Whirlwind...

All text...pics to post soon!

We had a great July 4th weekend...celebrated on the 3rd, recovered on the morning of the 4th, drove to Northfield on the afternoon of the 4th with our whole crew, hung out with the Beaham's and their lovely little ladies, Ethan and Emily had their first kiss (the Beaham/Sandberg quest to pair up their daughters with our sons seems to be heading in the right direction!), headed home a bit late for the kids' bedtime (but they managed just fine), went to bed as we heard the fireworks outside, commented on our lameness, slept well, up early, lunch with RinMats before she heads to DC for her elected position of VP of NOW on Wed (she rocks!), went to Target, played with my kids, made tons of babyfood, grilled out, washed dishes (did laundry all day too), quick blog, cuddle with hubs and RELAX!

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So, I'm doing this make-your-own-babyfood thing, and it's going pretty well for the most part. Until today, I haven't really had a big cooking day, and even today, I don't feel like I accomplished that much because two of my purees were total busts. If anyone knows how to cook a peach (my cookbook is wrong!) please let me know. Melon disintegrates in a blender so I would like to know how that is really supposed to work. I made some more carrots, sweet potatoes and apples. The boys are really into all of those...sweet potatoes need to be thinned out a little after thawing or Dylan gags and pukes which is really not what I'm going for. New today was butternut squash. Should be good, it smells pretty yummy...at least it did, before I thinned it with formula. I've been using up the food I'd made recently pretty quickly after freezing it, but now that I'm starting to make more at a time, I'm wondering how long I can keep this stuff frozen before I shouldn't thaw it. Anyone, anyone? My book references "shelf-life" but fails to mention how long that is. Duh.

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Dylan and Owen are so cute. Just so CUTE! 'Course I'm their Mommy, but they are SO smiley and SO giggly now. It's awesome. Lauren had Dylan belly-laughing SO hard on the 4th...It was heart-warming...the whole scene. I almost teared up...but I know everyone would laugh at me. I had the same reaction to Emily kissing Ethan...SO cute!! He said, "Emily kissed me on the mouth and all the people laughed. That was silly"...he was still talking about it at bedtime that night! It's too much. D is getting even closer to sitting up on his own. He does fine in his little tri-pod stance until he gets distracted and turns to look at something and then loses his center of gravity, but he's close. They are both cruising around in the walker...they even know how to turn themselves around when they run into something. Ethan is having fun playing with them in that toy, but needs to be reminded to go slow when he pushes them. Sometimes I catch Owen just looking at me. Just sitting there quietly and looking at his Mommy. And then I turn around and he beams that dimply little smile at me. And I die, right there. They are 7 months this coming Wednesday. When I was remarking about this to Andy this weekend he said only 5 more months and they'll be toddlers and we won't have babies in the house again. It's bittersweet...

Ethan is the best big brother. Today I had Owen laying in Ethan's bed while Ethan and I were organizing his closet in his big boy room (next topic!). Ethan went to go lay with him and it was a definite picture moment so I ran downstairs (don't worry, Owen was safe!) to get the camera and when I came back up, Ethan had his arm around Owen's tummy and was sweetly and softly telling him he loved him. I died again, right there.

While we were at our neighbors' house on the 3rd, Ethan was charming everyone. They were all telling me how wonderful he was and if I couldn't find him, they'd kidnapped him. I had to remind them that he was still very TWO, but I was so proud of how well he behaved with all the people and kids, especially when staying up a bit later than normal. After getting in his PJs, he came back to the party to say goodnight to "all of his wonderful people"...my new favorite saying of his. That being said, we had a few moments today where we agreed that the neighbors could take him for a bit right then and there!

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Earlier this week, Ethan was camping with Grandma and Grandpa so Andy and I took on the great room-swap. Everything's pretty much all together now. I'll post before and after pictures soon. I love how Ethie's big boy room looks. And I love having more room to walk around in Dylan and Owen's room. It's a success. I was a bit nervous about it, but we really talked it up to Ethan before we did it, and I think he really likes it. Tonight, at bedtime, Ethan said, "Thank you for my room, Mommy!"...Daddy admitted he'd fed him that line, but still, it was nice to hear.

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In closing, an Ethanism that made me laugh hard tonight. I love overhearing coversations between Andy and Ethan. The boys were going to shower downstairs tonight and Andy went to shave his scruff off and Ethan kept saying over and over, "You have a funny beard, Daddy. You have a funny beard, Daddy"...until Daddy had no beard left.

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Tomorrow I am 29 1/2...closer to 30 than 29.

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All the hard work is worth it. My family rocks.