shelby's first hair cut

we went to cookie cutters today for shelby's first haircut :) it was great!

they had a big tree house inside with a play area around it that elise kept busy in. shelby sat in an airplane and watched elmo while 'michelle' was cutting her hair. she just trimmed it up, i really can't even tell it was cut. stephon says that the ends look more even and he's stopped calling it lettuce, so i'm guessing it was a success!

nathan is 16, can you believe it!?

okay, he has three days to go but today was nathan's surprise birthday party. he had a blast! it was supposed to be a pool party, but there was heavy rain all day. we didn't mind, we played inside!

parish and his wife stephanie really did a good job. we had it at the clubhouse at their condo. stephanie decorated and one of their friends, watson, catored the event. the food was wonderful!

nathan had a great time, and so did everyone there. my family was all there, parish's family was there, and so were several friends. everyone mingled and visited and caught up with people we haven't seen in years.

pearly whites and no cavities!

we went to the dentist today. really the appointments were for nathan and me, but we walk in with a crowd :) shelby will have her first dentist appointment with us in january!

elise still has no teeth. i tell everyone that her and i have an agreement that she will wait to teethe until after we're done nursing. no one believes me.

sitting home eating bon-bons

we went to the library today for story time for the girls. it was wonderful! nathan went to the teen room and read his book (the iliad) while the girls and i were in "class." he loved the library, too. the main library building was funded by andrew carnegie, is a roman design and is all marble and granite. it's a really neat building and has all sorts of fun resources inside. i like the coffee shop, myself.

i was wondering how a room full of toddlers would get through a half-hour of reading... no... i knew what was going to happen with them, it was me i was concerned about! but it was cool! they started out with a little song and dance, read a story, did another little song and dance, told a story on a felt board, did another little song and dance, and played a little game. it was brilliant! you would think these people know what they are doing!

afterwards, we went to zuppa where sandra works and had lunch with her since we were already downtown. i didn't get a ticket today! i have gotten a ticket every time i've been there. seriously. it's a good thing she's cute because man, she is expensive to visit!

later we went by the charles school which is a charter school here. it's part of ohio dominican university, which is very cool because the students have access to the college and are encouraged to take classes towards college credits while they are still in high school. i think nathan needs someone else to motivate him to want to do good in school, and i'm not sure i am the one to keep doing it. we're going to check out cornerstone academy in westerville tomorrow, although i don't think they will have the same college benefits that charles does. i'm sure their location is much more desirable, though! ohio dominican is supposed to be a good university, but they are located in the armpit of columbus, i think.

we went to whetstone park and had 2nd lunch... or a pre-dinner :) we ate our reds and blues there. we had blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries! it was wonderful. i try to make sure we get a complete rainbow every day, along with healthy grains and some protein. i can't say it happens every day, but today we did good!

nathan had martial arts tonight, so we dropped him off at the studio and the girls and i came home.

whew! i didn't realize how busy today was!

elises tricks and nathan fun

little little elise is quite difficult when it comes to eating these days! she does not want baby food. she wants what everyone else is eating, especially shelby. however, she still has no teeth. she still has the cutest, toothless, baby smile!

actually, that may not be entirely accurate. she does like to play with her baby food. she discovered a pretty cool trick recently, and today she mastered the art of spraying her food. she sprays it and laughs and laughs! i am really trying not to encourage it, but when she laughs real hard it is so funny! so, today i had a nice even spray of squash in my hair, on my face, and on my clothes. it probably looked like it was airbrushed on :P

she has also started squealing! ugh! she belts out this shrilling, brain rattling, echoes around on the inside of your skull, scream when she is crying. i have to nip this one quick. no, she doesn't rival elizabeth, yet.

i took shelby and elise to the library today. we used to go a lot to get books for nathan for school, but he's been stuck on the iliad and the odyssey for awhile. plus, i think shelby was too young to really appreciate it at the time. today we went to the main columbus metropolitan library, it was so cool! they have a huge section for kids, a tree house, and a theatre-style story time room. i am looking forward to taking them to story time there.

i haven't had many updates for nathan recently. he was out of town off and on over the last couple of weeks. first he was in warren, ohio with my mom and bob, and then he was with parish for parish's wedding. he had a great time at both, but now he is back home and has been locked in his room for the last several days working on getting it clean!

ya know, i should have him start a blog so he can tell everyone what he's been up to. i would have loved to see what he would have written about his vacation in warren. he got to ride in a manure spreader in one parade and got to drive a tractor in another! he got to help with cows at the trumbull county fair, helped a family friend plant flowers around her house, and worked his tail off at mom and bob's house! nathan is very proud that his grandma drives tractors and he loves this kind of work, so he will be talking about it for quite awhile! here are some pictures from the first parade.

finally, we're on a roll!

elise finally rolled over from her stomach to her back today! she's pretty late doing it, but i'm not worried about it because she hasn't had much of an opportunity to work on it. she hates being on her stomach. i think she did it out of necessity. i laid her down for a nap on her side and she rolled to her stomach. i knew she'd get frustrated, but i left to see what she would do. it worked! she fussed a little, and rolled over!

shelby's imagination continues to amaze me. i really want to take all of her toys away and just give her two sticks and see what she comes up with.

i realized today that she is also working on pre-math skills. she matches letters on her blocks. grouping blocks like this is important. we're going to start working on patterns and grouping a bit more, i think. i was reading about it today, so i'm excited to be on a pre-math kick :)

singin' in the rain

i have a plumbing project i've been working on. the cold water doesn't work in our main bathroom. this means that nathan showers in the master bath, and i have to run cold water to the tub to give the girls a bath. the plumbing needs to be fixed quickly! it looks like the project is on hold until monday now because i'm going to have to find a part (the stem) at a plumbing store because what i have is from 1966 and none of the stems at lowes or home depot match.

since my home maintenance project on hold and it had been raining all day, shelby and i went out to play in puddles :) well, we intended on going for a walk but we have a great puddle on the sidewalk out front. we had all sorts of fun!

after puddle fun comes bath time! elise had two new bath tricks today! she splashed and splashed and splashed some more! shelby was a bit annoyed because she was trying to fill her boat with bubbles and the splashing was distracting. it was funny. i moved elise to the back of the tub, but her second trick was to scoot from one end of the tub to the other. it was really funny. i wonder if she'll try to do that in lieu of crawling.

i read a great article on babies and toddlers imaginations yesterday. i am truly fascinated with shelby's. she's so creative and abstract thinking when she's pretending or when she sees things like letters or shapes in different objects. the first time i remember really seeing it was when she picked up sticks during a walk and said 'y!'

nathan is back from parish's and he and stephon are playing star wars battlefront II on the 360. tomorrow will be the first day in weeks that nathan has been in town and home on the weekend when stephon is here. i've decided that we're going to play hookie from church tomorrow for a family day. i'm feeling inspired, so we're having a star wars day :) we will start with episode I, and keep going until we've seen them all! how fun does that sound !?