BASKETBALL!

Aidan, you joined the basketball team at DA! Go Bulldogs! 7 am practices, running lots of lines, playing lots of games, and a heck of a lot of learning. 

You got poked in the eyes and got to take a penalty shot!

You made new friends!

You got so many rebounds and took so many shots!

You even scored your first in-game basket, and it was epic!

But the true victory isn't the basket or winning a game, it's all the hard work you put into it every practice, every game, every drop of sweat...and there were lots of 'em!

We are so proud of you!

Jumpin' Sunday

One Sunday morning, you both turned into superheroes. Julia, you had CANDY POWER and a little Sister and the powers of sticky power. You were SWEETHEART (and had socks to match, very cleverly). Aidan, you were FIREHEAD with the power of FIRE, then you were WATERMAN with the power of WATER, then you were CAMO-man, who could camouflage himself, and then finally wound up being STICKYMAN with similar CANDYPOWERS to SWEETHEART.

You were abducted by the villanous BOUNCER and taken to his lair- network of obstacles, tunnels, mechanical bulls, trampolines, and balls to dodge,-so he could steal your crystal power from you and never return it. 

Despite a temporary truce on the dodgeball court, the battle continued through the bouncey afternoon:

Victorious, and kind of forgetting about their super hero identities, the two of you were treated to popsicles- where you seemed to battle eachother for some reason? or maybe you were dancing?- and swimming with the now-reformed villain and his better-half.

And then you moved on to your next challenge: battling the CHESSMASTER!

I'll Huff and I'll Puff and I'll Clap and I'll Knock your Dog Down: noises, words and dog piles

You have been full of surprises recently!

You're saying more words without prompting...like you saw the fish at Mommy's work and you said "Ishhhhhhhhh" without us prompting you.

Just the other day you saw a picture of a duck and we swear you said "Uck!" (which could mean somethinge else, I suppose).

And there are distinct possibilities you've said "nana" to mean "banana" and "keyyyyy" to mean "kitty" and "ghee" to mean "doggy".

You also say "Mama" all the time...still. As of today, there have been two amazing utterances of "Dada." I'm glad I'm below duck, fish, banana and kitty. Those all have more personality than me anyway.

But, actually, I'm not worried about it anyway. I know you love me! Take, as proof, another one of your surprises. A few weeks ago we were playing on the floor in your room. You were playing with your little sports set...after making a few baskets with the little basketball, you decided to chew on the ball as usual. This is where things got surprising. Daddy was tired so he yawned and when his mouth was wide open- surprise! - he got a little orange basketball stuck in his mouth!

Then, a few moments later, while Daddy was still laughing about the surprise basketball, you hit me over the head a few times (gently of course) with your little orange baseball bat (plastic...thank goodness!)

See! Full of surprises! But, even though I've come to expect surprising things from you, I'm still surprised when the surprises come! Imagine my surprise when we sat down to eat a few weeks ago and you started Huffing and Puffing!



And then, imagine our surprise again when, out of the blue and after only one previous singular clap a few months ago, you decided you were ready to start clapping!



Incredible!

But, despite the constant surprises, we've know some things that you'll do for certain: like you still LOVE your puppies. And now that you're big enough, you can play with them...and they play back!



We just have to make sure that you aren't playing with the basketball or baseball bat while you're playing with your "ghees"...then they might receive an unwelcome surprise!

But, you can definitely keep surprising your Mommy and Me! We love your surprises...even when they leave orange plastic in our mouths.