I tried not to laugh, I really did...

Aunt Tori sells Mary Kay ( www.marykay.com/tperkins1976 ) and she brought some samples when she visited over the weekend. Unfortunately, I did not get them put away as fast as I should have and this is the result when you take 1 Toddler + 1 eyeliner sample.

Pic-a-nic

We had a little BBQ at my house after the Memorial Day parade with Jeff, Robin, Myles, and my Mom and Dad. After we ate, there was a little pool action in our backyard. We learned something very important about Luke--he enjoys being naked just a little too much. I haven't bought any swim diapers yet so all I had to use on him was a regular one which didn't suit Luke very well so off the diaper went. He swam nakey (let's hope there wasn't a warm spot in the pool if you know what I mean) while Ella wore her new string bikini courtesy of Aunt Robbie and her friend, Sarah.

The *best* purchase ever!

I don't normally like to blow my own horn but WOOT WOOT, Y'ALL! Over the weekend, I went shopping and decided to buy the kids bean bag chairs. Ella's, of course, is purple and Luke's is green. They have had SUCH crazy amounts of fun with them. Not only do they enjoy leaning on them watching Backyardigans or whatever cartoon catches their fancy but they have built forts out of them, jump on them, or any old other shenanigan (is that how you spell that?) they think of. Yesterday, they decided to jump from the couch and land on them while laughing like fools. Seems like some responsible adult should've put a stop to it but they were having so much fun I just couldn't. Bad parent! We did learn an important lesson, though. It's never fun to have Luke on his bean bag then have Ella put hers on him then jump on top of the bean bag and yell "Yeeeeeee-ha!." That'll earn you a time out faster than poking Jane in the eye with your lego (ok, poking Jane in the eye won't actually earn you a time out but you get the general idea, no?).

Yes, I realize I'm dating myself but...

I'm choosing to call this pose of Luke's the "What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?" pose.

I could've also called it "Ella Beautification-Phase 3." We were heading to a Memorial Day parade in town and she decided that the wagon would be prettier with some flowers in it. Some days I wonder how this child could actually be mine. Is it too late to go on Maury and get the DNA testing?

Ella and her Aunt T

The less than thrilled to be there...

I think he may have taken this picture himself

Not everyone was thrilled to be there watching all the other girls (and one boy) perform. Myles and Luke were both a little, um, bored unless Ella was on stage. Luke did a lot of running back and forth between Aron and Aunt Annie and swinging on this railing. Unfortunately, Luke decided to take off and streak up the center aisle. He made it 3/4 the way to the stage before Aron could catch him. When Ella was up on stage, Myles screamed out "ELLA! THAT'S ELLA UP THERE!" I don't think she heard him because if she did, she probably would've yelled back at him. She must've really been concentrating on dancing : )

Ballet Finale

There were quite a few kids in the recital. Ella's class meets at 2:45 which is the first class of the day so we don't have a chance to see how many other kids take classes. I was surprised that there were around 55 kids to perform. There were 22 performances then a 15 minute intermission then there were another 18 performances. Yikes. That's a lot of performing. Ella's group was the 13th one to perform and she was also in the ballet finale. Ella came right out and parked herself in center stage for the finale. We all skipped out after the intermission and went to get some ice cream. Ella had her favorite--vanilla ice cream with marshmallow topping. At some point, she grabbed Grammie's ice cream cone and ate all of that.

Hooray for Hollywood, baby!

Last night was the big night. Ella's instructor and owner of the dance studio, Marilyn, had her 36th annual dance recital. The theme was Hooray for Hollywood. Ella's on the far left (if you can't tell). They all did ok. I've definitely seen them do better in rehearsel but being on stage and having the bright lights on them kind of confused them. I can't really say that any of them were scared to perform (Ella kept asking when it would be her turn to go onstage) but because things looked different, it made it weird for them.

Ella had, I think, the largest fan base of all the children. She had 12 people there to watch her perform: Aron, me, Grammie, Poppy, Grandpa Steve, Granny Lindy, Aunt Annie, Uncle Jeffy, Aunt Robbie, MyMy, Auntie Tori, and her Lanny (Lana, Tori's Mom). I was very glad that Auntie Tori was there so she could explain the different dance styles to me. I meant to get a picture of her and Ella but I forgot. Hopefully, she'll send me the picture she took and I'll post it.

My name is Lukie...and my Aunt Annie beats me...

No, Aunt Annie doesn't really beat him. Luke went and hung out with Aunt Annie and Granny Lindy yesterday. Somehow he ended up taking a tumble down Lindy's porch steps. Nobody quite saw what happened but by the looks of him we're guessing he took a nose dive off the steps and landed on his forehead. Poor Lukie. The funniest part of it is that he was so proud of it. He kept going up to people and pointing to his head saying "Bang..............head............"

I'm a counting machine

I was counting juice boxes with Luke this morning (hey, it's never too early to start, right?). I counted 1..2..3..4 and Luke said "Fi...Sih." Then he paused, and I said "Seven" he said "Eigh...Ni..." and I said "Ten!" Then he clapped and laughed. My kid, the future accountant.

Prima Ballerina

Ella had her ballet rehearsel last night. It was a complete costume dress rehearsel so she had to get in full ballerina mode.

Sleepy McSleeperson

Ella's Beautification--The Plain Jane Update

Ella and I were sitting on the couch the other night. Jane hopped up on the couch beside us and started to try to lick the ribbon on her collar. Ella looked at me and said "I don't think Janey likes her ribbon but it makes her look so pretty." I asked her what she thought we should do about that. She said she thought we should take it off her. So now, Janey is ribbon free but a little more Plain Jane.

Ella's moved on to things that can't get fussy if she beautifys them--like the coins in the picture. She decided they would be prettier with the heart stickers on them. My banister has also taken a hit--it now has three ribbons on it.

Ah, Amore

It's been a great experience to watch Ella and Luke as well as Myles play and interact with one another. Each one always looks out for the others. Myles came over the other night to play while Robin ran some errands. He wanted a snack so I went into the kitchen and cut up an apple for him. I put it in a bowl and handed it to him but he kept standing there. I asked him if there was something else he needed. He looked at me like I was a moron and said "Ella and Luke are going to need a snack, Aunt Annie. Need more than this." I cut up another apple in another bowl and told him to share with Luke and Ella. I waited a while then went in the living room to see what was going on. I peeked in and saw that Ella and Myles had taken two little chairs and put them side by side. Then I noticed that Myles and Ella were standing with their bowls of apple slices by their chairs patiently waiting while watching Luke struggle to get his little chair and line it up with theirs. Finally, Myles said "MyMy help you, Lukie?" Luke said yeah so Ella grabbed her chair and moved it away from Myles' chair so Myles could get Luke's and put it in the middle. Then all three sat down together to eat their apple snacks while watching the Backyardigans. Delaying eating a snack...now if that's not love I don't know what is!

Pomp and Circumstance

Last Thursday was a big day for Ella and Myles. It was Story Hour Graduation Day. That's right, those two little darlings graduated from their first year of story hour. They celebrated with a feast of pizza rolls, chicken nuggets, chips, and ice cream. Myles decided to bypass eating the pizza rolls and nuggets to go straight for the chips and three bowls of ice cream. The salty and the sweet...now that's the kind of guy Uncle Aron likes.

The woman on the left is Janet who is a coworker of my Mom's. She was my softball coach for many a season when I was growing up including the infamous game versus a rival town that required an ambulance be called three times due to injuries. I think that was the game that the opposing coach keyed Janet's car but I'm not sure. We won...that's all I remember.

The Ella World Beautification Project

The Victim
The Perpetrator
Victim Number 2

Ella has been on a crusade lately. She wants to make the world a prettier place. She's started with my house and things in our house. The first thing she beautified was Jane. We all know how I feel about Jane (I dreamt the other night that some random person came up to me and wanted Jane to come and live at their house which meant I could be free of her and her neurotic ways. I woke up with the biggest smile on my face until I looked over and saw Jane was licking my arm trying to wake me up. That same night, my friend Connie said that she dreamt that she won $100,000. I've never dreamed about winning a large sum of cash. I dream of getting rid of our anxiety-driven cat) so I found this rather amusing. Jane is now sporting a sweet baby blue ribbon on her collar. Since then, Ella has run around the house putting ribbons on everything. See also Victim Number 2, a.k.a my fridge. One might ask how she gets these ribbons--those were courtesy of Aunt Robbie who gave us a big bag of assorted ribbons for Ella's hair. One might also ask how she gets the ribbons on her victims. That would be my fault. How do I say no to such a cute little face?

Nerves of steel I tell you

On Monday, I dropped my car off to get the oil changed. Normally, my uncle or dad change my oil but they were busy so I dropped it off at the place down the street from me. The guy who owns it is named Bob. I dropped the car off at Bob's then I put the kids in the stroller and walked home. On the way home, Ella was curious about why we just left our car with Bob. I explained to her that Bob would be looking at our car and checking the oil for us. She said that was nice of Bob. I agreed (whatever). When we got home, she wanted to print out a bunch of pictures to color. Each one she printed out for certain people and she wanted the pictures to be of the letter that their name begins with. She printed out an A for Amy (and this picture is now beautifying her cubicle at work) and printed out a bunch of other letters, too. Then she wanted to print out a B for Bob so she could color it to tell him thank you for looking at our car. I tried to talk her out of it but she was having no part of it. So, my cutie colored a picture for Bob and put it in the stroller so she could have it when we went back to Bob's. We walked back to Bob's after he called to say the car was done. I thought she would chicken out with regards to giving Bob the picture after she saw him (she had stayed in the car when we dropped it off so she never actually saw him). Bob is about 6'3" and a good 325# and isn't exactly all fluffy around the edges if you know what I mean. I give Ella credit, though, she reached right under the stroller, pulled out her picture, and handed it to him without batting an eye. No way would I have given a picture to a man 10x my size at that age. She's got nerves of steel.

Boys Are Gross

Boys are gross. I'm not judging but am just stating a fact.

Aron called me this morning after he went to work. I was just stepping out of the shower when he called. He asked me "Have you smelled the kitchen lately?" Hmm...an odd question for 8 o'clock but I told him no anyway. He said "You really need to go and sniff it." Ok, whatever, can I at least towel off first?

I walked into the kitchen and was nearly knocked over by the overpowering smell of cheese. Not a good smell of cheese either. It was the smell of cheese that had been baking in the sun for about 48 hours. I immediately knew who was going to be responsible--the fuzzy headed one. Luke enjoys taking things and hiding them in the kitchen cupboards. Usually, it's something fairly benign. A cracker here. An empty juice box there. Nothing that will make the kitchen smell like rotted cheese. I went to his usual haunts...the cupboard with the baking sheets in it...nothing there...I went to the cupboard with my pots and pans...nothing there, either... Finally I went to the corner cupboard with the lazy susan in it for our cereals and crackers, etc. Way way back in the back I see a little purple something that has fallen off the lazy susan. I reached my arm in there and pulled out a sippy. You wouldn't think a sippy would cause such a smell BUT a sippy full of milk now THAT would cause a smell. Especially if it had been there long enough to have formed cheese. That's right, folks. The milk was no longer milk. We had our own little Luke Science Experiment going on. It was very solid and looked eerily similar to a soft ball of mozzarella cheese.

Boys are gross.

In the driver's seat

Luke went to see the pediatrician on Monday for his 18 month checkup. As always, he was very flirty with her and batted his baby blues at her-what a little charmer! It turns out that he's becoming quite the big boy. He's up to 24# which is the 25% (he's finally gaining some on the weight chart) and up to 32" tall which is the 50%. I'm not sure how accurate the 32" is though. I think the nurse mismeasured him. I keep meaning to re-check but we've been busy this week. The doctor was impressed with his verbal ability and says that it's beyond a 2 year old level. He's starting to try to string together sentences. Last night, he came inside from playing with Aron and said "Mommy..........'tside........bike........Lu........." which I think means, "Mommy I was outside on my bike." I'm not sure if I can handle another gabby kid. Ella has enough "verbal ability" for 10 kids. Anyone who has ever ridden in a car with her can attest to that fact. Don't get her started on her Billy Gorilly CD cause she won't stop. Seriously, don't talk about Billy cause I may have to run you over with my car. Let me translate that for you--in Luke sentence that would be "Annie.........car........run over...........talk.........Billy......"

(www.billygorilly.com for those of you who are interested).

He's really starting to show an interest in potty training. He had some early success about a month ago. At that time, he went on the potty a few times and was able to produce a least a little peeps every time he went. Then he went through a week to week and a half phase of not wanting to sit on the potty at all. However, for the last 4 days or so, he wants to go on the potty all the time--probably because he knows he gets an M n M reward every time his factory produces if you know what I mean. Everywhere we go, he wants to potty. He went when we went to the library this morning. I think it's some sort of male "marking his territory" thing. Who knows...all I know is I'd love to have him potty trained and be diaper free. Diaper free.....wheeeeeeeeeee!