Look At Me!

There are days when I literally have to say to my kids, "I can't look at you all the time."  They want me to...look at them, that is.  All the time.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.  Here's what they want me to see:

The Prince and the Princesses Say "Bear!"

A little snippet of Rose's imaginary play:

Captain America and Princess Rose

It started like this:

And ended like this:

But in between there was this:

You Are My Sunshine

We can't get enough of "You are my sunshine" around here.

Finding His Voice

Every once and a while I can coax Dale out of a song or two, and gosh it's so cute!

2012

2012...You sure were fun.

Christmas Videos

Here's a few special Christmas moments caught on video...

Anything Will Do

On those long winter days when it's too cold to go outside, I have found it's best to let the kids get a little creative indoors.  These days I find myself stepping back more and more, letting both Dale and Rose discover new and exciting ways to entertain themselves.  On this particular day, the game of choice was a pillow fort of sorts by Mommy's bed.  I think Dale was trying to put Rose in a cage aka laundry basket much to her dismay.

Rose defends her basket of hair barrettes with all her might.

Rose is still worried about her precious barrettes.

Cold days and nights also mean long dinners with a lot of interesting stories and songs.

 

Totes Cray Cray

I'm not sure if this is normal,  but whatever it is, we love it.

 

 

 

 

Where's Rose?

Apparently it never gets old...

 

 

August Videos

Here are a few August videos that accidentally got left behind.  I couldn't just ignore them, so here they are all clumped into one big fat juicy blog post.

 

Rose is a singer.  She's not shy about it either.  Girlfriend loves to shout it out.

 

When it was Dale's turn with the microphone, he went into his own little imaginary world.  We have no idea what he was doing.

 

 

Rose on the trampoline is hysterical.  She has the shortest little legs that make me giggle on a daily basis. 

 

 

The afternoon we picked up Dale's tap shoes from the dance school, he didn't quite know what to make of the shoes.  But he gave them a shot, and now he's hooked.

 

August at Home

For a few weeks, Firefighter Dale made it his mission to put out the fires in our backyard.  Somehow the same three trees kept catching fire, and Dale was called to the scene to extinguish the flames.

 

I am kinda digging this backlit photo.

Rose kept close to me, knowing that Dale wouldn't dare get his Mommy wet for fear of hose and/or lollipop banishment.

 

But Dale was getting braver with the hose.  He was no longer a firefighter.  He was evil tiger Dale with water fighting machine.

 

 

Apparently Dale has figured out a way around the "No spraying Rose with the hose" rule.

 

He's not spraying at her, he's spraying near her.

He finally couldn't stand it anymore and got his poor sister good with the water.

Time to go inside!

 

Once we had all settled down, I knew it was time to break out our new watercolors.  Dale and Rose agreed.

 

They were both very hard at work, trying to figure out how to balance the water and paint.

I was dying over the cuteness of little hands hard at work.

 Things went great for about five minutes.  Then Rose started doing this:

 

This is Dale's "serious" face.  Also, don't you just love his little freckle?

Dale got bored with the watercolors quickly and wanted markers instead.  I obliged and somehow managed to get him to write!  Here is Dale's very first written name.

Ta-da!

 

And finally, here are a few videos of my children hanging out at home...

 

 

 

A Dinner in Videos

Pre-video info:

1.  Dale is now afraid of monsters after a scary encounter with one in our upstairs hallway.  Dale insists Daddy was there for the meeting, although Daddy cannot recall this happening at all.  Must be monster memory loss.

2.  Rose loves onions, yes.  She also loves Granny's salad dressing, and apparently, although it is not mentioned in the video, she also loves sauerkraut.  Weird?  Nah.  She's part German.

3.  Dale likes to see himself in videos now.  However, he thinks that he can see himself in the front of the camera and therefore wants to stick his face there as much as possible.

And now, without further ado, here are my crazy children at one random dinner...

 

The Way It Is

On any given day you can find my children in this exact position.  Rose sitting alone reading a book, and Dale obsessing over which jammies he has on.  We read many books a day and go through many pairs of jammies.  It's all good though, because that's just the way it is.

We also have frequent strange towers or forts built throughout the house.  This one was especially creative.  Dale covered the shopping cart with Rose's sheet and all the laundry from the basket.  He topped it off with Rose's swimsuit.  What's in there?  A sleeping toy, of course.  Shhh, don't bother it.

We also listen to a lot of music.  In Dale's room, our current favorite song is "Puff the Magic Dragon".

Dancing Hippos and Chimpanzee Fist Bumps

The Sedgwick County Zoo.  The place where Dale finds inspiration to become a fierce animal in order to torture his precious fragile little sister.

Look at this face!  Why would anyone want to torture her?

Oh sure, you think giraffes are harmless enough, but they have long icky tongues for licking your little sister with.

She has no idea what the future holds with her big brother.

Dale practiced being a tiger in front of the lion.  Later he would practice being a tiger to everyone on the entire planet.

In fact, he practiced all day long, crawling on the ground, making animal faces, clawing and growling at unsuspecting strangers.  Never mind that we didn't even see the tigers.

Luckily Dale never pays much attention to the gorillas and instead opts to play with the interactive TV screen in the area.

A small moment of peace for Mommy's principessa.

The hippos were dancing underwater, which meant that for several weeks afterward, I had to be the dancing hippo for my children on a daily basis.

The chimpanzees were a huge hit that day.  The baby was very interested in playing with Dale.  And by playing I mean that it wanted to rip his face off and eat it.

Hello there cute little chimpanzee!

When it was time to say goodbye, Dale gave Daddy chimpanzee a fist bump.

Peace out dude.

Things I have to say to Dale almost daily now:

1.  Dale, you are not a tiger.

2.  Please stop torturing your sister.

3.  Do you hear Rose screaming?  That means she doesn't like what you are doing.

4.  Can we be nice tame tigers today?

Why couldn't he become obsessed with peacocks or flamingos?

The Post Lawrence Cool Down

We spent the entire day in Lawrence, but when we got home, we heard the question we hear every time we pull into the driveway.  "Can I ride my scooter just a wittle bit?"  And very often there is a giant long "Pweeeeeeease" with it that you cannot ignore.

What we were thinking:  "Oh my gosh, you are just the cutest most wonderful little boy on the entire planet, and if I see one tiny little tear fall from your gorgeous hazel eyes, I may just drop dead from heartbreak.  You can have anything you want forever andeverandever."

What we said: "Okay, but just a little bit."

A scooter-coupe stand off.

Our kids were so worn out from all our fun activities that they crashed on the driveway.  "Nigh Nigh," Rose said as she laid down on the concrete.

Here is a video of one of the fun games we play with Rose in her cozy coupe.  She loves it, and it looks hysterical.  Please ignore the hideous annoying cackle in the background.  I couldn't help it.  It's really hilarious in person.

Tiny Dancers

I don't know who enjoys dance class more, Dale or me.  I certainly get my fill of laughter while watching those tiny dancers spin and giggle and jump and play.  Dale has made many new friends, which I love, and Rose has made one of her own just by hanging out in the waiting area.  We're all happy.

Dale waits for his friend, Autumn, to show up for class.

Front and center in class, Dale follows instructions very well.  So well, in fact, that he is one of the only kids in his class advancing to the 4-5 year old pre-dance class in the Fall.  And he'll still be three!  Yay Dale!!

So what's Rose doing while Dale is in dance class?  She snacks or yells at the other people in the waiting room.  She is the Mommy entertainment.  She also entertains the other dance-sibling sitting in his stroller by yelling, "NOOoo!" and "MINE" at him.

We love our dance studio.  We love all the kids, the teachers and the parents.

Check out Dale's point!  All these years of walking on his toes are paying off.

He's a good kid.

Once the kids all started to get to know each other a little better, they started to act more like three year olds.  Dale would wait until Autumn arrived, but then the two would go bonkers until the teacher started class.