Girl talk

For some reason, tonight I got the urge to see if I had taken any videos on this date in 2009, during the babies' first year. And, sure enough, I had! Check out this little gem I found of Dahlia (on the left) and Lucy chatting it up in the playard:



I'd forgotten what all those coos sounded like! Don't you wonder what they were trying to say?

Puddle of fun

Ah, jumping in puddles. A pleasure that most kids take for granted, but something that mine had only seen on television ... until yesterday, when an overnight rainstorm left a tantalizing puddle on the walking trail behind our house. As soon as Jude saw it, he knew exactly what to do with it—and the rest of the crew soon followed:



Puddles of the world, you are no longer safe: If the Fab Four see you, they will jump in you!

Sprinkle, sprinkle

What do you do when it's too hot to go to the playground and there's no one to go to the pool with? You make Daddy set up the sprinkler in the backyard—for the first time ever, believe it or not! Happily, we just happened to have a round stationary sprinkler stashed away in the garage, perfect for four little people to share:

First time in the sprinkler 
(l to r: Jude, Dahlia, Lucy, and Isaac)

As I expected, Jude and Isaac dove right in and stayed under the spray almost the entire time we were outside. Dahlia and Lucy were more cautious, watching from a distance while the boys got soaked. Eventually, however, neither girl could resist the siren call of the "waterfall" (as Jude likes to call it), and soon everyone was enjoying the refreshingly cool water. We stood under it, drank from it, pretended to wash our hands in it, and, of course, ran through it:



I'm pretty sure we'll be doing this again!

Growing up

Almost exactly two years ago our Bisabuelo brought us these beautiful handmade dresses from Peru:

Lucy and Dahlia at 8 months old

Today we wore the same dresses to church—this time as shirts:

Dahlia and Lucy at 2.5 years old

My, how we've grown!

Outside, outside, outside!

We love to be outside! We take walks outside:

Collect rocks outside:

Pretend to fall down and break our crowns outside:

We eat outside:

Laugh and squeal outside:

We even practice holding hands outside:

Mostly, though, we just like plain old having fun outside:



Summer, we sure are going to miss you when it's cold outside!

An extra-special extra

Several months ago my cousin Glenda transferred our wedding video onto a DVD. I decided to pop it in for the first time on our 11th anniversary last month, and was utterly shocked when the Fab Four asked to see it again the next day—and again the next! Nearly a month later, we are still watching parts of our wedding DVD daily. The kids love seeing Mommy dressed like a "princess" (the royal wedding made a big impression on them), and they get a big kick out of naming everyone they recognize on TV.

Their favorite part of the video, though, has to be the extra clip that Glenda included of my dad's youngest brother and his band performing at my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary party, shortly before his death. The kids like the clip so much that they ask for Tío Arturo (aka "Dee-o Doodle") to sing to them almost every day before nap. Recently a couple of his littlest sobrinitos have begun to accompany the band:



I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know that, even in death, my Tío Arturo is teaching my children to love music. Thanks for adding such a special extra to our DVD, Tía Glenda!