Bye Bye June!

Well, the day that Autumn doesn't know she has been dreading, has finally come. Our neighbors across the street, Kylee, Travis and their almost 2-year-old June, are moving back to Indiana. Since we leave for Hawaii and California tomorrow, this will be the last afternoon/evening that Autumn and "Junie!" get to engage in their near daily ritual of playing with water, running around half (or fully) naked, fighting over toys, and whacking each other with sticks. We've lived across from Travis and Kylee since we moved in over three years ago, and had always been friendly acquaintances. But over the past few months, since the weather has turned and the girls have developed a love-hate obsession with each other, we've found ourselves spending multiple hours a week with them. We've also found ourselves really sad that they are leaving, and have tried to convince Travis that doing a two year fellowship in infectious disease is for lazy people whose lives are going nowhere. Unfortunately, he doesn't agree. 

Autumn will be so confused when we get home. First of all the house will look totally different inside (more on the kitchen remodel to come). But more importantly, when we pull up to the house her cries of "Junie?! Junie?! Junie?!" will not be met by the possibility that June and Kylee are enjoying a summer afternoon in the front yard.

 We'll miss you guys!

 

For some reason they really enjoy sitting in the ivy

 

 

And in anything containing water

 

 

Sweet Juniper

 

 

 

"Come on, friend!"

On a final note, I know this is out of character, but I'll end with a fairly sappy quote from Dr. Seuss -- the guy who truly had everything figured out...

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

Wake Up Call

Summer is a glorious thing. 10+ weeks of not waking up to an alarm -- or at least, not waking up to a mechanical alarm. We have one of another sort around here. Recently, Autumn has started referring to Brian not as Daddy, but as "Brine". This morning when she woke up, rather than her usual whining and yelling nonsense from her crib, we hear over and over again from her room, "Brine! Brine! Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!!!! Morning!" Since Brine had to shower and get ready for the day, she got boring Mommy instead. It's hard to resent a wake up call when it's made by this face...

And this face...she hates the flash. "Mommy, sun! Eyes!"

Finally

Pardon the random entry with poorly formatted pictures below. The biggest reason I never blog anymore is because I am a lazy B (and by that I mean I don't have a good system for getting pictures to my computer from my phone or camera). Thank goodness for the geniuses and Blogger though, who created an app that lets you upload pics straight to your blog...only to then NOT allow you to write any text with them, or something like that. Maybe I'm just not smart enough. So anyway, those pictures were uploaded a couple of months ago (minus the one of Autumn and Sam, which was very recent). Random, sorry.

Anyway, I had to post an update before Autumn turns into a full-blown kid before our eyes. She has been so ridiculous lately, in that good ridiculous way that kids tend to be. Today in Target she wanted to get out of the cart when we were checking out. She found three miniature Barbies in boxes on the bottom shelf and lined them up on the ground. Then, while she pointed at each, she freaking counted them...and then said, "mommy three!" Say what? We do practice counting when we walk up and down the stairs, but it's very rote, and she usually skips numbers as she sees fit. I had no idea she actually knew that counting served a purpose.

I also had no idea how often I must say, "Oh my goodness!". Autumn says it like 20 times a day right now. "Oh my goodness" there's an ant on the ground (do all kids find it totally crucial to point out every single ant they come across?). There's also, "oh my goodness!" I just drew on both of my arms AND the couch with a pen, and "oh my goodness" I just pooped. Speaking of poop, Mrs. Rachel has been awarding Autumn with stickers for using her little potty at day care. She has earned a ton. Wanna know how many times Autumn has used her potty at home? Zero. We aren't really interested in the prolonged potty training thing. I'm totally holding out for the day (maybe around 2?) where she decides she's done with diapers. That really happens, right?

This one's my favorite -- a couple of weeks ago I was changing Autumn's diaper first thing in the morning, and out of nowhere she points to her chest and says, "mommy, me, Autumn". I about died. Now she really enjoys standing in the middle of a circle of adults (who are all talking about things unrelated to her) and pointing to herself while yelling, "Me, Autumn!!". She's also really into giving hugs and kisses to anyone who will take one...but only when it's time to leave. She'll hear us start to say bye and grab our belongings and then runs around saying "hug, knuckles" to everyone. Yes, knuckles too. Knuckles and high fives are the first and last thing Autumn asks for when she wakes up and goes to bed. Who can blame her, knuckles are pretty sweet. At the Botanic Gardens the other day, there was a baby crying. Autumn gravitates toward crying babies for some reason, so naturally she ran up to the baby saying, "baby sad". Once she approached and stuck her face within inches of the poor, "sad" baby, she says, "baby, knuckles?". Such a proud moment.

In other news, she's still really into climbing things (while saying "climb" over and over), running (while yelling "run! run!" obviously), and now the Micky Mouse Clubhouse. She likes to march around the house saying "Micky Mouse". We are going to Hawaii in a week and fully plan to allow her to watch every episode that exists on our iPhones, if that's what it takes to not make enemies with the other passengers or feel obligated to buy three rounds of drinks for everyone on the plane.Autumn also loves to draw right now (see the drawing on arms and couch episode above), "ride" her bike ("bika bika bike!!! -- who knows why she says that), eat avocados, and do sommersaults. This is definitely the most fun we've had with her yet!

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