Longer Out Than In

My calendar says that Erin was 41 weeks old yesterday.  Which means that as of 11:21 tonight, she will be out of my belly for longer than she was IN my belly.  Here's a few pictures, from her first days at home and from yesterday, when she wore a cute little dress from Aunt Marcie to attend a friend's party.  Hard to crawl in dresses, though - I had to tie it up behind her back so she could play.

Camping

Dexter learned about camping this week at school.  He came home and talked about playing in a tent at school.  Hmmm, I thought.  We have a tent.  We have sleeping bags.  How about you and Daddy go camping in the back yard Friday night?  And then, after I already got Dex excited about this idea, I told John.  How could he say no?

Aunt Jeanne drove down Friday morning, so when she got here we got her to help us set up our brand spankin new tent from Uncle Dom.  Dex was very excited to be in his tent, and immediately asked for his sleeping bag.  It was about 800 million degrees in there, but what the hell.  Here's your sleeping bag, kiddo.  Had to show him how to get in to one, as he kept trying to go in head first.

Aunt Jeanne tried teaching Dexter how to make faces.  He might need more practice.  But I think, with enough hanging out with Aunt Jeanne, he'll get it.

We thought about roasting hot dogs on the camp fire for dinner, but it somehow didn't seem safe with the baby.  A pizza picnic was a little more our speed, and Erin could partake.  She loves her a pizza picnic.  Although this time she had to be contained, lest she eat everyone's paper plates.

After dinner Erin played on the deck for a while, as Dex took his nightly seat on the potty to poop.

She can't pull herself up yet, but if I help her stand she can hold on and stay up for a while.

Aunt Jeanne kept making Erin wear silly hats.

Aunt Jeanne swears she used to be able to whistle with a blade of grass.  I do believe she lies.

Erin went off to bed as the boys gathered sticks for fire and sticks for roasting and sticks for poking.  We had a lot of sticks.  We borrowed the neighbor's fire pit and it worked perfectly.  And we then proceeded to do a lot of this:

We had stuff for s'mores.  Dex preferred to just eat the parts on their own.

I have not lost my marshmallow roasting skilz.  Although I did lose one in the fire.

When you ask Dexter what his favorite part of camping was, he will tell you it was roasting marshmallows.  Mind you, he never actually ATE a roasted marshmallow.  But he liked roasting them.  He told Jeanne she wasn't very good at marshmallow roasting.

Jeanne made a s'more for him, but he would have none of it.  I think the oozing marshmallow was too much for his sensory issues.

Partway through the evening Dex suddenly up and ran to the tent.  "What are you doing?" we asked.  "I just need to take a little rest," he said.  So, we rested.  And played with flashlights.

He rallied after a few minutes and went back out to the fire to roast more marshmallows.

Dex was supposed to be roasting, but he got distracted by the lightning bugs.  Marshmallow sticks were flying all over the place.

And then the boys snuggled in to their sleeping bags, checked out their flash lights, and eventually got about three minutes of sleep.  They came in at 5:30 AM, after Dex had a bit of an accident in his sleeping bag.  I was impressed they lasted that long.

He said several times today that sleeping in his bed is more comfortable than sleeping in the tent.  But that sleeping in a sleeping bag is REALLY comfortable.  I guess he likes my sleeping bag.  Which now needs to go to the laundromat.

It was a lovely evening.  Perfect weather for a camp fire.  Nice camping weather for the boys.  I'm sure I'll make them do it again some time.

Dammit! I Forgot.

I was going to add in THIS VIDEO (click for link) at the end of the post with all of Dexter's pictures that I just posted.  But I forgot.  So here you go!  Cute baby.  Mobile.  Totally capable of causing much, much trouble.  She hasn't quite figured out how to crawl in the traditional sense, but whatever she is doing is pretty effective.

Why, yes.  Yes, she HAD just been eating her brother's Croc.

What I Did Over the Weekend - A Photo Essay by Dexter

I finally remembered to decrease the photo quality of Dexter's pictures, because he takes SO MANY pictures that his card was filling up quickly.  Not to mention the hard drive on my computer.  Here's a (very) small sampling of the photos Dex took over the weekend.

(Grandma's cat's paw)

(We had to discuss how this actually worked.  So then he took a picture)

(Tractor steering wheel)

("I've never seen a light like that before," he says.  That makes most of us, kiddo.)

(Do you know how many pictures of lights are currently filling up my hard drive?  Too many to count.)

(Tractor lever)

I didn't let him take his camera up to the pool, because I am mean and didn't feel like fishing his camera OUT of the pool when he dropped it in.  I'm sure my pictures are not the same as what he would have taken up there (he wanted to take pictures of the waterfall coming off the slide).  Sorry.  My photos are not as eclectic.  But they are still fairly cute.

(Erin REALLY likes macaroni and cheese)

My little shutterbug.  It's fun seeing the world through his eyes.  Know what's even more fun?  Looking at his pictures with him.  He giggles.  A lot.