hot dog hot dog hippity har

A few weekends ago we were at Nana and Boompa's. Isaac and London loved playing together, especially in the play kitchen. Here they are with some hot dogs. 

Isaac has a silly song he made up within the past few months that goes, "Hot dog hot dog hippity har, hot dog hot dog hippity har." Or sometimes it is "hippity dar" or "dippity dar" instead. It is cute - I will have to get a video some day.

miscellany

The trio. I had a quasi-mother-of-three experience bringing them all over to Grandma and Grandpa's from Nana and Boompa's. A guy passing by said, "Three, you've got your hands full!" Which was actually literally true because someone detached the handlebar from the bike trailer/double stroller at Nana's and stored it in the pole building. So, I was bent over, pushing the thing by the frame, feeling like some medieval cart pusher and seeing the advantages of only being 4'10" (which, unfortunately I am not). Meanwhile, Sonia was in the Baby Bjorn carrier on the front of me, swinging around a little since I don't think the manufacturers intended people to bend over for extended periods of time while using it. So yeah, I got one little taste of how my cousins who have 3 or more kids get comments, plus I felt totally ridiculous. 

(The guy couldn't really see well inside the stroller or maybe that exchange would have been more awkward, since the second child is clearly from a different father, while the first and third look similar..)

 They are all so cute and squeezable.

Grandpa got us an amaryllis kit, and the bulb was already well on its way to sprouting by the time we opened the box. I think they were intended to be sold for Christmas, that is why they were marked down. The fact that it was so far along was perfect for preschoolers who are not big on waiting forever. And thank you Grandma for the jam! Isaac really likes it, as always.

 Portrait of the photographer

 Kind of like this iconic picture

 Oh, and we made cheese. Twice now. First fromage blanc, the cottage cheese. They turned out okay, but they are a little bland, and I think I can improve on the cottage cheese. Also I need a kitchen thermometer with the correct range.

 Isaac playing with London's bouncy toy!

the photographer

Isaac is a little photographer now. He likes to take pictures. Since we have our nicer Canon, we have now given him ownership of the Nikon Coolpix. Here are some of his pictures from the last month or so.

the afternoon after

spend the night

Isaac's cousin Malachai came over yesterday, then through a series of extensions of the stay, we all decided it would be fun for him to spend the night. This was Isaac's first "spend-the-night" experience of the sort. 

They really get along well. It is quite impressive. It seems like with other kids Isaac plays with, he gets tired of it after about 2 hours and gets cranky. Maybe it is because Malachai is such an easy-going and cool guy. 

They played the "Busytown" game, which I think is really cute. They did okay following the rules on their own. Malachai came over earlier this week and we all played it together. I thought it would be fun to see what they did on their own. Malachai was really good at looking for the little pictures. Isaac (kind of) helped bring up the rules when necessary. Sometimes. They had fun anyway. 

Isaac took all the following pictures.

 Button on Isaac's shirt.

 After the above picture, Malachai mooned the camera. Don't worry, I deleted that picture. Those kids cracked me up though. They were always doing something or another silly.

 They really enjoyed playing with the superhero dolls Malachai brought to share. Lots of "Batman and Robin" games were played throughout the stay. Also lots of wrestling and playing outside.

We weren't sure how it would be for Malachai, but it turned out to be Isaac that had issues...We had both of them sleep in the same bed (one of the larger ones) so we thought that would be fine for Isaac, since he is used to sleeping in the same bed as someone else. He woke up though and complained that he was "all alone." "Isaac, how are you alone? Malachai is there!" He was upset that there was "no adult" upstairs. So I went upstairs and luckily Sonia did fall asleep, although of course we were in the other room. Then around 1:30 a.m., I heard this completely lame crying, but it didn't stop.....And if you think I am a bad mama for describing my child's crying as completely lame (and unwarranted), you should come listen to it some day. It is pretty fake 90% of the time. The fact that it continues must be in some way our fault as parents. But I digress. I finally went in there and said, "Isaac, what is the matter? Why are you crying?" "There is no adult here!" he sobbed. He had to say this multiple times because I couldn't understand the pathetic mumbling, and I told him I couldn't understand him when he talked like that. Finally I said, "Look, I will go get your papa to sleep on the top bunk. But if you cry like that any more I will put you outside." He stopped crying. Poor Malachai (who is a really good sleeper) was awake, but he went back to sleep. Papa came up and slept on the top bunk. Apparently he went back downstairs after he thought Isaac was asleep and tried to finish watching a movie, but Isaac came back down to get him. Then this morning, a little before 7 a.m., he comes to me and says he is done sleeping. Aaargh. So naturally he took a nap today. Hopefully tonight it will be much better on Isaac's part. But Malachai did fine.

It was a fun spend-the-night! Isaac will need to mature a little bit though before having another one. 

fried chicken blood

Today, we got two roosters from our generous cousins, Lisa and Bobby. They didn't want the roosters anymore. So we took them and we ate part of them tonight. Yummy! I don't know that Isaac understood that we were going to kill them. He has actually gone with Papa once to kill a goat but fell asleep in the car, so he has not seen someone kill an animal. I don't care about killing animals for food, but I don't have any particular desire to watch it either.  So I decided I would lay down with Sonia for a little nap. Papa's friend Adama came over and they took the roosters in our "backyard". I heard a brief "bawk bawk bawk!",  then I heard what apparently was Isaac protesting the slaughter of the roosters. It just sounded like a scream to me and I couldn't tell (being upstairs) if it was a scream of temporary insanity brought on by the thrill of killing the roosters, or a scream of being scarred for life. No, just kidding. Most people in the history of the world have seen animals be killed. I am sure Isaac will be just fine. He must have thought we were going to have them as pets. Yeah. In our 15 square feet of backyard. And I'm sure the manager wouldn't mind us building a chicken coop. 

Here is Papa (singe-ing - how do you spell that?) the hairs off over our burner. African resourcefulness. 

 To contrast with the white, lifeless stuff you get at the store. Cousin Lisa also reminded Mama - there may be another source of fresh, low cost rooster in town. We will have to check it out. 

This little episode further reminded me that Papa and I do have several key interests in common. We like to do things ourselves and for cheap. :) Papa just handles the meat and large item side of things. I'm more about the veggies and details. I also learned that Papa is really good at catching chickens. As weird as it sounds, I find this strangely attractive. 

Papa fried the blood that came out of the chickens and it actually tasted really good. I ate it before asking what it was, because I thought it was the fried blood, but I thought I would be a more impartial judge if I wasn't entirely sure. Isaac ate some too. Then he said his heart was getting hot. Heartburn? Hm. I think he may have actually tried the fufu, but I'm not sure. He at least asked for it to be in his bowl like Papa's friends. 

Actually it is interesting - he is starting to like foods with dips! Strange. I actually blame the Hidden Valley Ranch commercial. As ridiculous as I find it, it spoke to Isaac. Now he wants veggies with ranch. He even tried some celery. I have also discovered that he can't really tell the difference between blue cheese and ranch dressing, which is handy when you are out of ranch in your home. He also tried home-made french fries with both ketchup and mayonnaise. Just a month ago he would have passed on both! I really like this development. 

London's rainbow party

"Look! I drew a little silly guy," said Isaac.

 Isaac got a chance to go play with London for a few days. Unfortunately, he got a little sick... just a fever as far as we can tell.

 Isaac's cousin and godsister (is there such a thing?) had her 2nd birthday party today (well, yesterday). It was rainbow themed and there were lots of preparations done by her mama, Auntie Anna. Also, many little kids were invited and came, which made it extra fun!

 Isaac told me later today that he would like a rainbow party. I told him we could do that but that I would check in with him closer to his birthday to make sure that was still what he wanted.

The birthday girl!

 The cake!!! Mama had a second piece because it was so fun to eat.

 London cheesin' it up for the camera. Notice the rainbow of juice bottles in the background. Auntie Anna really went all out! Almost like that one lady Auntie Kayleen told me about who did a Sound of Music themed party. Except not sooooo into it as to border on overkill. If we still have to have a rainbow party, we will most likely do the balloons (because who doesn't like balloons?), the cake (because it is fun-licious!), and perhaps the vegetable platter (yes, red onions for purple!). Or maybe we can get away with "random" as we have so successfully done in the past.

 The opportunity to wear rainbow was given, and I found a little hat Shelly Winiger made for Isaac as a baby. It fit Sonia perfectly! This is how she was during the whole party, though. 

 Isaac was the oldest child at the party, so he gave London advice where needed!

Isaac has talked a lot about having a baby brother, now that we have a baby sister. I guess we are not moving fast enough because today the demands increased. "When we have another baby sister, baby Sonia can play with her. Then when we have a baby brother I can play with him! And I will call him Jack, because that's a handsome name for a baby brother." :)