Maybe Alethea doesn’t know Sesame Street as well as I thought she did.  Today she was looking at the Sponge Bob towel that was laying on the floor with clothes drying on it.  She pointed at Patrick (the starfish) and said “Emo!”  I tried telling her that it was Patrick, but she was very insistent that it was Elmo.  Oh well.

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I went to Sherwin Williams and bought paint for Alethea’s big girl room.  Instead of going with any of the pre-mixed options, I took my multitude of paint samples and whipped up my own color.  It only took me 8 or so tries and several hours to finally get the “perfect” gray.  Not too light, not too dark, not too blue, not too tan.  I think it’s all for the best, but the rule follower in me feels weird using an “unofficial” color.

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The baby has been moving around a lot more lately.  It seems to me that her movements are a bit less forceful than Alethea’s were at about the same age, but maybe that’s just me hoping not to have two very assertive children who are only 20 months apart.

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I know everyone says Alethea looks like Peter, and she does.  But the other day my sister-in-law Julie over at TheAnticsoftheThree22nds posted pictures of her youngest three at around 5-6 months.  I still think that the person Alethea looks most like is her cousin Roman.

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I’m super excited about our Labor Day Block Party this weekend.  We are hosting it at our house.  I told Peter that I was going to do red, white and blue for the paper goods and decorations.  He said that Labor Day isn’t a red, white and blue kind of holiday.  What color is it then?

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I’m trying to score a cheap dresser and nightstand off craigslist for Alethea’s room.  Only problem is I think I need a really narrow dresser.  The wall seemed long enough for bunk beds and a dresser, but when I actually measured it out I ended up with about 27 inches for the dresser.  I really want to keep my room arrangement how I have it planned out though, so I think I’ll keep hunting for a narrow-but-tall dresser.

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We had a relaxing, if not terribly interesting 4th of July.  After going to church in the morning, it was nap time for me and Alethea while Peter watched the Twins game.  Then we played in the yard for a while, had dinner and Alethea went to bed.  We decided not to keep her up for fireworks, since she was likely to be scared of them anyway.  Later, Peter and I tried to have a fire in the backyard, but we gave up after the mosquitoes drove us inside.  Like I said, relaxing, though not that interesting.

I did get a kick out of seeing Alethea dressed up in her 4th of July outfit though:

Alethea had fun taking off the outfit and running around in her Splash and Play mat:

And Peter and I both cracked up over the mat’s warning label:

“No Diving”… Is that really necessary on a toy that has 1 inch of water at its deepest point?  Apparently someone in the Fisher Price legal department thought so.

Both Alethea and Peter got new wheels recently:

Both cars were previously owned.  Both were purchased off of Craigslist.  And both have new drivers who are excited to be behind the wheel.

The irony of it all though is that Alethea’s car was over 100 times cheaper than Peter’s AND it will retain its resale value better.

Sometimes being an adult really bites.

Several months ago I was at Target by myself late one Tuesday night.  As I unloaded my groceries on the register belt the teenage checkout girl asked, “How old is your baby?”

I guess she noticed all the baby food, diapers, wipes and formula I was buying.  After I answered her question, the checkout girl had another, “Where is your baby tonight?”

“Oh,” I replied, “She’s at home with her Dad.  He’s putting her to bed.”

The girl’s eyes got kind of wide and she said in an awed, sort of breathless voice, “Does he do diapers too?”

Happy Father’s Day to the love of my life and the best Daddy a little girl could ask for…

And yes folks, he does do diapers too!

So Peter and I have known for a while that his car was going to need to be replaced soon being as he usually has to pull over and restart his car at least once after he starts driving.  Transmission problems… <shudder>

His car makes me nervous since I’m always thinking that maybe sometime when he pulls over on the side of the interstate because the car won’t move into the next gear someone not paying attention will side-swipe him, or worse.  But since he mostly drives to the park and ride and back and only occasionally to work we were hoping to nurse it along until the end of the year.

Despite our hopes, I wasn’t really that surprised when a flat bed truck carrying Peter’s car pulled up in our driveway this evening.  What was surprising was that it turns out it wasn’t the transmission finally dying, it was the front axle breaking that finally did the Eagle in.  An axle that broke on the interstate in rush hour traffic.

I guess we can just add that one to our list of fun cars on the side of the interstate stories along with the time my breaks went out, and the one where I lost my cell phone out the window and the nice PA State Troopers stopped traffic to pick up the pieces for me.

I think we’re both fortunate to be alive.

You’re a wonderful husband and an excellent father.  Marrying you was the best thing I’ve ever done.

I love you,

Elise

Friday

Peter and I went to our third and final Twins game of the week.  It was a fun game despite a certain unfortunate event that happened in the row in front of us.  I don’t want to go into too much detail, so let’s just say the boy sitting in front of us suddenly didn’t feel well and it’s a good thing the guy two rows up was wearing a rain jacket.  Ewwww…

Besides that though, the Twins played well, we sat next to some amusing people, and I got this cool picture of Peter:

And this cute picture of us:

Saturday

This was our “All about yard work day”. We focused some time an energy on “The Bean” area in our front yard.  Here is the before pic (notice the distinct bean shape):

After raking, weeding, and covering it in mulch The Bean now looks like this:

The cutest moment of the day goes to Alethea (is anyone surprised?).  She watched me as I pulled weeds in The Bean and threw them into my big bucket.  Then she got down on her knees and started picking up leaves and twigs and putting them in her little pail.  I’ve never seen her imitate me that closely and it was very sweet to know that she wants to be like mommy.

Sunday

The morning was church including a good sermon on the topic “hearing God’s voice when we feel outnumbered”.  We were challenged to consider the question “What is God asking me to do in my current situation to serve Him?” which is an especially challenging question to me since I feel like being a stay at home mom requires almost constant concentration just to keep Alethea fed and clean and clothed and out of trouble.  Sometimes I know all God gets is my sloppy seconds and a few minutes of my time when Alethea finally goes to bed at night.  So I guess I will have to give further thought to the question.

After church, the rest of the day was less remarkable, but not stressful, which is the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  Don’t you think?

We’ve sure been having fun this week with the Twins first homestand of 2010.  Peter and I were fortunate enough to have tickets to opening day at Target field on Monday.  What a great game!  The atmosphere at the ballpark was electric and everything in sight was new and clean and shiny!  (And you know how much I love new and clean and shiny!)  The weather was beautiful, Jason Kubel hit the first ever home run at Target Field and the Twins won!  Hurray!

Our View of the Twins Home Opener

Today we went to the second game of the homestand with my mom and our friend Chris.  We were brave (or foolish) and also took Alethea.  She did reasonably well, although Peter and I have made the definite decision that she will not be attending any more games this year since we spent quite a bit of time walking the concourses with her.  Not that it was a total loss because in the process Alethea did manage to make a few friends: the two ladies at the beer cart who thought she was adorable, the 15 month old named Molly who was (I kid you not) a full foot taller than Alethea,  the chick who had ”had a few” and told Alethea that it was okay to be bald since she herself had been bald until she was two years old and finally the woman manning the Budweiser “Good Sport” booth who informed a very interested Alethea that you had to be 21 or older to win.

I don’t mean to totally diminish Alethea’s sitting still skills.  She did manage to stay in her seat long enough to enjoy the pretzel we bought her as well as several licks of my ice cream bar.  After they were both gone, she enjoyed playing with the wrappers too.  Bonus! 

So to end this post, I know that I ought to put up a cute pic or two of Alethea enjoying her first Twins game, but unfortunately I couldn’t find my camera as I was running out the door to pick up my mom, so all the pictures of that game are on Grandma Debbie’s camera.  I’ll have to post a couple once I get copies from my mom.  Until then, Go Twins!

In the days of my youth I spent many a summer weekend playing in softball tournaments.  The other day I was wearing a sweatshirt obtained at one such event.  The shirt in question features a ball in a glove with a bat and words surrounding it, so that the ball is only a small part of the overall design.  This is why I was intrigued to notice that Alethea seemed excited by the shirt and kept pointing directly to the ball.  I said to her, “That’s a ball Alethea.  Can you say ball?”  She said, “Baa.”

My amazement at her picking up a new word so quickly was later explained when Peter arrived home from work that evening.  “Have you been teaching Alethea to say ‘ball’?” I asked him.  “Yeah, why?” Peter responded.  I explained to her proud Papa that Alethea not only could say ball, but also recognized a 2-D representation of one.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, any guy who tries to teach his 8 month old to play catch is probably going to teach her to recognize a baseball somewhere in the process.

All of this has me wondering what’s coming next.  In my mind’s eye, I can just see Alethea at her preschool screening when the nice teacher holds up the number 7 and asks Alethea, “Do you know what number this is?”

“Of course I do,” Alethea will say.  “That’s Joe Mauer’s number!”

So yesterday was Alethea’s 10 month birthday.  Some of you may have logged on to view her 10 month update and were shocked at my tardiness.  My grand excuse: Peter and I both came down with the stomach flu.  Ugggg.  One small blessing though, Alethea has thus far escaped the illness and we are hoping it stays that way.