ellen and i played hide and seek tonight...

we took the wagon on its inaugural ride to a little league game down the street

watching the game

isaiah was asleep but then decided baseball was something he might want to check out

this kid was having a great time rolling down the hill right in front of me over and over and over (and over and over again)

ellen has discovered the tag in the back of her shirt. and it freaks her out. she first found it when i was putting a shirt on her and bonked her head by accident. i said "oops, bonk" and this seemed to coincide with her feeling the tag on her back. i think she thought i said 'bug' implying there was a bug in her shirt. she went beserk. she was so freaked out i tried to take the shirt completely off but couldn't do it because she was trying to get away from the tag but it just kept following her. we got the shirt off and left it off for a couple hours, but put it back on when we went for a walk and she was fine. after we got home and there was less excitement (we went to watch a baseball game) she remembered it and went crazy again. dave took one of the tags off for her but then she wanted all of us to take the tags off our shirts. now i'm not sure if she's saying there's a bug on her or that the tag is bugging her. (bug! scream bug!) it took her awhile tonight, but i think she finally forgot about it long enough to fall asleep. poor kid.

blue like jazz

i just finished reading this book. at the beginning i didn't like it so much. it was just kinda random mumblings that eventually got to the point it felt like. but by the time i finished i decided it was actually a really good book. and i think i want to read it again. it talks about everything i think is important in christianity. and everything i think is dumb. and it is freeing - i've had a lot of the same thoughts and concerns and frustrations and loves that this guy talks about and while it sounds silly, i didn't really know that other people thought those things. its also freeing because (and this is sort of a secret) i've had it in my head that i'm gonna write a book someday. and it will probably be about some sort of 'religious' thing. but i've never known what to say. blue like jazz is freeing because i realized i don't have to know something to say or tell people. i just have to have an experience with/of god. it was also challenging to me - the author, don miller, talks about all the sorts of people that he's friends with. and they sound so incredibly interesting. but to be quite honest i'm a bit fearful of crazy drug taking homeless hippy types. or really anyone that i would meet while walking down the street. i think that's lame (to be fearful) and that i need to get over that. (not to get crazy and reckless or anything, but to be less of a fraidy cat.)

storytime at the library. i've been rather dissapointed lately that most of my pictures are not in sharp focus. today i realized that it is frequently because i'm holding and jiggling isaiah when trying to take pictures of ellen. and also because i don't really like the flash.

well, ellen's birthweek is coming to a close. the one drawback to this plan, as i was telling jill and anne, is that i'm a tad worried she's going to think that this is how everyday goes from now on. after all, we've had presents and happy birthday things for about 4 or 5 days and that's eternity for a two year old. she's having a wonderful time playing with all of her new toys and has been looking at her new clothes and telling me they're cute. (everything is "cute" right now.) she's been doing a lot of cooking and blowing bubbles and being a rockstar with her new guitar. playdoh is also a big hit and her windup fish go in the tub everynight. it rained today, but hopefully soon we'll get enough sun to go outside with the elmo sprinkler. ellen's also been reading her new books to herself and showing them to isaiah. she also received her very own set of car keys with an alarm that she thinks is a bug. anyway, i can't possibly list everything she got (i don't think there are any toys left to buy her!) but thank you everybody. we all had a good time. two year old birthdays are fun.

wood got in on the action also

isaiah and bopp quality time

ninja moves on the bubbles

comments

alright people. i'll freely admit i need external motivation. and your comments on this blog are my motivation to post. so i need some hint that you all are looking at this. (i promise to do a better job of commenting back and commenting on your blogs)

we celebrated birthday's today. and i have a ton of pictures to post, but i'll just do a bunch today and spread more out over the week. ellen's cupcake...

and dave's

paranoid self that i am we made a beeline for the car thinking we'd get some benadryl or something. but the reactions all seemed to die down once we got there so we hung out blowing bubbles for a bit.

we went to the state park to walk the trail today and we all got some sort of allergic reaction to something. (maybe blackberry thorns?) ellen got it on her face (between her eyebrows)...

and her arm too

even poor isaiah got one. mom, wood and i were assaulted also, but our pictures don't look as good. only dave escaped.

dave works late into the night to assemble ellen's wagon

some differences i've noticed

isaiah is more social - he gets incredibly excited when you look at him. isaiah is also more emotive than ellen - he laughs more than i remember she did, but he also gets upset more easily. ellen is a heavier sleeper than isaiah - i'm hesistant to even enter a room he's sleeping in. ellen slept through everything. i could pick her up and move her change her diaper and she wouldn't wake up. isaiah has a favorite toy already - ellen didn't really attach to anything until she was about one. and then it was only for a little while. i was like that as a kid...i had favorite stuffed animals for about a month, and then i picked a new one to be the favorite.

i think holidays that include presents are awfully exciting. :) ellen's birthday is coming up next week and she's been getting some presents in the mail. it took me a little bit of doing, but i convinced dave that it would be more exciting to have a birthweek - we should let ellen open one present a day until her birthday. besides this way, she'll get to play more with each individual thing and won't be overwhelmed. so we've been opening things and ellen is having a blast playing with her new toys.

nuking some chicken in her new microwave (thanks kevin and luann!)

this morning we had a tea party with george and micah (micah is the purple doll there) with yesterday's gift - dishes. (yes, micah is actually a girl. i tried to get her to name it henrietta, but she stuck to her guns with micah. and its kind of fun because this is the first thing she has named completely by herself.)

movies

i went a little crazy this week and rented two "mom movies" - ocean's twelve and farenheit 911. or what i thought was farenheit 911 - it was actually farenHYPE 911, a response to the first with the intent of pointing out fallacies and inaccuracies and blatent lies and whatever else they thought. it was pretty interesting. i still haven't seen the first so i don't know what it actually says, but i think i've bought into a lot of it without even realizing. i defintely didn't buy into everything this movie said (for instance the terrorists were attacking liberty and freedom - wasn't it something closer to capitalism?) but i always like hearing the other side (even if i've never heard the first i guess) i also enjoyed oceans twelve, but it was a bit hard to follow because ellen was still up when we watched that and she had the best time going crazy while we were preoccupied. she didn't get into any trouble, she just ran around screaming and laughing and dancing and jumping and playing and having a great time. but i couldn't hear most of what was said for that first half, so it was a touch confusing. and i don't like 'mysteries' that give you absolutely no chance to figure it out. not to say that i want to figure it out before the end, but i want all the clues and info to be there and just not be able to put it completely together. but when they add some extra information at the end that changes everything, that kinda bothers me. speaking of ellen jumping - she actually did today - both feet off the ground. that is a major accomplishment in toddlerhood. :) she's also thrilled out of her mind when she gets to help either of us. i think she's a diehard daddies girl already: she loooves to 'work in the garage with the fishtanks'. she'll be out there all day on saturdays helping (playing) dave with the fish. tonight she set the table for me - put out plates and utencils and napkins in everyone's place. i was a bit suprised. she's also started talking in sentences. last night there was a thunderstorm and she got a bit suprised/scared by the thunder and said what is that? she's getting big.

today has been insane. ellen seems to be turning into a typical two year old and trying my patience to no end. she's smart though, i'll give her that. she waits until i'm nursing isaiah or trying to rock him to sleep and then gets into all kinds of trouble. today she started by drawing all over her favorite book. she absolutely knows that's a 'bad choice'. so the book and crayons went on top of the bookcase and no more book or drawing for the rest of the day. then, the next time i was feeding isaiah, she ran into the other room and i could hear her doing something very quietly. i knew she was trying to get away with something, but she'd never really gotten into serious trouble, so i pretended i was oblivious. turns out that was a bad choice on my part. she decided it was finally time to taste the 'medicines' we use for isaiah's diaper rash. so while isaiah is screaming in his crib, because he didn't get the chance to fall completely asleep, i'm on the phone with poison control trying to wipe the hydrocortisone out of ellen's mouth. she's fine. she just tasted it i think. (she came running back to where i was - "medicine, mouth! yuck.") right now she's sleeping because i couldn't take any more and told her she had to go to bed, and i'm shocked to hear that she actually fell asleep.

ellen has really started enjoying the park. she loves the slides especially and she even says "wheee" when she goes down.

its a little bit of a goofy smile i know, but isaiah loves this dog. he holds it and sucks on it and smiles at it. for some reason if i put it on his stomach for him to look at it tends to roll into this position

its been an exciting morning in the budd household...i got into one of my old pairs of jeans (woo hoo!!!) ellen used the toilet (wow) and dave got a promotion and a raise (yay) holy cow, huh?

we went for a drive exploring a bit last night. we saw lots of livestock....

we saw cool goats with long horns

ellen learning to play tetris

isaiah hanging out while i work on the computer.

we went to a new church today in downtown portland (looooved it! which is a big thing for us) and then a local park afterward. here's me feeding isaiah while dave and ellen explore

dave helping ellen posing with the flowers

we found a duck egg by the pond

ellen got to hold isaiah all by herself

a couple of nights ago isaiah woke up in the night wanting to be fed. after i got up and started feeding him i was a bit confused as to why he was still 'talking' when he was eating. it took me a minute, but i realized that i was still asleep and had only dreamt that i got up.

anybody know how to (or if its possible to) save all this stuff?? i was thinking this would make a nice "baby book" but am not sure how to save it off the internet. any ideas?

i'm currently reading three books - anne of the island, the broker by john grisham - (that's a second time around book- Grandma Grace gave it to me for my birthday and I've found myself thinking about it again, so i thought i'd give it another read) and the divine conspiracy by Dallas Willard (it's more of a theological book). That last one is so i can feel like i'm thinking about something with a bit more depth than sesame street. i really like it, yet i've found i have to take notes while reading it to be able to understand and remember the points. ironically enough this is one of my favorites quotes that i read this last week: "The teacher in Jesus' time - and especially the religious teacher - taught in such a way that he would impact the life flow of the hearer, leaving a lasting impression without the benefit of notes, recorders, or even memorization. Whatever did not make a difference in that way just made no difference." I'd like to be that kind of teacher at some point.

ellen had way too much fun playing with soap bubbles while i made dinner the other day. she of course didn't think she had enough fun, but once all the water was out of the sink and on the chair and floor and the cupboard doors, i decided she'd had too much. :)