Fri is our day to head to the library for story time and then over to SwRI to eat lunch with Daddy in the cafeteria (or "cafeterio" as Joseph calls it). I didn't get any shots during lunch today, but here are the kiddos sitting together just after story time. Today's books, songs, and finger plays were all about owls. Hoot hoot!

Later this afternoon, here's Rosalie showing off her mad skills at shaking and rolling a ball around. She's also not bad at catching it when I roll it to her!

Recently, I've convinced Rosalie that it can be fun to share her food with me. Of course, tonight she's eating Goldfish crackers, one of her favorites, so we'll see how it goes. It looks like she's getting ready to give me one...

but, nope! What a tease!

A minute later, she decides sharing is fun after all. At least, it's fun to put the cracker in Mommy's mouth. Now she's trying to get it back out again!

It's always amazing to me how happy Rosalie can be, even when she's really tired or hungry. Here she is at the end of a long day, obviously exhausted, but still with a smile on her face. How we love our sweet, little girl!

Most every afternoon when Daddy comes home, he likes to take the kiddos out for a walk or to play at the park. It's usually a great time for me to get things cleaned up and organized around the house, but today I decided to tag along. Here's Rosalie all ready to go...

Joseph getting on his bike...

and we're off! We've got a pretty big hill to go up right at the beginning, and then it's all downhill to the playground. That makes for an fun walk there, but it sometimes gets a little hairy coming back, especially when Joseph's already tired from playing so hard at the park. In any case, we're all feeling glad to be on our way now!

Along our way, I spotted this Texas Redbud getting ready to bloom. Unlike most trees, it will form these bright pink buds all over, including the trunk itself. I remember my Granni and Grandpa were always happy to find one growing on their ranch, and I don't blame them. It's a lovely tree!



Here are just a couple more shots from along the way...

including one of these forlorn-looking sneakers hanging from the top of a corner streetlamp. They've actually been there since we moved in over a year ago, and I wonder about them every time I pass by.





After my interlude with the shoes, I had to hurry to catch up with the rest of the gang before arriving at the park. Rosalie has actually been on the swings a handful of times before, but this is the first time we've had a camera with us, too. She isn't scared a bit, and will happily swing away as long as we're here!

Meanwhile, Joseph decided he'd rather ride his bike than play at the playground. After a few jaunts around the parking lot, it's about time for us to head home. It's been a lot of fun, though, and I can see why Joseph and Rosalie both look forward to Daddy getting home every day!

Last night I mixed up some homemade finger paint that is supposed to wash up easily. Still, I found myself taking a few deep breaths and gulping down my orderly tendencies this morning before setting Joseph to work painting at the table. Well, actually, he is in fact painting on the table itself, and although it took him a minute to make sure he really understood what I was telling him to do, he's now smearing and slapping with gusto!

He managed to cover about half the table before running out of paint. I thought there was more than enough, but I guess I should have made more! In any case, this certainly has been a successful experiment, and now we're off to the shower to clean up!

Rosalie is fascinated with our dryer. She love watching the clothes tumble around while it's running, and she loves investigating its contents when it's not. Speaking of doing laundry, I finally figured out how to trick our high-efficiency washer into filling all the way up with water, so I've been daydreaming and experimenting with cloth diapers again. Rosalie's been wearing cleaned-up prefolds all day to see if our stink issues are truly gone, and so far, so good! Call me crazy, but I just think snuggly, soft cloth diapers are too much fun!

Although it took a little convincing for Joseph to let Rosalie share the piano with him, they've been having a lot of fun together since!

Tim's mom let us borrow her telephoto lens when we were visiting in Dec, and Tim pulled it out today to try taking some shots through the back windows. I just love this one of a little Bewick's Wren up in our tree!

Rosalie stood right up using the wall this afternoon for the first time. That means she can get up just about anywhere in the house she wants now, and I'm sure cruising is soon to follow. What a busy little bee!

Meanwhile, I took Joseph out to the back patio and showed him how to "paint" the tiles with water. Here he is filling in squares...

swooping across them...

and splattering, a technique he worked out entirely on his own!

I sure do love having our own back yard! Not only is there more space to play and get wet and dirty...

but we get to observe nature so much more closely this way. Our Texas Mountain Laurel bloomed this same time last year, almost to the day, and is a sure sign that warmer weather is on its way!

It's Valentine's Day and here are the kiddos in their festive pj's this morning. We already had a delicious strawberry-banana-pecan-pancake breakfast, and although we've still got some basic things like shopping to do today, it's nice that it's Sat and we're able to celebrate the day all together here at home!



We still have some candy left from Christmas, so despite Joseph's interest in the plastic-heart-ensconced gumballs at H-E-B last night, I made some red velvet cupcakes. Considering that the recipe calls for an entire bottle of red food coloring, it seemed like just the thing for Valentine's Day. With just a little cocoa and topped with cream cheese frosting, these definitely taste as good as they look!

Poor Rosalie didn't get a cupcake, but she doesn't seem to mind too much. As I've said before, she's just happy to eat whatever she can get her hand on. Tim jokes that she's our little Roomba, cruising around the house attempting to ingest any loose bits she comes across. In any case, we're all having a happy Valentine's Day together today!

Here's just a cute video of Tim playing with the kids after getting home from work today. They both are so excited to see him when he walks in, and I don't blame them He's such an awesome daddy!

Our little bug is growing and changing so much every day lately! She's spending much more time standing up in all sorts of places, and is obviously feeling more confident behind her walker wagon here. This is also the first time I've seen her transfer her hands while standing, and notice her especially cute little "hi!"



A little later, here she is rolling like crazy in the blankets again. What a fun little girl!

Spring comes early here in TX! Today, we've got the windows open and our attic fan on to get a nice breeze going through the house. Rosalie saw these curtains blowing around and rushed over to investigate. Yes, that is Rock Lobster playing in the background: my mom sent Joseph some pj's with red lobsters on them for Valentine's Day, so we've been discussing lobsters at length this morning. Plus, it's a great song, of course!

It hailed tonight for about 10 seconds. It wasn't long, but it tried to make up for it in size!

Lately, there's no stopping our busy little bee! Sayonara to the days of the tractable, innocent, stationary baby. It's probably because my attention is divided between her and Joseph, but it already feels like she's into everything and going everywhere, and she's not even walking yet! The only time she really slows down is to sleep and eat. She really comes running whenever she sees me getting the high chair out!

The rest of the time, she's doing things like rolling in the blankets...

examining every shoe she can get her hands on...



and following the vacuum all around the house! She keeps her distance somewhat while it's running, but here she is coming in for a closer look after I shut it off. I just can't get tired of watching her explore her world!

We've been doing a lot of work in our back yard lately, digging up concrete, pruning trees and bushes, and generally getting ready for spring. Both kids love going out with us, too, and here's Joseph showing off his muddy hands tonight!

Meanwhile, here's Rosalie truly pulling up for the first time! This video also show her waving to Daddy when she spies him through the kitchen window. She is such a social little bug, and I'm starting to strongly suspect that "hi" is her first word!

Now that Rosalie knows she can get all around the house and do what she wants so much of the time, she's beginning to be a lot more assertive. In fact, the word ferocious might be a better fit for all the growling and shrieking she's been doing to make sure everyone knows exactly how she feels! In any case, I just love this shot of our spunky girl with her crazy hair and wild clothes, playing with a garish dinosaur puzzle!

Of course, when you look at her like this, she doesn't look ferocious at all. Angelic is more the word that comes to mind here, and exhausted! She's working her way down to only one nap a day, which makes for a very tired girl at the end of the day. She flinched only slightly when the noisy shutter went off the first time...

and after that she just kept on snoozing. I'm amazed that she still wants to be wrapped up in her blanket like this before bed, but we've tried leaving her without it loads of times. Let's just say those have been times her new-found assertiveness has really shone through! We leave her pretty loose now, though, so she can get her arms out in a flash if she rolls over or just wants out. Looking at her all stretched out in her crib like this, I can see that she really is getting big fast!

Meanwhile, here's our other cute, tired kiddo getting ready for bed down the hall with Daddy. There's no doubt that we all love bedtime around here!

We're back in the saddle again, or at least back on the potty! As the first few days of potty training wore on, our insistence that Joseph visit the potty every couple hours began to deteriorate into a major power struggle, so we decided to simply forget about it and try again later. The time seemed ripe again this week, so I simply told him to put on his undies, to try to keep them dry and clean, and left him to figure the rest out himself. It's been going swimmingly, and although there have been accidents here and there, Joseph is taking responsibility for his elimination and really figuring out how it works. We sure are proud of him, but most importantly, he seems proud of himself!

No matter how astounding it may seem to me, Rosalie will be 11 months old this week! Grandma and Grandpa Gedlaman sent this little walker wagon as an early birthday gift, and here she is investigating it for the first time this morning.



I think she's at the perfect stage for this, as she's close, but not quite ready to start cruising and walking. Although I do need to keep it from rolling, it's really sturdy, and I don't think she could pull it over if she wanted to. Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for the fun gift!



Later this afternoon, Tim caught these videos of Rosalie playing with the sliding desk drawers. This is one of her favorite daily activities lately, which she'll keep up as long as the basket stays on the shelf. It's always fun to see her explore her world!

Here's a cute, candid video of Joseph splashing and singing in the tub tonight. I think we must have sung "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go" at church today, because it's been stuck in his head all afternoon!