Relaxing at the Ranch

We spent Memorial Day down in Texas with some of Dave's college friends and their families. We had unusually gorgeous weather, much cooler than the last few trips to the ranch. The kids did pretty well on the drive, other than a brief episode of possible carsickness from Elizabeth. We had a great weekend relaxing, catching up, and eating way more than we should have!


Elizabeth decided this weekend was a great time to start taking multiple independent steps. She still crawls a lot, but can walk several steps when she feels like it. She liked walking around the hotel room and the ranch patio.

The older kids enjoyed looking for roly-polies and crickets. Several crickets imprisoned in a plastic container with air holes and a bottlecap of water miraculously made it alive through the weekend before they were set free as we were leaving. (Ben, unsurprisingly, is the one in the Hosmer baseball shirt in the photo below.)

Elizabeth comes face to face with a real cow. She was unsure what to think.

Ben spotted this group of cows in the meadow during our drive around the ranch.

Ben went fishing at the regular lake (roost lake) once and the small lake just down from the cabins once. He caught a fish at the roost lake and was very proud!

Heading down to the little lake with Elizabeth in our new baby carrier

Ben's fish:

Ben posing with the fish Calvin caught:

One of the other kids got out the chalk and Elizabeth was fascinated! She scribbled with it for almost an hour and got mad when we took her away so we could have dinner! Since we got home, she has been enjoying drawing on the driveway.

Magna Doodles are some of the best kids' toys! Both Ben & Elizabeth love spending time scribbling (E) & writing/drawing (B) on them. Elizabeth also loved that there were chairs just her size.

Our weekend

We had a pretty low-key weekend, which was nice. Ben had soccer on Saturday morning and enjoyed himself and talked to some of the other kids. He balked a little when it came time to scrimmage, but with Dave's encouragement, he joined in and was so proud that his team "won." Elizabeth enjoyed walking around the grass, picking dandelions, tearing up helicopter leaves, and making faces at the baby sitting nearby.

Elizabeth is now able to climb up onto Rocking Panda and one of our armchairs independently and is so proud of herself!

Last month the babywearing group I belong to had a spring picnic. We won the raffle prize of an orange doll wrap for kids to wear (can also double as a wonderfully soft scarf!). Ben has seen me wrap Elizabeth on my back so he wanted me to help him use the doll wrap today. Elephant got a piggy back ride and hung around with Ben as he read books for a while this morning.

Dave was mowing the lawn around lunchtime today and called us out to see a turtle who had camped out in our front lawn! He had a unusually long tail compared to the turtles we've seen before. Dave carried him over to the field behind the neighbor's house and set him free there. The kids thought it was really cool. Elizabeth really wanted me to let her down to grab it!

Mother's Day

We had a delicious Mother's Day breakfast at Ingredient and then enjoyed the great weather in the green space outside. Elizabeth was a little confused that the Astro-Turf didn't feel like grass. She liked checking out the Adirondack chair, crawling around, chatting with Great-Grandma and conning her out of her necklace for a while. Ben had a ball running around and passing an imaginary football to Dave, Uncle Jeff & Opa.

Elizabeth had lots of stories to tell Great-Grandma:

Football/soccer/tag/wrestling or whatever Ben chose to call it at the moment you were enlisted to play:

Elizabeth practicing her standing and walking:

One of Elizabeth's favorite pastimes is investigating and/or borrowing jewelry. She is always fascinated when people have necklaces or earrings.

Investigating Great-Grandma's necklace...

...and wearing Great-Grandma's necklace!

Cuddling with Grandma & examining her necklace

Time for nap:

Ben's Bedtime Theology, continued

"Mommy, is New Orleans part of God?"

Naturally, as the wife of an avid Simpsons fan, my brain immediately started playing the "New Orleans" song from the "Streetcar Named Marge" episode that offended New Orleans residents and led to Bart writing, "I will not defame New Orleans" in a later episode. Thankfully, I was able to stifle my giggles long enough to tell Ben that I was pretty sure that New Orleans was part of God's creation.

It would be fascinating (and probably scary!) to hear the thoughts that are cranking around in Ben's head before he blurts out something like this.

Elizabeth is 16 months old!

At sixteen months, Elizabeth is taking 3-4 steps on her own. Ben walked at 17 months, so they're about on the same timeline. She can say Mama, Dada, Papa, Opa and up. She approximates "more," "buh" for Ben, "ah duh" for "all done" and knows a few animal names and sounds as well as a few signs (more, all done, bath). She gets into moods where she loves to chatter or screech and other times she is quiet.


She likes:

• Eating. Bottomless pit! She likes most food, but has random streaks where suddenly she hates melon or will start eating blueberries again after squishing every single one she was given the previous week.
• Playing with Ben's toys, especially Matchbox cars
• Playing peek-a-boo
• Putting things in containers. She has inherited a tall cylindrical Tupperware that used to store flour and enjoys jamming all sorts of random stuff in there.
• Unloading the kids' plates from the cupboard. Actually, unloading anything she can reach in a cupboard.
• Reading. Some mornings I can put some books in her crib and she will look through them while I finish getting ready.
• Moving to music
• Pointing to body parts or poking at yours when you ask where chin, belly, nose, etc. are. She was trying to grab Uncle Jeff's beard off his chin yesterday.
• Taking off her socks and shoes. This is apparently hilarious.
• Walking, but only when she can make it a game that ends in her diving onto you
• Cuddling the telephone when one of her grandparents is on speakerphone.
• Giggling

Elizabeth doesn't like:

• Being told that she's had enough food
• Getting her ever-running nose wiped
• Having something taken away that she's playing with, whether it's one of Ben's toys she's not supposed to have or some random thing she's found on the floor.  She will squawk and let you know the extent of her displeasure!
• Brandy, her grandparents' dog
• Having her hair up in pigtails or barrettes  
• When the other kids at school get too close to her (some try to hug her a little too vigorously and one sweet girl seems to want to help Elizabeth rid herself of her ponytail holders every day!)
• Finger painting (apparently painting with pudding was okay, but not with paint)
• Being put down when she wants up, up, up. It is your fault if you just put her down because she was wriggly or pointing at the ground like she wanted to be put down.