The Proof is in the Pudding...

...or in the permahawk.

At the risk of belaboring the subject, here is what Lorelei's hair looks like, with no manipulation whatsoever.

Post-Nap Sleepy Eyes

I promise that I am not exaggerating when I tell you I did nothing to make her hair look like that.  It hadn't been in a Pebbles-style ponytail for a couple of days.  The only way it lays down is if she gets a little bit sweaty -- the moisture from the sweat makes it lay down.  But then, it stands right back up if she goes down for a nap or goes to bed!

Thanks for keeping us entertained, Lorelei!  These pictures will surely resurface at your high school graduation and on your wedding day.  Or when you win a Grammy for your punk-rock album.

(Is 'punk-rock' even a musical genre anymore?  If you didn't already know, I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to music.)

Quotes

Lorelei has been cracking us up lately.  She talks so much, and is very deliberate in the way that she speaks (regarding both pronunciation and word choice).  I need to keep an ear out better, so that I can record and (hopefully) entertain you with what she says.

While playing in the basement one morning:

Lorelei: "My decoration is ruined." (I have no idea what this was about, but it was funny coming from her 2-year old mouth.)

Also in the basement, while playing pretend with Sydney (and missing Daddy while he was at work):

Lorelei: "I miss my daddy.  He will take me to the post office."
Sydney: "Or the park!"
Lorelei: "Yes.  You are a good sister, Syd."

Just a little while ago:

Lorelei: "Sydney is S-Y-D-N-E-Y."
Me: "Very good, Lor!  How do you spell Lorelei?"
Lorelei: "S-Y-D-P-O."
Hmm, we'll work on that.

Also just a little while ago, right before her nap:

Me: "Watch out, Lor, or you're going to bump your head on that doorknob."
Lorelei: "Sydney might bump her head on the doorknob, and then she will bleed everywhere but she can't have a bandaid on her head because it might hurt and we can only have bandaids on our legs...and she will bleed everywhere."
Yikes.

Also, a hair update.  When my dad visited last week, he pointed out two things:
1. Lorelei's hair defies gravity.
2. When I try to coax Lorelei's hair into a ponytail, it just looks more messed up than when I simply comb it and let it do it's own thing (permahawk).  He was right; the permahawk wins.

Oh, that reminds me of another quote:

Papa John: "Lorelei, where is your permahawk?"
Lorelei (looking confused): "I don't know where my purple hawk is."

A Special Birthday and a Day in the Life

First of all, a very happy birthday to Chet's Grandma (who goes by "Lolo" ever since her great-grandchildren started coming along)!  This is a "milestone" birthday for her, such as when one turns 21, 40, or 65.  It is not my place to reveal her age--all you need to know is that she is a smart, fun, active, and tech-savvy lady, and I am honored to be a part of her family.  Happy birthday, Lolo!

I cannot believe it's been 15 days since I last blogged.  What have we been up to?  The short answer:

1. Sydney attended a week of Vacation Bible School
2. My dad came to visit for a week (so fun, and such a breath of fresh air for me!)
3. Chet and I celebrated our 8th anniversary (July 22nd)

I'm also still reading a lot, and have specifically been making a concerted effort to read 50 pages a day of War and Remembrance so that I can finish it some time this decade.  (50 pages may not sound like much, but the pages of this book are extra big and the type is extra small.  And there are 1,056 pages.  And this book requires a decent amount of concentration.  So, yeah.  Yikes.)

I don't have much else to say, but I'll leave you with a few pictures from our day today.

"Look, Mommy!  Bubby's getting married!"

"Feeding" her baby (not sure why she looks so scared)

Why wouldn't she wear a hood while eating breakfast (in the summer)?

Doctor glasses...and six ponytails

Independence Day

Happy (belated) 4th of July! I hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday, celebrating our great country's independence!

We had a fantastic holiday. Chet was off Thursday (and obviously Friday). We were  invited to go to both Ocean City, MD and Salisbury, MD (approximately 30 minutes from each other), so we did both! 

We left for Salisbury at 6:30 a.m. on Friday (we wanted to avoid Thursday afternoon/evening holiday weekend traffic), and it was smooth sailing all the way. We stopped in Easton, MD (a little further than halfway to Salisbury) and had breakfast at Panera Bread.  It was the perfect place to stop, and Hurricane Arthur was keeping the July temperatures very low -- a nice surprise!

Us leaving early, all decked out in their 4th of July garb:

We arrived in Salisbury at 10 a.m., and had a fantastic, relaxing day (we also spent the night).  (The people we stayed with are the parents of Chet's good friend James -- an Academy roommate.)  The girls played with new-to-them toys (we literally brought two toys from home with us -- a stuffed dog and a stuffed horse) that our hosts had on hand for their own grandchildren.  We also ate a ton of amazing food.

(Bubby wasn't feeling well Friday or Saturday, but he rallied on Sunday morning.  Hence the reason there are hardly any pictures of him from this trip.)

The weather cleared up early Friday afternoon and we spent the rest of the day outdoors, mostly fishing:

(See that cat in the background?  Sydney loved it so much it scratched her -- lesson learned!  Maybe...)

Chet dipping Syd in the lake:

Post-bath and pooped:

Saturday morning, before we headed to Ocean City, Chet and I took the girls on the paddle boat:

L's Permahawk

Pre-Ocean City hair braiding:

It should have only taken us 30 minutes to get to Ocean City from Salisbury, but it took us over two hours, due to holiday/weekend traffic.  The kids were troopers though.

The sponsor family I was assigned at the Academy owns a condo on the beach in Ocean City, and they were who invited us down.  I went to two of their three daughters' weddings last year (in Baltimore with Sydney) and the year before (in San Diego with Lorelei).  They are so much fun, and they really do feel like family.  When we finally arrived in Ocean City we changed into our bathing suits and spent the rest of the day on the beach (from 2 p.m. until after 7 p.m.).  You'd think the girls had died and gone to heaven.  And we had so many extra (adult) hands to help us that Chet and I weren't even a tiny bit stressed out.  Bubby mostly napped; the warm (but not too hot) weather and roar of the ocean waves kept lulling him in and out of sleep.

Our original plan was to head home after the beach, to avoid Sunday traffic, but we were convinced to stay.  We ate crabs and chicken wings for dinner, and watched the 4th of July fireworks show from the condo's balcony (the show was moved from Friday to Saturday due to Hurricane Arthur).  Adding our family to the mix meant there were 12 people staying in the two-bedroom condo, but we all made it work (and we were generously given the master bedroom).  Bubby slept in the Pack 'n' Play, and the rest of us slept in the king-sized bed.

Bubby feeling better

We left Ocean City at 10 a.m., and ran into plenty of traffic on the way home (I'm SO glad we left when we did -- I can't imagine how bad traffic got as the day progressed).  We stopped at the same Panera Bread on the way home, and arrived in Alexandria around 3 p.m.

It truly was the perfect weekend.  Chet and I couldn't get over how happy and well-behaved the girls were.  It seems we were all in desperate need of a change of scenery.  (The girls reminded me on Monday though that they are human -- not angels -- so don't be gettin' jealous.)  :-)

In case you think your eyes might be failing you because you didn't see a single beach picture, rest assured that your eyes are fine. We left our phones in the condo, so we had nothing to document the occasion.  It was nice to "unplug" for a while.  Here are our beach babes (soon after we returned home), and Syd's tan line:

I hope you're 4th was great!  On to Labor Day!

Maintenance

I fixed the pictures on my last post, "Twins and Breakfast," because they were gigantic, and you may have noticed that there were two different fonts and that they kept flip flopping.  All of that is because I usually blog from my iPhone, the most convenient medium for me to blog.  It all looks great on my phone, and then I bring it up on the computer and WHOA!  So, just in case you are Type A and the devil-may-care fonts and gigantic pictures give you a nervous twitch, please know I am not purposely torturing you.  Trust me, it bothers me too.

(By the way, I still can't make the font all the same size on the "Twins and Breakfast" post.  Sometimes blogging is more enigmatic than that electrical engineering class I had to take at the Academy, where the professor was from China and spoke very little English.  True story.)

I am working on a 4th of July post, so stay tuned!

Happy Monday!

Twins and Breakfast

Maybe not TWINS, but they do look an awful lot alike (Lorelei and Ford). I still think Ford will turn out to look a little like each of his sisters.

This was a weird angle, therefore Ford appears three times larger than Lorelei, and it impossible to compare their looks. Lorelei doesn't like to get too close to Ford (even though I kept telling her, "Scoot closer to your brother!"); his grabbing at her tends to freak her out. (Syd loves it.) And check out L's perma-hawk (what I'm calling her permanent Mohawk). 

Besides looks, they have the burp rag thing in common (neither is a paci-aholic like Syd was):

These were both taken in the car this morning (Lorelei thought I was handing her my phone, which is why she is reaching out, desperately). 

Speaking of being in the car this morning, the thought of cooking breakfast today was dreadful. So we loaded into the car early and motored over to the closest McDonald's drive thru. I am running out of breakfast ideas. I feel like we do it all, but part of the problem is that someone is always slightly miffed at breakfast because Syd and L have opposite tastes in food (although that doesn't mean I make two different meals, no siree).

Syd's likes: anything sweet (donuts, cinnamon rolls), oatmeal, bacon, hard-boiled eggs

Lor's likes: toast, sausage, scrambled eggs

Both like fruit, neither likes waffles. And if one likes a certain cereal, you can guarantee the other doesn't. I'm convinced they are conspiring against me.