pepperoni than she puts onto the pizza. Tonight she helped with ingredient dumping and using the fishy cookie cutter (which she calls the "cut a cookie").

I'm so happy that I've learned to be comfortable in the baking/pastry world. I NEVER would have even tried to make sopapillas 4 years ago. But compared to pizza dough, (especially getting it baked properly) this was a cinch. Not that they turned out perfectly, but next time they'll be better.

Will loves to play with balls. It's so cute to watch him pick one up and walk around the living room with it. I thought this was a great action shot of him thoroughly enjoying himself.

And while I like to pretend that the activities were for the kids, I think they were really for me. I needed some structured activity time otherwise the non-stop begging for attention from the two toddlers was going to drive me nuts. Ha ha! It's frustrating how fun and horrible being a mom can be. Half the time you want to rip your hair out and the other half of the time nothing could be better than slobbery kisses and your kids making each other laugh. I really need to learn to be more patient and understanding during those difficult times.

Oh and this is just a funny picture of Will stealing Ruth's spotlight. These two have gotten really good at picking on each other. *sigh.