V uses the big girl potty at Mexican Village South
Pile of kids in the bathtub, as their doting mothers look on.
A Mama Long Legs at the lake
My wounded finger from awhile ago (it doesn't look this bad anymore. Honest). There's a needle-sized hole all the way through there, under the skin.
V learned to love the lake. A lot. 
The grandmas and the cousins. I love this picture because it's so chaotic...like life at a lake with two almost three year olds.
V had another Senior picture taken.
(less than an hour after this picture was taken, she had a total meltdown at a nearby restaurant and wouldn't stop screaming until they brought her ice cream. Nice. But she is still beautiful.)More information than you wanted to know? Too bad.
I'll try to get pictures of it. Of course, if you live near me you've probably already seen it and been told I MADE IT WITH OUT A PATTERN. Because I'm excited, and I want you to be too. In related crafty news, I've been making bonnets from this pattern (click on "shop," then "bonnet"). It's the same one as this bonnet, but in summery cottons.
I had to tinker with it a lot to make one that would fit Emmy, since she is still the tiniest human I've ever seen (This version is actually #2 of 3. #3 fits better, but Jess is still beleaguered by pregnancy brain and lost #3. Temporarily, we hope...).
The photos are from yesterday, when we piled four grown-ups and three kids into a Honda Odyssey and drove to a zoo an hour south of here. Because we're optimists, I guess. Anyway, the drive was lovely (I want someone to give me a honda odyssey. please), and the company divine, but V is still not too interested in animals, and is recovering from her summer cold, and so she screamed. A lot. I swear I saw a mountain lion roll her eyes at me over it, and not in a sympathetic way, either. That's the last thing I need, to be judged by caged animals.
To sum up, we've been learning to use the potty, I've been really crafty, we've been to two weddings in two weekends, and we went to the zoo. What's gnu with you?
The final chapter of our weekend excitement starts with B and ends in enjamin. This sweet boy was adopted from Russia by our dear friends Ed and Linda way back in December, and it wasn't until this weekend, when they came to town to visit, that we finally got to meet him.
Ben likes to hide. You can barely tell, but what appears to be the right-most flower up there is really Ben's blonde head. V hides, too, but mostly by turning her face to a wall and yelling "Find me!" Ben actually hunkered down and blended right in.
He just turned two, and he's in the best stage: you know, that adorable, learn-something-new-every-five-minutes, so-much-personality-it-hurts, tiny-little-human stage. He's got big old boy paw hands (you know, with the little dimples) and jumps like a superhero. He also was very attached to our lawn ornament.
It was a little odd talking about Ben to his parents, in that it's not quite like talking to a friend who's had a newborn... I mean, it kind of is, in that this new, dependent, demanding life has only lived with Ed and Linda for seven months. So they still have those same nervous "I sure hope he's still breathing" middle of the night moments that I had the whole first year. Though he and V aren't that far apart in age, his parents are still in a sort of newborn phase, and we're more in the toddler exhaustion stage. I don't know quite how to explain it better.
I was so excited to share this with V. We actually went last year, and it was fun, but she was overwhelmed (she cried through the whole carousel ride) and we didn't stay long. This year, though, she's so much more worldly and brave, and after three hours (and $60! how is that possible?) we had to drag her away. This time, there were no carousel tears, and Daddy was such a good sport that he rode the train, too. 
As comfortable as that looks, we decided to let V ride alone when the chance to sit next to her friend McKenna came up. Here they are piloting a "Marines" helicopter, with some show-off punk in the back. The girls are concentrating on keeping the bird in the air, yo.
We went to a free puppet/song/something or other show, with an overly outgoing host and a plea to buy stuff at the end to help save the rainforest. It was in a nice, cool, tent, though, and everyone and everything looked weirdly green. See? V thought it was worthwhile enough to sit pretty still for the whole 25 minutes.
We also went to the petting zoo (the only farm animals on site were bunnies, 2 ducks, and 2 ganders, which we also saw...cows and horses were coming later in the week) and V was really, really into picking up the pine shaving bedding and throwing it. I was not so much into this. Nor was this pot-bellied pig.
The camel didn't mind, though. (What is it about camel eyes that I like so much? Is it that they always look so laid-back and calm? Or that I suspect she's plotting when to spit at me?)
We had such a good time. This fair? Though it seems much much smaller to me, now, and though I didn't win any tiny oil lamps, this might've been the best fair yet.
Vegas gave me a four day hangover. Is that normal?
Mary and Beth, my dear mother- and sister-in-law, are two of my most favorite women on earth. We laughed so continuously, it’s really a miracle I didn’t wet my pants on several occasions. 
Vegas was a lot like New Orleans, but with a wider range of age groups, worse traffic, and fewer dark alleys. And more nudity. A lot of young women were apparently awaiting my call, because there seemed to be dozens who could be at my hotel room in twenty minutes or less. In New Orleans, there were a lot more people handing out religious tracts, but in Vegas, it seems they have given up, because the only things anyone handed me on the Strip involved strategically placed starbursts. 
The buffets alone were worth the trip.
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