Spotlight on Sadie

Jake stayed down at the lake with Poppy and Gram for the rest of the week, so it's pretty low-key at the house this week. I think Sadie is really enjoying the extra attention she's getting. She's getting pretty talkative, although we still don't have any official words yet. Lately, she's been saying something like "pay" and pointing when she recognizes someone or something. Here she is saying "pay" and pointing to the neighbor's cat.

And here's another shot of my little princess. Isn't she adorable with those little pigtails and that dress? Yes, yes she is. More glamour shots here.


Meanwhile, it sounds like Jake and Gram and Poppy are having lots of fun at the lake. We heard that Jake caught his first fish - a sunny! Here he is at Amazement Square, a kids museum in Lynchburg.
We miss you Jake!

Memorial Day at the Lake

We had a nice Memorial Day weekend down at Smith Mountain Lake. We couldn't have asked for nicer weather - sunny and warm, and no humidity. The lake was a little too cool for swimming, so we went to the pool and both kids had a great time there. Sadie went right in, in her little floaty device, and calmly hung out most of the time. Jake was a little tentative at first "It's too wet!" but as soon as he got in he had a great time, swimming from one end to the other, and playing with his toy submarine.

At the beginning of the weekend, Jake had sort of a condensed terrible two episode that lasted about a day. I guess we're a little spoiled with Jake - he's normally pretty well behaved and a good listener (for a two-year-old). But out of nowhere, he took on some kind of angry teenager attitude: "Jake, please don't throw that" "I KNOW daddy!" It was.....exhausting. But luckily, he got over it and was pretty much back to normal by the time we all went to the Strawberry Festival.

Here are Jake and Sadie after eating a big pile of freshly picked strawberries (I should probably add that they were piled on top of funnel cake and then topped with whipped cream):


And here's Jake on a pony ride. I walked alongside and I think I was supposed to make sure he didn't fall off, but my attention was focussed on not stepping in all the horse poo.

They had a little petting zoo, too. As long as you had a little handful of feed, they wouldn't try to eat your fingers.

Sadie looking cute in her sun hat:


Here's blurry shot of a fast-spinning giant strawberry ride that Jake loved. Even though it's blurry, you can see how much fun he's having:


And here's a cute shot of Sadie (if I do say so myself) in back of DD and Pop's backyard, aka the 13th green. Note Jake and Poppy playing tag in the background.


See all the pictures here.

Jocelyn Turns Three

One of the Three Musketeers - Jocelyn - recently turned three, and her parents threw a fun pajama party complete with scavenger hunt and story time. I hate to say it, but this may be the last big hurrah for the Three Musketeers, as they may be going their separate ways this summer. Jocelyn, Rachel and Jake have been buddies at daycare since they were babies.

Jocelyn was pretty excited to have all her friends at her party, and played the part of a good hostess, bouncing all over the room and playing with everyone. Jake and Rachel were pretty much joined at the hip, sitting next to each other for pizza, and playing together most of the night.
And here's Jocelyn enjoying her fruit cup:

And here's Sadie doing her best Johnny Cash impression (anyone? anyone?):

Anticipation

We've been telling Jake for weeks now about our upcoming trip to California to visit my grandparents and to see Disneyland. Jake knows all about California from the Cars movie, when Lightning McQueen has to go there for a rematch with his rivals. He's got his suitcase and everything. A while back, we recorded a show on cable about Disneyland and its history, and tonight we played it for Jake and asked him which rides he'd like to go on. He really got excited about the tea cups and the river boat and the carousel and pretty much everything that flashed on the screen. We told him we'd be there in just a couple of weeks, but he couldn't wait that long. "Can we just hop into the TV now??!!"

Airshow

Yesterday we went to the Joint Service Open House at Andrews Air Force Base. It was a beautiful day, and just a little cool in the morning - perfect for walking around on the tarmac where it gets hot pretty quickly. Mimi and Grandpa came too, which which was fun because I remember going with them when I was Jake's age (or maybe a little older).

Here's Jake at the controls of a helicopter:

I'm pretty sure he adjusted every dial and switch, so hopefully the real pilots check everything before they fire up the engines.

And here's Sadie checking out the rotors:


They have all services represented here, and you'd need to stay longer than we did to see everything. It's pretty impressive. This is a picture of Jake in some SCUBA gear at the Navy deep sea diving and bomb squad booth:

Check out more pictures here.

Tractors

Yesterday Ali took the kids out to Frying Pan Farm Park to see all the spring baby animals. We were telling Jake the night before about the trip and he asked "will there be mud?". We said, "yes, there will be mud, since it's rained for the past three days". "And will there be pigs?". "Yep, there will be pigs, and lots of baby piglets." "And can we roll around in the mud with the pigs?" "Absolutely," I said, knowing I would be at work. I do need to be more careful about saying things like that because Jake is starting to get a pretty good memory - "Daddy, last night you said we could have chocolate cake for breakfast!"

I'll say pretty much anything to get him to go to sleep....

Happy Mother's Day!

First, a belated Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there! It was a rainy rainy weekend, and we played around with the video camera a little bit on the iMac:



Yes, Sadie is in yellow sunglasses. She loves to accessorize. And can you see her pigtails?! Ali just put them in this weekend and it's the cutest thing I've seen in my entire life.

Mothers Day was pretty dreary out, so after a nice breakfast, we found an Indiana Jones marathon on cable and began to explain the story to Jake. He was pretty interested in what was going on, but had trouble saying "Indiana". Finally he heard Short Round call him "Dr. Jones" and that was much easier to get out. There were LOTS of questions, like: "Are Nazis bad?", "Why is Dr. Jones mad at that guy?" and "The monkey didn't like that date?"

All this rain really makes it tough to entertain the kids. At least Sadie is getting much better at keeping herself occupied, and at keeping up with Jake. She's been watching Jake play "ReadySetGo" for so long, and she finally got in the race with him this weekend! For those that don't know, ReadySetGo is the amateur sport where you stand with your back against the front door, say "ReadySetGo" and then sprint into the living room and crash into either the chair or the couch, depending on track conditions.