Danger Ranger & Spider Girl

Eliza came up with the name Danger Ranger for Ezra, and it's pretty fitting.  She's calling herself Spider Girl and going around the house doing a gymnastics salute and a tuck jump.  Today I tried to kiss an ouchie for Eliza and she told me she knows my kisses aren't really magic.  It kind of broke my heart.  Ezra has learned to dance to The Middle, a song from school that Eliza sang back when she started there.  Ezra does the little wiggle at the end of the song and it is precious.  Plus he thinks he's jumping when it's his turn and is there anything cuter than a toddler who tries as hard as he can to jump and can't get off the ground? Adorable. 

Plum Island

We spent last week in a beach house on Plum Island, MA with Scott's brother's family.  It was a perfect vacation set up!  We rode bikes around the island, walked to the beach (we could see the sunrise over the beach from our window!), tried every restaurant on the island, including our fave, Mad Martha's, which was next door, grilled, played with the kiddos and relaxed!  It was great for the cousins to get to play together.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of T with Ezra, because he spent most of his time chasing her and she spent most of her time squealing and running away!  The big kids and the boys went to a Red Sox game too.  This might become a biannual tradition; next up I think we'll all go skiing together!

Flying L

The view from our patio, Mr. Buck found a skunk on our wagon ride, Nanny goat wanted Ezra's s'more, Eliza with Daddy's new sunglasses and her new pony Jellybean, Ezra finds a tractor that reminds me of his namesake and the four of us before we head to the water park.

Dishwasher Bandit

That's what we call Ezra when he makes a run for the dishwasher.  For some reason he's obsessed with it.  He grabs random silverware and takes off with it.  When the dishwasher is open, he tries to sit on the door.  He cries when we close the dishwasher.  He also cries every time we open the door (he wants to go outside), every time we make him get out of the bathtub and every time we change his clothes or diaper.  He laughs every morning he sees his sister and every time we pick her up on the playground at school. 

Things I miss/Things I love

Eliza has started to enunciate her R sounds.  Sometimes she'll catch herself saying a word the "old" way and correct it.  It's not like I wanted her to have a life long speech impediment or anything, but I'm a little sad to see her old way of pronunciation go!  It reminds me of other things she used to say that are now distant memories, like "cock corn" for popcorn, or "rispy crispy treats", or how she made us call her Rosa for over a year!  Or even when she was a baby and used to say "goya goya goya" or "pock pock" instead of "pat pat" when someone coughed and she'd pat them on the back.  She's such a big girl now!  In fact, the other day at Home Depot, S said, "Darn it.  They don't have the part I need" and Eliza said, "Dad, I'm glad you didn't say damn it."  LOL!  We've been talking a lot about our upcoming vacation and the other day at school Eliza told one of her teachers, "Sorry I won't be able to make it for your birthday party. We'll be at our cabin."  The teacher got a kick out of it.  I assured her we don't actually have our own cabin.  :)

I need to remember to document the little things Ezra is doing, especially since now I know how quickly they grow up.  He has a different smile now, more of a grin, with all of his teeth showing and a wrinkled nose.  Even though he looks just like Daddy, I'm pretty sure the wrinkled nose look is all mine.  He still says, "whoa!" all of the time and the other day he said, "ki cat" for kitty cat.  Saturday morning I took him on a kitty cat neighborhood tour and he loved it.  One cat even came up and let Ezra pet him.  Sometimes he imitates Eliza and last night he imitated her squeal. 

I Have an Incident Report

From the top we have: Ezra coming home from school with a sticker that reads, "I have an incident report."  i.e. My friends and I are taking turns biting each other again. Next up is Ezra sitting on the shelf in the hallway proudly, that is until he got stuck and I had to get him out.  Then a picture of him standing proudly on Eliza's dollhouse. 

his torso stuck on a shelf.

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Quintessential Summer Picture

These two ask to go play with the water table constantly.  Well, Eliza asks and Ezra stands in the window, looks at the table and bangs until I let him out.  :) I usually just let them go for it, even though they always end up soaking wet.  So here they are sopping wet, having talked Daddy into hauling them around in the wagon.  For once Ezra didn't try to stand up and jump out while the wagon was in motion!

We

Eliza and Ezra are becoming more and more of a team.  They're starting to actually play together, which makes it a lot easier to do things like start dinner.  And Eliza is very good at warning me when Ez is doing something dangerous.  Yesterday the two of them pushed their white table all the way across the house, into Eliza's room.  Ezra was proud to help and Eliza said, "We decided the table should go in my room."  When they fight over a toy, Ezra has started doing this whining noise and definitely playing the role of baby of the family.  Many times Eliza just hands the toy over to him.  We went swimming at a fun pool with a pirate ship last weekend and Ezra and Eliza both loved the water slides.  Ezra spent most of his time trying to belly flop into the water.  Sunday we went to a bouncy castle with our good friends and Eliza hung upside down on the ladder like a little gymnast.  Ezra really loved bouncing too.  Yesterday Eliza and I squeezed in a girl date to Shipe Pool and she's getting the hang of using her kick board to get around the big pool.  I was excited to be able to focus on her in the water, but she was more focused on getting ice-cream after. :)  Ezra is definitely running now.  I have a feeling we're going to end up being those people who have their kid on a leash at the amusement park!  Last night when we were cleaning up after the kids went to bed, I found corn on the cob hiding behind the curtain.  The curtain is currently one of Ezra's favorite hiding spots.  He loves to play peek a boo.  Yesterday Eliza brought a blanket with her so they could make a fort behind the curtain, which might have something to do with the corn on the cob.