Sunday, March 25

Meet me in St. Louis!

This weekend we met Jon's parents in St. Louis. It was fabulous! Despite a forecast of heavy rain, we had three sunny days of perfect weather. We did so many fun things together, but this is my favorite picture of the weekend because it really captures how much the boys love Nona and Papa T.

Monday, March 19

My third arm

 We don't have a TV. Our children have no instant babysitter when I need half an hour. Until today. Today I discovered now that London is excited about the washer, having a front loader is my best pinch babysitter again. Jack is amused that London is amused and I am amused that they watched it for 20 minutes straight today.


New trick!

 London is rolling out the trick wagon. He can now get to a sitting position, army crawl like his life depends on it, stand while holding on to stuff, sit down without falling over from said standing position, walk along couch, walk holding one hand, wave and say bye-bye, say mama, and daddy "claims" he says "dada". He is doing everything but growing right now! I am loving how little he is at the moment, it means I can hold him that much longer.


Sunday, March 18

Somehow they got prettier...

 I don't know what possessed them to become pinker, but they are super beautiful now! I won't post anymore pictures until the leaves take over, or there are peaches...


Thursday, March 15

We fled our house...

 Weather took a turn for spring this week. Windows have been open for four days straight, attic fan is running, and Taylors are barefoot and out of doors. Nothing can keep us in longer than it takes to change a diaper. The only drawback is that sickening feeling I have when I realize that Jack is already tanning and I am still hoping the dark speck on my hand might be a new freckle and not dirt. Why does the sun never warm my complexion?
 We will soon see if London has the bronzing quality of the Taylors or just their crazy hair. :)







 This is a random adorable picture of Jack. In the full picture he is sitting behind an enormous bowl of popcorn.

 London's exploring is preferably done while still touching another human with at least three fingers. He has a fascination with quickly eating leaves, even though he is understanding "not in your mouth" and surely will soon realize that eating them is what makes him sick...
Sorry Jon. You're just a security blanket at this point.

Blossoms in full glory!

 The peach tree gets more beautiful! I can't wait til it is the full 6 foot potential so there can be more flowers!


Day 3

 They are opening up!


Wednesday, March 14

Spring Bites

 Each spring for at least a decade now has bitten this poor little black thumbed gardener like a stealthy spider. I think there must be some euphoric side effect because it always persuades me to shell out some money and plant something. I think I have found my niche. Trees. This is my little darling peach tree. To be exact it is a Sensational Dwarf Peach that I bought last year to perfectly finish the garden my brother in law built with me. It really does the trick. And, guess what!? It is still alive this year! I win. I took three clippings and am attempting to follow copious directions to make them produce roots and be three more little darlings for me. But, we'll see. In the meantime, the buds of the yearling are so vibrant and perfect. This is day two. The day before we noticed little round shapes, and the next day these buds peeped through.


Stay tuned for more blossoms unfolding! Also, does anyone know if every flower produces a peach like berry bushes and apple trees?

Sunday, March 4

The Leather Years

 
Happy Anniversary always starts with a good breakfast in bed around here :) We have figured out how to beat the Valentine's day system - having two sweetheart days only 2 weeks apart, I get Valentine's day to plan and execute, and Jon is the mastermind behind masterpiece anniversary days. This year marked our third year together. 
It started with this mural of food, followed by an hour of trying to pick clothes for a family picture, followed by an hour in a tiny hardware store where we realized three things - 
#1 It is almost spring. 
#2 We needed to spend about $30 more than we planned to brace ourselves for the season. 
#3 Our scheduled photo sitting was 15 minutes ago.
We raced to Sears, and lollied through a fun time with a sweet lady named Kelly. She likes Jack, and has taken his picture a few times for me before. Jack likes Kelly, the chairs in the studio, and the "tractors" out in front of the department store.
These are the last of the pictures we took on our Anniversary. You'll have to use your imagination a little from here.
After the pictures we raced home to change diapers, stuff little tummies, tuck in small boys, and cheerily wave farewell to a kind Grandma who was to be their guardian for the rest of the day. Thus, we exchanged a charming lunch at Andree's with overtired, albeit darling, children for a cozy lunch of shared soup and sandwich at panera with just each other (and the other 30 people eating there..) We kicked around some ideas, like crashing the Jazz concert we missed by an hour, but moved on to plan B. This entailed driving around looking in windows of houses for sale and trying backdoors and windows of the unoccupied ones. None availed us welcome entrance, but our imaginations soared as we dreamed of what a perfect house looks like to us. This took us out to the country lanes on the edge of Olathe, where we found the perfect location where you could only hear a plane in the sky, wind in the trees, and birds - lots of birds. Then we got lost trying to figure out how people get in and out of this area. Two hours later we meandered to Paulo and Bill's restaurant, on time for the first time all day we had the massive and enigmatic place to ourselves. We still aren't sure what we ordered, but it was fun.
Dashing home to get purtied up, we went from jeans to pearls in a neat 10 minutes and drove downtown to sit for an hour and a half under the soaring beauty of a father/son duet concert. The son played the flute, the father the organ. If asked to wager who would be first to reach the corners of the ornate, cavernous Catholic sanctuary, we would never have guessed it would be the flute. They were remarkable, accomplished musicians and the acoustics of the building were worthy of their quality.
After a stroll on the plaza we opted for a piece of pie while watching a lightning storm roll in. I wanted to park at the "dead end" signs, but Jon didn't believe they really meant it. So, squeezing our car through the metal sign posts (can cars actually suck their sides in?), we journeyed into forbidden land, which ended up being a labyrinth of yet to be used roads that led to the perfect vantage point at the edge of a large cliff with no street lights. The wind rocked our car and with the window down we listened to the thunder rumble closer and ate pie by the flashes in the sky.
Now, leather does have something to do with all of this. Really.

Way too many pictures of the same messy face.

 The light of our kitchen is new foodie London Patrick. He enthusiastically accepts offers of food from my plate, his bowl, whole mangos, squash avacados, little mesh bags with an assortment of other whole soft foods, and anything Jack slips him on the side. Most of the latter offerings have to be retrieved from London's cheeks in short order. He is simply not ready to digest waffles or lego men.
 I was going to pick the best of these pictures to write a short announcement to the world that London started solids this week, but every face is so hilarious I couldn't narrow it down any lower than this wide array. You can see his teeth, his "bababababa" hand in action, his goofy face, smiling face, and ecstatic wild eyes.


 Oh yeah, and you can see the results of his very interactive meal of pureed avacado, his current favorite.

Feel free to love the kid. We do.