This morning during Roman’s nap Harper and I did a “leaf project.” First we collected lots of cool leaves, then we arranged them on wax paper. Harper sprinkled crayon shavings all over her leaves, then I ironed another piece of wax paper on top. Harper made a beautiful piece of window art for our kitchen!

So far Roman is not the talker. He says Mama, sort of, and will occasionally say “quack” or “meow.” So this morning Portman not only let me sleep in, but he took the kids to get Starbucks and brought it home for me. He is amazing. When they got home, he brought my ‘bucks in the house and went back to get the kids:

Portman: “Okay guys, let’s go in the house.”
Harper: “No! You’re just leaving!”
Portman: “Why am I leaving?”
Harper: “So I’m just teaching Roman to say ‘da da.’”
Roman: (looks at Portman) “Da da da da!”

“Woah-man, first I’m going to wine up all da puzzles, and then we’re gonna JUMP ON DEM!”

Yesterday we went to the playground at our neighborhood elementary school, as we do most days. Harper noticed something new:

Harper: “What number is dat?” (seeing a number on the door of the school)
Me: “That’s the number eight. Eight has two circles, one on top of the other.”
Harper: “Yeah! A right one and a left one!”

Last night at about 1 AM Harper had an accident. She has had maybe one or two accidents since potty training at the beginning of the summer, and each time it’s because we forget to make her pee before bedtime (she’s had zero accidents during the day). In retrospect, I let her drink an inappropriate amount of OJ last night and I forgot to put her on the potty before bedtime. The poor thing was humiliated and I almost feel bad posting this, but it was too funny! She was screaming so loud that we thought we were under attack:

“Help! Dares pee everywhere! My pants is broken, my sirt is broken! It’s just so WET!”

I’m running behind on laundry this week, so we broke out the Christmas pj’s last night. Remarkably they still fit!

Last weekend we took the kids to Great Country Farms for some good old fashioned dirty fun. GCF is about an hour from our house towards West Virginia, but it was absolutely worth the drive. They have limitless activities for kids, including tons of animals that you can pet and feed, a giant “jumping pillow,” a sandbox filled with corn (a corn box?), slides, bikes, a cow-car ride pulled by a tractor, and tons more. We spent the entire afternoon playing and both kids passed out as soon as we got back in the car. What a great way to start off Fall!

The “cow car”… Harper rode for about 45 minutes straight. It was very exciting: 

Roman wrestled some pumpkins:

The “corn box.” It is SO much fun to throw corn!
 

Animals! Harper and Roman both fed the bunnies and Roman desperately wanted to get in that goat’s cage!

It’s not Fall without kettle corn. Harper and Daddy indulged. Harper also indulged in a little crack:

We think our kids are pretty funny. Some recent examples:

Harper loves to decorate Roman with stickers, in particular, on the head:

 
Lately Harper has been “taking a rest” on the swings. She can’t do it without cracking a little smile:

 
Roman really likes shoes. Anyone’s shoes. He likes to wear Harper’s boots on his arms and hit things with them:

We spent the week before last at Bethany Beach in Delaware. A colleague of Portman’s has a house there and generously offered it to us for the week. We couldn’t say no! Luckily Portman has a flexible job and was able to work from the beach house for the week, but that’s where our luck ended. A storm system sat over Delaware for 6 days straight, and we literally had about 4 total hours of beach time the entire week. We entertained ourselves with indoor putt-putt, outlet shopping, and site-seeing, but overall it was a pretty big bummer for the kids, who were really looking forward to some endless “sandbox” time. Each day we discussed whether or not we should just go home, and each day the weather forecast was sun for the next day, so we sat there for 6 days just hoping for some sunshine! When we finally decided to come home, we arrived home to a gorgeous Fall day and didn’t even take the time to unpack the car – we just hopped out and bee-lined for the playground! We learned that we live close enough to the beach that we should have just stayed home and waited for the weather to clear (or not clear). Oh well, maybe next time!

Despite the rain, we did have a little bit of beach time, which the kids absolutely loved. Roman would spend every waking moment in his sandbox if we let him, so he was in heaven with the miles and miles of vacant sand. Of course, he spent lots of time tasting it. Both of the kids burned off some energy chasing seagulls, which is always one of their favorite beach activities.

Super Dad built an awesome sandcastle, and then let the kids Godzilla it:

Roman looks exceptionally cute today:

Harper: “Can I have some milk?”
Daddy: “Let’s just talk about your day first. What did you do today?”
Harper: “Well, I looked at my up-and-down beds, and I cried at school.”
Daddy: “Why did you cry at school?”
Harper: “Well, I just missed you so much.”
Daddy: “That’s okay, I missed you too. What else did you do today?”
Harper: “Okay, I’m tired of being patient. Can I have my milk now?”

I picked Harper up from school around lunch time and got the full run-down from her teacher. Apparently she was upset for a good 40 minutes, which is so not like her! I was very surprised because we leave her with friends and babysitters quite a bit and she never gets upset. Her teacher was laughing and said that it was really unusual because most kids will accept statements like “mommy is at the grocery store and will be back soon.” Nope, not Harper. Her teacher said she was “exceptionally articulate” and said things such as: “well, why don’t you get in your car and you can drive me home!” And when her teacher said “Mommy isn’t home right now, but she will be back soon,” Harper responded: “yes she is!” (true) “she is still in her bed!” (also true).

When we got home we had lunch and talked about her day. She told me “I did some playdohs and I cried at school.” I asked her why she cried and she said: “well, I just missed you.” So sweet.

We’re pretty sure that this all stemmed from Portman dropping her off, so I am definitely going to be dropping her off for the next week or so. We are also going to let her bring her Paddington Bear to school to “show him around” as a distraction. She and I talked about it and decided that Paddington will be very excited to see her classroom and meet her new friends.