1, 2, 3 go!

(Eye on the prize)

We now have a grand total of 6 mobile underfoots. That is up from 5 last month. Eskil is on the go now. He uses a combination of rolling, rocking on hands and knees and then lurching/lunging forward and a good ol' army crawl to get where he wants. He may be a little slow, slightly inefficient, but he gets there, whether it is to his sister's trains, books or Berji, he finds a way. Chaos just inched up a notch in Berji's domain.

(Dr. Daddy's creativity at work- turning a saylor* into a pirate)

Around the House

there's nothing quite like a post-breakfast tea party

or a pre-teeth-brushing sword fight

Only in "God's Country"...

can you find:

belt buckles
waffle irons
tortilla chips

all in the shape of the state.

"I have said Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion." - John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

Sushi

Dr. Daddy and I made California rolls for dinner the other night. It was the kids' first foray into such pleasures.

Adisu made a valiant attempt at using chopsticks

Eirena went straight for efficiency

Adisu followed suit

Oops! A touch of wasabi

Overall it was a success. Except that neither child liked the wasabi or the ginger (my favorite part). But seaweed? No problem. Maybe we'll be able to introduce them to real sushi sometime in the near future. (Without wasabi.)

Introducing.... Joseph

Eirena has had a baby in her uterus for quite a while now. Nearly daily we hear comments about how the baby is going to pop out soon. The other day we also found out that the baby is named "Joseph" (and he is a baby boy!).

Eirena is rather concerned about Joseph having a pack'n'play to sleep in- I think that may be the only thing preventing his popping out. (Other than the fact that he is completely fictitious, but that is a minor detail to a 3 yr. old.) So we have told her that Joseph may use her old pack'n'play and share diapers with Eskil. But she will have to feed him herself. I'm not going to be doing that. But that is okay with her because she already feeds Fuzzy Bear. As in lifts up her shirt and holds him up to her chest type feeding.

[Unfortunately, lessons about how things really work better with a mommy and a daddy for babies are still lost on her. ]

Her own drumbeat

So we always knew Eirena did things Eirena-style, regardless of what others did or thought. This was yet again demonstrated to us yesterday.
Coming back from her "big girl class" at church yesterday, she had a plastic pail and her "artwork"- dark blue paper with swaths of white crayon and some purple and green.
Dr. Daddy and I tried asking her about the pail, how it was related to the Bible story etc. We got out of her that the story was about Jesus and that people needed to be saved. No pail was involved in the story. Jesus didn't need a pail to save people. (Aren't we glad that much was clear?) Why she got a pail, we still don't know.
So we switched to asking about the picture. What was it a picture of, I asked.
"Snow", she replied.
And the green? Snow.
And the purple? Snow.
Was there snow in the story about Jesus? "No", she told us.
"And what were the other boys and girls coloring?" Dr. Daddy asked.
"About Jesus".

Tum tum ta da ta da tum tum tap tum ta da tap tum tap tap

5 months!

Eskil is 5 months old now. This chubby guy has eaten his way to doubling his birth weight and has put it all on his thighs. His parents have decided that he doesn't need to get up 3 times a night to eat anymore. He doesn't really either, but he sure would like to snuggle at 4 in the morning. We're trying to convince him otherwise.

He rolls front to back and back to front now and practices sitting very nicely. He loves been bounced, tossed or jiggled.
He is a very social little guy who loves attention. Eskil's latest trick for getting attention and smiles is to look around for someone to wrinkle his nose at. That is a sign of happiness for him.

Once he's caught your eye, he wrinkles his nose and gives a huge toothless, gummy grin to you.

Of course, the only appropriate response is to wrinkle your nose and smile back at him. He may then get so excited he'll blow a raspberry for you.

Joie de Vivre

ready to ride a miniature train

thoroughly enjoying her first ice cream cone
(we won't think of the clean up that required)

Dr. Daddy's Bolivia trip

Photos from Bolivia

Our trip down the Rio Beni via 12m long boat.

Gorge of Paleozoic-Mesozoic rocks on the Rio Beni. The orange is the top of our boat.

Observing river-side geology.

Another Paleozoic-Mesozoic ridge in seen from the boat.

After the Rio Beni we had a few spare days in La Paz and decided to climb Huayna Potosi.

Approaching Huayna Potosi. The view from the road.

One of my favourite views of this imposing mountain.

We started our summit attempt at 2 am and reached the summit at about dawn (6:30). This was the view from the peak (6088m). See the people on the trail down below?

This is another view of the peak. Not much flat space.

On the way back down in the daylight, we could see the amazing glacial formations that we passed in the dark on the way up.

And the crevasses we had crossed.

And the snow fields we had ascended.

We're back

My parents were in town for about 3 weeks. It was fun to have them around and not have to try to squeeze all the fun into a few short days. They also got to know their grandkids better, the good and the bad.
We were able to take the time to go to the BBQ capital of America, the Museum of the Pacific Theater of WWII, a pioneer museum, outlet malls, parks, picnics and a concert in the park and watch the World Cup matches.
Fun times.