Whoa, whoa, whoah!

"I gonna do it! You think I can do it?! I'm not scared! Are you scared? When are you going to come and help me down this thing?!"
We have a nice playground at our apartment complex this year and we go there almost daily. Hannah can climb up and slide down everything, but Sam has yet to master a couple tricky ones, including the funny ladder here and the twisty slide. He's barefoot- that's because the FIRST thing he does when we arrive is take off his shoes. Daddy's boy.

Hula Girl

Hannah, somewhere, learned to Hula and she will occasionally bust it out. Cute, huh?

A cozy closet

Sammy and Hannah were driving each other CRAZY at bedtime; Hannah even to the point of tears because her brother would not leave her alone and let her sleep. Unfortunately the closets here are shallow, so I got creative. Inspired by my mom I hung a sheet over the closet doors, in an attempt to trick Sam into thinking he was alone and he should just lay down and go to sleep. Sort of a cover on a parrot cage idea.
It took Sam all of 2 seconds to figure out that he could just sweep the sheet to one side, and since it is now his favorite game, I've just left it up for him.

Giggle

Here's a couple stories to make you giggle:
The other day we were all eating popsicles, and Sam finished first, of course. He then asked for more "piskle!, piskle!". I told him we were all done, to which Hannah, with half a popsicle left, promptly taunts "Not Me!" You guess what happens next.
Hannah was requesting something ridiculous for dinner, and I told her no, that's ridiculous. She turned on me and said "What's the big deal, Mom?"

DC Mall- part duex

We Bravely/foolishly attacked the Mall again. This time, though, we had a plan-Richard and I each spent 30 minutes alone in the Hirshhorn museum while the other stayed outside with the kids. Success! We took pictures of the works we liked best and then compared later. Turns out we ended up liking most of the same stuff! Then we took the kids into the Native American History Museum and they had a blast. Sam had been in the stroller for a good while at this point, and it was 2:00 without a nap, so he was wound up tight. We let him out of that stroller and he shot out, ricocheting off people, walls, exhibits, a flurry of two-year old pandemonium. Hannah was more self-controlled, because she understood that if she wanted to ride that carousel she had to be good. This cool rainbow picture is in the entrance to the museum, where the sunlight coming in through a window was causing rainbow on the bench. Hannah sat down to be a rainbow princess and let me take a picture. Sam was not interested. He was running around the foyer.

Dress-up Mini Skirt

I left all of Hannah's dress-up clothes in Memphis, but she's not hurting. Changing clothes and creating new outfits is her favorite pastime, so you'd think she'd be pretty distraught, but "nessesity is the mother of invention". Hannah is modeling here a fashionable Huggies diaper-bag mini skirt. There really is no stopping this girl.

Storytime

Sam has recently taken to storytime. Consequently we now go through 3-5 stories 3-5 times a day, which I really, truly enjoy. I am now a master story-teller with a vast number of voices and sound effects at my immediate disposal.
What's funny is that while Hannah prefers to read a story once and then move on to the next, Sam likes to read and re-read the same book over and over and over. Hannah is really, really sick of the airplane book.

Chalk Fun

We did chalk drawings outside today. Playing with chalk is serious business for Hannah. We drew the ocean, with whales, fish, sand, sandcastles and a small coral reef. Hannah drew a few self portraits (here I think she is working on her third). Later Sam joined us and drew a pink rainbow all on his own! He was pretty proud of himself.

12-String Yamaha

We had a new addition to our little family Monday. Richard found a nice 12-string Yamaha guitar looking for a nice home, and really, how can you say no to that? It has a great sound and Richard plays it well. Sam has already broken one of the strings.

Museum of Modern Art

We bravely took the kids to the Hirschorn Museum of Modern Art. This is the main attraction for Richard and I on the DC Mall, but not so much for the kids. You should have seen the guards shadowing us the whole half hour we were there; it was like having a private tour. Sam would have nothing to do with the stroller (which would have make things much nicer) so in order to stay I had to hold him the whole time. I decided to make it fun by describing the art to the kids and asking them what they thought. They tended to think the ones I liked (simple, with bold colors) were rather boring, but there were a few that Hannah stopped to look at all on her own. After a particularly depressing one I asked Hannah if she felt like giving up; she just shrugged her shoulders and said "no." that's my girl.