Bobby's Sunday Summary

Well, it has been two weeks since I last wrote. This is because last week we spent in Utah at my brother's wedding. Sadly we didn't take a lot of pictures. We didn't steal too many from others just yet, so once we get them we may post some more. One of the highlights of the wedding was the reception. Susan and Robert were not feeling too well so they stayed at her parents while I took Alice. The following are of her dancing with her cousins. The first one after the audio cuts out is Alice trying to kiss her cousin, and me telling her kissing him on the lips is not the best idea. She was not too happy about that.

At the party she ate 2 huge pieces of wedding cake. Had lemonade (the best thing in the world in her opinion) and had a large plate of fruit, and chocolate covered treats. She had a wonderful time. When it was time for us to go home, she cried for half a hour she was so sad to leave.

We also got to spend easter with Susan's family. Alice loved it too. She got to go on an eater egg hunt with her cousins, and got a huge bag of candy. Robert didn't quite get it al, but he still picked up three eggs.

We did get to spend some time with my parents too, who are on a mission in Salt Lake City.

The top one is Alice pushing Robert on top of the Church administration building in down town Salt Lake City.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week has been very crazy. Well the last few days have been crazy. Alice had her birthday party yesterday. She was so excited all week and especially in the morning. It was very hard for her to wait until 3:00 for the party to start. The party consisted of cake and ice cream.

WHAT?! There was a whole lot more goin' on than cake and ice cream! Weeks ago, Alice and I started putting the plans together. She decided on a pinata, a cake she would serve her friends all by herself, and an activity ("not a craft, Mom, an activity"). I decided on goody bags and made a crazy goal to put on a 4-year-old birthday party that would produce "zero landfill waste." Alice consented to the goody bags, selected the fabric, and helped with the design (back pack!), but they were stuffed with secret surprises that only I knew about. Mwah ha ha haaaa. Those were SO much fun to put together. I loved it.

Alice decorated the cake herself.

The original "plan" was a fuzzy pink spider cake, but the girlie gets into something and changes her mind all the time. We were at the store picking out candy (in the bulk section) and she still hadn't completely decided on her cake. The night before the party, she settled on a self-portrait cake. I didn't complain. A plain old circle is way easier than a cephalothorax, abdomen, and eight fuzzy legs cake.

It had lots and lots of candy on it, which was exactly what all of her friends (and Alice) wanted. They would ask for pieces of cake by the candy on top of it.

She did end up divvying out most of the pieces herself. She got impatient, though, after serving the 5th piece of cake and seeing the other kids eating theirs. It was a whole wheat super-carrot cake. I had to somehow counteract all the frosting and candy going on, right? ;)



Sorry about the video quality.  

Alice requested it be "dark, dark, dark" in the kitchen, so we had the lights off and the curtains drawn. It still wasn't very dark at 3 in the afternoon, but I humored the girl.



It started out as a self portrait (see her design below), but then became a "Zombi".

"Zombie" was Alice's own description of her work. To her credit, Alice actually did a great job copying her original design onto the cake in candy. Unfortunately, we had a lot more candy than the self-portrait required and she just couldn't stop. I did snap a photo of the cake before it went "Zombie." I should also explain that she doesn't normally have 6 limbs. There are her two arms and two legs, then the long ones at her hips are "bad guy arms stretching out to get me." The blob on top is a "crazy hat!"



After that they did a dancing/movement activity. They jumped and spun and had lots of fun, which also is perfectly Alice.

I was very, very happy with how this turned out. I asked my friend Marianne to do the activity for us (delegation rocks!) and she put on a 20-minute creative dance class. Very cool! The games were spot-on for the age group. Every single child participated gleefully, regardless of dance experience. It cracked me up! I laughed out loud seeing the kids have so much fun. 

Confession here. When I first met Marianne and heard that she was into creative dance, I just kinda nodded and smiled with a non-committal "Oh, I see." Dance seemed so, well, frivolous and unconnected to anything I ever wanted for me or my children. Then we happened to be over at their house one day when she was giving her kids their weekly dance class. Alice didn't get it, but she wanted to. It wasn't anything like I thought it would be. It was a series of fun and active games, using the kids imagination, where each kid gets to choose his/her own movements and yet they're all still part of the same game. It blew me away. I instantly gained respect for children's creative dance and an instructor who can turn enthusiasm and personality into a group fun session.

After that we did a piñata. The kids were not the strongest, and it was fairly well made, so everyone got lots of turns to try and break it open.

The original idea for the pinata was a fuzzy pink spider, too. We made the papier-mache ball ourselves, then started cutting out legs for the spider. Alice was eager to start painting. I told her we couldn't paint until we were all done putting on the legs. She decided two legs were plenty. Maybe I should have made her wait for 6 more legs. Oh well. Next time. Here she is painting it every color we have (and some we mixed up on the spot). She put on a purple spot and I told her Grandma Poulson loves that shade of purple. Alice was sad Grandma wouldn't be at her party. A few days later, we learned of Bobby's new calling and suddenly Grandma and Grandpa Poulson were coming out to Illinois...just in time for her party. I can't picture a calling to the bishopric as a "tender mercy", but the Lord knows how to make hard news more palatable ;)




After that the weather was good enough that they all played out side until it was time to go home. Everyone had a great time.

I liked this part a lot. The idea was to have unstructured free play built into the party. I'm so glad the weather allowed them to play outside. Kids were lugging around fallen tree branches, digging in the garden, playing pirates, chasing balls, tromping through the brush, and just plain enjoying each other. Robert wanted in on the action, too.

Oh and by the way I am now the second counselor in the Bishopric.

P.S. I loved having my parents in town for the weekend. As an added surprise, my friend Julia was able to visit for the weekend, too! There was ample adult help and lots of adult conversation and plenty of people to play with the kids. I actually got a break! A real break!

P.P.S I have three extra backpack/bags leftover from Alice's birthday surprise. How about a giveaway? Details to come soon. I have to figure out what to fill them with...most of the original party favors are gone. Hmmmmm.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

A lot has happened this week. Robert has started walking a lot more. He now walks short distances by choice. Before he would only walk a little ways if we stood him up and and encouraged him.

Robert also got his first real haircut yesterday. It was just clippers around hit head and some trimming over his ears. He looks different now, a bit like a crewcut.

Yes Robert's eyes are a little bit red. The whole family has been a bit sick the last several weeks. I think we are finally getting over it, but it is still not that much fun. Especially the lack of sleep.

This week we also made valentines. Alice had fun decorating them and writing the names of the kids in her preschool class on them.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week I have several videos. The big news this week is.

Yes that's right he is walking, sort of. Mostly he just needs more confidence that he is not going to fall over, so he is not doing it on his own without a lot of encouragement.

Alice has felt a little jealous. Whenever we applaud Robert for walking she wants to get applause for doing the same thing, or having her dolls do the same thing.

But for the most part their relationship is very good.

And another video of Alice playing/Dancing this morning just for fun.

And yes she wore the outfit to church. She likes to dress up fancy.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week has been a very odd and distracted week. There were layoffs this week at work like I posted earlier. I still have a job, but almost everyone I worked with was let go. I will be working on a new project along with a lot of other people at our site, but things have not really ramped up on that either, so it is kind of a dead time between the layoffs and the forced dead week between Christmas and New Years.

On the home front Alice has been excited about Christmas. Everyday she asks if tomorrow is Christmas. She also had her Christmas program like you probably already saw. If anyone is interested in the full program, not in fast forward we can probably make it available.

Robert has also officially crawled...-ish.




Alice has also been progressing a lot lately too, and she wants us to know about it. I think there is some jealousy here too, which is normal, when the baby starts to learn to crawl. Alice has started to do some puzzles all by her self. She just finished a 9 piece Sea Horse puzzle all by her self, with no help from anyone else at all.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week was mostly a normal week, but we did have some fun. Alice and Robert were goofing off with a laundry basket, and some old cloths. Alice still thinks that she fits in some of them.

We also did out annual pilgrimage to Arthur Illinois of the International Cheese Curling Competition, which is part of the cheese festival. I waved my chance to compete so that Alice could take a turn. The first video is her practice roll. The second one that is fuzzy is when it really counts. But she did a perfect roll and got 4 points. For those who don't know cheese curling is when you roll a 4 pond wheel of cheese at a target and your teammate with a broom directs it towards the target. Below is a picture of the team. they got 11 points out of 12, and almost won, except for one member of the team that abandoned them to help out a team that was a player short that got 12. Susan was quite disappointed to have missed out on the free t-shirt, the picture in the local paper and bragging rights. But I think she is OK now.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week was a somewhat normal week. At least until Saturday. Saturday we had a very busy day. We woke up early and went to go pick blueberries. These were perfectly ripe berries and many of them tasted like eating a piece of blueberry pie or jam without any sugar added. It was wonderful. On the ride back we kept hearing from the back seat where Alice and the bags of blueberries were rustle rustle rustle, munch munch munch. We all munched a pit on the way home but we think Alice ate a whole half pound of berries by herself. She was very happy.

After we got back Will and Kayla, Alice's cousins came over to play. They had a great time.

All this week Robert has been working on his hand eye coordination. The following are several clips of him. I really love the look on his face in the first one. I always imagine it is part of a bad kung-fu movie and he is saying "You have insulted my family and my honor. Now the fist of death will take care of you."

And now just for fun a picture of us all in red. Alice noticed that Robert and I had both picked red cloths on Friday and quickly changed her cloths to match us.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week has been interesting to say the least. Susan is still pregnant as of the writing of this post. It has been a hard week for her, just dealing with all the aches and pains and the not knowing when this is all going to happen. Work has been a bit stressful. But we have made some good progress so my boss is not quite so nervous. It was also odd because every day when I head home I have to make absolutely sure that someone can take over for me the next day if I am not there.

Saturday was a very interesting day. In the morning I went out to go help with a friend of mine that was moving some stuff out of a storage garage. It was rainy and wet, but we got started moving things into the van. After moving a number of items I was not paying attention to where my hand was and gave it a fairly good cut right in between two knuckles. Luckily someone else there who, actually was holding the other end of the chest of drawers is a doctor and looked at my hand. He said I probably didn't need to go get stitches. It was small enough they might not bother. So I now have my hand wrapped up with a butterfly bandage holding the cut shut. It is far more annoying then painful, and it is an adventure with a very active 3 year old, a wife that is 9 months pregnant and me trying to use my left hand for everything so I can give my right hand a rest.

After I got it all cleaned up we watched conference and then went to an easter party.

There was egg dying.

And an easter egg hunt. As you can probably see Alice was one of the oldest and fasted searchers there. We felt a little bad taking home about twice as many eggs as we went with, but not too bad. It was great to see Alice having fun with her friends.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week was a very long week. Susan is still pregnant, and she has been doing as much as she normally does so she has been very busy. As the days go on some things get more difficult to do, but she still does them very well, and before I get angry comments about why I am not helping this poor pregnant woman out, I am, but this week has been very stressful too. We have a big deadline coming up on Monday. On Friday what we were working on still was not operating properly. So I had to spend a few hours on Saturday to debug it and get it all working. I am glad that we managed to get close enough that it only took a few hours, but it was still very frustrating that it did not work out as well as I had hoped.

Yesterday Alice picked play an instrument from the star sticks and Susan decided to play the drums with Alice. It turned out to be a lot of fun.

CSA Share---July 15th and Produce Stand

Will and Alice both came along to pick up our CSA share this week. They were both so excited that they were fighting about whose CSA it really was..."Awice's CSA!" "No, it's not your CSA." "Awice's CSA!!" "Hey guys, it's called Prairieland CSA." *silence*

Great fun this week!

1 large bunch of beets with tops
1 large Napa cabbage
3 small summer squash
2 small broccoli
2 small cauliflower
1 medium head red romaine lettuce
1 medium eggplant
1 pickle-sized cucumber
1 large tomato

The cuke and the tomato were consumed within seconds of arriving home. Will and Alice would have eaten them at the CSA pick-up site if I hadn't been fast enough.

The beets will be pickled with spices as soon as I manage to get to the store for whole mustard seed, whole cloves, cinnamon sticks, and apple cider vinegar. I have ALL my garden beets and previous CSA beets waiting in the fridge for those items to arrive.

Napa cabbage went straight into that delicious Asian-themed coleslaw again that I took to a potluck birthday party. I was delighted to see it wasn't all eaten, then crushed when I dropped the bowl and spilled it all over the floor :( Is it too much to hope for ONE more Napa cabbage this growing season?

Squash and broccoli are on hold for now.

I might be able to enjoy a salad again this week...we'll see.

The cauliflower and eggplant went into a brilliant Indian-themed curry that I found through the America's Test Kitchen website and modified slightly to include the veggies I had on-hand. By far, it's the best way I've ever had eggplant. Alice ate half a can of chickpeas and a quarter cup of coconut milk while she was "helping" me prepare dinner.

Alice and I stopped at a produce stand this morning, too. It's the only one in town, as far as I can tell, and it's very close to where many of our friends live, so I pass it a couple times a week. We picked up 3# of fresh green beans, a little seedless watermelon, and 1.5# of ugly tomatoes. Another customer of the stand rolled her eyes at Alice's fatigue-induced fit regarding the "wrong" watermelon going into our car. I still can't decide which bothered me more: Alice's tantrum or the woman's reaction :)

Biking Adventure

Ashley and I threw the kids in the bike trailer and took a ride to the Urbana Free Library for their "Babies Lap Time" program Tuesday morning. Both kids were ready for a nap in the end. Many thanks to Ashley for snapping the photos and posting them to her blog so I could yank them and post them here.

Alice's hand is still in her snack cup, dear girl. By the way, she did manage to stay asleep as I unbuckled her and took her to bed.

"See? I warm!"

Alice prefers to be naked. We've discussed the benefits of clothing with her several times, and sometimes that is enough to convince her to dress...

"No shirt."
"Your shirt helps keep you warm, and safe from the sun."
"Okay, shirt."

"No shoes."
"Shoes protect your feet so you don't step on pokeys."
"Okay, shoes."

The other day, I'm helping her change out of her pajamas into play clothes. She's happy to strip down but becomes resistant when it's time to dress. Before I can say a word, she bounces over to her teddy bear:

"Baby! Look I warm! I warm?" and she clutches him to her bare chest. Then she lowers her voice into a grumbly squeak and has her bear reply, "Oh. You warm. Yaaaaaaaay!"

Then she turns to me, beaming, and holds outs her teddy, "See? I warm! No shirt, Mommy!"

Midway through summer, with sweltering heat in the forecast that day, I find teddy's testimony convincing and I allow her to play topless in her room for a while. Secretly, though, I am devising ways to teach and demonstrate 'modesty' in terms that a 2-year-old can grasp.

CSA Share---July 8th

Woo hoo! I am so pleased with this CSA that I may never leave it :) If all the exclamation points below don't make it obvious, you should know I skipped with joy bringing the following home:

1 head of green cabbage the size of a croquet ball (perfect size!)
1 medium bunch of curly leaf kale (one of my favorite veggies!)
1 small bunch of green onions
3 yellow squash, about the length of my hand but skinny
5 small heads of broccoli (Woo hoo!!!)
1 small head of cauliflower
1 small head green leaf lettuce (ugh, ready for the lettuce to stop)
2 pickle-sized cucumbers
2 Alice hands full of rocks

We get rocks every week, actually. Alice collects them from the gravel driveway at the pick-up location. I suspect those rocks are the only reason Alice chooses to come with me.

The cabbage will keep for several weeks in the fridge. I'm hoping for a cold snap soon that will warrant soup, or I might go a little wild and stuff some cabbage leaves. There's always slaw, of course.

Kale, kale, kale. How I love thee! Flavorful, but not overpowering. Remains firm when cooked, but not tough. Kale is the best cooked leafy green I know! It's another one of those great soup veggies, but we're not exactly in soupy weather. I like it sauteed with garlic and a little oil, then eaten with fingers. Some veggies just taste better when you skip the fork. Really.

We have enough broccoli this week to freeze some of it. Nothing compares to the freshly-steamed flavor, but it's nice to have a pound or two in the freezer for those last-minute veggie additions to meals.

Cauliflower will go into a curry. Oh yes.

Cukes, lettuce, squash, and green onions are ideal for leafy green salads. Now if I could only bear eating one more leafy green salad!

A note from Alice's Nursery (i.e. Kids' Church) teacher:

Hello Susan,

I've been meaning to share this with you but Sundays are so hectic that I haven't had a chance. Almost every Sunday when we get the toys out, Alice finds a baby, (doll or stuffed animal) and she often carries it through out the toy time. She is a very good mommy and always makes sure her baby has a snack. Sometimes it's a block, or a small pail or bucket but when I ask her about her baby she tells me that the other toy in hand is the baby's snack.

I thought you should know that she is very thoughtful and considerate and ALWAYS is prepared with the essentials that every mommy needs to carry!

Sharon

Bobby's Sunday Summary (via Susan)

Bobby is not feeling well this evening so I thought I would do his Sunday Summary for him. For tradition's sake I should start with,"Not much happened out of the ordinary this week..." but the rest is pure Susan.

Bobby's parents have been in town since Thursday and will be leaving early tomorrow. They came for Kayla's baby blessing* and it's been a great visit! Thursday night, we all got together with Bill and Kristin and Will and Kayla for some of Bobby's BBQ pork sandwiches. Alice loves Grandma and Grandpa. When they drove up, she ran out front to meet them and then ran into Grandma's arms for a big hug. Her welcome for Grandpa was a little less enthusiastic at first, but she warmed up pretty quickly. She showed off for them all evening demonstrating some new dance moves, telling stories, and sharing toys. Grandpa took Will and Alice out back to play for a long time. I love to see Alice love her family. (P.S. My Asian-themed coleslaw was a hit and I look forward to more Napa cabbage.)

Friday was July 3rd and Bobby had it off of work. Grandma, Grandpa, Bobby, Alice, and I drove out to Pontious Farm to pick blueberries. I was expecting mud and mosquitoes but it was a PERFECT morning for berry picking. Alice REALLY liked the idea of picking berries, but lacked the hunting skills necessary for consistent success. She asked to go potty and shrieked when I lifted the lid on the port-a-potty. She wouldn't sit on it, even when informed that this was the ONLY potty on the whole property. She decided to hold it. Her bladder finally won out in the end while playing with Bobby on the playground. Thank goodness for spare clothes in the car trunk, even if they don't match her flowery hot pink shirt. Speaking of which, Farmer Pontious was taking pictures while we were there and snapped the following one for their website. Alice's hair wasn't done yet and it was still frizzy-crimped from her ponytails the previous day. I hadn't showered or bothered to put in my contacts or anything. Call me vain, but I was a bit embarrassed of the photo-op and chose not to look at the camera. Alice was obviously having a great time in her uninhibited 2-year-old way:

Then we visited Busey Woods and their fantastic boardwalk in the woods.

Later that afternoon, we visited the library to stock up on new reading material, then had a fantastic dinner at Bill and Kristin's house. Saturday went a little slower. Bobby made pies in the morning (strawberry-rhubarb crisp, blueberry pie, and a crust for chocolate cream pie) and Grandma and Grandpa helped us can blueberries in the evening. Alice asked Grandma to read her several stories, then both Grandma and Grandpa were integrated into the bedtime routine.

Sunday morning was pretty typical. I really enjoy that casual time with Alice when I'm not bugged by all the work I could/should be doing instead. It's liberating, in a way, to restrict oneself from routine work once a week. Alice and I played "Wiggles and Giggles" several times this morning. She directed me into the living room where we put on music and ran/danced around while performing magnificent feats like kicks, stop-and-go, arms flapping, feet marching, singing, swinging baby animals around, etc. I literally laughed out loud at her imaginative antics. That motherly awe and joy takes me by surprise every once in a while and I can't help but scoop her up and kiss that little face again and again.

She pulled a funny "mom" move on me this morning, too. I was putting some socks away (okay, okay, it's hard to give up ALL my work on Sundays when it's sitting right in front of me!) in the bedroom when she pops her head in from the hall. She has a grocery sack of crayons on her shoulder, a paper crown on her head, and a shopping cart full of random little toys. She says, "I'm going to Wiggles and Giggles. Want to come with me?" How could I resist such a fine invitation?! I said 'yes' and she quickly replied, "Okay, laundry stays here." That babe knows how her mommy works her :)

Kayla's baby blessing was beautiful. I was grateful to be a part of it. Afterwards, everyone came to our house for dinner. I wondered again at why I have grown so attached to Kayla. I hypothesized that maybe she reminds me of baby Alice...comparing their 4-month-old pictures shows me it's not much of a physical likeness:

It must simply be Kayla's excellent social skills that make her so instantly lovable! She's a smiley girl with lots to say, quite comfortable in private conversations and larger groups alike. I'm glad she's here.

Well, that's my summary of the weekend. Probably more here than you might get from Bobby, especially in the areas of Alice and food. If you've made it this far in the entry, you must be my mom. Here's hoping Bobby isn't sick again next week ;)

*An infant is given a "name and a blessing" in church. It's not a required ordinance, but most families choose do it.

"Mom Bite"

As a kid, you never want to share food that you really like. We used to tease my mom about her "mom bites" that would always take more than we were willing to share, even when it was her hard work or generosity that made the treat possible. This selfishness doesn't go away when it's your own kid asking for a taste. Oh man. Alice isn't timid, either, about taking the largest possible bite she can wrap her jaw around. Especially when it comes to ice pops. The poor girl has given herself several brain freezes from her own ice pops AND mine. Hmmm.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week has been very interesting. Thursday and Friday night we had 5 boys and a chaperone staying with us. They were attending youth conference here. They were extremely well behaved. They even cleaned out our gutters, something that I have been putting off. Friday night there was a bit of a tornado scare. The sirens went off and the radio was reporting that the national wether service said that a tornado was going to hit campus. So instead o putting Alice to bed we all sat huddled in the hallway of our house watching Sesame Street on the computer. It is one of Alice's favorite things to do in the whole world, so it made the siren not so scary. Luckily they got it wrong. The tornado did not form where they expected it to. Two tornados did show up from that storm about 20 miles away from us though. They passed about 2 miles south of a boy scout camp where the boys from our ward were at. No one was hurt at the boy scout camp but a power line fell down over the only road into or out of the camp trapping everyone inside.

This is significant because on Saturday Alice got to go to a birthday party. It was a lot of fun, but Susan was at the family history center so I got to take her, unfortunately I had to drop Alice off and spend the first half of the party picking up two of Alice's friends who were also invited, their Dad, and only car was trapped at scout camp behind a down power line. After I dropped them off I had to go switch cars with Susan because a there is no way in the world to fit 3 car seats in the back seat of a Yaris. There are some things you give up for 40 MPG. I did get back to the party in time to take a few pictures and movies

For dinner that night we had Guacamole with our burritos. For some reason Alice likes to eat it with a fork, or as can be seen below her hands

Today was father's day. Alice got me a tie, that I felt obliged to wear to church

We also made Icecream


[flv]http://evansfamily.powweb.com/movies/2009/making_icecream.flv[/flv]

[flv]http://evansfamily.powweb.com/movies/2009/unvailing_icecream.flv[/flv]

Overall it was a very good week.

Bedtime Routine

I was struck this evening with how much our lives must change as Alice grows. I thought I would record the bedtime routine these days for comparison later down the line.

7:30pm Pajamas
There is a very liberal interpretation of the term 'pajamas'. As long as she won't strangle herself in it, get her bed dirty with it, or light herself on fire with it, we call it good.

7:35pm Toothbrushing
A continually improving process. Alice rubs the brush on a couple front teeth and Bobby does the rest.

7:37pm Stories
Usually 2 books, unless we "run out of time" due to Alice's poor choices. She's into library books lately. She gets excited about them as if they were candy.

7:42pm Family prayer
Alice always says the same 4-liner: "Dear Heavenly Father, please bless the food, Jesus Christ, Amen" which is why we often let her bless the food before meals. After she prays for bedtime, Bobby or I will pray for the family and everything else besides the food in our lives :)

7:42pm Sing songs
We turn out the light. Alice lays her head on her "frog prince" stuffed toy and pulls her blanket up around her while we sing three quiet songs of her choice. She almost always chooses "I Am a Child of God", "I Love to See the Temple", and "Give Said the Little Stream" or "Love One Another". She used to sing along with us, but now she's mostly a spectator.

7:45pm Kisses and "good nights" all around
Traditionally, this is when we used to leave her. When she had the pacifier, it was no big deal. When she stopped using the pacifier, she would beg us to come back until she finally cried herself to sleep after 20 minutes or so. That was too much crying for my personal comfort. Through a bit of trial and error (and pure luck), we happened upon the following "Bonus Round" that has helped Alice return to a peaceful, self-soothing, self-initiated sleep in a matter of a few minutes. Much more comfy for all, and well worth the few extra hoops.

7:45pm "Sing one more song"
I sing one more song, but only if Alice asks for it. She usually asks for it even before Bobby and I have finished the usual three songs. Alice chooses between "Amazing Grace", "I Can Sing a Rainbow", and "You Are My Sunshine", or she requests one of her own. She caught on pretty quickly that "Grace" has several more verses than either of the other two songs. It's her choice most of the time.

7:47pm "Stay one minute"
If Alice asks, I will lie on the floor for one minute counted out in my brain. Heck, by the end of the day, that's all I want to do anyway!

7:48pm "Door open it"
Last kisses and then Alice usually requests that the door be left open. That means the light from the hall spills into her room and lights her bed for the last and final part of the routine...

7:48pm Bonus Reading
As soon as I leave the room, Alice hops out of her bed and grabs all the library books she can find. She reads them out loud with all the voices and inflections we use, then she just looks at the pictures. Eventually, her room goes quiet and you know she's sleeping...like this...

Playing in the Car

It was a great day for taking photos (and I'm still quite enamored with our new camera) so I turned an afternoon play date into a photo shoot.

[gallery link="file" columns="2" orderby="title"]

A Little Too Quiet

Even Alice can get tired of waiting for herself to finish lunch: