Dinosaurs in space! How can you go wrong?

Anthony and Carlos turned us on to a book they checked out from the library featuring a dinosaur hero named Captain Raptor. Anthony showed it to Isaac -- all he had to see was the cover, full of ferocious-looking dinosaurs, and suddenly he would surely die if we didn't read it right now.



It turns out he could be just a little patient while I requested it from another branch of our county library. The guy who wrote it is a professional children's book illustrator. He and the actual illustrator, a childhood friend of his, set it up like a comic book except about 50 billion times more gorgeously illustrated. All you need to know is the following and you will understand why I MUST INSIST YOU SHOW THIS BOOK TO ANYONE BETWEEN THE AGES OF 4 and 8. Especially boys.

*It's about an intelligent race of dinosaurs.
*They live on another planet.
*They are also astronauts.
*And fearless explorers.
*There are crazy monsters that they must battle.
*They meet aliens.
*The writing is so campy as to be hilariously awesome. Every fourth page ends with "Is THIS the end of Captain Raptor?"

As if that wasn't enough, there is a sequel where they battle pirates. Pirates!



These guys are GENIUSES.

Hell-Stinky

We dropped Daddy off at the airport today for a globetrotting adventure. Seriously, globetrotting. He is flying to Helsinki to attend a conference there on permafrost and cold climate things. From what I understand, it's where a bunch of Russian dudes and NASA dudes butt their hugely nerdified brains together and use completely jargified words like "thermokarst" and "carbon budget" and "regional climate model simulations".

It's also very chichi -- on their website it lets you know that attendance to this conference is "by invitation only, dahlink". No herneketto for you!

Daddy got into this because he and a collaborator are proposing some research to this group, who are so stoked as to pay all expenses to fly Daddy halfway across the world, and then house and feed him. Daddy's collaborator is a Russian researcher in his department, very top notch and very very Russian. I'm quite sure he smokes cartons of cigarettes a day. I helped Daddy edit their proposal, and occasionally where the Russian guy wrote there were missing subjects and articles and adjectives rearranged around such that you just had to stop and say his phrasing out loud, to make you feel as though you were holding a Kalashnikov in a James Bond movie.

We have talked to the boys since last week about how Daddy was flying in a plane across the ocean, to this place called Finland. "What are the people called in Finland?" Isaac once asked. "People who live in Finland are called Finns," I told him. This brought up another important topic, about where we live and what we are called as a people. For about a day, in great celebration of the internationally famous car race held in the state from whence we came, all three boys and I ran around yelling MAIR-KENS! and pumping our fists in the air. Meemaw guilted me into setting them straight, teaching them that we are actually UH-mair-kens. Isaac and Jacob, that is. Mike and I are a lost redneck cause.

Squooshy, screaming poo

Jake is still -- as Mamaw so excellently put it -- "poop hoarding". Today I understand why. He really, really, really wants to use the big boy potty and is hyper-aware of dooking in his diaper. Well, of dooking anywhere, really.

At his vehement suggestion, we let him wearing big-boy underpants all morning long. He asked to go pee on the Big Potty, and did so successfully three times, each time standing up on his stool so he could be just like brother. After that, his efforts kind of disintegrated. It's hard when there's so much to distract you, I know. For example, when you're playing hide-and-seek and you're tucked away in a closet, you kind of give yourself away by alerting someone to help you get to the pot. Regardless, each time he peed in his pants, which wasn't a whole lot, he would come and tell me and then pee out the rest on the potty. I was seriously impressed.

But the poop part was just awful to watch. When he really didn't have to go poop, he would happily sit on the throne and let me exercise my vocal chords reading the Karen Katz omnibus. When he did, there was NO WAY he was sitting on that or any potty, nor was he going to poop in that or any other diaper. Poop is gross, yes, I can understand. I've joked with him about his stinky smelly poo since he began eating solid food, so I can see how he thinks that keeping all this poop away from the light, away from his precious bum-skin might be a solution. But it is not.

And then there's the stool softener. Not what it does to him, but rather my increasing frustration with trying to get regular doses of it in his gut. He's a bit like his mother, in that he prefers to sip his beverages in a long-term fashion. If I spike his apple juice with his required dose of stool softener, 9 times out of 10 he'll drink from the glass a couple of times and then forget it exists. The only time I've yet gotten a full dose in him was when I mixed it in his Spaghettios for Wednesday's lunch. What little does get in his body seems to be working, because his poops today were accompanied by blessedly abbreviated screaming compared to what we experienced earlier this week.

Which is good, but doesn't really help me understand how to fix the problem at its root. Does he want to potty train, or doesn't he? My gut feeling, from my one other experience in this matter, is that he is physically ready. He's even waking up from naps and the Big Sleep dry at times. My wallet would be so thrilled to quit throwing money away on diapers, especially as we enter swim season. But how do I convince him that he needs to go poop? That part I've forgotten.

Poop hurts

For a week now, our little Jake has been struggling with constipation. He has pooped every day, but each poop has been an hour-long struggle fraught with pain and fear. During an episode, he comes up to me about every five minutes, shrieking "I'M POOPING!" and near tears, begging me to change his clean diaper. Finally, when the poop does come out, it is large and rock-hard.

After two days of having his precious time at the pool cut short by his near-lifeguard-alerting screams, we decided it was definitely time to go to the doctor. We didn't see Dr. M, but rather this cantankerous old coot with a bad reputation among our friends. He had a spiel rehearsed for me, telling me nothing I didn't already know from Dr. Google. What I had found out before was that there was probably no precipitating event or food that started Jake on his painful poo spiral. We have started informally potty-training him, and his heightened awareness of his bodily functions probably caused him some distaste over pooping in general. So he held it. And it got bigger. And when he did finally have to poop it out -- cause the kid eats SO MUCH that there simply was no more room in his gut -- it hurt. So he held it more. And it got even bigger. You see, perhaps, the vicious poop cycle.

Dr. Grump wrote us a recommendation for Miralax, a stool softener. He said to give it to Jacob for the next two weeks, at least. He said, as I had read, that this is soooo common in kids Jake's age as they become aware of their bodily functions. So far, his poops seem less painful, and are slightly squishier as I roll them around in his diaper. But they are still a production. I hope for his sake he quits holding them in soon.

Wash, wash, wash your boys, wash them till they're clean

We've been relying on the "swimming pool bath" a lot this weekend, but I promise occasionally I do bathe my children in my beautiful retro pink bathroom. I have to so their gorgeous blonde hair won't turn green from the chlorine. I know a little something about that from personal experience.



Fountain Jakey:



Resourceful Isaac makes a diving mask out of goggles from his toolbox:

This is for Mamaw, that she may poop a brick

In every picture I have ever seen of my husband as a toddler, he is wearing this exact expression, replete with light-colored and unkempt hair:



It's just eerie. Everybody on the O'Neal side tells me Jacob is the spitting image of Baby Mike, and now I see it's true. If only Mamaw would scan me some pictures so I can prove it to the world...

Opening Day at the Pool

Each summer we've lived here, we've wrestled with whether or not to buy a pool membership. Every time, I've said no. It's expensive. We're out of town quite a bit. And I'm a total cheapskate.

But this summer is different. The boys and I will be here quite a bit, both with and without Daddy, and in need of serious hot-weather entertainment. If that entertainment doubles as a nap-inducing physical activity, so much the better. But my main concern is that Isaac is old enough now that I think he should start some serious swim lessons. These are offered at all pools in our area, and only to members. So here we are.

Today was opening day at our pool. There was some promo about free noodles to the first 75 kids, but we didn't quite make it there in time. Most importantly, we had a birthday party to attend in the early afternoon -- a preschool friend's little brother turned 3. They live only half a mile away from us, and I'm proud to say my eldest one did the environment proud by riding his Big Wheel all the way from our house to theirs and back. Of course, the return trip was fueled by cupcakes. That helped.

Feeling the surge of sugary goodness coursing through our guts, we decided to forgo nap and head to the pool. At first I was hesitant to go because it was, oh, 70 degrees out? But hey, we're all paid up! Why not put those membership cards to use?

We made it there at 5. The water was freezing cold. Isaac promptly jumped in the baby pool and "swam" up to his neck for the better part of an hour. The boy has no nerve endings, I swear.



There were only a few people there, making the baby wrangling that much easier. Our good buddies Camille and Noah even popped in for a few minutes. Camille convinced Isaac that the Big Pool would not eat him alive, and so we even went for a dip there, Mommy and all. Isaac donned his life jacket and, with his lower half in the water, enjoyed clinging for dear life to the pool wall while Jacob sat next to us on the deck.

Coming so late, I thought we would miss the free noodle giveaway. Little did I know that, staying so late, we'd benefit from the 15-odd noodles people had left behind, almost littered throughout the pool.



I insisted we take two, and both boys questioned the morality of such a thing. Shut UP! Technically, we weren't given noodles, no... but I think we are the only poolgoers on earth to own absolutely none of them. To make up for our victimless crime, we took all the toys people left behind in the baby pool and personally dropped them in the lost and found. The pool manager saw us doing only the latter half of this and complimented me on my "stellar parenting", completely negating any good karma I earned.

Coffee and a snuggle

Start your morning off right.



Better than donuts. Maybe a close tie with bacon.

Last day

Thursday was (sniff) Isaac's last day (sniff, snort) of preschool this school year. Oh, how my little dude is growing up. (BWAHHHH!)

He let me take a picture of him with his little bro as we took him in for (sniff) the last time (BWAHHHH!).



Lately he has resumed his majorly pouty act when it's time for me to go and him to stay. "I don't want to stay at preschool, Momma. I will miss you SO much." It's funny, you'd think after an entire school year of him saying these or similar things, and it NEVER WORKING that he'd get a clue and drop it. But no.

Ms. Susie has an excellent method of distraction; whenever I'm trying to head out the door, she asks Isaac for her daily hug. It's become a ritual between them. Once, when I was heading out and Isaac had forgotten to fuss, he waved goodbye to me and then turned to find Ms. Susie. "Ms. Susie! You forgot your hug!" I've said it before and I'll say it again -- those ladies are geniuses. We got them excellent parting gifts -- gift cards to The Learning Station on Main Street, hand-drawn and signed dinosaur pictures by Isaac and Jacob, and a letter from me detailing the many different ways in which they rock. They deserve it all and more.

The kids had a party during their school day. At the end, they put on a little show for us with their songs from the year. Daddy and Jacob came along to watch.



As usual, Isaac was a non-participant. For some reason, this time, unlike all others, it didn't faze us. I looked around and saw that he was not the only one clinging to Mommy's lap for dear life. I just held him and squeezed him tight, letting him go when he wanted to sing along like Ms. Susie asked him to. When I no longer had an Isaac, I rested my hand on Daddy, and we shared a smiling moment thinking about our son and how proud we are of what he's accomplished this year.

Junior Outdoorsmen: White Trash Chapter

I keep forgetting to blog about an unforgettable adventure we had in April with our outdoorsy partners-in-crime, the AnthonyCarlos family. We carpooled in their family hoo-ride, named RICO, to another of our favorite state parks. Elk Neck State Park is in Maryland, but still not far from our house. And, on this particularly unseasonably warm day, we wanted to hit its beach.



Now, this is a fake beach. You do not see the Atlantic Ocean behind lovely young Miss Anna there. That is Chesapeake Bay. Perhaps this is why it never gets too crowded. Also, it is, shall we say, an "uncombed" beach. Lots of fish carcasses, sea glass (and not-yet-sea glass), and driftwood. And beer cans.

There were some park rangers out that day picking up trash, but with all the AHEM man-made debris, AnthonyCarlos's mommy and I thought we should rename it Whaaaat Tray-yash Beach. And because we were the only beach-goers there, we kept true to those roots. We let the kiddos swim in their clothes, stripping wet layers off and assembling driftwood stakes upon with to hang them to dry. You even can see our clothes-poles in the background behind the Jakester here:



My kids started off okay ...



... but the water was just too inviting -- warm and still. Isaac was completely unafraid and waded almost up to his chest over and over again. I wouldn't let Jakey go out that far, but he splashed around enough that he soon grumbled about his wet shirt. Oh well.



You can take the girl out of Indiana, but never Indiana out of the girl. Yeehaw!

More weekend bang for our buck

A few weeks ago I got an email, courtesy of my membership to the Philadelphia Zoo, suggesting that our family should stop by, mainly because they are opening an hour early for members during weekends in May.

You mean we get an hour at the zoo with almost no people, no lines, and no worrying about losing my Jakey Sprinter into a sweaty cheesesteak mob? You bet we'll come. And we will most certainly be taking pictures next to your dinosaur statue.





It was especially really neat going so early because the animals were quite active. We watched an orangutan and a howler monkey swinging all around a rope maze in their gym. We also watched the elephants standing up on the walls of their exhibit to sneak snacks from branches of nearby trees.

Our favorite animals ...

Jacob: crocodiles
Isaac: lizards and frogs
Daddy: penguins
Mommy: little monkeys

The boys' favorite part of the zoo is always the Reptile House, which was super-creepy because all the snakes were awake and moving around. However, according to both, the most memorable sight of the day was watching an elephant poop and pee right in front of us. Isaac told Miss Susie all about it the following Tuesday.

I promised Jacob on the way in that I would take a picture of him with the gazelle fountain on the way out. Here it is. He's screaming his 'cheese'.

A backyard adventure for the Junior Outdoorsmen

To say we enjoy our backyard is an understatement. It's not too big, but big enough for a preschool game of chase or hide-and-seek. We spend much of our time digging in the sandbox, though it is now rain-full and will soon become a mosquito breeding ground. Sigh. But there are other things to love, like my pretty flowering trees and bushes and how we can climb in them. Also, since Daddy bought us a chimenea last fall, the boys and I can get our pyro on whenever we like.

The past few weeks have brought nice temperatures but weird weather (Will it rain? Will it not?), perfect for going outside but staying close to the house, just in case. In this time, the little boys and I have probably spent an average of 2 hours out of every day in the backyard.

As anyone knows, our Daddy could possibly compete with some reality-show dudes for the title of King Outdoorsman. Right now, Daddy is masterminding his annual University-sponsored camping trip to the Cascades, where he takes some students and kicks their butts on the trail to show them beautiful mountains and maybe teach them a thing or two about glaciers. The pressing problem of the weekend is that he has this fancy brand-new tent. Where better to field-test it than his own backyard?



So all four of us camped out in our backyard last night, the whole night, in Daddy's tent. Daddy cushy-ed it up for us, with about a bazillion blankets as a mattress. He even arranged for an in-tent movie night, showing Madagascar on his laptop. Because we were "in the wild", har!

Well. When movie time was over, Jacob, just like his narcolept mother, fell right asleep. His turkey brother, however, fussed, moaned, was "hungry", required aNOther trip to the bathroom, wanted to TALK AND TALK AND TALK and generally made annoying nylon-on-nylon scraping sounds with his sleeping bag until nearly 11 o'clock. In the end, he started crying that he had undone his sleeping bag and wanted me to fix it. I told him it was too dark for me to reassemble something as complex as a sleeping bag, and that he'd just have to live with it as a blanket. Oh, the horror! The fussing and wailing! "WAAAAH! I want to sleep insiiiiiide!"

Daddy told me this morning how awesome it was to watch me turn into Clai-rry, a mutant drill-sargent hybrid of his wife and Dadaw. After what was surely a bazillion years of trying to reason the sleep into Isaac, I reached over and gave him a lecture to go with his whack on the patoot. "This is SUPPOSED TO BE FUN. You are NOT going inside. We are going to sleep out here all night and you WILL have a good time, DO YOU UNDERSTAND!"

He went right to sleep. At some point in the night I covered him up with his sleeping bag, you know, because he was stubborn enough that he refused to sleep in his anything but his skivvies, despite my myriad finger-waggings of how cold he would be. I wonder where he gets that from?

He and Jacob woke up together at 7:30. I congratulated him on his first night of camping. He high-fived me, and then, without a word, pointing down at his sleeping bag and grinned, like "Look, Mom! I'm totally using it as a blanket like we talked about last night!" Oh, how I wanted to kill him.

Date night

After she graduates in less than two weeks, our beloved babysitter Aly is leaving us for the bustle of NYC (and a cushy new job). Since we don't have a replacement lined up for her yet, it leads Daddy and I to think we need to take advantage of her while we have her. Usually she comes over once a week, and I go somewhere with wi-fi and work on my book du jour. This week we had her come over on Saturday night so I could go out with my husband. Crazy, I know!



We decided to hit Main Street and go for a stroll and some beers. Bar-hopping Lite! We parked at Daddy's office, then walked everywhere else, including home. First we went to Deer Park Tavern and, over a beer, Daddy fed me some material for my Great American Novel. Next we went to Grotto's, where I had never been, and sat at the bar for pizza, wings, and another beer. Grotto's was certainly more exciting. Coincidentally, we just happened to be there for the running of the Preakness.



The Grotto's staff made it worth our while -- they had us draw horse's names out of a hat. If you drew the winner, they rewarded you with a free large pizza.



I drew the 2nd-place horse. Surely that should be worth a free beer, but no.

Oh, and speaking of horses, my latest book, How to Convince Your Parents You Can Care for a Pet Horse was published on Thursday.

Junior computer nerd-in-training

At the Apple Store last night. How are his eyelashes still so long?



He's playing Lego Star Wars while we wait for some "Geniuses" to fetch Daddy's repaired laptop. Soon thereafter, we were sharing an Auntie Anne's pretzel and buying cheap toys at KB -- a parasaurolophus for Isaac, and yet another Cars car for the Jake.

Isaac shares his Daddy's love of shopping. We entered the mall next to Stride Rite, and he was magnetically attracted to the shoe displays. "Look at this shoe! And this one! We should get this one for baby Sam!"

Then, as we walked another part of the mall together -- "Mommy, the mall is the most beautiful place in the whole world."

Perhaps I should have titled this post "Junior Mall Rat-in-Training"?

To be framed and hung prominently

Last Thursday at preschool, the kids presented us moms with a gift at the end of class, one they made with with the help of Misses Susie and Barbara.



I totally cried. It was embarrassing.

Mother's Day in Dela-nowhere

For my Mother's Day, I spent inordinate amounts of time on my cell phone with Uncle Chrissy, Meemaw, and Poppop on Mother's Day, when I wasn't stalking Aunt Jean's blog to hear more about the fate of her and her little one.

But when I wasn't doing that, I was tending to all three of my menfolk. Daddy went and caught himself a big fat cold. But oh well. We had a nice lazy day together, with lots of cuddling and TV.

The boys and I spent the first part of the morning at Starbucks, where I, like the Big Girl I am, went and fetched my own dern coffee. A random stranger, a young male student, saw me standing in line and glancing repeatedly at my charges as they whooped it up at a nearby table. As he left the store, he turned to me and said, "Happy Mother's Day!" He kind of made my day.

After the boys and I had a drink-in, sitting together and enjoying our respective beverages, we went back home and played in the backyard. We accidentally left our sandbox open a crack during a huge storm on Friday night, and ever since all the boys want to do is play with their dinosaurs in "the swamp".



They could care less how cold and wet and gross they get sitting and playing there.





I've washed at least six hoodies since Saturday morning, all in the name of quality, messy boy fun. It's pretty awesome.

Here comes Jakey's apatosaurus, AKA the Swamp Monster. Hide your goldfish!



Eventually, however, the end of the age of the dinosaurs approached. In the form of a killer asteroid.





Hope everybody else had a good one, with lots of playing and snuggling. I know I did.

Jonas goes home

Momma and Poppa Ross got to take their squeaky-soft pink bundle home today. Lucky for us, crack photographer Meemaw was waiting for them at home with her camera.

Here comes Poppa, grinning like a love-struck fool.



Why, you ask? Well, let's just scroll down a bit. Whatever could he be holding? Perhaps a little floppy bug all squished into his brand-new Britax?



And here comes Momma with all of their parting gifts, ranging from the ilk of "Happy Baby!" to "Thank you for luxuriating in our spa-like recovery rooms! Have a free can of formula!"



The report from Meemaw is that Young Prince Charmtacular Jonas is a most peaceful lad, though he expresses a strong preference for snuggling. Where the snuggle is lacking, there you may find fuss.



We have solid evidence, though, that his fight-face does not reign supreme. Jean has taken the most sigh-inducing video ever, showing a seriously burritoed Jonas doing nothing more than looking around. I recommend that you click, especially if you are capable of squeeing or happiness in general.

Jonas at one day old

We love you guys.

Meemaw visited sweet young Master Jonas again today and sent me more pictures. I told her she needed to get me some where we could actually tell what he looks like, instead of all her obliquely-angled hoohah of yesterday. Inquiring minds want to know! And by "inquiring minds", I don't just mean my nuclear family. Apparently everybody Chris and Jean have ever known is visiting us for the latest in Jonas news. Hiya!

Anyway, that Meemaw did a bang-up job.



Isn't he just a doll? Look at how beautiful he is already.



He is almost as cute as my babies were, and that is saying a lot.

Today my blog-homegirl Kendra, a long-time friend of both Chris and Jean, went with her husband Brent to snuggle this beautiful boy.



Jonas, your Aunt Claire is EXPLODING to hold you. It could get messy.

Welcome to the world, JT

Our new cousin, Jonas Thomas Ross, was born today at 12:07 PM. Mom and Jonas are doing great.

Even though Jean was only 35 weeks along, Jonas was already 6 lbs 13 oz and 20 inches long. He was checked out immediately by the NICU physicians. They had prepared Chris and Jean with talk of keeping Jonas in the NICU for a few days because he came so early. Instead, these same doctors took a good look at him and pronounced him the picture of health! They immediately returned him to his mom and dad, with whom he will remain snuggled for the rest of his life.

Here he is, in the first crop of pictures from Meemaw.




And the happy, exhausted family.



In true hardcore fashion, Jean is blogging from her hospital bed, so hopefully I'll have some pictures to steal from her by the end of the day.

Congratulations! We love you, Ross family!

Happy Mother's Day, Aunt Jean

About Uncle Chrissy and fatherhood? Apparently I spoke too soon. Poppop called me this morning to let me know that Chris and Jean have been in the hospital since 1 AM after her water broke last night. As of an hour ago when Meemaw called, Jean is fully effaced, 5 cm dilated, and on an epidural. This is a little freaky because Jean is only 35 weeks along. But her doctors know what they're doing, and, spurred on by the obvious enormousness of Little Mister Jonas, have given her the all-clear to have Jonas TODAY. Please keep our wonderful aunt, uncle, and brand-new cousin in your thoughts.

That's DOCTOR Uncle Chrissy to you

Today my not-so-little brother added an M.D. to the end of his name. Our warmest and heartiest congratulations go out to he and his beautiful, pregnant wife Jean. I can't wait to bogart pictures from her blog.

We are so proud of Uncle Chrissy and everything he's accomplished, such as marrying an awesomely hot broad. In addition to such minor things as medaling in beer-brewing at the Indiana State Fair last year, he has also recently bought his first house and landing the residency of his choice, in emergency medicine at the IU hospital in Indianapolis.

Next up? Fatherhood!

The BIG GAME

Today was Isaac's last baseball class. They end on a bang -- the entire time was devoted to actually playing a game, kids versus dads. The dads were HOrrible, if you can imagine. So many dads stopped just short of bases as they ran, or let a hit ball slip just past their gloves. I mean, was there booze in their Gatorade? The Red Sox stomped them quite royally.

It was all very surprising because the dads seemed to have their faculties together before the game, when the field was filled with pairs just like this:



Isaac did well with catching practice when it was just he and Daddy, mano a mano. It did not hold his interest, however, when it became part of the game. He was pretty stoked, however, about hitting. He and his teammates each got two turns at bat, and the coaches let them nail the tee, over and over, until they finally got a solid piece of ball. Isaac really whacked it on his second at-bat.



He also enjoyed running the bases, especially since he utilized his own personal base coach.





Jacob amused himself with those time-honored game traditions of drinking your sibling's anti-dehydrating fluids...



...and climbing the bleachers.



At the end, Isaac got a certificate for participating, signed by Coaches Randy, Brent, and Anthony.



Yay, baseball! We shall not forget thee. In fact, we shall practice what we've learned over the summer, and try to catch a minor league baseball game or two.

The new sheriff in town

This morning we went to visit Sam at home with his mom and dad.



He is very soft and cuddly. He spent about an hour with his face buried in the crook of my neck, snoring and sighing. Well, he did the snoring and I did the sighing.



He is, I swear, the most pensive-looking baby I have ever seen, ever. When he looks as something, he REALLY looks at it, raising his eyebrows ever-so-slightly in an "Oho, what is this?" detective-style fashion. When I leaned in close for the picture, he gave me these open, liquid, searching eyes and threatened to turn the corners of his mouth up into a smile. You could almost hear him saying, "Now, what have we here? This is most intriguing!" Two weeks old, and he already has a British accent and a love for Cuban cigars.

To absolutely no one's surprise, his sister is doing very well with the major life changes he has wrought. She informed us several times that she was "The Big Sister". I think she was happy to see my crazy boys. She, Isaac, Jacob, and I ran around her house and screamed and did jumping jacks, with the following result:



We brought Sam's family something to heat up for dinner, some playdoh for Ella, and some diapers for Sam. Oh, and I made him this.



More people should have babies so I have a reason to make quilts. I'm tempted to make Jonas another baby quilt, now that I sort of know what I'm doing. Because everybody needs 50 billion homemade baby blankets.