south haven

we spent last week on vacation in south haven, michigan. we had a BLAST! we shared a beach house with our friends the nawroths (ella, brent, janet, and paige). we had so much fun....the beach and a great park were in walking distance from the house. we also enjoyed walks to downtown south haven, blueberry picking, toddler dance parties, game night, and other fun events. i was able to find time to go running and joe was able to bike, which was so fantastic! we will have more pictures soon...thanks to the nawroths for being such great friends and vacation buddies.

swiffering

some video below of otto and greta swiffering. after watching this, i feel like i should pay them an allowance or something. i promise, this is of their own doing. in fact, otto threw a tantrum the other morning when i was trying to swiffer and greta had the other one, which meant that he couldn't have a swiffer of his own.

blue manatee

dear blue manatee bookstore,
we love you.
we love everything about you and we are so sorry that we don't come more often.
we love your decafe.....
we love your smoothies named after books (we tried the blueberries for sal this time).
we love your snack choices that are kid friendly and health-minded.
we love your magnetic walls and your chalk tables and your i spy tables.
we love your bookstore even more.
we love your train tunnel and your tree that we can sit in.
we love that books by our favorite authors like sandra boyton and eric carle are within our reach.
we promise to start coming more regularly, maybe for some of your activities.
or maybe just for a george and martha smoothie.
love,
greta and otto

on the hottest day....

we met up with janet, ella, and paige at the splash pad at sawyer point for some water fun. it was SO hot....
the kids and i walked over from our house, and about halfway there i stopped walking and briefly considered calling janet to tell her to have fun without us because i was dying from heat exhaustion at the base of the purple people bridge. but i pressed on.....and it was so fun. we all got soaked and had a ton of fun. then we ate lunch at the serpentine wall before heading back home. here's a picture of greta playing with paige, which was so sweet to watch....

library babies

we love our local public library! the newport branch of the campbell county library is only 2 blocks from our house, and was built just a few years ago. it's pretty great, and it's SO close! i've been taking greta there for "babytime", their version of storytime for little ones, since before she could crawl, and now we attend both "babytime" and "toddler time"....which might be overdoing it but we don't care. :) the kids love the storytimes, even though i think they enjoy the bubble machine more than the actual stories and nursery rhymes. they also love to just go and look at books.....
greta is currently obsessed with the summer reading program, which is giving me flashbacks to filling out my "book it!" pins to get my pizza hut rewards when i was in grade school. for every 1/2 hour you read, you put a sticker on a "reading log", and then when the log is full you turn it in for a prize. although the prizes have gotten noticeably more lame as the summer drags on, greta's enthusiasm continues. so far we've collected a water squirter (water gun), a book, many bouncy balls, an inflatable frog, a few rubber ducks dressed up like pirates, and some grow capsules. it's been really neat to watch her get excited about reading (and yes, we're reading to otto too.)

reading

family fun evenings

who doesn't love a fun friend who plans fun events? our friend janet has organized a monthly get together for a few friends and their kids. we just had the first one on the 5th of july, and it was a blast! we met up at oakley playground, where the kids played their hearts out in the heat. we ate pizza in the park, and then headed to aglamesis for some yummy ice cream (and air conditioning). it was so fun to see all the moms and kids and dads too....it's rare anymore that we are ALL together, and it was so great to just hang out and enjoy being together. i feel so lucky to have such a great group of friends, and some fantastic playmates for otto and greta. can't wait til next month!

sibling love

some video of otto and greta sharin' the love. otto likes to "bonk" people in the head, which you can see demonstrated in this video. you can see, however, that greta is learning how to love him right back.....

bubbles!

otto

otto likes to read books. and otto likes to eat. the end.

i spy with my little eye

i borrowed this "i spy" game from montessori center room (mcr) for the class i am teaching at xavier this summer. i spy is a game to help children discriminate sounds....let's just say that greta LOVES having this i spy basket at our house and i think she's going to be pretty excited to see it again when she starts school at mcr in the fall.

coney island

the kids and i took a trip to coney island this week with janet, ella, and paige. it was a perfect day! the weather was great and the kids enjoyed riding the 'classic rides'. well, until the second to last ride of the day where otto slowly slid towards the opening of the helicopter, and just dangled near the opening until the ride attendant decided to stop the ride to get him off. check him out in the photo, holding onto the buckle for dear life, not to mention looking so ridiculously tired from all the fun he'd had.

it was a great day....ella and greta were all smiles and loved going from ride to ride. and otto would literally bounce up and down with excitement as the ride was going....quite different from the indifference greta showed to the rides when she was around his age.



































if you can look past cute little ella in this picture, you can see that otto is grinning from ear to ear.....he was bouncing up and down as the ride was going, smiling and laughing the whole time!










paige got to join in the fun on the carousel, and we made sure to get her in at least one picture....too cute!