Caught!

Morning toothbrushing delayed due to apparently mandatory arm-hugging.

After work I decided to be lazy and just hit a nearby restaurant with the kids. Victor liked his burger but definitely preferred the fries.

For Anna the question of fries or burger was pretty close to a tie... until she discovered vinegar.

Afterward we happened upon some of their friends, so we stopped to play in their backyard. L has caught Victor the butterfly here. I didn't capture the moment where Victor was valiantly flapping his yellow and green wings to escape. Victor has a great sense of play — the first he knew that he was a butterfly was when the net went over his head.

Must do buttons

Anna decided to show me just how much money she had this morning. I talked her through the various coin denominations, which I'm sure we've done before but she'd forgotten. She enjoyed finding each type of coin.

Anna noticed that I didn't do up all the buttons on my shirt. She absolutely had to fix that. And yes, Anna has changed her clothes since that first picture, I warned them it was going to be warm today.

Arrival at school. I asked them to stop and let me take a picture because they'd run ahead, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so I thought, "This'll make a great picture!" And then I get this, nary a smile in sight! I think Anna's idea was to strike a dramatic pose, and Victor caught the spirit.

Hot sauce

Anna brushes her teeth in the morning.

Victor was keen to have his screen time when we arrived home.

Meanwhile, Anna played in the puddles from the downpour.

Victor has been assimilated! Victor decided to add hot sauce to his rotini. He seemed happy with that decision and cleaned his plate.

Much giggling. No idea.

Dirt Angel

Anna just hanging around while Victor plays soccer.

Victor versus Anna's best friend Z, who happens to be on Victor's side of the age division. Z won this round.

And Victor scores again!

After the game, a couple of Victor's teammates took off their shirts. So Victor then had to do it, saying something like, “We're warriors!” Of course Anna had to take off her shirt too. And then she decided it would be an awesome idea to make a dirt angel.

Victor was so close to getting to the top, but couldn't quite make it today. Maybe next week. No time to let him try again, because somebody just got bath night rescheduled to now!

Good first day

As I was shaving Anna-caterpillar made a cocoon, and then emerged from it as a butterfly. And when I referred to it as a cocoon, she referred to it as a chrysalis, which I thought was cool.

Anna decided to bring both Benny and Spotty Benny with her, I think she was a little stressed about the faster schedule that we were working to. After this shot she put them in her backpack because she's not supposed to have them out at school. I had just braided her hair on this rock as it was now apparent that I would have time. I had skipped that step at home because I wasn't sure how quickly I'd get the kids out the door and didn't want to be late on my first day.

While I did Anna's hair Victor decided to play hopscotch. We were early enough that the schoolyard was empty when we arrived (but not for long).

Victor is doing his homework in the evening, while Anna hangs out with him.

Water balloons

I told Anna I'd give her water balloons but she'd have to play with them outside. The goal was really to get them both outside, and it worked. I think they view water balloons as simply an interesting variant on a regular balloon, instead of as a weapon of battle. Perhaps I'll introduce them to that later this summer when it's really hot out. Given that they were just playing with them and not having a battle, I was curious as to how long the balloons would last.

A couple of hours later there were two balloons (out of four) left. Anna and her friend E were having a lot of trouble actually getting those two to break. Throwing them at the ground didn't work. This picture is Anna still attempting to break the last one with E's help, while M plays in the puddle left by E's balloon and Victor looks on from the side.

Anna swimming

Anna has discovered the joy of stretching.

Meanwhile, Victor is playing with Lego.

Anna created what I called a "Benny Parade". These are all her “blankie” stuffies, and she decided to lay them all in sequence. Well, not all, she wasn't done yet and even in the end I don't think she found them all. She also decided that they all had Benny in their names, I'm not sure that was the case before this morning. I have a video of her telling me all the names, someday I'm going to automate videos like I've automated pictures so that I can put videos in posts with as little effort as pictures. Perhaps I'll update this entry with the video when I get around to that.

Even though apparently people are not supposed to take pictures at the pool I couldn't resist snapping a couple of shots when Anna made it from the edge of the pool (at the bottom of the picture) to the lane boundary (at the very top) and back almost entirely by herself.

Victor playing basketball with A during a playdate. The game was brief as Victor quickly decided he didn't want to play basketball, but I thought this shot looked good.

Meanwhile Anna spent probably a couple of hours, and maybe more, hanging out and crafting with KT's friend V out front during the tail of the garage sale. Anna loves V.

Hugs!

This is the second time while I was there today that O appeared out of nowhere to run over and give Anna a hug.

Victor climbing a tree while L patiently waits her turn.

Walking home through the park.

Wet soccer

Victor wanted to do the monkey bars but couldn't hold on because they were wet from the rain.

Anna in the soccer game; she has ensured that she has a ball to herself. I'll note that everybody else was at the other end of the field. Not sure soccer is for Anna.

Floor beds

I thought Anna had decided the actual bed was the best place to sleep, but no, tonight she decided to make a nest on the floor again.

Victor has been doing the floor-nest thing for a bed since he noticed Anna doing it last time.

Art show

The daycare had an art show. You can see Anna's tendency to mirror-write in her name here.

Since Victor is only in after-care he didn't have art, so he's just pointing at a random piece he likes.

New neighbours!

Well, new to us, they were on the other side of the street behind ours long before we moved here. Today they decided to wander into our backyard (via our backyard neighbours).

Preliminary indications are that Anna likes to hang out in their backyard. They do have a daughter right between Victor and Anna's age there, although she was pretty shy. I'll bet Anna wins her over.

Snack

This is what the kids were up to when I came down in the morning. It seemed to involve a whole lot of wrestling and Anna going “Baby! Baby! Baby!” Oh, and a lot of giggling. No idea.

Since I figured the kids needed something to tide them over while I cooked the pancakes, I gave them a snack. Since I need to do groceries, it was a pre-packaged food snack. I'm glad though, because I did not know that Anna always picked apart her granola bars and only ate the chocolate chips.

Meanwhile, Victor ate everything and proceeded to play with the wrapper.

Anna must craft, wherever she may be.

Moo!

We went to the experimental farm today. Here is Victor and Anna mooing back at the cows. Well, Anna seems to be mooing at Victor, really.

What to wear

Anna insisted she had to wear a dress this morning. I had to persuade her out of wearing any of her fancier really-not-good-for-the-playground dresses. She was good with this one, I think Caity helped her find the jacket that she is wearing on top of it.

Anna in soccer again

Victor is a master of the monkey bars. He zipped around them at least a half dozen times. And “zip” is the right word, he goes really fast. He still needs to work on doing it while Daddy tickles him. He didn't seem to appreciate my assistance in learning that.

Anna doing soccer drills. Anna did score goals but I failed to get a good shot of that.

Meanwhile, Victor is on the slide. And on pretty much every other piece of playground equipment.

Always playing

On the way home from daycare, they're always playing something. Sometimes it makes them faster, sometimes it makes them slower. Today it happened to be faster.

When they got home they wanted to play outside and immediately proceeded to do so. I suggested that they might like to divest themselves of their backpacks first; they thought that this idea made sense.

For his screen time Victor decided to play a drawing game on the Wii. He is very focused.

It was a bath night. Anna gave herself a bubble afro which I thought was sufficiently cool to require a picture. She was actually patient enough to wait while I found my phone to snap this picture.