Top ten things A says while she's sleeping or supposed to be sleeping

Out Door
Paco-Maco
Paco-Pie
More Apple
Sock
Eey-Aye (her word for her legwarmers)
Pillow
(monkey sounds)
Read Book
Out Back

(now you can win on Family Feud!)

butter is better

Since C was born, the main chocolate-chip cookie recipe we've used has involved whole-wheat flour, ground oats, and canola oil. They're good. For the first time in forever, we made Toll House cookie bars to send to our friends in Florida, and we ate the leftovers. Now, I'm not quite sure how I managed to convince myself that the other recipe was worth making-

the kids with the ball track C and Dan made

Paco and monkey 

the mobile Dan made to thank Mala and Jeff for hosting us in Florida 

We finally put our two-kid wagon to its intended use today for the first time as we hauled both kids to the library. Even though C was regressing by riding rather than walking, we were struck by how BIG he's getting. Maybe it was his stylish jean jacket making him look older, but when did he grow so much?

He went down the big slide by himself at the park on the way home; last summer was the first time he was willing to use it at all except on our laps, and even then he still needed us to catch him at the bottom. A, of course, climbed right up to the top and went down just holding my hand. She's going to keep us on our toes.

We pulled C's old toy kitchen out of the basement for Alyra last week, and spent forever cleaning it off. It must have spent a decent amount of time outside at some point, because the stickers are nearly destroyed and the whole thing is faded. I was thinking I'd put some Contact paper over parts of it, upgrade the peeling butcher block counter to granite, and so on, but then I remembered seeing this Cozy Coupe upgrade.

So how do we make Alyra's kitchen REALLY cool? Should we turn it into a mad scientist's lab? A bar? A compounding pharmacy? Or should we thumbtack red-and-white striped paper around all the trim and make a toaster cozy out of a cardboard box? The submittor of the best idea will win the right to generate print-ready graphics; we'll provide the full-page sticker paper.

toy kitchen due for renovations- 

Oma's 65th birthday present. It's not blurry in real life.