Rob's Birthday

A few pictures from Rob's birthday dinner tonight - I won't say how old he is...just that he's a year younger than he thought!

Rob requested clams for dinner (he cooked). Our tradition is a yellow cake with chocolate icing - I made a little minivan, which didn't turn out to be one of my better cakes...but it did taste good :) ...and it was a good excuse to get little chocolate covered doughnuts!

And of course, while we were distracted with kids, Mako licked the icing off one side of the cake.

My American Accent

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The South
The West
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Guess it's a good thing I married a radio guy! The funny thing is that people in southern Arkansas (where I DID grow up) have a very prominent accent, but my brother and I don't. I have always attributed this to two things: A: My mom is from Illinois and B: We watched a lot of satellite TV growing up. I'm sure moving to south Florida took some of the edge off too.

Still, the other day, I was talking with some friends and said a word that ends in -ah and I pronounced it ending with -er! Very country!!!

Who Invented this Thing!?!?

This morning I took Caleb and Annalise to Whispering Pines Park. We've been there several times before and actually this picture:


is from a trip there a few days before Annalise was born. Usually this park is deserted and we play there alone. Today there were others, but we were the first people there and I sat down on this "toy". The cup you sit in tilts and it spins because of your weight. So I sat down and it began to slowly tilt back and forth and built up enough momentum to spin me completely around, but it didn't stop. I started spinning around and found myself asking Caleb to try and stop me (he didn't understand what I was asking him to do). I absolutely could not stop this thing! I started thinking how I would get out and how many stitches I would need afterwards. Finally I leaned forward and it started slowing down. So I managed to get out without injury. I stood up and my vision was completely blurred. They need to have a warning on this thing!!!

Caleb & Nemo

Caleb has seen the first 20 minutes of Finding Nemo about 20 times. As far as I know, he's seen all of it once. So he's seen the opening scene where the barracuda eats Coral and most of the eggs every time. I don't think he's watched the movie in about a month, but yesterday we had the following conversation:

Caleb: The shark bite Nemo!
Me: I'm sorry about that.
Caleb: Mom (lately he likes to call me "Mom"), it was an accident!

The Most Beautiful Bouquet I've Ever Seen

(from Caleb)

Alligators and Chip-os

While the rest of the nation endured brutal cold, our Saturday was pretty much gorgeous - sunny and 80 degrees. We went to the Everglades yesterday morning. I am always surprised when I meet up with someone who doesn't know about the Everglades. It is as much a national park as Yellowstone, but it isn't the dramatic sort of beauty that rocky places have.

Because it was so pretty yesterday, there were piles of tourists and photographers there. Plus because it's the dry season there were piles of alligators! These gators were eating fish right near the water's edge - noodling, in an alligatorish way.

Caleb points out an alligator.
Annalise poses with a comorant.
The comorants didn't seem the least bit shy!

More birds:

Anhinga, my second favorite Florida bird. First is the snowy egret.
Rob says a wood stork is a good sign of a healthy ecosystem...no babies though.
Ibis - Go Canes!
Great Blue Heron - wet from fishing.
I call this the Jilted Heron - he dropped the fish he was eating.
Here's the "one that got away".

More gators:



Alligators really are "seen one seen 'em all" sort of creatures...


I really do love this stroller! It was so nice that Caleb could hop on and off whenever he wanted. I think Annalise looks like she's in a cabana.

When it was time to leave we walked by a vending machine at the entrance and Caleb started shouting, "I want chip-os! Get chip-os!" He is pretty good at recognizing brand names by their packaging and fooling you into thinking he can read, but what he wanted was Cheetos!

So in closing, we bought a season pass - it's good until January '09 - so let us know if you'd like to come and visit!

Helping Around the House

There are two reasons Caleb does chores around out house- the first is so I have time to blog ha! Just kidding, 1 - because he's always insisting, "I HELP!" and 2 - because if we didn't do some of these things together, I wouldn't get most of them done - plus our washer and dryer are in the garage and if I left him inside I'd be worried about what he might be doing to Annalise.



Hey, he made this mess...


What? You don't use a plastic hammer to flatten meat?


Seriously about the hammer, I had to hide it in the kitchen so he wouldn't bang it on the walls. I figured I'd let him get some of his need to bang on something I actually wanted smashed. If you want to see more pictures of Caleb cooking, visit my other blog Leah's Kitchen.

Annalise says, "Caleb does all the work, while I get my beauty sleep!"

She's 3 months old now - where did it go?!?!?! In another three months, she'll be sitting in her highchair at dinner! I love holding my baby this time. It's not that I didn't love holding Caleb, it's just I didn't have the perspective then that the time I could hold such a tiny baby would be so short.

A Break from the Ordinary

Normally Wednesday is playgroup day, but most of our "group" was busy, so it was just me and Nina and she has a season pass to Fairchild Tropical Gardens and could get a guest in free - the kids were free.

There were two art exhibits - a pop art exhibit (which was interesting, but I didn't take any pictures) and a glass art exhibit, by a guy named Chihuly, which I found much more beautiful. Here are Caleb and Millie examining a Chihuly piece called "End of the Day" - it's made of leftover pieces of glass, hence the name.







Ah, it's easy to take beautiful pictures when you're in a beautiful place! You can click on any of these pictures to see them bigger.










And of course, since it was a garden...

I think orchids are so pretty...



There was also a butterfly garden, we didn't find many butterflies, but these cute butterfly chairs sure were fun. :)

NEW TOOTH ALERT!!!

After a long hiatus, Caleb is teething again.




Two-year molars, I presume...lower left is almost all out, lower right and upper left are peeking, no sign of upper right. Funny, his 1 year molars really hurt him, and he hasn't mentioned these at all - in fact, I only noticed them yesterday when he was screaming about something not involving pain. I guess once all four come in, he'll be done getting his baby teeth...just in time for Annalise to start!

It's HERE!!!

It arrived this afternoon! Our new double stroller! It's a Joovy Ultralight Caboose. When we were at Disney World last year I made sure to examine the variety of double strollers (Disney is like a stroller convention.) When I was babysitting, I used that family's double stroller occasionally and it was like pushing a sedan - it was enormous! And heavy...and I wanted something more compact. I liked the Joovy Caboose, but later discover the Joovy Ultralight Caboose, an upgrade, more expensive, but I found it on sale, plus I had a gift card - Hooray!

Instead of having two regular seats, the Caboose is a tandem stroller - the back seat is a bench seat and faces the back. The backseat is meant for kids 2 1/2 and up. (Well up to 45lbs). Caleb's almost 2 1/2. The bar that holds the infant carseat in place can be removed and there is a cupholder bar that can be put in its place when Annalise is able to sit up.

It also has a standing platform so the back kid can stand and face forward. Caleb REALLY likes this stroller. We went for a walk and he couldn't decide which way he wanted to face!

The back bench seat has a 3-point harness, so Caleb can be restrained if need be :) handy! The bench slides back and forth to give access to a storage bin underneath. The wheels are just as maneuverable as my Graco MetroLite (which I really liked as a single stroller) and they weigh about the same.

These pictures compare the Ultralight Caboose with the orignal caboose.



The Ultralight has a much larger shade and covers the back child well. I thought that would be extremely helpful since we live in south Florida - otherwise I might have purchase the original. However, I test drove an original caboose at a store and the Ultralight does drive better. Cost difference? About $75-$100 depending on where you buy it.

Yeah Miami!

I apologize for ever complaining about living in Miami.

Caleb and David

Caleb has a new favorite pre-nap book:
David Gets in Trouble is by the same author as Duck on a Bike - David Shannon. It's auto-biograph-ical I'm guessing ;) I like it because I think David Shannon is a great children's writer and because it's really really short! Which is handy when Annalise wakes up just as I am getting Caleb ready for naptime.

It's about this kid David and all the excuses he gives when he gets in trouble - for instance, "She likes it!" when he pulls the cats tail. I skip the page with him biting the soap, which reads, "But Dad says it!" even though Caleb's not going to ask what Dad said anytime soon.

She always give Rob her best smiles.