Airports, Chatterbug and Sleeping Beauty

What an eventful week.

Blake went on the business trip from heck and came back sick as a dog. This business trip included flights to and from Newark, NJ to Buffallo, NY -the same flight that crashed- and being surrounded by "Crises Management Teams" and family members of the deceased flying back and forth from funerals. The plane he was on was hit by a rogue de-icer truck while idling on the tarmac after a 2.5 hour flight delay, and that was just the tip of the iceberg for that trip. The poor man.

I went to visit the girls in San Francisco for the weekend (YAY! Photos here) and Grandma Julie came to help while I was gone. Poor Blake went to the PDX Airport FOUR TIMES in a 24 hour period. I thoroughly enjoyed my child-free airplane rides, listening to my i-pod, drinking my own drink, reading magazines and picking up NOT A SINGLE item off from the floor underneath my seat. Ahhhhhhh.

Hadley has added some new tricks to her repertoire - sleeping on her side and tummy and wanting to stand all the time. She might just bypass crawling altogether!

Brooke has been adding to her vocabulary and is putting together quite complex sentences, such as: "Mr. Incredible has shoes on." and "I need to watch The Incredibles AGAIN" or, upon hearing I left in an airplane "I need to go on the airplane!". My personal fave was after Hadley threw up in the tub while they were taking a bath: "Mommy needs to clean up the barf." She also counts to ten, minus the number four. They are working on counting this week at school and she really seems to have grasped the concept of counting a number of items, rather than just rattling off numbers 1-10. Amazing!

Now, some photos:

Sleeping on my shoulder like this pretty much NEVER happens:



Grandma Julie spends time with the ladies:




Brooke does her Grandma Yoo Hoo impression while wearing her Ugg Boots:

Zoo, Splashing and Standing

It is my birthday, but you are getting the present..a big fat photo post! With bonus video at the end.

I had Monday off from work so I dropped Hadley off at school and Brooke and I headed to the zoo. It had been exactly a year since we last went and she was just learning how to walk back then. This time she walked all over the zoo and we talked about the animals and what they were doing. The peeing polar bear was her favorite. She really liked the penguins too. We rode the light rail from my parking garage downtown up to the zoo, so that was bonus excitement. She is already asking to go to the "YOOOOO" again.





Can there ever really be too many cute tub photos? No.







Hadley's new trick is to stand up while holding on to Brooke's toddler bed. She absolutely hops up and down with excitement. She thinks she is the cat's pajamas, standing up and everything!





Hold on! from morgan swanson on Vimeo.

** FLUSH **

Big news! Brooke used the potty twice today! I am in shock. She has spent plenty of time sitting on her Elmo toilet seat, immediately demanding to flush and declaring "it's not working" .2 seconds after her buns touch the seat. I have been pretty casual about the whole process - at school she tries the toilet at least three times a day, with nothing actually happening.

Last weekend we spent a little time without a diaper, trying out her new Cinderella undies. There was much excitement about trying on the pretty flowered and glittery undies. The experiment ended in a puddle on the floor and Brooke declaring someone had spilled something. Today we tried the Cinderella undies again and we visited Elmo three times in one hour. On the third visit, she actually WENT. For the first time EVER. And then, after her bath tonight, she went AGAIN and it was of the Number 2 variety!!!!!! There is a tiny light at the end of the diaper tunnel.

Of course, then begins our intimate relationship with the public bathrooms at Safeway, Target and any restaurant we happen to take to her to, when she discovers the power of saying she has to go and watching Mom and Dad leap up and sprint her away to the nearest restroom. I have been told I was a CHAMPION at that exercise.....

In other, non-toilet related news (my blog readers cheer in relief):


Hadley and Brooke enjoyed their chicken, rice and broccoli dinners.




Tub time!