Summer play

I should be working more on the house right now but I realize I've let the blog slip.

It was super hot last week. While my neighbors did fun things like go to the beach, we went the easy way out and filled the kiddie pool with a couple inches of cold hose water. When it got really hot we went to the grocery store to cool off in the ridiculously cold AC. The girls were irritable with each other at home but once we got to the store and I gave in to Molly's request to ride in a "cart with cars," they might as well have been at an amusement park. They rode side by side in the plastic car thing in the front of the cart and were the best of friends. Kate gave Molly big baby kisses all the way down the dairy aisle. They got a piece of ham at the deli and bits of banana bread in the bakery. They had so much fun. A woman stopped me to say how delightful these girls are. Rather than mention how Kate bites lately and Molly has a tantrum at least once a day, I just nodded and agreed.

Here they are in a sweet moment in our tiny, weed-filled garden.

We got water balloons during the heat wave but didn't get a chance to use them until Tuesday when Lex and Eve were here and it was barely shorts weather. That didn't stop the kids from having a good time with water.

And a good time playing inside ...

and outside!

OK, back to the "to do" list.

Scenes from life

Where to begin ...

We just had Kate's follow-up doctor appointment to figure out what's going on with her and we don't know anything yet. The doctor wanted to give her three months to see what would happen, both with her congested breathing and with her slow weight gain. Well, it's 3 months later and she's still a noisy breather and still hovering just above 19 pounds. We ended up having another blood draw (the woman was amazing, Kate watched the whole process and never made a sound) and are going to bring in another stool sample. He's mostly worried about her weight. At least she's growing taller, that's a good sign.

We're still in limbo with plans for the future, so I think I'll wait to go into that until we know more.

In the meantime, here's what we've been up to while I've been not blogging.

We took a Saturday morning trip to Drumlin Farm to see the animals the weekend before last. We went on a hay ride, saw the chickens and sheep and goats. Kate's favorite part was the barn cat. I liked the enormous mother pig who rolled over for just a few minutes to let the piglets nurse then got sick of it and, despite the squealing and mayhem, rolled back and closed up the milk shop.

We just got back from a weekend in Rochester. The girls may have been sick of their car seats after all that driving, but they can't resist when the car seats are in Grandma's garage. :)

Molly is now in her last week of summer camp. We missed the first half of last week because she had a fever. I think she was just burned out emotionally, too, from the previous week -- going to school every morning, playing with the neighbor kids every afternoon, a birthday party on Saturday. It was good for her to rest a little. Now she's back into it, though. When I picked her up yesterday the teacher apologized because Molly's hands were dyed red -- they were painting silks to make butterfly wings. I wish I could go to camp!

Other scenes from the week ...

Kate's favorite toys lately are objects from the recycle bin, particularly containers with screw tops. I think Molly put the backpack on her and that's a bagel chunk in her mouth.

The girls and Teddy.

Molly eating plain yogurt. Our little goat ate Kiwi skin the other day ... just because. She also is into picking weeds out of the lawn where ever we are and nibbling them, something she learned in school apparently.

Silly Kate. How is she not gaining weight? She eats peanut butter by the fistful!