Our plans to meet Grandma and Grandpa at the children's area of the arts fest downtown this morning were scuttled when we woke up to grey skies and an ominous green and yellow blob on the radar stretching all the way to Des Moines. Rain, rain, go away! So we shifted gears and instead dropped the boys at Grandma and Grandpa's to play for the morning, have lunch and take naps. Hello, rain, my new best friend!!

Well, I think it worked out well for all of us. Reports are that fun was had in Coralville--enough to lead to three hour naps for the boys (and possibly Grandpa, though this is not officially documented.)

In our "free" time, John and I treated ourselves to lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, but also tacked on some chores, including cleaning and organizing the garage (John) and cleaning/organizing our office (me.) Surprisingly, the jobs took about the same amount of time, but John's was decidedly dirtier. We now have a tidy garage with better access to the various child-size vehicles (which do not impede the adult-size vehicle for which the space is intended), and we also discovered that the top of our desk is in fact a nice clean cream color. Who knew?

By the time Grandma and Grandpa brought the boys home, the sun had come out and a brisk breeze had dried the grass so that John was just getting done mowing. We had pizza on the porch, topped off with fruit punch popsicles for the under-4 set. A fun-filled day all around.

Edward and Daniel both love to play in this dirt--I don't think this is the first picture like this to make its way to the blog. Daniel also likes to try to eat the dirt, which we discourage, but don't always prevent. Tonight he had dirt all over his face, perhaps aided in adhesion by the popsicle juice that might not have all been wiped after his meal. Ed heard us talking about a bath and called out mid-shovel, "Is it bath night?" When I responded in the affirmative, he tried to protest, "No, we had baths last night!" "Yes," I said, "but you're PLAYING IN DIRT!" He considered for a moment, then calmly stepped over the garden edging back into the lawn and began running around, as if a new activity would erase the effects of the previous one.

A note about Edward's attire: he wanted to wear his train shirt, and, once dressed, decided that he was a train worker so he needed boots and his hat. This apparently is also appropriate gardening gear.

Daniel has been expanding his vocabulary with words and short phrases. He repeats anything he hears and some of those sounds eventually are cemented as words in that ever-developing brain. He has started identifying "Bus!" when we're in the car, and a particularly amusing one is "stuck" when he gets himself wedged somewhere or is in the toy bin but can't climb out. But this week's real treat is "I love you!" He started saying it back to me one night as I was putting him to bed. Do you have any idea how heart-melting it is to hear a little echo in the dark room pluck out his pacifier to respond, "I ya yoo"? Wow!



Edward also worked on some vocabulary-by-imitation this week, but his was in Spanish. We were playing at a the park when a Hispanic family came to play. Three little boys were running and playing and calling out to each other in Spanish. Edward actually recognized it and asked, "Are they speaking Spanish?" Just then the oldest boy called out to his brothers, "Vamos!" and I said, "Yes, that's Spanish. He said 'vamos!' That means 'let's go!' " He considered that for a bit and repeated it to the amusement of the older boy (who was proabably about five or six.) A few minutes later the boy was calling out to find his brother who was hidden in a tunnel. The younger boy popped up and shouted, "Aqui estoy!" several times and Edward started trying to mimic. I explained: "Aqui estoy" is "Here I am!" We've been practicing these for a few days now and it seems like he's interested. They're also learning Spanish words for colors right now at school, and he made sure to show me on the wall when I picked him up this week, "Look, Mom. 'Rosado' is 'pink!'"