This past month has been a BUSY one for us! Rob finished his teaching for the semester, I took another cake decorating class, we had our 3rd annual garage sale, potty trained Haley, and traveled to Utah this past weekend to attend the funeral of Rob's maternal grandmother. Rob wasn't teaching the first session of summer school, so he got to stay home for a month and see what we really do all day. Which really isn't much. There's the daily excitement of checking on the basil, nasturtiums, and sunflowers that Haley and I planted; the agonizingly slow process of getting myself and the kids dressed and presentable enough to go in public (punctuated by bouts of spit-up, several changes of clothes, and the occasional nap); and an hour or two of errands that usually ends us at the park trying to wear off the hyperactivity caused by the free child's cookie at Target. I know it doesn't sound like a whole day's worth of activities, but somehow the time just slips by. It can be very frustrating for a To-Do List person like myself so I find myself making lists with items like "Get Dressed" and "Feed Haley Breakfast" just so it will look like I'm accomplishing something. Which is silly, isn't it? Rob reminded me this past week that I'm accomplishing a very important something - raising our children - but it's easy to forget that when the dishes are piling up and the weeds are taller than Haley in the back yard... 
My 3 most recent cakes.
Something that was a big accomplishment was Haley's potty-training. I'd been putting it off because I didn't want to face it, but finally decided that I was tired of changing Pull-Ups. So we made a big deal out of 'potty-training day" with a sticker chart, M&M's, prizes, and new nighttime-only Sleeping Beauty Pull-Ups. Haley caught on right away and has hardly looked back. Hurray!Haley has become quite the chatterbox lately. She's always been a talker, but now she'll chat up strangers wherever we go. She orders
her own food at restaurants ("Do you guys have apple juice here? Oh, okay, then I'd like some chocolate milk please.") and loves to tell everyone about her baby brother Jacob. On the flight to Salt Lake she kept up a continual - and I really do mean continaul - stream of questions and statements that went about like this:"Is this my seat belt? Are you wearing your seat bealt? What are those guys doing out there with those suitcases? Are those our suitcases? Are we up in the air yet? Why is it called take-off? Is this take-off? Now are we in the air? Why are we not in the air? HEY! We're up in the air! (Blessed silence due to awe.) Is that Fargo down there? Is that Salt Lake down there yet? Why are we still in North Dakota? Now are we still in North Dakota? I need to go potty. MAMA! I DID IT! I WENT POTTY IN THE TOILET! I'd like some ginger ale, please (to the flight attendant)." And on and on.
Jake's interests right now are fairly simple: Bright shiny things (ie: Coco-Cola cans, sunlight through trees); things he can gnaw on such as knuckles, his hands, my chin; and of course food. This kid loves to eat! He's also started laughing when we tickle him and when Rob plays peek-a-boo with him. There's no greater sound in the world than your kids' laughter...
Guessing Game: Below you'll see 2 pictures of a 3-month-old baby on a lovely hotel comforter. Can you guess which one is Haley and which one is Jake?
