Coupeville

Coupeville is the town south-ish from our town.  I say "ish" because this little island has a funky shape, and though the town of Coupeville is south when you look at a map, it is across a little body of water (Penn Cove) so the road kind of goes all over the place on the way there.  It is cute (but not as cute as Langley!) and has way more character than Oak Harbor.  Each year they have an Arts & Crafts Festival in August.  We saw a sign for it last year and went, not really knowing what we were in for.  It was a fun day out for us, so we made a plan to go again for their 2011 Festival.  Luckily, it took place the first weekend that my mom was visiting, so she got to go have some fun too!  We didn't really buy much of anything except snacks and lunch, but it was a fun day of sightseeing in the little town of Coupeville. 

Poppy got her own fireman hat and she liked it for a minute...

Then she let her attitude show through.  What a pose!

Lucas got to sit in another firetruck (or it may have very well been the same one, it was also from Central Whidbey Fire & Rescue)  like he did when we went to the Loganberry Festival a couple weeks prior.  Naturally, he was very excited about being a fireman for a few seconds again.

Happy fireman Lucas!

After tons of Googling, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out the official name of this place.  It is a big red building out on the end of a pier in Coupeville.  We walked out and looked at sailboats, birds, lots of other people, and a couple of tall ships. 

Lucas and Poppy being silly and cute at while standing on the end of the pier (not that you can really tell by this picture, but trust me, this really was the end of the pier!).

Poppy ate some lemon with her lunch.  She has tried it in the past and always seems to get a real kick out of eating it.  She kept taking little bites, then she would make this face.  My fancy lady is always entertaining!

Lucas got to sit by Grandma while we ate our lunch and she helped him jump off the little railroad tie over and over again. 

Somebody got tired of walking and decided to see if the stroller would work as a double.  Surprise, it did!  See the look of total joy on Poppy's face?  I think she was happy for two reasons.  First, because she genuinely loves her brother.  And second, because she genuinely loves kicking her brother.  When he sat there, he was in prime kicking range.

This is one of the tall ships that was visiting Coupeville during the Arts & Crafts Festival.  I think it is the Lady Washington.  The other ship was the Hawaiian Chieftain and they usually sail together.  We also saw both ships last year in Coupeville.

He wasn't really sleeping, but after walking up and down all the hills in Coupeville all day, Lucas was tired and kept saying his legs hurt.  So he traded with Poppy and hopped in the stroller for a short rest.

On the way to the car, Poppy held hands with Grandma.  And here comes a brag: the dress she was wearing was made by my mom.  She brought it with her when she came to visit and Poppy saw it the morning of the Festival and said "Pretty!  Pretty!" so she just HAD to wear it!  This picture isn't close enough to see clearly, but the design is little poppy flowers.  How appropriate!

I realized only after going through all of my pictures that I didn't get any of the the actual festival, the vendors, or the booths.  Oops!  But I did get plenty of pretty Coupeville.  And my pretty children! ;-)

Thanks for visiting, Grandma/Mom!

We've been very lucky to have my mom visiting for the last two weeks.  Lucas was immediately happy to have Grandma around.  He was so excited!  Ever since our trip to Oregon in June, he has been saying "Grandma's going to come visit me in August!"  He was thrilled that August finally arrived and Grandma was finally here, at our house!  He wanted Grandma to put him to bed, get him up in the morning, sit with him to eat breakfast, put him in his car seat...the list goes on and on.  Staying true to form, Poppy was a little slower to welcome Grandma and it took her a couple of days to warm up.  But she loved having Grandma visit, too.  It was nice for me having my mom here.  I enjoyed having a gossip/tanning/shopping buddy for a couple of weeks.  Thanks for visiting, Mom!

Lucas is always such a silly boy.  Not too long after my mom arrived, he started giving her funny looks while saying "Pack your suitcase, Grandma."  It isn't even something I can fully describe.  I think the best way I can put it is part comedian, part psychopath.  Really.  So even though he was sad that Grandma was heading back to Oregon today, he was really excited that Grandma finally packed her suitcase...and then she let him wheel it out to the car. 

Lucas tried to convince Grandma to put her suitcase in our Saturn.  That was his attempt to get her to stay.  Sadly, it didn't work!

Before she left, my mom put some smiley face window stickers in Lucas and Poppy's rooms as a little treat.  This is Poppy reacting to seeing the sticker in her bedroom window for the first time.  I have no idea what she was trying to say (it sounded like "sick-a-dee") but she was thrilled about seeing it.  Lucas, as you can see, looked like Gilligan.  Adam gave him one of his old white hats from work.  He now wants to wear it at all times.

More hugs for Grandma.

With another adult around, we were able to get a picture of all four of us together without using the timer on the camera!  Adam doesn't usually dress this fancy for work, but today he had to work at a retirement ceremony.  Poppy took a momentary break from smiling, she wasn't actually as angry as she looks in this picture!

Me with my little darlings.  The sun was so bright, we could barely keep our eyes open.

I have more blog catch-up to do from major events over the last couple of weeks, but I wanted to tell my mom how much I appreciate her coming to Washington to spend two weeks of her Summer vacation with us.  It was two weeks of fun and beautiful weather (minus a couple of days!).  Thanks again, Mom!  We miss you already!

This is the only picture we got of my mom and I together!  In two weeks, we got ONE picture...and it was from my phone!!  We'll have to do better next time!

Poppy is 20...

Twenty months that is!  My baby is no longer in the "teens." Sad.  And now there are only four months to go until her second birthday!  Holy cow!  Here are some pictures of my 20-month old.  Wow, that sounds OLD.  And Lucas is almost 40 months.  Where is the time going!!?

Cheesy (messy) girl, just after dinner.

She's happy most of the time.  But she definitely has her moments of...hysteria.  Yes, hysteria is a nice way of putting it.

This is a disgusting new development.  Toe sucking.  Fabulous.  See the smile?  That was because we were all freaking out and telling her how gross she was.  That only encouraged her.  This girl is T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

She gave the right foot a go after the reaction she got to her left foot.  She seemed to enjoy it just as much. 

I tried to get a nice picture of my girl without the highchair or the bib.  She was less than cooperative and ended up only sitting still when she had a book to look at.

Would this be considered a "self-help" book since it is called Toddler 411 (I bought it so I could learn how to potty train Lucas, and by golly, he potty-trained himself and I've never read a single page in the darn thing!) and she is, technically, a toddler?  Poppy found it extremely interesting. 

Just before their bath, Lucas and Poppy both got to sit down with Grandma (who has been visiting for the last 10 days and will be heading home soon) and read a book.  Then Lucas decided to see what was so great about toe-sucking and gave it a try.  Throwing up yet?  It was as gross as it seems.  My mom tried to get Poppy to do it again, but Poppy does things on her own terms.  She wouldn't budge.

Here's what my Pop-Tart is up to these days...

- She has given up her one bottle a day and now just has her milk from a cup at meal times.

- Poppy goes down for her nap awake and goes to sleep on her own now.  This is recent, within the last two weeks.  Before that, I would give her a bottle until she fell asleep (while we watched "General Hospital" together), then move her to the crib.  Sadly, it means less cuddle time.

- She is becoming quite the parrot.  She will repeat almost anything she hears, although she seems to have a Canadian accent at times.  She will yell "Oot!  Oot!" when she wants to get out of her highchair or go outside. 

- She's BOSSY.  If she is in her highchair before the rest of the fam at dinner time (which is usually the case), she will start yelling "Chair!  Chair!" and pointing to where we all need to be sitting.

- She sucks her toes.  Cringe.  I'm hoping this won't be a habit for long.

- Poppy puts her clothes in the hamper in the laundry room every night before her bath.  Luckily, she's still so young that she thinks doing this is super cool.

- She's becoming a bigger Bieber fan than Lucas.  I didn't think it was possible, but it is!

- She can climb up the ladder and go down the slide on the playhouse, completely unassisted.  I don't know how she figured this out.  Lucas was almost three before it clicked for him!

- She jumps off of anything she can find.  Curbs?  Yes.  Lawn chairs?  Yes.  The changing table?  She would if I wasn't holding her, I'm sure of it.  She's a wild one. :-)

Watermelon in the pool.

Is there anything more "Summer" than watermelon?  I don't think so.  My little darlings got to enjoy two summery treats recently (well, not quite to recently...it was 10 days ago on August 11 but due to some extremely nice weather, I have once again been neglecting the blog).  They got to eat sliced watermelon while chilling (literally, it was COLD) in their pool.  And now I have concluded that this is the best way to enjoy watermelon.  There is NO mess to clean up, not need for Spray & Wash (Have you seen how bad watermelon stains?  Holy cow!), and no napkins required.  And it is just so fancy to eat watermelon in the pool!

More blog posts to come soon (possibly...hopefully!) while I play catch-up!

Lucas and a REAL ladybug!

I've mentioned Lucas's imaginary friend, Pretend Ladybug, before.  He still asks for her every night when he's going to sleep and several times throughout the day he will say "Where's my Pretend Ladybug?  I can't find her anywhere, she must be hiding!"  Yesterday Lucas had the good fortune of making a new friend...a real ladybug!  He had been hanging out in his pool after his nap (something he has done six out of the last seven days, come Hell or high water I will get my money's worth on that $8 pool!) and I saw a bug.  I went to fish it out before he saw it so he wouldn't go nuts, but when I noticed that it was a ladybug, I told him.  And he was so excited!  The poor thing was a little shocked and very wet, and we played with her for about ten minutes before setting her on the fence so she could flap her wings and dry out some more before flying off.  Lucas had so much fun and he was surprisingly gentle when he was holding her and moving her around.  She crawled all the way up his arm to the back of his neck at one point, and he was laughing the whole time, saying "It tickles!  She's tickling me!"  Then he wanted her to tickle his feet, so he moved her to his toes.  My silly boy. :-)

By the way, you might have noticed that Lucas is currently sporting a tattoo on his right arm.  It is a monster truck and I put it on there on Thursday (and since Lucas got one, Poppy absolutely had to have one too, so she's currently sporting the logo for Hot Wheels on her right arm).  It still hasn't started to fade or peel off.  So much for being "temporary!"  Lucas did think it was funny when the ladybug crawled up to his tattoo because I told him she was going to drive away in the monster truck.  Of course, since he's a smarty-pants, he said "You can't drive away, ladybug!  It's not a real monster truck, it's pretend!"

Raspberry bliss!

Last Sunday, we went to the Mile Post 19 Farm to pick raspberries.  It was the second Sunday in a row that we went raspberry picking, but since I forgot my camera the first time we went, I made sure I took it this time.  It was cloudy and a little on the chilly side, but were persevered and came out with a little over three pounds of raspberries and since they were only $2 a pound, we only spent about $7 for the hour of fun we had.

The raspberry fields are completely enclosed inside this big fenced area.  Since it is right off the highway, it was nice to have the fence there!

Lucas was my helper for a while and made a game of going back and forth between the rows through an opening between the bushes.

Aw, I love it when they share! ;-) Lucas had been wearing the berry bucket around his neck, but Poppy wanted in on the fun and wiggled her way in.  I don't know how they managed to do all of this without melting into a screaming, fighting mess, but they actually did have fun sharing for a few minutes!

This is my new favorite picture.  Seriously.  I talk a lot about Poppy being a diva or a drama queen, but this picture actually shows it for the whole world to see.  Pout?  Check!  Arms crossed?  Check!  Stomping away from her brother in anger?  Check!  This one is definitely going in a frame!

Adam dropped his berries and the little helpers were on the job in a hurry, trying to collect them. 

Poppy, happy to have figured out that there was an endless supply of berries if she just stopped going nuts for a minute and looked around.

And then the required "Cheese!" face when she sees the camera.

Lucas and Poppy tried to break out, but to no avail. 

My little helpers and I, hard at work to fill the bucket (my bucket, not the one Poppy was wearing!).

The loot!  Yum!

This is totally un-raspberry related, but as we were driving away from the farm, we saw a pheasant.  A pheasant!  I've only seen one other pheasant in my life (and that was when we lived in England), so this was exciting.  And, duh, I took pictures.  Because I'm a dork.  And also because it was a pheasant!

Two days later, I got all my supplies ready and set out to make some raspberry jam.  Of course, the fun part is smashing the berries, so I let Lucas and Poppy do most of that job! 

Nice brother, making sure that Poppy got all the berries.

More smashing...they could probably do this all day.

See that thing Lucas is holding?  Yeah, that's a toy fish...that Poppy found and threw in with the berries.  I guess she thought she was being helpful.  Lucas pulled it out and handed it back to Poppy and she licked all the berry juice off of it.

I'm sad that berry season is coming to an end.  It has been fun making all this jam this year!