A bootleg video from the first ever performance of Reed and Spring. Early reviews compare it to a cross between Cirque de Soli and Stomp, however, toward the end, there is an the obvious influence from The Who.

Reed originals

On a few occasions, I have made up stories for Reed and Spring. The first time I did this, it was after we had a bat in the cabin at Lake Chelan. It was exciting and scary at the same time and it happened right before bed. I could see that Reed really needed to process the incident before bed, so I told him the story of Bernard the Bat. He was a very friendly and curious little bat who wanted to meet a family staying in a cabin. Bernard goes into the cabin, but quickly realizes that he has startled the family and decides to leave and not come back so he won't scare them any more.


I've also made up stories to help pass the time when the kids are bored and cranky in the car. Reed really likes the story of Sally the Schoolbus. She is a brand new bus who is so excited to take kids to school on her first day, that she gets up too early and finds there are no kids at the bus stops. Another story I tell is the story of Frankie the Fish, which is basically the story of the salmon life cycle.

So it was exciting to me today, when Reed made up two stories for me! We were playing "a snuggle up in bed game" as Reed calls it (this by the way, is my personal favorite game we play) and Reed told me two bedtime stories. They were so great, I wanted to write them down to remember them, so here they are, in as close to their original form as I can remember.



R: Once upon a time, there was a little boy. He becided [sic] to go to the duck pond, and what do you think he saw?
Me: What did he see?
R: He threw some bread at the ducks! (In a later iteration of the story, he talked to the ducks and they went "quack, quack, quack".) Then he went home and played hide and seek with is mommy and daddy.

R: Once upon a time, there was a bird and he becided to visit his friend who was called a Eagle. And what do you think they did?
Me: What did they do?
R: They went swimming in the water together! Then they went home and played hide and seek together!



Reed also has his first imaginary friend now. I think his friend may be an offshoot of Bernard the Bat, who we would occasionally "see" after we first met him at Lake Chelan. Reed's friend is Robinbird. Robinbird especially likes to play a snuggle up in bed game with us, but also likes to nap in my bed while Reed has naptime, and sometimes comes to the grocery store with us. It's very sweet!


And Reed is also dabbling in photography these days. Usually, he captures images of his feet, or the ground, but sometimes, if you position yourself correctly (as I've done here) the artist will see fit to capture your image!

And as for Spring... I can't believe she's almost 18 months old now! She is incredibly mobile (she can crawl into her high chair which is a little scary!) and communicating well. We're doing sign with her and off the top of my head, I can think of more than 20 signs that she knows (dog, cat, nurse, eat, apple, more, water, brush teeth, bath, shoes, cheese, wash hands, daddy, music, book, up, Hat, potty, bird, all done, waves goodbye and shakes her head no). There are also numerous signs that she will copy, but that she doesn't incorporate into her everyday vocabulary.

One of her tear ducts is still slightly blocked and has been since she was born. It's better than it used to be, but still not great, so we took her to an eye specialist a few weeks ago. Because her eye isn't terrible, he didn't recommend surgery, yet. We're doing some eye drops and vigorous eye massage to help her duct open fully. If not, she may wind up having her tear duct probed.

Outdoor fun

With the days getting warmer, we've been spending as much time as we can outside. We've gone for several hikes at Banner Forest. For the first few, I carried Spring on my back in the ergo till she got frustrated, then carried her the rest of the way on my hip. On the latest hikes though, she has insisted on walking! Our biggest challenge with our hikes is not going too far, since we have to turn around and hike back (instead of hiking a loop trail). On more than one occasion, I've had to carry both Reed and Spring for a part of the hike because their little legs are too tired! Makes for quite a workout for me!

Reed looking contemplative.

Spring looking contemplative.

Just this week, we went to Manchester with Grandpa to play on the beach. We all had a wonderful time!

Throwing rocks... does it get any better than this?

Yup, it does, puddle stomping!

Florida

We were really fortunate to get to go visit Gerry's parents in Florida again in February. As per their usual, the kids were amazing on the plane ride down. I always get a little tense about traveling with them, and they never fail to impress me! Gerry definitely had the more challenging role in the trip down. I thought the ever-wiggly miss Spring would be tough, but as it turned out, holding the hyper-because-he-didn't-nap, wrestling Reed was much harder.

We spent a lot of time at the beach, despite the fact that the weather wasn't all that warm (mid-50s). Thank goodness we brought our warm winter coats!!

Spring took off walking down the beach this day. She just kept going and showed no sign of stopping, so eventually, I had to pick her up and bring her back to the rest of the family. I kind of wonder how far she would have gone, but I'm pretty sure she only would have stopped when she got tired, and I thought my arms might get tired carrying her back.

It was hard to keep Reed from throwing the sand. Fortunately nobody got any sand in their eyes!

More beach fun.

Spring got Grandpa's shoes on and even managed to walk a little in them. She was SO proud of herself!

This could have been the highlight of the trip for Reed. Gerry's aunt's girlfriend brought over a train set and an engineer's hat for Reed. He LOVED it! There were all kinds of buttons that made train noises and a really loud horn that he would honk for minutes on end! Needless to say, the house got a little noisier after the arrival of the train, but all the smiles made it worth it.

Our last full day there, it warmed up a little (70 degrees I think). It was enough that we could be without our coats, so Steve and the kids and I headed back to the beach. This was a gorgeous day and there were even dolphins playing out in the waves!

Dig, dig, dig!

And dig a little more.

It was so much fun for me to get to watch my kids get to play with their grandparents! Both Reed and Spring loved digging on the beach with Grandpa and playing games like "jump on a stump" with Grandpa in the yard at home. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful family!!

Everyday photo op

When your kids are this cute, even getting loaded in the car to go to the grocery store can yield some great pictures. Okay, so maybe I'm biased, but look at these two!

Spring was so cute in her new sunglasses that I wanted to take her picture, but just as I was getting ready to take the picture, she took them off. So I started to put the camera-phone away, but she cried! She really wanted to have her picture taken!! So, I put her sunglasses back on, took the picture, and had a happy girl once again.

And I couldn't take a picture of Spring, without taking a picture of Reed too!!

I've got lots of photos from our recent trip to Florida to share and photos from a recent hike. I'll get those up soon!

While Mommy's away...

The kids will play... in the mud!! I got to go get a pedicure today with a girlfriend which was wonderful! When I came home, this is what I saw. To keep the kids entertained, Gerry took them hiking at Manchester State Park. Apparently their favorite part of the trip was stomping in a big mud puddle. :) Gerry said Spring would have wallowed in the puddle if he had let her. I'm just glad they had fun while I was gone and that we have a good clothes washer!


Spring and I were playing outside recently and the sun was bright. I thought she might appreciate wearing Reed's sunglasses (Reed was away at Grandpa's). I was right! She loved wearing them!!

Reed wanted to show off his new haircut on the blog.

I took the kids to an indoor playground last week. It was incredibly busy there, but they still had fun! Here's Spring playing in the little house.

And Reed playing in the bottom of a big pirate ship toy.

Let's do the time warp again!

This post has nothing to do with the R.ocky H.orror P.icture S.how as you might be led to believe by this post's title (or maybe you've never seen that movie and you didn't notice the reference at all). It's just that the subject matter of today's post is somewhat older than things that have already been posted. So you see, we're going back in time a bit! :)

At the end of the year, we left for a family vacation with some friends of our in Pacific Beach. This is a tradition we've now kept up for three years!

The kids loved going out on the beach this year!! The weather was typical winter beach weather, wet and windy, but we managed to enjoy ourselves anyway!

Coming in from the beach wet!
Notice the light reflecting off Reed's jacket? Wet!

I was amazed that Spring didn't mind that beach weather. She was having trouble standing up because the wind kept blowing her down this day, but she was still happy as could be!

Daddy's girl, playing with a screwdriver and trying to walk in Daddy's shoes!

We got to play scientist when we found a ladybug in the cabin. We caught it under a glass and looked at it before we released it to the wild.

And of course, young scientists have to do a lot of studying. Gerry is reading a children's encyclopedia to the boys. It's been one of Reed's favorite books since Christmas!

We got a kite to give to our friends. We tried to fly it, but it was too windy. This is about as high as the kite ever got.

They let us have a turn trying to fly the kite too. Check out the angle of the line to the kite. The wind was blowing it straight down the beach and giving it very little lift.

We also went razor clam digging! It was really hard to see the shows with the high surf and wind, but we had a good time of it anyway! Dave and I went out before it got dark. I only got a couple of clams in that time, but then Gerry and Dave went back out and got their limits! The second night of digging, I opted to stay in since I hadn't had much luck the night before and the weather was even worse. Thanks Dave for letting my steal your razor clam picture!

The aftermath

We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner a few nights ago. Both kids ate about three times as much as they normally do (literally)! Spring has really been enjoying feeding herself, but of course, the consequence is that sometimes she's a bit messier after dinner than she was before. This was such a classic kid picture, that I just couldn't resist posting it.

Stomp

Puddle stomping fun on a nice day.

Neglected

This poor blog has been a bit neglected lately. I'm not one for making New Year's resolutions, but if I were to make a resolution, it would be that I'm going to get back into my weekly blogging habit.

To that end, I'm going to do a little December catch up! Oddly, I didn't take a lot of pictures in December, so there's not a lot to show. I think we were so busy with the holidays that I forgot to take pictures of everyday stuff and we didn't get a lot of great pictures from Christmas either. Ah well, such is life!

We had a great time selecting a Christmas tree. This was the first time we'd ever gotten anything other than a Douglas fir. We got a Norway spruce, and aside from the fact that it was a little pitchy and had pricklier needles than Doug firs, we liked it. This was the first year we managed to get a tree that was not at least a foot taller than what we actually intended to get and we liked having a smaller tree!

Reed and Spring had lots of fun decorating. We tried to put up only non-breakable ornaments this year and I still think we broke at least three. It was tough to keep Spring from taking down the ornaments. Such a contrast from Reed who left them alone once we told him no a couple of times.

Christmas day was wonderful! Gerry went crabbing on Christmas eve and got a limit of red rock and a limit of dungeness crab and Brian came late on Christmas eve to stay the night. When we got up in the morning, Brian made crab omelettes for us. Yum! We had an amazing seafood feast for dinner that we may have to have on Christmas from now on. It was so good!

And some good clean fun from December. Reed likes to pretend that he's a pirate named Bubble Beard while he's in the bath! :)

Cookie monsters

Reed, Spring and I made cookies last week. Yum! At first, I thought it would really just be Reed and I and that Spring would just play, but I should have known better. My little girl has always got to be in the mix! So, for a while, we were all at the counter; Reed on his step ladder, Spring standing on a chair with me constantly holding her with one hand, and me trying to make cookies with the other hand (and constantly worrying that Spring was going to fall). Needless to say, it was not a good arrangement!

So we moved the cookie making operation to the floor! For a little bit, I let them both stir, but then I noticed Spring using her spoon to dump sugar and flour on the floor. I figured that would fix itself once we added the wet ingredients, but nope, then she just started putting globs of dough on the floor!











So Spring got to have her own bowl. She wasn't interested in it till I put a half inch of water in the bottom, but I figured water is easier to clean up than dough!

These were white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. We made a few chocolate and nut free ones for Spring, but she was not impressed. Her eating habits and Reed's eating habits are almost complete opposites. For example, one recent evening we had flank steak, homemade sweet potato fries and green salad for dinner. Spring ate sweet potato fries and tomatoes from the salad, Reed ate meat.

Santa breakfast

Saturday was once again time for Santa breakfast at our local fire station. This is an annual tradition that we really enjoy! Spring woke up earlier than usual on Saturday, so we all got up and headed to breakfast. It was nice to be there early as it gets crowded later and you have to wait a long time for your picture with Santa to get printed out.

Remembering that Reed had been apprehensive about Santa last year, I explained what we would be doing the night before. It paid off because Reed was really excited to see Santa! Spring on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with him! We were surprised because she is normally outgoing, but not that morning. Some of it may have been that she was extra tired from the early morning, but I think it was mainly that she was alarmed by this big guy (the Santa the comes to the fire station is over 6' tall) in the weird suit. Spring watched Santa like a hawk as we ate breakfast. He'd circle the room, greeting all the kids, and as soon as he'd come near, Spring would starting sobbing! Not even nursing her helped and that's usually our magic cure-all!!

So, Gerry and I decided that allowing Spring to trust her gut instinct and not get close to this stranger who she so clearly did not trust was MUCH more important than getting a picture of her with Santa. We did get a good picture of Reed though!

Woot!

Reed is going to sleep without a binkie tonight for the first time since he was born!!! And the best part is, it was his choice! Due to the traumatic circumstances of his birth, Reed had a pacifier before he ever even nursed so this is a long standing habit that he's breaking tonight. I think it really helped that he just learned how to go potty on the potty because he understands and likes the idea of getting a reward for doing this! I had dreaded this for so long because I thought that this was going to involve a lot of tears, but nope! I had told him a few times the kinds of rewards he could have for sleeping without a binkie, and tonight I was reminding him about the rewards when he said, "We should do that tonight!" He's not actually asleep yet, so maybe I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch, but he's quietly laying in bed which I think is a darn good start!!

And in case I hadn't mentioned before, Reed has learned how to use the potty! It happened so easily, I'm still amazed. It started one evening when my dad came over and went in the hot tub with Reed. Afterwards, Reed came in and didn't want to get dressed so we let him run around naked. Suddenly, he announced he had to go potty and promptly sat down on his potty chair. When it happened a second time that evening, I decided that I would try to get him to go with a naked bottom the next day. The next morning came, and I asked him if he wanted a naked bottom and he said no. So I got a cloth diaper ready for him and he said he didn't want a cloth diaper, so he decided he did want a naked bottom afterall! He's only had a handful of accidents and we've been at this for about a month now, and lately, when he wakes up in the morning, his pull-up is dry! He was definitely ready!! :)

Spring is signing and saying more things which is also really exciting!! She signs for more, water, all done, nurse, she shakes her head no and tonight she signed for bath. She also says cat, dog, bird, and seeminly more. She was looking at my necklace so I asked her, so I started to ask her, "Are you looking at my necklace?", but before I could get the word "necklace" out, she said "necklah". Part of me finds it hard to believe that she'd know a word as obscure as necklace, but if she doesn't, then it's a really big coincidence! We've had a few other similar incidents, so her vocabulary may be much larger than what she shows off on a daily basis!

And here are some pictures that need to get posted from Halloween! Gerry collected all the pumpkins seeds so we could toast them. Yum!

Reed helped carve pumpkins too.

Ready to go trick or treating. Gerry was dressed as a cow behind the camera. Butterfly wings were the best I could come up with for a last minute costume. By the way, note that I'm wearing a 3/4 sleeve shirt and mary janes with no socks! I don't ever remember it being so warm on Halloween!!

The cutest little elephant and ladybug in the world! Call us nuts, but we didn't let R and S have candy. Instead, we got some small toys for each of them (toy cars and the like) and took them to our neighbors houses so they could give them to R and S when they came trick or treating. I just didn't want them to have all the sugar, but I wanted them to have the fun of trick or treating!

And this one's not from Halloween, but it's a cute October picture I wanted to post. Both my kids LOVE their grandparents! I can't wait till Grandma Lisa gets here so they can shower her with love in person (and vice versa)!!