Ouch! Charlie, that really hurts!

I didn't know it was possible for a two year old and a four month old to love each other. I figured my girls would just tolerate one another until they were old enough to really play together. Not so. It was a forceful reminder this morning when Paul and I divided up shopping duties. I took Charlotte, he took Ella. When we met back up together, Ella ran toward us yelling "Baby!!", and when I picked her up to let her see Charlotte in the shopping cart, Charlotte broke out into this enormous grin. There must be some of that premortal life bonding stuff lingering on. I only wish I could remember if Charlotte, Ella, and Linds used to let me hang out with them back in premortality.

Because they are already best friends, Ella has found a game that they can play together. She puts her finger in Charlotte's mouth, and then quickly retracts it yelling, "Ow! Ow! Ow!" She is pretty convincing. The first time she did it in front of Paul, he thought she was really hurt. She then grins at Charlotte and admonishes her, "No, Baby." I couldn't figure out why she decided to play out such a strange interaction. We have been working on not biting... but that was a couple of months ago. She engages in lots of imaginative play, so I just wrote it off. Until I was telling my mother about this new game. And she informed me that the last time Ella stayed with them, they watched YouTube videos together. Yeah. That's right. Ella watched the famous Charlie biting his older brother. Classic.

Isn't she beautiful?

I

Life has been just great, enjoying my two wonderful girls. And Paul. We spent Independence Day in Dallas, enjoying the fireworks from a secluded spot by a little creek that we stumbled upon by chance. The weekend festivities also included a nice afternoon hike (stroll) (one day we'll hike again), and naps for everyone.

We've been gluten free this week. Just because I wanted to try it. I held fast until this morning, when Paul suggested doughnuts for breakfast. As many of you know I am somewhat picky when it comes to breakfast foods. Even muffins typically have too much sugar for me to feel like they qualify. But I am a sucker for doughnuts. Extra gluten with that, please! Honestly, it didn't really matter. I have felt no different being off gluten, and didn't really think I would because I don't really suffer from any digestive complaints. But you hear so much about gluten these days, I thought we should give it a go. Besides, I like a good cooking challenge.

Ella started singing along to songs last week. She has been singing songs (recognizably) on her own for a couple of months. Humming might be more accurate. There are words, but I can't understand them. But I'll hear the distinct tune of ABC's floating around the house, mostly using the letters t, e, and b. Two weeks ago, I heard her singing the chorus to "I am a Child of God", it was tender. Especially sweet because I only started singing it to her at bedtime a week or so before. I was impressed at her quick learning of that one. But even sweeter, last week she started singing right along with me at bedtime. Love it. She also does a mean "Down by the Bay".

Charlotte, who has been laughing very well for tickles for a long while, (since she was two months and one week) started belly-laughing at Ella's antics the other night. That was fun. She continues to be a happy, contented baby. Thrilled at any chance to interact with anyone, especially her sister.

Alright. Time to go.

Women of the World Unite.

It occurred to me as I was putting on makeup Tuesday night, that I was merely one of thousands preparing to join in a sisterhood and celebrate... silliness.

Yep. I did it. I saw the midnight showing of Eclipse. It was a grand excuse for a much needed "Girl's Night". And I loved every minute of it. (Every minute of the girl's night. The movie was... basically a movie.)

And honestly, isn't that what this is all about? Three hours to pretend that you are not the responsible adult that you really are every other hour of your life. Five hours, if you count the waiting in line part. Six and a half hours if you count the time you spent meeting at a friend's house, eating cheesecake, and making tee-shirts to commemorate the event.

I told Paul our plan for the night. "Are you going to write things on your tee-shirt like 'Bite me, Edward?'" was his response. Deep down he really wanted one for himself.

And so, without sanctioning the books, movies, or posters, I boldly proclaim my whole-hearted approval of a reason to stay up until three in the morning and eat cheesecake with wild abandon.

Love it.

I felt inspired this morning when I read this.

Roll Out.

So, I finally created my blogroll. It is a work in progress, since I am using Paul's laptop currently in Dallas, and my desktop is the computer with my bookmarks saved. So, if you aren't on there, and you want to be, tell me. Chances are, when I get the chance, in say, three months, I would have added you anyway. It's been a while since I've done my regular blog cruising, so things are getting hazy. We're still friends, right?

If you are on there, and you don't want to be. Tell me. Then maybe we'll actually email back and forth a few times, and I can hear about stuff that you don't post on your blog. Or maybe we're not as close as I thought. And that's cool too.

Um, I also added several blogs that I read on occasion, that may or may not have unorthodox content. Seriously, it's like opening up my innermost thoughts and dreams for public consumption. But the lure of the ease of having them all in one, easily accessible place was too great. So, don't think I'm weird if you check out any of those links. I'm currently obsessed with homeschooling. If I had done this six months ago, you would have seen a bunch of vegan blogs. I'm a phaser. Who knows what I'll discover next. (Although, I'm considering hula-hooping.) (But the hardcore people out there just call it hooping.) (In case you were wondering.)

Oh, and I'm not vegan. And I never plan to be. But I am still drifting closer and closer toward what I would probably define as 'weird'. And that kind of scares me. In a good way.

I think.

Who the heck is "Honey"?

My sister Laurel decided early on in Ella's life that Aunt Laurel is too hard for a baby to say. (This was back when Ella was a baby.) So she became Aunt La-La. I am not sure if Ella loves Aunt La-La because Laurel fawns all over her. Or because she can say her name. Maybe she would talk about everyone else if she only could. Or maybe she does talk about everyone in the family, and I simply don't understand. Whatever the reason, Ella spends a fair amount of time talking about Aunt La-La. Don't ask me what she says. All I understand is "La-La". (If you can imagine.)

After our most recent family gathering, Ella began talking about "Honey" in the back seat. "Do you want to eat honey?" I asked. No. "Honey, your baby doll?" (I named her baby doll Honey, mostly because it's a word she can already say.) No. Then she brought things into context by mentioning La-La. "Oh! Uncle Hunter!?!" "YEAH!" was her enthusiastic reply. Um, basically, could there be any cuter couple than Uncle Honey and Aunt La-La? I mean, linguistically cuter. I think not.

We have been trying to get Ella to call Hunter "Uncle Huh-Huh". But mostly because it annoys him. I think I like Honey better.

Turning the camera around.

 

I made Ella a book for her first birthday entitled "When Ella was a Baby" with pictures of her and the family and other various milestones. She loves to read it. But she calls it her "Dadd'n Book". (She calls Paul Dadd'n, with the occasional 'Dad', or more recently, 'Paul', thrown in.) The reason she calls it her Dadd'n book is because the only pictures of me in there are the ones of me pregnant with her. I may as well be an invisible influence in her life, according to our camera. Since I'm (marginally) more obsessed with Ella than Paul, I am usually the one taking the pictures. So I opted for a self-portrait of Charlotte and I when we visited the waterpark last week. Charlotte has not gotten the hang of looking at or smiling for the camera. The least she could do is look a little sassy. I think vague is a nice word to describe this look.

The upside of the waterpark is that we had a blast. There were three pools, two of them had a maximum depth of 24" or something, so Ella got to explore her little guts out. There were a couple of little slides, too. The third pool had "grown-up" slides, so Paul and I got a few thrills thrown in the mix. It was a fun day. The downside of our day being that this was the only cute shot of the day. And I'm the only one who looks cute in it. Oh well, the memories can live on in our hearts, if not our hard drive.

Oh yeah. And we have the internet. And Paul took Charlotte to the store while I was putting Ella to bed. And it doesn't take that long. (Although she is not asleep, strictly speaking. She is yelling things from her 'room' (closet) such as "Mom? Park? Yeah?" "Mom, tee-tee?") So here I am. If anyone has the perserverence to keep checking my blog, that is.

This summer has been...

an interesting lesson in minimalism. We rented a one bedroom apartment for the summer for Paul's internship:

mostly because I didn't want to move our stuff and then move it back. Financially expensive, emotionally sound. So we loaded everything we could into our little Mazda (ourselves included) and basically started from scratch.

Clark and Linds came into town the same weekend we moved in and so we all "camped out" in our apartment the first few days. Clark and Paul braved a Mexican Flea Market to procure what little furniture we now live on. A king mattress and a futon. Paul and I later craigslisted (isn't that funny how that's becoming a verb, kind of like "google") a table, and so in the way of furniture, that's all we got. Oh, and a mattress for Ella... in our walk-in closet. Don't tell CPS. Sometimes we close her in the closet if she won't go to sleep. And we feel like real jerks for locking our daughter in a closet. But we do it in love, and she does

n't seem to mind too much. Usually, she just ends up singing Old McDonald quietly to herself, and bonding with her stuffed penguin... and then falling alseep.

Paul rides the train to work every morning. If the girls are up, we all walk down to the station together and kiss him goodbye. Last week I rode the train downtown for an outdoor concert, which was fun. The ticket-checker looked at me like I was getting a really good deal for my four dollars, with the three (me and the two girls) of us all riding on one pass. You don't have to pay until your kids are five.

This weekend has been our first weekend not going back to College Station. Whew! So nice. Paul and I went estate sale shopping this morning, mostly just because we like looking at other people's stuff. Seriously. So interesting. We did buy sheets for our king bed for $1. Which just happened to be all the cash we had. :)

Life is simple, but good. I am loving not having very much stuff. All of our dishes were dirty the other day, and we just barely had a full dishwasher load. Ella has maybe five toys, and a few books and she stays plenty busy in her play. We do have a little yard where she takes a few tupperware bowls and plastic cups and pours water, and plays with the rocks and sticks out there. I am loving that. I just read a book called Simplicity Parenting, so now I don't even have to feel guilty that she doesn't have (m)any toys. It was a great book. Although he doesn't advocate the level of minimalism we are living... but I do. I am getting rid of the rest of my toys when we go back to A&M. She is a great helper and loves to help me clean and cook, which is also good for her development. Andhopefully having less to play with will allow her to be more creative (forcing her to create her own play, rather than following the script of whatever toy strikes her fancy). I can't wait until she can talk, so I know everything going on in that sweet little head. (Although that is a whole nother post.) (There's another made up word that we use all the time.)

We don't have internet either, if you haven't guessed. So we utilize the services of Starbucks and the Public Library. Good times. We are getting internet, though. We've put if off, trying to decide if we really need it. "Need it". Of course we don't need it. You know. But we do "need" it. I like being more connected than I am. And I'm getting used to not having it, so hopefully I'll waste less time on the internet once we're connected again. Hopefully.

At a summer concert sponsored by at&t. It was a nice venue, out on the patio of the at&t Performing Arts Center.

Recent Happenings:

Who says you don't take pictures of the second baby? We have tons. Featured here. Not in any sort of order at all. It's been a busy couple of weeks getting settled in the "City House". I would load more, but this internet is so SLOW! Pictures forthcoming: Clark and Linds in Dallas! (with us.)

Paul, with his goatee. (He's clean-shaven now.) And Aunt La-La.
In the lake last weekend.
"Why is everyone staring at me?" Charlotte and Grandma Polly at our Mother's Day party.
Aunt Rachel and the baby on the boat last weekend. So much fun.
The mini-mustache.
My personal favorite from Paul's facial hair. The hick. All he needs is a mullet.