Blogging Bonanza!

Here are a few random thoughts and pictures from the last few weeks.

First, I'd just like to take a moment to get down on my knees and offer my eternal thanks and praise to that wise soul who came up with the thrice-blessed idea of... time-out. It is truly amazing how a cranky, whiny, borderline-tantrum-throwing beast will convert to a smiling, laughing, eager-to-please angel, after 5 minutes of quiet reading in the Red Chair. It's downright miraculous. It works on cranks of all ages, too -- even Mommy & Daddy have been known to give themselves time-outs in the Red Chair on occasion. :)

Here's another great shot of the resident fashion maven. (Note the fairy wings. And the purple striped shorts.)


fashion maven


Soon after we returned from vacation, we bought... bicycles! Uncle Sam decided to refund quite a bit of our taxes in April, so we thought, hey, free money! Let's spend it! :) Well, not quite -- we've been planning on getting bikes for a long time. But whenever we do have an unexpected tax return we use it for something fun for the family.

For the girls, we decided to get a trailer, rather than the child seats. Miriam LOVES the trailer. She begged to go out in it the first day:


bike ride!

Katie... well, to put it mildly, she hated the trailer. She would spend the first 10 minutes shrieking her head off until she a)resigned herself or b)fell asleep. I think she's gotten used to it now. We try to keep them well supplied with toys and sippy cups to keep them entertained. And there's always a park at the end of the ride so Miriam has something to look forward to, although she loves the ride itself. (Katie loves parks too -- that is, she loves eating the mulch at the playground.) We were blessed with a few weekends of gorgeous weather, so we were able to take them out pretty frequently at first. Unfortunately they're currently in the shop -- gear shifting issues -- but when we get them back we'll have to get a shot of all of us ready to go. Our bike helmets look pretty ridiculous of course (sort of like streamlined alien bugs), but the way we see it, better ridiculous than dead. They're actually pretty comfy too -- very light & airy.

I always loved riding my bike when I was a kid -- I know we're going to have fun as a family. There are lots of great trails in the area, too. I'm also looking forward to shedding those extra few lbs. of baby weight in a fun way! :)


Okay, you know you're parents when... you talk about diapers over the dinner table. It's inevitable. All of you single or childless types out there will undoubtedly think, not me, never! But just you wait. It WILL happen. Destiny, destiny, no escaping destiny!! I realized this when we were visiting some friends with a new baby. Inevitably the conversation turned to diapers, their contents, and the cute things babies do when filling them. After a minute of this engrossing conversation (har har) I stopped and realized what we'd been doing. Unbelievable. We've become our parents, and now we're doing all the embarrassing things we swore we'd NEVER do when we became parents! Sigh. Having babies is so much fun, even if it does drag your sense of humor into the gutter.