quick pic

A very merry half birthday

to Emmet!
We celebrated with Aunt Melina, Uncle Greg, and Cousin River. We visited the Swiss Cottage and Cahir Castle and had a picnic on the banks of the Suir River. Greg picked out some monkfish at the farmers market and I used this recipe for breading the fish and this recipe for tomato sauce tossed with penne noodles. It was fantastic!
Today we are off to Inistioge Arboreteum!

More cuteness than you can shake a stick at

The weather here has been gorgeous so we're been out playing in the grass, blowing bubbles, hanging out at the park, flying kites, digging in the sand, going for long walks, kicking our feet in St. Patricks well. Life is good.

3...2....1....

Emission! Omission! Omniscion!

Whatever he's saying it's supposed to be ignition. But of course he insists it isn't said that way. Orrin and Silas build these two rockets last night. For some reason they were dubbed money rocket and jelly rocket. Jelly rocket was the favorite but fell apart before it could be captured in pixels. So this is money rocket.
All day long the rockets have been flying around. Making sound effects. Being filled up at the petrol station. I just heard Silas say, "Money rocket's thirsty. He needs water."
At one point I said, "Will you knock it off with the sound effects!"
Silas responded, "But jelly rocket can't go zzzsshhh all by itself, so I have to zzsshhh for it."
I suppose it's better then an electronic sound effect, over and over again. And no batteries to replace.

As long as I'm posting

Me: (on the phone) What the hell!?
Silas: Heck. Mom. Heck.

Yikes.

I'm a Pooh Bear

That is to say, I love honey. And I love bees. And I stumbled upon this. And you know I love ice cream. So check it out. And do what they say- support a local bee keeper.

Kid updates

Silas: He's started asking why all. day. long. I think he's just trying to keep the conversation going, because if I kind of go off on a tangent and make the explanation long and detailed enough he seems happy. Even if I didn't adequately explain why the library doesn't open until 10 in the morning.
He's also asking permission for everything. "Should I play with my cars now? Should I sweep now?" Then regardless of my response; "Why?" Argh. He loves sweeping. Which is fine by me. He doesn't really get much picked up, unless the crumbs are mighty. But it keeps him busy. What he is good at is wiping up. Yesterday:
Silas: "I need a rag. I need a wet rag. Ohh, it's not coming up. I need help."
Orrin: "No, you need some elbow grease."
Silas: (rubbing the rag on his elbow, then the floor) "Still not working."

Emmet: Scooting around the floor like crazy. Getting really frustrated when he backs into something and gets "stuck." He's munching on a few solids. A quarter of an apple, a cracker, a spoon dipping in yogurt. Silas has made it a requirement that Emmet have a spoon at every meal now. Emmet generally looses interest and drops it before he gets any nourishment, but he has to be grabbing for the next thing. Immediately. So he's not quite crawling, not quite eating solids, but watching him try both is awfully cute. He loves peek-a-boo. He gets startled a little bit and then started giggling and shrieking with laughter.

Happy Birthday Orrin

On Wednesday we had a celebration at home for Orrin's birthday. Of course, celebration to me just means special food. I had bought some nice red wine and garlic sausage at the farmers market so I fried and simmered them all day with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and fresh basil and oregano. Spaghetti is one of Silas's favorite meals, and I can think of almost no better present than a peaceful meal where Silas sits and eats with us. It's also one of Orrin's favorite meals, especially accompanied by homemade garlic bread and fresh green salad.
We also made chalk signs on the sidewalk and a big piece of craft paper. I had planned on balloons too, but somehow there were no plain balloons in any of the three shops I stopped in. I could get punching balloons, balloon animal balloons, balloons with Happy 1st -21st Birthday printed on them, rocket balloons, etc. but no regular old balloons.
Silas hadn't napped that day and almost fell asleep in his pile of noodles, smeared from ear to ear in red-orange sauce, munching on garlic toast. We kept stifling laughter as his eyes drooped. Finally he said, "Whas funny you two?" At that point we both burst out laughing, then Silas started giggling, and it was a 10 minute giggle fest for all of us. After that he had caught his second wind and we headed down to the fishing pond for a little family outing. Afterwards we relaxed on the little patch of grass in front of the house and Silas tried to stuff leaves up our noses, skewer leaves on sticks, make salad out of grass. Emmet snoozed away in his carrier.

Afterwards, we devoured Orrin's present of open faced designed apple pie. I didn't take a picture of mine, but you can see from the link you arrange the slices in a rose formation, which Orrin claims gives you the best ratio of apple to crust and the best apple texture. It's fiddly and ridiculous, but it's his birthday, or the day before his birthday anyway. No candles, but vanilla ice cream on top so everyone was happy.

While i work on a new post

you can go sign this.
I'll put up cute pictures if you do.

A few cute things

• Silas to Emmet as he rolls around on the floor making his pterodactyl scream and clutching one of Silas's wheeled vehicles: "Emmet! You HAVE a tractor. Der is no reason to cry."
• Silas as he's building some bristle block structures on the couch in the kitchen while we finish dinner: "This is da daddy a-cause he has a beard, an dis is da baby Emmet he's growing bigger and bigger to da ceiling, an dis is da mama she's going bonkers."
• My sister in law bought Silas a little chickadee that chirps when you squeeze it. Well, I should say it sings an actual chickadee song, which is cool and I'd actually like to have a bunch of them as then I could actually recognize a few calls. But I digress... It's a favorite toy around here lately. Silas squeezes it and flys it around the room and sings/screams "chick-a-deeeeee" and Emmet squeals with delights. It's surprisingly non-irritating for as loud and as long as they do this. But probably the over abundance of cuteness distracts me from the noise.
  

Bad dream?

Oh yeah, and last night Silas woke up screaming and when Orrin went in to check on him he was completely naked, standing on the bed clutching a pen. What goes on in his little head?