Vacation!

There was a request to put these pictures straight on the blog and not just Facebook, which is probably good because having them on the blog is really the only way pictures make it into the family photo albums I make (eventually).

At the airport in D.F. Apparently I cracked the code for the wireless password outside the Taba Bar and forgot to let people in on it.

At the Governor's Palace.

It was humid. There were murals.

Best dinner, even though we didn't get the fancy bag-holders everyone else was getting.

It's always fun to see the huge numbers on your balance at the ATM. We got something like 13 pesos to the dollar. 

This was one of the art pieces in the house we rented. Here are more and better pictures of the house from the VRBO listing. 

At Sabrina's taco stand. 

Sabrina! (Who was warmly written about in the New York Times.)

Crystal drinking Cristal soda.

Why did I take so many pictures of people with food? Oh yeah, because the food was amazing. Breakfast tacos.

Churros.

Almost all of the pictures are from the day we went to the ruins at Uxmal.

In front of the pyramid of the magician.

This is the back of the pyramid (or maybe it's actually the front?) that we were standing in front of earlier.

We went with our friends Kade and Caitlin, who planned the whole thing because they are awesome.

Note the elephant trunks. Our tour guide assured us that these were due to primordial mastodon memories in the Mayan people. (Also that the Mayans came from space and that the handprint of Jesus was visible inside one of the arches.)

The top of this arch, in fact.

I'm fairly certain this was the courtyard of the birds (or something). I also found out on the trip that my Spanish has deteriorated completely. That, and everyone saw me and my fuzzy hair and immediately decided to practice their English.

Kade took lots of pictures, too, and some of them made it onto his blog: http://citizenkade.com/blog/

A dude picture.

Chick pics.

Super-cool view after we climbed up another building. Some of the ruins you could climb on and some were off limits, but the lizards scrambled up everything. I imagine I looked something like a tourist in Missouri excitedly pointing out every squirrel when I saw an iguana. (But the blue ones were really cool.)

Sam says, "Take a picture! It looks like I'm going to fall off!"

Here we are waiting on it to get dark so that the light show can begin.

There was a light (and sound!) show.

And now on to even more pictures of food! Note the two boiled eggs.

Sam and his mole.

We had a great trip, and the kids weren't even traumatized (though Amelie told me when we got back that when she was a grown-up, she was taking her kids with her everywhere). Plus, we saw Usher at the Atlanta airport on the way home. 

Father's Day

We went to Steak-n-Shake for Father's Day. (James was asleep on my lap.)

And because you know I love a good comparison photo, here's a picture of Sam and Amelie at a diner in December 2011 (2.5 years ago)

I Climbing

James can climb up the kiddie climbing thing at Stephen's Lake Park!

Plus still photos of the same darn thing since he climbed it 3 or 4 times:

He gets a mischievous look. 

And then he goes for it! What determination!

Getting close!

He did it! 

More pictures of various and assorted climbing. 

P.S. If anyone can tell me why the video is perfectly clear when I watch it on the camera but blurry here, I'm all ears. I suspect that it needs to be converted to a different file type, but I don't know what kind or how. It's currently a .MOV

Doctor's Visit

Amelie had her 4-year well-child check on June 3rd, and she's growing like a weed. She was:

37 pounds, or 66th percentile according to the CDC chart*.
38.5 inches, or 23rd percentile.

*Up til this check-up, we've used the WHO chart for all of her percentiles (and can you believe it? 66th percentile!)

Look who's 4!

Reading Highlights magazine while we wait for the doctor.

The appointment fell conveniently when it was time for James to take a nap.

Here's the link to her 3-year checkup for comparison.

In the Backyard

Amelie Says / James Says

Upon overhearing me tell Sam that she'd outgrown a (size 4T!) dress, "Am I really a grown-up?"

Amelie persuaded me to play tag, but then she wasn't happy that I kept getting away before she could tag me, so she yelled, "SLOW DOWN!"

Amelie: "I saw the truck that turns things into things that are new." Me: "You mean the recycling truck?"

It was getting close to bedtime, so I said we needed to start settling down, and Amelie said, "We are louding up."

Playing with Sam, "I am faster than you are," then "You are faster than I am ...We are faster than each other!"

"I am the teacher and it's not time to play yet." 

James said his first three-word sentence on Tuesday: "Baby eat book!" He meant that the baby in the picture book was eating a book with her teeth, so a little bit strange, but still pretty neat. Language acquisition is bar none my favorite part of toddlerdom.

And I'm pretty sure he said his second three-word sentence on Monday: "Dada go work." 

Comics

Amelie loves all things comics/graphic novels, even when the pictures are small and black-and-white, like in Calvin and Hobbes, and even when I won't read it to her (like Watchmen).

Cutie Pie

I love this outfit. I think it's from our friend Miranda. 

The look on his face kills me. I think he's offended at the grass again.

Backyard adventures.

Reading

The kids like to "read." I'm not sure what book James has, but Amelie has a road atlas. 

Sam and James with a lift-the-flap book from our friend Cabell.

So much fun with animation. I like how James looks up to smile at Sam.

More reading in the bed: 

This time, Amelie has a pocket guide to Unitarian Universalism and James is looking at a book in Spanish.

Sam and Amelie with another book from Cabell - Dangerously Ever After 

Birthday Interview

I saw the idea for this a while ago (when Amelie was two) and thought, I really should do that. I forgot about it until another mom-blog friend of mine posted the questions her newly four-year-old answered, so like any good mom-blogger, I stole the idea and ran with it, making just a few changes to the questions. 

I sat down to interview Amelie and she was very interested in me typing the answers as she gave them. (She dictates stories to me sometimes, but this was the first time I'd typed it.) 

1. How old are you? 4
2. What is your favorite color? Pink 
3. What is your favorite toy? My Tiny doll (after some questioning, I figure out that she means the stuffed dinosaur named "Tiny") Sometimes I pretend to be Tiny. This is how I pretend to be Tiny. 
4. What is your favorite game? Hide and seek 
5. What is your favorite song? "You May." It's a song my Dada teached me when I was a baby (she proceeds to make up a song) 
6. What is your favorite animal? Cats
7. What is your favorite book? Why Do Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears?
8. What is your favorite movie? Dumbo 
9. What is your favorite thing to eat? Marshmallows 
10. Where is your favorite place to go? The mall 
11. Who is your best friend? Ezra 
12. What is something you learned last year when you were 3? I can't draw a person really. I just practiced. 
13. What is something you'll learn now that you're 4? I'm going to learn how to swim this year. 
14. What is hard for you to do? I don't know. What's something that is hard for YOU to do? 
15. What is your favorite thing to do? Play
16. What do you like about Mama? Ummm. Your eyes. 
17. What do you like about Dada? Ummmm. I don't know. 
18. What do you like about James? (long pause) Is there anything you like about James? No. 
19. What do you like about yourself? I'm not going to tell you; it's a secret. 
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? A worker. A house-builder worker. 

Tire Swing

This one was unintentionally artistic:

Papaw and Dada helped push. Look who's standing!

Generally the copying of behavior is the other way around.

Amelie Says / James Says

James got up on the couch and sat next to me when I came home from work last night. I asked if he'd had a good day, and he replied, "No." 

Finally, he's started saying "Amelie," well, really "Ah-meeeeee." I'd predicted it would be his first word, but I guess I was off by a long shot.

When we were over at the kids' grandparents, James stuck his arm through the baby gate and loudly proclaimed, "I stuck. I STUCK" even though he easily put his arm in and could pull it back out. I'm pretty sure it was his first lie, which is a fairly significant linguistic milestone.

Amelie came in early in the morning and saw the Kindle on the nightstand and asked accusingly, "Did James get out the Kindle?" and I said No, that I'd been looking at it before bed last night, and then she said, "Does DADA KNOW?" because if she asks for it close to bedtime he tells her it's bad to look at before sleep.

I told her she was too big to do something (I forget now exactly what it was) and she said, "No. I'm THREE big." 
We were listening to the pop station in the car (for about 5 minutes) when 1 Direction came on, and Amelie yelled from the backseat, "Make the music go louder!" 

Amelie came in just now pointing to her leg and saying, "This leg ... this leg ... this leg is bent." I asked what was wrong and she pointed at it again, bent her knee up to me, and proclaimed, "This leg is CROOKED." 

Pirate Party

We went to a pirate-themed third birthday party on Saturday. Arrrrrrgh, mateys!

Many happy returns, Hannah!

Tricycle

I wish we had a better paved area for the kids to use. The tricycle is mostly used as a climbing toy around here.