A few afternoons ago, we walked into our bathroom and found a skinny earthworm slinking around on the floor. I called Joseph in, and as we examined it together I became aware that this earthworm actually had eyes! Then, a red tongue came flickering out of it's mouth, and I became awfully suspicious about our visiting "worm". When I saw the scales, I became convinced that it wasn't a worm at all, but a tiny snake! Tonight, we found another one also trying to gain some traction on our slippery bathroom tile, and decided to make sure they weren't something dangerous. It turns out they're actually called worm snakes! They don't bite, they eat ants, termites, and other pesky insects, and they tend to show up indoors after rain, which we've had quite a bit of in the last week or so. Picking it up, I was only a little surprised at how extremely muscular its little body is, and now I'm going to make Tim hold it, too before we release it back into the wild!

Two things Rosalie really loves to do lately are applaud with her hands and voice...

and point to our noses. She's loves to grab glasses, too, but that's nothing new! She still is such a happy, lovable girl!

Rosalie may not be able to walk yet, but she sure can climb!

Here's Joseph doing a little more cutting today, this time separating the legs of this octopus and doing it all by himself!

I tried to catch Rosalie here saying "dada" again, but she had her mind on other things. In any case, this is a good demonstration of how she likes to play throughout the day.

In the meantime, Joseph finished his octopus and is very proud of it! He actually wanted to hold it up for a picture, and I'm pretty sure he wanted it oriented the way it is. I think the tentacles look more like hair to him, and the eyebrow looks like a mouth!





Later this afternoon, here are the kiddos playing together with some Tinkertoys. They really do have a lot of fun together!

Rosalie is now saying "mama" and "dada" regularly, although I'm not sure we caught the "dada" here. Isn't her "hi" the cutest? We sure love our social little bug!

Rosalie had her MMR vaccination exactly 10 days ago, and had shown no reaction to speak of until last night, when a slight rash appeared all over her body. Apparently, it's from the measles component of the vaccine, is quite common, and should disappear within a few days. I've been a little nervous about this shot in particular, because while the theoretical link between the MMR vaccine and autism seems dubious, even the federal government hasn't ruled it out entirely yet. I really had to stick to my parental guns when I told my doctor we wouldn't be doing the three other shots on the schedule that day, and she started bullying me with words like "death". On the one hand, I think vaccines are a modern medical miracle and think it's important to get them. On the other, not everything is yet known about the body's response to them, and it strikes me that the less those tiny bodies have to deal with at one time, the better. So we decided some time ago to try to spread things out a bit to avoid immunizing for more than two or three different diseases at a time. Rosalie won't even fall behind the CDC's recommended schedule, she'll just need more frequent visits to the doctor to do it.

Moving on now to something a little more fun, notice the cute pink pants Rosalie is wearing.

Notice how well they fit her waist...

and her bottom...

giving lots of room to bend and move without being baggy. Aren't they nice? Well, pin a rose on my nose, because I made them!

They really weren't hard, but it's the first time I've purchased a pattern, cut the fabric, and sewed it all by myself. They certainly aren't perfect: they could be a little longer and I realized too late that the fleece is wrong-side-out, but they fit great and look too cute!

Today, Rosalie decided that bear-walking is the new crawling, and has been doing nothing else since getting up this morning. Here she is in action!

She's also hard at work developing other useful skills, such as rolling things and making for the camera when mommy is otherwise preoccupied capturing video with it. What a little cutie she is!

Despite the fact that it's not one of his favorite foods, Joseph seems to have an ongoing fascination with instant oatmeal. This morning Grandma Cindy is helping him identify all the flavors by their packaging, and he keeps asking which one is the papaya oatmeal. He just loves being silly lately!



Speaking of oats, here's Rosalie eating her Cheerios for breakfast while I make some pancakes for everyone else. Joseph is so excited to help feed her, and Rosalie thinks it's pretty fun, too, even though she could technically manage on her own. Joseph is such a great big brother!

Later this afternoon, Grandma had a chance to play with the kids for a while. Here she is talking to Joseph about oatmeal again...

playing tug-of-war with the measuring tape with Rosalie...

showing Joseph how to dial a rotary phone...

and playing catch with Rosalie, and I really mean playing catch, as in both catching a ball when it's rolled to her and propelling it back toward her partner. This girl is a natural!



She is also extremely cute, of course, although I admit my opinion is heavily biased. This darling hand-crocheted Easter hat arrived in the mail today from her Great Aunt Ellen (my mom's sister), and she thinks pulling it off her head over and over again is such a fun game!



Just before dinner tonight, here's Grandpa Steve joining in on the fun around the little trampoline, too. Although it feels like they just got here, they head back to AZ tomorrow. We've had a great visit and we're sure going to miss them!

Tim got off work a bit early this afternoon so he and his dad could work together applying some knock-down texture to our bathroom walls. We had stripped off the old wallpaper some months back, leaving only bare, smooth drywall in its place. Here they are getting ready to liven it up a bit in our master bath!

Most of the work involves mess containment and clean-up, but the covering, taping, washing, and wiping aren't nearly as glamorous as the actual splattering of the drywall mud, so that's what I'm here to see. I think Tim's pretty excited for his chance to make a big mess and not get in trouble for it!

It's hard to tell from this shot, but this stuff is going all over the place! I guess that's why it's so important to get everything even remotely close completely covered first. It's actually time for me to duck out because I'm starting to feel specks hitting my face and arms. Hopefully the lens doesn't get hit, too!

A little later, after the mud has a chance to dry a bit, here they are doing the actual knocking down. I'm really impressed with their work and think Tim and I could even attempt it by ourselves now if we ever wanted to. I'm especially grateful for Tim's dad being willing to spend so much time helping us with this. It looks fantastic!

Grandma Cindy came with us to Joseph's Little Gym class today and brought her camera along to catch a few shots of the action. Here they are just getting going!

This is Joseph's fourth time in the class and each time he's been doing a little bit better about listening to the teachers and trying to do the tricky movements they ask him to do. He's the only boy in his class, but I think it's great for him!

This week has actually proved to be a bit more challenging than normal for Joseph, though. Just after the last shot was taken, the instructors turned on a large air compressor that was just too loud for him! Grandma and I tried various ways to coax him into the gym room, but even after the class moved on to another station, I think he was feeling too anxious to really focus and have fun. I finally did pressure him into at least getting up to this bar, and I think he's glad he tried it. It's a hard balance as a parent to know when to push and not to. I'm not sure I got it right this week, but I'll just keep trying!

He did seem to really enjoy the front rolls. Here he is getting ready...

going over...

and finishing with a big smile on his face! Now that he's starting to relax a bit, Grandma and I need to get out of the room and let the teachers do their jobs!

Here we are watching through the window as he jumps on a trampoline board with Miss Renee...

and musters his courage to jump off this high block. What a brave guy!

It's more than likely that this kind of running off at the end of class today is simply his way of letting off some tension. Next week, I think I'm going to focus more on simply helping him have fun. Like they always say, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar!



He gets so excited before we come every week, that I know he really wants to be a part of what's happening here. I'm so grateful Grandma was here today to help with Joseph, Rosalie, and me, too!

This morning, Rosalie is improving her dance moves, all thanks to Grandma Cindy! Grandma and Grandpa Allison arrived last night to stay with us a few days while Tim's dad teaches at Ft Sam this week, and although Rosalie has been a little wary of having strangers (to her, of course, not the rest of us) around, she's having a lot of fun with Grandma now figuring out how to turn on this music and sway back and forth to it. That's actually Grandma's arm that comes in to push the button, and of course Joseph loves to help, too!

A little later, here we all are enjoying the climber and slide together while Grandma takes some pictures.

Rosalie is definitely more interested in climbing than Joseph was as a baby. This is about as high as she can get, at least for now!



She loves the slide, too, and wants to do it over and over again. What a happy look on her face!

Back at this funny play tunnel (recently donated to us to get it out of our church nursery where it had become a climbing hazard), both Rosalie and Joseph are really getting their groove on!



After lunch, Grandma helped me get this week's art experiment set up for Joseph. We're using red, yellow, and blue food coloring and water in these ice cube tray to learn about color mixing. This is perfect because Joseph has really been into the book Mouse Paint lately, so we read it just before getting going to help make the connection.

What a great-looking smile on his face, too!



Now we'll do a little work in Joseph's Kumon workbooks, which I think are put together so well. Here I am helping with some folding...



here's Grandma helping with the cutting...

and here's Rosalie just looking cute!

Finally, here's a bit of a physical challenge for Joseph's day. Grandma is pulling him around on this big blanket, and he has to keep himself upright to enjoy the ride without using his hands or arms. It's pretty tricky and fun! When Rosalie saw what was happening with the blanket, she immediately wanted in on the fun, and came to hop on the back with her hands. She's been crawling along behind it all over the house!

Tim's mom mentioned that it seemed like I was homeschooling already, which I suppose is true in fact, although I hadn't really been thinking of it that way. I don't always do this much every day, but I'm getting better, especially since Joseph looks forward to it and helps remind me. It's so rewarding to see him learn and have fun doing it!