Thursday, May 26, 2016

Selah June spent a wonderful day outside playing in her blue plastic pool, drawing on the patio, working on shapes and colors, and taking in the sounds of nature.  We heard all kinds of noises today.  In particular, we were fascinated by the sound of a police car and an airplane, the metal garage door behind our house, and a distant train.

We also demanded to have access to a hot chocolate K-cup.  So, since Daddy wasn’t home, of course we tried it out.

Thisnwas her slightly blurry face while she said “cheese” for the camera.

And then she gave me this face….  priceless.

Monday and Tuesday, May 23-24, 2016

Mommy took a breather…..

Sunday, May 22, 2016

I know this looks like she is a child golf prodigy, but it’s actually the ash tool for the Big Green Egg.  She’s a chimney sweep prodigy.  Get it right!

We’ve been working on our name.  She now latches onto one or the other of her names.  Sometimes it’s “June!” — as she says really quickly with little fishy lips.  Sometimes it’s “Selah!” and no June.  Give us a week.  She’s sure to be telling strangers on the street her name in multiple languages.

This is my attempt to cover up a dead patch of grass left by a stack of concrete pavers originally purchased for our makeshift fire pit.  They didn’t move from the back patio after Chris built the stone fire pit.  Now that we regularly have to have the house “show ready,” that stack of pavers and its underlying wasteland just won’t do. Selah June loves the flowers, but they need SO MUCH WATER!!!!!

We spent Sunday afternoon outside using our “colors” to draw all over the back patio.  We drew the sun and rain clouds, owls and birds and cats and dogs.  We wrote 1, 2, 3 and spelled out our names.  We drew plants, mushrooms and flowers and leaves.  It was great fun and led to us wanting to color on the brick wall and the white door and the furniture.

She decided she needed to lay down on the neon owl I had just drawn on the concrete patio. The result was some kind of tribal war paint.  She’s ready for the hunt.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

We took Selah June on a family adventure to the Orchestra Olympics down at the Seanger Theater on Saturday.  Ab was the “reporter” for the olympics during the concert, and all of the little ones were there together to watch the show.

Before the concert, they had rooms set up for the kids to try out all of the different families of instruments.  There was a room of stringed instruments and a room of woodwinds.  There was a room for the brass instruments too.  And then there was the percussion room.  It was a CRAZY place, full of maddening drumming by wild children armed with mallets.  Selah June loves to drum, and it was even a little much for her.

After the percussion room, we made our way to the art table.  You could pick out stars and stickers to put on your paper.  It was a little too grown up for her.

We found a great spot up front in the concert hall to see all the instruments and watch Aunt Abigail in action.

Satie and Winston insisted on sitting together.  They were in tears until we found a way to make it work.  Bastian, on the other hand, was perfectly content sitting on the other side of Grandpa.

Selah June hung in there for a good 40 minutes, and then she started to get a little stir crazy.  Grandpa held he on his lap and did his magic.  She settled right down while he patted the rhythms of the music on her belly and whispered in her ear.

After the show, we all walked and walked and walked back to the cars in the parking lot behind the theater.  Little Miss wanted to walk on her own, of course.

We celebrated at Wendy’s over chicken nuggets and fries.

May 16, 2016

What do you call the outfit that your toddler refuses to keep on?  The nonesie.

We really wanted to have our breakfast outside.  You see how that went.  Like manna from heaven…

May 15, 2016

We changed out of our dress before ever leaving the restaurant.  There was no way that ranch pool in her lap was coming anywhere near the car.  Do you like the nice little wife beaters I made out of hand-me-down onesies with long sleeves?  They’ll do the trick in a pinch.

She was a crash out before we ever made it home.

And then we woke up and had to spend some quality time outside.

Here she is doing a little lazy Sunday afternoon resting face-down on the back patio.  Just a baby and her Lego blocks.

Selah June has discovered her favorite condiment, and it is RANCH!  She shares this trait with Sebastian Jones who must have ranch dressing with everything.  We’ll see if she develops his love affair with Ketchup as well.

At Jason’s Deli all she wanted was to dip crackers in ranch.  Poor Dad could hardly watch.

May 14, 2016

Satie Isabelly had her first ballet recital.  It was at Washington High School.  The parking lot was PACKED OUT!!! by a half hour before the recital start time.  I ended up going rogue and parking on the sidewalk.  Because I saw Satie get ready for her dress rehearsal, I knew that the spectacular costume had some aqua/turquoise tulle.  To make Satie and Selah June’s day, I dressed the little one in an aqua onesie and an aqua tutu.  She thought she was “pretty!!”

Once we got there and got settled, she was very squirmy.  She kept throwing her bottle on the floor, which then proceeded to roll down the sloped floor under the seating in front of us.  Once the program began, she quieted way down.  She loved all of the little numbers — the littlest kids, the big kids, the tap dancers, and the ballet dancers.  It was all wonderful to her.  Between each number, the stage crew would dim the lights for the next performers to get into place.  And like clockwork, SJ would say “What happened?  Lights off?”  It became so predictable it was comical.  There were only 40 or so performances, and after every single one… “What happened?  Lights off?”  And everybody around her would say, “Yes!  Lights off!”

Later that same day, we played outside.  She helped me water the plants and did some sun bathing with the puppy

May 13, 2016

I’ve decided to take days off work this summer at regular intervals to spend quality time with Selah June during the slow time of the year (if you can really call it that).

We coordinated an adventure with Satie and Sebastian to go to the beach.  It’s quite amazing how much crap you have to take out to the beach with an entourage, and that’s probably amplified by the need to have arms free to carry kiddos across hot pavement and through deep sand.

But it was totally worth it.  The older kids wanted to get right in the water.  She was more interested in checking everything out and playing with toys in the sand.  She also wanted to eat all of the ranch in the vegetable tray.  Can you blame her?

We then went home and took baths in time for Satie to make it to her ballet dress rehearsal.  She looked BEAUTIFUL!  (and silly)