Fun with Dad

Since Matt finished the Bar, he's been at home job searching part time and being a full-time Dad, nanny, au pair, mother's helper, or whatever you want to call it. I would have gone crazy by this time without his help. He is the best! And since this is his first real vacation in four years, we're taking full advantage of it and doing lots of fun things.

We've been to the Children's Museum and the Natural Science Museum. (The kids can't get enough of the dinosaurs.)

We had an indoor campout. No we didn't sleep in the tent, but the kids had fun getting ready for our "campout" by turning the lamps into trees and hiding stuffed "forest animals" around the living room. The big thrill was turning off all the lights, climbing into the tent with a flashlight and Dad telling camp fire stories. (Nothing scary.)

Playing with water is always a hit. Sadie especially enjoys her mini-pool.

Matt took Michael to NASA Space Station. What a perfect father-son outing!

They looked at all kinds of cool space things. Michael got to touch a real moon rock. And they rode two different flight simulators. That was the coolest!

With so much to see and do, our little space cadet was pretty spacey by the end of the day.

With Matt here to help take care of Adelaide, I try to use my "free" time to play with Michael and Sarah. Sadie is really into dress-up right now, and of course, I play along.

More fun with rockets . . . Matt bought an even bigger rocket and used the same size engine in the hopes it wouldn't fly as far this time. We fired it off in the middle of a huge, empty field

and, of course, it landed in a tree at the edge of the field.

It took quite a bit of time and help to get it out. It took a group of homeschool boys and some tools borrowed from the park maintenance crew to finally get it out.

Adelaide News:

Adelaide continues to grow at an astonishing rate. She's a lot more fussy than either Michael or Sarah were, but we're slowly learning how to make her more happy, or at least cope with the fussiness. Tonight we tried giving her camomile tea (Pediatrician and Grandma recommended) and it was the first time we'd even tried to give her a bottle. And it worked! She took the bottle with no problem and drank the whole thing! (Neither of my first two babies would take a bottle at all, so this was pretty amazing to me.) She settled down a little, eventually fell asleep, and woke up happy. Wow!

She will only sleep during the day if you're holding on your shoulder. She sleeps in her bassinet just fine at night, but if you lay her down any other time of day, she immediately wakes up. It'd be fine if I didn't have two other kids in need of attention too . . .

She learned to smile this week, but I haven't caught a picture of it yet. Previously, this was about as close to a happy face as we could get.

Michael News:

Michael has recently learned to do buttons. This is a shirt he buttoned all the way all by himself!

He is a great big-brother. He loves coloring and doing "crafts" (anything involving scissors and glue).

Sadie News:

Sadie is in love. Not with the boy next door. Not with a favorite stuffed animal. Not even with Mom or Dad. She is totally head over heels in love with "Thomas the Tank Engine." She idolizes anything that has to do with Thomas, and carries her little Thomas trains everywhere she goes. She checks out "Thomas" videos at the library every week and watches them every chance she gets. And when she can't watch the videos, she carries around the DVD case so it can be near her. We're not sure how this infatuation began, but I suppose it's just one of those things she'll grow out of, right?

Pretty in pink --her favorite color.

Sadie recently discovered how fun it is to stick things down your shirt--if you're wearing a onesie.