Summertime...

and the living is easy...

but not really when you have two little ones.

Though it's not easy, it's certainly been these things: loud, hot, tiring, super fun. I thought it was loud before Lauren and her kids arrived, and compared to now, the house was a downright ashram. Heaven help us, but they are some of the loudest kids I have ever seen [heard]. Atticus* has become a total chatterbox recently too and his vocab is expanding so rapidly we can hardly keep up (by that, I mean 90% of his talking we don't understand). Tallulah has even found her voice lately, and is cooing up a storm.

Tiring: though both my kids sleep 10 hours at night (can I get a: HALLELUJAH!) these days are exhausting! Add in miserably hot weather, lots of walking/swimming/chasing/wrestling, and by the end of the day I can barely stand. I think it is also a function of the icky food I'm eating (burgers, fries, chips, ice cream, potato salad, etc). I need to get better at keeping my body healthy so I can keep up.

Tallulah often can't keep herself up either

Like I mentioned previously, part of the reason we are tired is because it is SO. HOT. And by hot, I mean REALLY hot. Let's take a look at the weekend forecast:

To beat the heat, we plan on swimming in various pools around Columbia. So far, we have hit up Ft. Jackson, Trenholm Park public pool, our cousins' neighborhood pool, the Carroll pool in Gaston, and our bishop's backyard pool (our neighbors also have a pool that looks SO tempting all day long, but we are pretty sure they don't want us hanging around). Atticus did swimming lessons the last two weeks, and he is getting awesome at kicking his legs and will now even go under without freaking out (much).

All swammed out

^{Prior to this heat front, we had a few cool days (you know, low-90s!), and took the opportunity to hit up Riverbanks Zoo for the third time since we've been here.} 

Feeding the lorikeets, Atticus prefers to watch

This bird was way creepy and mean, hence my face

My mom with all her cute grandkids (isn't she gorgeous?)

 Not much else going on around these parts, so this is mostly a boring update for the Utah grandparents and any other friends who happen to care how cute Tallulah is. Coming soon: our conversion to Unitarian Universalists, thoughts on healthcare reform, and my new-found love of pottery.

Dimple!

Hipster oneside

^{* names have been changed for privacy purposes (aka, I'm too lazy to maintain a baby blog anymore... so yeah...)}