territories defined

chef cooking

floating market in Thailand

floating market wares

THE papaya salad

protest site campsite

protest site

protestors

udon flowers near a temple

carp at thai chinese cultural center

what's with the duck??  we don't know either

budda in the roots

Always needs to be in the upright position

headband for t made by W

painstaking care of copying the rainbow on the play dough box

A blue watch.  This pic is for Grandma, since I made fun of her that she still owns and wears a watch.  All three kids are fascinated by it

Startled look.  He was very surprised that his face got wet when he leaned into the stream of water

E is really starting to pick up speed.  He can cross the room in about 2 minutes.  We can see him coming and move stuff in time, though.  I still forget sometimes that he can follow me.  He tries to crawl on his toes so it slows him down a bit.  He could probably crawl faster, but he doesn't like the rug burn he gets on his knees and shins.  If I put pants on, he stops trying.  He also doesn't like hardware floors.

So this is where W and T set up shop.  They are now playing in the hall and in the kitchen where E is not to excited to follow them.  They also play on top of the desk I moved into their playroom to avoid E.  T always says "this toy is too small for E" even if it isn't.  This means T doesn't want E to touch it. 

The desk has holes to allow cords to go inside of it to stay out of sight.  T and W thought it was great fun to put their toys in it.  Until they discovered one of the holes doesn't allow for access again until Papa comes home.  T was very, very sad when W put his meow meow down the hole.  He kept talking about how sad that was for him at dinner to Papa.

T, W and Mommy are very glad to have Papa home to play wild with T and W.  They get worn out and love to play all these flips and wild games with him.

W worked on her Barbie coloring book for about an hour today.  She got out her 96 color crayon set with all the shades of pinks, reds and purples.  She put it on the easel tray, clipped in her picture and went to town.  With two of them.  Then when she was done, she put them up on the fridge and replaced her other works. 

T really wanted to pretend her easel was a mail truck.  So he kept moving it around the house while she was working on her project.  I thought it was so cute how they played this so nicely.  T would tell her when he wanted to move his mail truck, or W would ask him to move it to another place with more light.

They also put their bus and dump truck on "cement blocks" with their toys to work on it.  In the hall of course where E couldn't disrupt the fixing.  And they made cakes with their sneaky snacky squirrel logs, acorns and letters.

T has started pointing out flat bed trucks and hitches on cars when we drive around town.  The flat beds because of his toys and the hitches because Papa's truck has a hitch.

Papa brought home three flashlights.  Well, more like rapid fire strobe lights.  Two have Hello Kitty heads and one is an angry bird head.  T called it E's "angry chicken" one.  I laughed and W asked why so I told her it says angry bird on the box.  The next morning I asked where E's angry chicken was (he really loves to chew it), W told me in not so uncertain terms that is an angry bird, not an angry chicken because that is what it says on the box.  She has an amazing memory for what I teach her.  Watch out, Mom.

There are cute things they do on a regular basis.  W usually gets us a paper towel and divides it into three pieces for all of us at the table every time she needs one.  T usually likes to mix up E's food and feed it to him.  E takes it from him better than from me.

I'm trying to figure out how to raise a boy.  I'm sure I'll be scratching my head for much of my life, but today seemed successful.  I didn't feel like going outside and soaking all of us, so we played balloon bash.  I hit T with a helium partially deflated balloon and he hit back laughing for about a half hour.  Then we threw soft items such as stuffed animals and pillows at each other over the couch for another half hour.  He seemed to feel so, so much better and did much better the rest of the afternoon after hitting objects in an appropriate manner.  But W just sat and watched and didn't get why this was so fun.  Then she was needy the rest of the afternoon because I had ignored her all that time.  Heaven forbid.

Some more random T sentences that are often repeated: "Look!  I can walk on my nails!" and he is walking on his tip toes.  "James is at Target.  Gordon is at Target.  Fiery Flynn was at Target but Papa got the last one".  He has Thomas and Fiery Flynn in his train collection and knows where the rest are.  I think he got this from a discussion we had once of where those particular Thomas and Fiery Flynn came from.  W will say that they came from either Walmart or Target.

They were playing panda.  W was mommy panda and T was papa panda.  T said, "Where is baby panda?  It has to pop out of your tummy, mommy panda."  So W played along, put the stuffed animal against her belly button and then brought it away from her stomach saying "Pop out of the tummy baby panda!"

I now have to read books word for word.  We are in the books memorized stage.  I'm going to have to randomly skip words if I want to ever shorten book reading before bed again and not have them catch me.  W "read" the very hungry caterpillar book to me the other day.  And they read Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat to each other.  It was cute to hear them read to each other. 

T likes to make "funny faces" with Meow Meow.  He squishes her face in until it is all distorted then pretend talks  to E. It makes us all laugh, including T.

W went to town making rainbows "just like on the box" the play dough came in.  That means she used all the colors.  And of course play dough never stays on the table top.  I was sweeping up the floor later and she exclaimed in such a excited voice: "Oh Mom!  Your pile is so BEAUTIFUL!"  referring to my dust pile.

My favorite part of today was playing indoor snowball fight with the sheets.  I wadded up the sheets and T would run by as I threw the sheet at him.  Then it would go "splat" and flatten out on him or W and they would laugh hysterically.

E really likes to talk.  Loudly.  He also likes yelling.  He is pretty happy about it all, but T and W don't like his loudness so much.  But then we all love him when he sucks his fingers and snuggles up