birthdays and slides

I have some odds and ends this week... I wasn't able to post an entry last week, so I am posting some pictures and videos from the past couple of weeks.

We had a wonderful time at Lucas and Lily's second birthday party in Chesapeake. We saw Redmond's mom and his older brother there, neither of whom we've seen in quite some time. The twins were adorable as always... I have some pictures from that event, and also, some random pictures of Sadie playing at home and on Meemaw's playground.

Here's Sadie on Mom's playground. Daddy is trying to coax her to come down the slide, but she really would prefer to see Daddy slide. Watch them negotiate.



The great present unwrapping at Lucas and Lily's party. Watch Sadie try to horn in on the presents.



One little monkey, jumping on the bed...



Here's Lucas, playing to the paparazzi...


Redmond's mother, holding the birthday boy...


Whee! Bling!

Lily looks around for more bling..

Sadie, on Lucas and Lily's rocking horse, with jumper on...


Sadie, on Lucas and Lily's rocking horse, with jumper off, replaced by a bow on the head...


Here's Sadie at home, fixated on her trains... Peepaw usually brings an engine every time he visits, so Sadie often announces "Peepaw bring TRAIN".



This is Meemaw's new playground...


Sadie has eschewed the baby bucket swing for the "grownup" swing now.


Coming down the slide...



Do we have to go home yet?

Back to the Museum of Life and Science.. again...

You all are probably so tired of seeing pictures of our constant trips to the Durham Museum of Life and Science. I think we just get in a rut- Sadie loves going there, so when we have a few hours to spend on the weekend recreating, we tend to go there... At least she's bigger each time I post museum pictures, but you've seen the butterflies and sound garden a bazillion times now...

Here's Sadie being an astronaut. She puts this bag over her head and says "I'm an astronaut!!!" We don't let her do this very long because asphyxiated children tend to not grow up to be astronauts...

Sadie and Obi wait patiently to take a walk...



Here we are at the museum, checking out the new wind exhibit. There are all kinds of stations where children can learn about how wind works. Interestingly enough, many were closed because... it was too windy. We actually had very heavy winds this day, and were buffeted all over the road in the car...


Here's the sailboat exhibit... Children can make their own sailboats and see how the wind affects the motion and trajectory of the boats, based on the orientation of their sails...





Butterflies feasting on fruit...

Sadie looks for butterflies to chase...

A Muscovy duck and a sleeping pig in a blanket... We took gobs of pictures of animals, including lemurs, wolves and bears, and all that came out was this one...

Sadie climbs the stairs of a train caboose. She was pretty excited about this, as she's extremely train oriented right now. In fact, she has asked me if Thomas brushes his teeth and if he goes to bed and puts away his toys. Of course, the answer is always "Yes!" because she gauges what she should be doing based on Thomas.

In the caboose, looking out the window...

If I could, I'd buy a caboose and put it in our yard as a "mother-in-law" suite and play area for Sadie. Unfortunately, "No train cars in yards" is one of the few bylaws of our neighborhood association. "No swine" is another. Obviously, our neighborhood is out in the middle of nowhere!

Sadie plays the cymbals...
Sandboxes are always popular. I'd put one in my yard, except our neighborhood is full of outdoor cats, and, well, you can do the math...

Random drive-by

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, and I missed last week's post. (I try to post once a week). Additionally, I lost another @#@#@ memory card and just picked up a new one yesterday, so my offerings are slim. I'll try to post a second entry this week.

Sadie has been growing progressively silly. She has taken to walking around with a bubble-shaped plastic sack on her head and saying "I'm an astronaut!". She picks up her Fisher Price Little People animals and turns them into airplanes. And she sadly announces at least once a day "Snow is GONE."

I can't really explain why, but I feel a sense of loss and sadness whenever Sadie learns to pronounce words the right way For a long time, butterflies were "Wee oh Whys", dinosaurs were "Dino-Doze" and fish were "Bish". As I hear Sadie begin to learn the proper way to pronounce these words, there's this bittersweet realization that time is marching on and that she's turning into her own little person who will eventually grow up and leave home. Last night, she asked me to put on her butterfly shirt, and as I slid the shirt over her head, I said "Here's your wee-oh-why shirt, Sadie", to which she earnestly replied, "It's not wee-oh-why, Mommy, it's butterfly!". Oh, emo... :-(

I was out of town this weekend, visiting my best friend, Karen, in Norfolk, and pretending to be a young person with a life outside of working and child rearing. We hung out with another old buddy, Jeff, and enjoyed a few drinks and I was out until 2 am, which is only three hours before I usually wake up for the day! I'm clearly not a spring chicken, as I'm still feeling fatigue from Saturday night on Monday. So, I missed Claudia's first birthday party, but Redmond and Sadie attended, sans camera.

These few pictures are from Emily and James' Scottish party in honor of Robert Burns' birthday. The highlight was getting to eat haggis for the first time. It actually is not bad- really. If you are familiar with kibbe, it tastes much like Scottish kibbe. I attempted to feed it to Sadie, but she wouldn't get within 50 miles of the stuff.

Here I am, preparing to eat haggis. Watch Sadie behind me with a dubious look on her face.

Hmm... Not bad.


Here's Sadie, hanging out in Pippa's crib. Silly girl likes to pretend she's sleeping, along with very loud snoring noises. I'm not sure where she learned about snoring... ;-)

Whee! I'm swinging from the edge of a crib!

I'm not sure why I'm posting this picture, other than to show that Sadie appears to have a kingfisher upon her shirt.

Sadie was wearing a jumper over this shirt and tights, but she ditched it almost immediately. We managed to convince her to not continue disrobing. She's turning into quite the little nudist, and I'm hoping this stage is only temporary. Occasionally, I'll leave the room for a few minutes and will return to find her completely nekked, clothes and diaper strewn around the room... Sometimes, she's bothered to don a pair of my shoes or boots.

Lila, Pippa and Molly contemplate the refrigerator...

Just chillin'... I promise I won't suddenly say "chillaxing" all the time... It's just not dignified... ;-)

Sadie, hanging out on a baby seat...

One day, Sadie decided she wanted to stomp around in her ladybug costume from Halloween '06. I'm thinking it's time to invest in some dress up costume wear....