Waaaay Behind

OK, I officially don't know how it happened, but I got insanely behind on the posting. Let me see what I can do to catch people up....


Mom came out to visit for nearly two weeks for Passover. Her timing was also pretty good as she got to catch the kids' first swimming lessons down at the local rec center. They each have lessons for 45 mins, twice a week, and are having a total blast. David tells me each and every time that he enjoys swimming lessons way more than karate lessons. (Then again, he chose to take karate lessons JUST because his buddy down the street was taking them. He chose swimming lessons because they sparked his own individual interest. I hope he notices this.) It's going to be an interesting circus to keep up for any length of time...in a bid to keep the kids alternately interested, I'm busy doing educational stuff with one while the other swims. This isn't always as easy as it may seem. It DOES make me be creative, though. For instance, did you know that there's a "number line" at all swimming pools? You just have to look at the depth indicators at the side of the pool to see the number line pattern. :-)


I'm just now getting back to what we call "normal" around here. The house is piled deep in new toys, of course. Lauren has new dollhouse furniture (bunk beds for the "kids;" she's all over the Calico Critters dollhouse stuff. She's already got the Townhome, kitchen, bathroom and now kid's room, plus two families...one family of mice, one of dalmations. They're quite itegrated, though...apparently one of the mice married the dalmation, so there's this impossible mish-mash to keep track of where we have Mommy Mouse and Daddy Dog, and Grandma Dog and Grandpa Mouse and of course four kids, two of each kind. The eldest is the dalmation in the red dress, whose name is apparently Sweetheart. And of course they occassionally run away from home with the aid of one of the My Little Ponies. They're also quite fond of making heart-shaped cookies, which are curiously like the beads that Lauren once had on a bracelet that she broke. Oh my.)


There's also a "Littlest Pet Shop" game sitting here, and an amazing popup book about dinosaurs. It's sort of like a popup book of little popup books, and it's quite the work of art! Perhaps best of all, it has (gasp!) TRICERATOPS in it!! (You cannot imagine the triceratops lust that goes on in this house! It's truly insane. We rented a Discovery-type video at the library wherein a Protoceratops was wounded and, eventually, killed. David sat clutching his blankie, tears streaming down his face, but he wouldn't allow me to turn the video off or fast-foward or anything. Luckily the video later featured a herd of Triceratops dinosaurs fending off a T-Rex attack. They even saved their baby Triceratops, so the movie was redeemed at the end.)



In trying to find a photo of the popup book, I've now run into a couple of other interesting items...a Triceratops throw pillow (right), a Triceratops road sign (left)...heck, I even found him a pair of Triceratops shoes that he lusts after. Isn't the internet a grand thing?

By far the most interesting thing gotten by anyone was a real, live digital camera. Have you ever wondered what photos a five year-old boy would take with a digital camera? I'll undoubtedly be uploading a great many of them in the next several days and weeks.

For the moment, though (*yawn!*), I'm off to bed!!