Jason took David canoeing this morning on the Shenandoah river. They set up camp and then Jacob Sarah and I joined then for dinner and smores. Sarah is enjoying sitting by the campfire like a big person.

Xander and Declan Svir have come over for a few playdates this month. Sarah is getting used to their company and is quite intrigued by these two other baby boys. Today I pulled out the whack-a-mole game and Xander immediately recognized what it was and grabbed the hammer and started hitting the moles. Sarah was very entertained watching him do this. Xander later tried to show Sarah how to hit the moles:

Sarah has started to actually say words now. Here first official word is “Baby”. We have figured out that she not only identifies babies with that word, but she also refers to all humans (adult and children) as “baby”. We’ll clear that up later. She can also say “sock” now and of course “Dada” and “Momma”. She is pretty close to saying “Please”.

Here she is saying baby:

Here are some pictures from Mother’s Day. Jason and David decorated a chocolate cake for me at Wegmans. Complete with M&M’s, sprinkles, a plastic crown and other decals. We had chicken fajitas for dinner and then afterwards the kids gave me the present that they have been working on for some time — Their footprints preserved in plaster. Very cute. I’m very impressed that Jason managed to get all three of them to stand still long enough to make the mold. My first impression was, WOW! look how big David’s feet are getting!

Its a nice afternoon in Virginia. Time to eat popsicles.

Jacob came running into the kitchen the other day screaming “sarah is destroying my toys!”… I was first impressed that my little 3 year old used the word destroy in a sentence and I was also amused by his distress over his baby sister. I came into the playroom to find that sarah had in fact started to take apart his race track piece by piece. She thought all the screaming happening each time she pulled off a track was all part of a fun game. This sort of scene happens daily, and so we have now created a gated baby-proof area where the boys can go play in peace. This has greatly decreased the daily stress in Jacob’s life.

Jason loves to mess with Sarah’s hair in order to make her look like a “Treasure troll”. I see a little resemblance.

As everyone who reads this blog probably knows – Jason is the videographer of the family. He has a few cameras he uses to capture some great video of the kids. He is also constantly thinking up new ways to rig the cameras to the kids’ scooters, bikes and toys in order to get a good angle for the shot. Here is his latest contraption — a long pole that extended outwards from the front of Jacob’s scooter. I’m sure some video from this session will turn up eventually, for now you can enjoy the doctored photos…

Daddy showed sarah how to stick out her tongue like a dog yesterday. Now she is fascinated with her tongue and has been sticking it out all day. Whether sitting or crawling… quite amusing.

Sarah always want to hold the spoon and the jar or bowl when we are eating. Apparently she thinks she can feed herself. Lately I have been letting her hold the spoon and jar after she is done eating. She spends a good fifteen minutes (which is a long time in baby time) play feeding. She also loves to look at the picture of the baby on the side of the jar and can verbalize the word “baby”. I’ll attach a video of her speaking below this picture.

I finally managed to put together a picture to help us remember the trip we took to Kaua’i back in December. We went during Christmas break and had a wonderful time.

Sarah has also rediscovered the pantry and I often find her there reorganizing my supplies.

Jason is convinced that when babies cry its only because they “want a can” … in this case a tin can. I’m pretty sure this rule is not universal or always true, but I have found that my kids love tin cans. Probably because they are shiny. Here sarah is playing with a can that david wrapped. I did not supervise the wrapping of the can, david often does “art projects” on his own, perhaps he is starting his own brand of food.

Sarah has discovered her kitchen. She is fascinated by all the play food, especially the ones that make noise such as the sprinkles shaker she is happily chewing on in this picture. She likes to put food in the sink and then proceed to stir it around with a kitchen utensil. She can’t really get up on her own and so she goes over to the kitchen and whines until somebody stands her up. She has figured out how to get what she wants around here.

Legoland is less than an hour away

Babies get to take baths in the sink.

David and Jacob get to go in the jacuzzi everyday!

Jacob finally found a bob the builder tractor to ride on. Who knew it was at the Carlsbad outlets.