Working Weekend

I had to work all weekend so Tim got to keep the kids entertained. They had a blast, as usual. Here M vamps while waiting for the Vietnamese cultural kids concert to start Saturday morning. I think this is after they all made phoenix kites. How cool!?Then this morning the kids were all sweet with each other at farmers market. Awww.
Did you know Matilda can blow bubbles?
She's been working on it for a while and mastered it a month or two ago. Also, a photo of our house where you can't see any cardboard boxes. Yay!

Beach Report

Today's fun included tractor watching at the produce stand.

We played a lot of board games during the rain storm. Matilda is really into playing Sorry now.

And after a year of anticipation, Matilda finally got to try the waterslides. She kept up a constant stream of giggles for the entire 90 minutes she was there.

Porter was quite interested in watching but had no interest in sliding yet.

Tradition

We're here in North Carolina, repeating all our family traditions from past years and having a blast. A bit more rain this year than others so we are squeezing in beach time when we can and filling out the rest of it with more indoor fun. Two more days of whirlwind fun before we return to our unpacking duties at home. Hopefully we get more baby turtles in that time.

Unpacking

To buy myself some time one day recently, I let Matilda unpack some toy boxes in her room.

I think overall it probably just created more work for me, but she had quite a blast re-discovering things she hasn't seen in a week or three. It took about 30 minutes to unearth the bed that night at storytime.

In Disguise

Life goes on around unpacking and last weekend we went to a birthday party that requested the kids come in costume. Porter picked pirate over superhero when offered the choice. I am not sure what Matilda was; all morning she kept cycling through dress-up items with a minimum of 10 items on her body at any given moment. They arrived looking awesome:

To complete the fun there was also a magic show at the festivities. Porter sat so intently listening and following instructions for the whole show. Adorable.

Boy Shorts

We ended up at the park with no Matilda clothes this week and discovered she fits (just barely) into some 18 month size Porter shorts and a 2T top. Pretty funny.

As she got into her bathing suit I told her to throw her clothes into the backpack. Of course in her excitement to get to the wading pools she didn't, and in my rush to get everyone out the door I didn't verify. So thankful her big-little brother helped her out.

In related news Porter said "my sister" for the first time this week and melted our hearts. He was having a (typical) hard time getting to sleep and we had brought him into our room to try and settle down. After a few minutes he said he wanted to "go sleep with my sister." So sweet. If only he would stop scaling over her to tumble out of the double bed every other night and crash down on to the hardwood the whole sibling bed thing would be quite peaceful.

Pancakes in Our Future

Meet my new stove. I am so excited about this beautiful old gal. I think she needs a name. Maybe Betty?

Regardless, I can't wait to try out the griddle.

The Attic

If you ask Matilda what she's most excited about at our new house she'll tell you the attic most times. Today she got her first look up there.

Tomorrow, with the aid of Gaurav's collapsable ladder/finger guillotine, we will be able to get all the way up there and really check it out. So exciting. Maybe we have an actual storage solution for all this invaluable stuff of ours.

Moving Report: Exhausted

I was so focused on getting packed up in time for the movers, that I had not properly contemplated the enormous job of unpacking ahead of me.

We are enjoying the new place a lot but living like we are camping with just the essentials available. My unpacking progress is severely limited by my children's great desire to be outdoors. They love our new space so much and can barely be contained indoors. From the moment they wake up, until they collapse into bed (together!) at night they are hounding me to go out.It is awesome except for the fact that I don't really trust them to not dash out the gate so I can't really make any house progress. However, it is resulting in lots of great playtime and summer fun.

Moving Report

The move Saturday went really well & we are settling in. This morning I managed to shift around the box mountain enough to find the shoe box, much to Matilda's delight as she's been hounding me for her flip flops for 4 days. My most proud accomplishment: I hooked up the washer this morning! Just in time as the mountain of laundry is almost as big as the box pile now! We'll get internet Wednesday so pictures to come then.

Pack It Up, Pack It In

Things are humming along here pretty well with the packing. 34 hours until the movers arrive and I think we are going to be in good shape. Everyone has been pitching in with the process. Porter was really pleased with packing the spices and only ate about 4 tablespoons of random herbs in the process.

Tim packed all his own cds and is looking especially sad as he learns that I have vetoed all bids to install these shelves at the new place. My big coup of today was finally getting the refrigerator at our new place into position. When it was delivered we discovered it would not fit through the back door into the utility/entryway room where we want it. After removing several doors (fridge and household) and several trips later on the dolly the fridge is now plugged in and (hopefully) getting cold. While I wrangled the fridge Porter learned how to turn on the spigot in the yard and made me thankful that we won'y be paying the water bill. Water conservation aside, he was terribly entertained and much cleaner afterwards. Hopefully the kiddie-pool-in-our-future will help reduce endless-spigot-running-sessions.

Kid Bed

We started trying convince Porter he's ready to sleep somewhere other than our room. (Like crazy people, we decided on top of the move-change to totally mess with our kids.) Four nights now he's slept in the "kid bed" and there have been ups and downs. Regardless of how the transition is going, when they are sleeping it is adorable.

The first morning they woke up together I had already gone off to work so Tim got the experience the first wake up to a storm of kid feet busting in his room. He said they were already in wild spirits so it was quite a fun, funny sight.

Red White and Blue

Happy 4th everyone! We spent our day packing and picnicking, quite nice.

Whoopie Cushion

Tim bought this whoopie cushion on our camping trip at a gas station. Bathroom humor gets A LOT of play around here lately and Matilda is particularly entertained by this gag.

She was laughing so hard it was infectious.

The Loop

Every house seems to have a loop. The kids didn't waste any time in finding one at our new place.

Sorry new neighbors.

Bear Camping: Day 2, 3 and 4

In an effort to procrastinate from packing, I thought I should round out camping pictures. Here is a jumble of shots from our Sequoia adventures. Tim & the kids with General Sherman, the largest tree in the world.Goofing off at breakfast.
We took the carseats out of the car each night to reduce the risk of the bears peeling open our car for some old snacks crammed in the crevices. The bears seemed to leave the seats alone overnight, but come morning the kids could not. They had so much fun wrestling and playing on these seats. Here they were laughing hysterically and attacking each other with kisses.
Canoe rental on Hume lake = perfect afternoon. The water there is sparkly like it is filled with gold flakes.
Everyone assured us the lake was really cold so we just went out in the canoe without out bathing suits. Three shower-free days camping and the hot sun on our backs made the warm water on our fingertips quite appealing. When we couldn't take it anymore, we had to find a beach so we could jump in the warm water, clothes and all.
Check out action-Tim and his snow covered mountains. Pretty sweet.
This tired out girl fell asleep on my lap roasting marshmallows.
Pre-breakfast hike in the snow.
These guys are so sweet and lovey with each other. They have such a good time together that it just melts me.
Quite the fashionista in footie jammies, sandals, and his sisters vest all while enjoying some hot chocolate.
Porter really wanted to touch this bear poop. Thankfully he did not. After seeing so much bear poop, it was not a big surprise when these bears wandered across our trail and then held us hostage for like 20 minutes as they sat around too close to the path for us to continue. By the time they moved a pretty big crowd of hikers had gathered (a "bear jam") waiting to get by. Some big trees growing here.Surprisingly small pinecones from the giant sequoias.Inspecting some seedlings on top of this fallen giant.