What A Ham.

Mow Emma

Yesterday Oly and I went to the Delaware Museum of Natural History. After hugging the bronze statues of a deer:

and repeatedly kissing the tortoise statue,

I finally convinced her to come inside.

T-Rex Head:

She was most excited about the dinosaurs, ("Dinos!") of which there were many. This one got several kisses as well- not sure if that was allowed actually.

There was a huge interactive treehouse teaching about the animals that live in trees. Oly took the stools that human beings of smaller stature use to see the exhibits and sat on each one declaring, "potty."

There's a sunken case of the sea floor and she yelled, "Feesh! Feesh!" a lot.

It's a difficult thing to understand when you're young, that you're not going to fall into the sea when you walk across the glass. Even I edged around the sides when I crossed.

And then something wonderful happened: we met Emma. Emma was a girl visiting her cousins from Virginia (I had to really burst her bubble when I told her that would be too far for babysitting) who took a liking to Oly immediately. They looked at the eggs together,

checked out earth,

the giant stuffed polar bear,

played with the tinker toys,

And checked Oly's height against the cheetah. Notice her reply to everything Emma says?

We played with Emma and her great aunt for more than an hour. We now have to suffer from Olympia's constant begging for "Mow Emma! Mow Emma!" whenever she sees the computer, but it was so worth it.

Fwenz. Fun.

19 of our friends came over today, some of them adult, some of them children. Approximately half of each. This morning I told Oly that her friends were coming over for a party after her nap and she repeated the words, Fwenz! Fun! probably 500 times until she fell asleep.

Here are Caitlin and James cooling off:

Caitlin:

Some of the Mama's in attendance (2/7ths of the human beings in this photograph are pregnant again! Congratulations!):

Alongside the pools I set up the cardboard and fingerpaints and you'll never guess what happened:

Olympia Louise made a mess.

A big one. She sat for an hour and fifteen minutes and fingerpainted with FOCUS. It was amazing to watch.

We were super hot and Noah and Nate sat next to the wall to eat their icecicles.

We moved to the covered porch later in the party and put the turtle pool to good use.

2/7ths of the human beings in this photo are pregnant again too:

And then 4 and a half hours after it started, it was over.

Oly was very, very tired after the long day in the sun and when she was full of pizza dinner she asked to sit on the couch and read Hop and Pop. We did.

Our Morning Walk

Early this morning we went on a walk while it was still relatively cool. Oly brought her stroller filled with her favorite things: Honk, her Basketball and some rocks she found.

It was an eventful trip. She held her first earthworm:

She stopped to smell the flowers:

And then picked one and added it to her beloved collection:

What We've Been Up To This Week

Oly played peek-a-boo in the space between the front door and the storm door,

Boo!

She made some phone calls,

Had some tea parties,

And always now we have to travel with 6 different stuffed things in her arms. She's only allowed to take one out of the car wherever we go and it's a different one every time. Who needs airbags?

And we went to the Y to play basketball during a thunderstorm on Sunday. She's working extremely hard to dribble:

Aaaaaaaaaanticipaaaaaaaation.

She's a Maaaaaaaniac, Maaaaaaaniac

Every evening after dinner Oly asks to get down from the table and then performs a little ditty in the open space between the dining room and living room for us. In this video she's already dizzy from spinning too much but shows you some of her specialty dance moves: some yoga and a little sumo. Check our youtube channel for a longer video with more booty shaking.

The Pied Piper

Makin' Music is a music class for kids that we've seen at a couple birthday parties recently. At our friend Rowan's 1st Birthday last Friday, I took a video to show you how this woman could, if she wanted, brainwash all of the children and start an army to do her bidding. Just watch: (It's pretty long, and during the middle minute of the video Oly just stares entranced, so it might only be a thrilling video for the die-hards.)

1-10

Feesh

Nowadays when Oly does "awt" with her "mawkers", she draws elaborate squiggles and excitedly informs us what letter of the alphabet she just drew. Sometimes she does them correctly, can you find the letter?:

All of the other things on this page are fish. We hung this up on the fridge and when she walks by it she points to a random squiggle and says, "feesh." Oly's a good awtist.

103 Degrees

On a day as hot as this, there's not much to do except finger paint in the shade and hang out in the turtle pool.

This is one hot squirrel:

4th of July Weekend

We cuddled:

We watched Papa make burgers:

We watered the flowers:

We partied at our friend Benji's first birthday party:

We went to Linvilla Orchards (we call it The Farm) to see animals and play at the playground:

And Oly made some paintings of fireworks:

Here, Oly can tell you more about what we saw at The Farm:

A Great Day Outside

It was a fantastic warm day yesterday before several scheduled days of oppresive heat so we made sure to soak up every second. We went to play at a new park we've discovered:

And had a little picnic:

Every day she surprises us with words we had no idea she knew, and at the park she pointed upwards and said, "clouds!". Then she ran to try and catch them.

After that we went to the garden to harvest our bumper crop of carrots and she ate several (including some of the tops).

It went tragically unphotographed but we saw a rabbit at the garden and when Oly laid eyes on it she put out her arms and said, "BUNNY! HUG!" and chased it about 50 yards into the bushes.