Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

We've been having all kinds of fun. Sightseeing in DC, meeting up with Karyl, going to the National Zoo, taking a train to New York to meet Sarah (who's vacationing there - great timing!), painting pottery, hanging out with friends in Maryland, depriving our children of regular naps...
Obviously, with all the doing of stuff, there hasn't been a whole lot of time for blogging (though I'm proud to have kept up my flickring pretty faithfully). So... photos! Enjoy.

Guess where we are!

Noah's drawings

Today, Noah drew something person-like for the first time. It's a sun! It has feet and shoes.
After he'd drawn a few of those in different sizes and colors, he introduced a bit of variation:

These suns have stripes, and the red sun has a baby sun.
I'm in love with these drawings.

uphill both ways

 

I snapped this photo of our dinner on the iPod, then decided to use it in a blog post, so I emailed it to the blog, intending to write the actual post once the photo was up. As I sat there typing, my internet connection went out, which makes blogging basically impossible. And then I was internetless for a good long while and went to bed.

So here's what I'd have written/vented if I'd had a chance to last night:

I spent all morning wrangling Noah in and out of the car running half a million errands. Then I spent the entire afternoon cooking (enchiladas with home-made sauce) and cleaning up the resulting mess.

And then Noah refused to eat what I'd made claiming he didn't like beans.

And then my head exploded. The end.

nature

So, this happened today:

hanging out by the basket with the cookbooks

When we were saying goodbye to some friends who'd come to visit, a lizard ran into the house through the wide-open front door (note to self: get screen doors). When I tried to chase it back outside, it ran across Noah's feet underneath the fridge. Figuring that there was no way I could get to it, I put Noah down for an overdue nap.

Enjoy my naptime tweets:

• So... THEORETICALLY, what would you do if a lizard had just run into your house and was hiding under your fridge?

• Seriously, though. You guys... there's a real life WILD lizard under my fridge. In the kitchen. Where I prepare food. Any ideas?

• Ehrrrm. Lizards can climb, right? SOMEBODY HOLD ME!

• Right. I guess I need peacock feathers. Anybody? http://www.wikihow.com/Chase-Lizards-out-of-Your-House 

• Aaaaaaaah! I opened the fridge and the lizard was RIGHT. THERE. on the bottom edge of the door.

• I'm trying not to freak out (because I really don't mind lizards), but... but... I AM sort of unhappy about the lizard INSIDE my kitchen.

• Uaaaahrgh! I chased it into a box and it CLIMBED UNDERNEATH MY DISHWASHER. Why do I have all these dumb appliances?!!!

• Lizard came out... then vanished when I wasn't looking. This is getting worse and worse.

• Ehhhm. I had the front door open hoping The Animal would leave. Problem is, now I don't know if it has or not. Dang.

• Still inside.

• There's nothing quite as awesome as suddenly realizing that a LIZARD is sitting on your kitchen shelf, WATCHING YOU INTENTLY.

• In other news: I'm going to need a paper bag to breathe into here, and quickly.

• If I could be in two places at one time, I could get rid of the lizard.

• OH MY GOD, IT WAS HALF-WAY OUT THE DOOR AND RAN BACK IN! Of all the lizards in the world, I have a stupid one in my house.

• I GOT HIM OUT! It involved cursing, loudly saying NO!, towel-swatting (all ineffective) and finally throwing an IKEA basket out my door.

• I don't mind lizards in the back yard (we have tons), but the "SURPRISE! Kitchen lizard is reading your cook books!" effect sucks.

EVICTED!