The latest...

Oh, I love the beach. and so does Noah. We went last week with some friends and he spent a majority of his beach time running into and running from the waves. Only occasionally getting toppled.

A few of the best things he's said lately include:

1. Mom, I like all my friends. Not THOUSANDS of them, just some.

2. You look pretty mom. (completely unsolicited, too!)

3. Are we going to a pretend pool or a real one? (is the line between make believe and real THAT thin???)

A Future in Politics

You know how during political campaigns you sometimes hear something like this from a candidate: "I could talk about how my opponent (insert scandal here), but I'm not going to do that." Or, "I could talk about my opponent's (insert impropriety here), but I'm committed to a positive campaign." It's essentially candidates saying bad things about their opponents by saying that they're not going to say them. Well, there are a few words Noah has picked up and that he knows he is not supposed to say: "kill," which he learned from watching Peter Pan and hearing Captain Hook saying, "I'll kill you, Peter Pan, if it's the last thing I'll do!" and then there are the potty words - you know what they are. He knows that if he says these words there is going to be some negative consequence to follow......but, apparently, he really likes to say them. So, this is what we end up hearing: "mama, we don't say 'poop,' 'pee,' or 'kill,'" or "hey, dad. I'm not saying 'poop,' 'pee,' or 'kill,'" or, "it's bad to say 'poop,' 'pee,' and 'kill.'"

Do you have to be potty-trained to run for public office?

Okay - a throw-back to babyhood

So the recent picture was taken on July 4th - as he was rolling down a grassy hill. It reminded me so much of his infant frog-pose three-years earlier - I had to dig this one up from the archives to show it off.

My cute little frog.

Happy Birthday America

We had a great weekend of parades, roof-top DC view of the fireworks, pool time and kayaking on the Potomac for our Friday Adventure. Loving the mild weather right now so much!

Too Much of a Good Thing

Can be bad, right? Isn't that how the saying goes?

When it comes to lips, our little family has them in spades. Noah was bound to be lip-licious, it is just in his genes. The other day we were playing at a friends house and he whacked his face and got a nose bleed and split his lip. This funny photo doesn't do it justice and was taken 24 hours after the incident, but that top lip was HUGE! Like plastic surgery gone majorly awry, huge. Thankfully he's healing well and swelling is going down.

Why I love my sister today

Because I get to travel out to Utah to visit her in August. Yeppie.
And because I know I can ask her to take photos of my little guy, and she will. She's been working at photography for a few years now, and has really got a great eye and some amazing lenses, the top of the line Cannon, great software, etc. She is so dedicated at the editing process I know that I could ask her to take the bags out from under my eyes, brighten my teeth, and make me 10 pounds lighter for the family photo, and she could! If I tried, on the other hand, I would only end up making myself look ridiculous. So, it's a good thing that she's the professional and not me. Our Christmas card this year will be the better for it (it was last year, don't you agree?). Just you wait for this year's card!

Take a peek at my sister's work. Great stuff, eh? You Go Marth.

Eureka!

So, last night during Noah's dinner prayer I had an eureka moment -- when all those things you say to your child you think evaporate into thin air before actually entering their ears and consciousness, but then, eureka, some of it actually makes it in there after all!

Noah's dinner prayer was the following: "Heavenly Father, thank you for today, and for not crying over the things we don't have, but be grateful for the things we do have. Amen."

Okay, so he missed the whole, "bless the food part," but so what! Did you read that! Those are my words from hours earlier about how we need to be happy with the toys we do have and not cry about toys we don't have...and they stuck.

Hallelujah and Eureka.