What we've been doing...

First and far most importantly, we have been sleeping during the hours that Seattle residents usually sleep.  Yay!  I always wake up between two and three during which time I feel hopelessly awake but three nights in a row I cannot remember how these episodes end and wake up feeling very rested near six am.  Yay!  This is a huge relief.  Lulu has been waking Tommy and me and for punishment she has skipped her nap today in hopes that she will go back to being the last one up.  We will see.

The kids have almost completed exploring (ahem, wrecking) my parents' house and so we have started to go on outings.  Honestly, that we made it more than a week with so few was lucky, but it feels like work to have to pack up snacks and leave the house.  I would've written that we pack up snacks and raincoats, but my children do not have raincoats and the ones I ordered have not been delivered.  We need them, though, as the weather has been odd and amid sun there have been hard bursts of rain.  

Yesterday we went to the Seattle Aquarium.  As my high school job was on good ol' Pier 59, at the Omnidome which no longer exists, it is very strange for me to go there.  I tried to enter through the wrong door.  But, it's a better aquarium than it used to be and we had a nice time.  Fast though, as Tommy seemed to be worried that there was something better ahead that we should be viewing.  

We have huge octopuses in Puget Sound.  HUGE. 

Lulu loved this diver. She waved and couldn't stop looking at him.

Climbing on a statue outside the Aquarium.  Lulu couldn't make it up by herself which is unusual, but meant she needed a spotter.  Thanks, Grandma Nancy!

Okay.  So this is a herd of goats that Seattle uses to landscape hard-to-reach spots.  Like under the viaduct.  I rolled my eyes but I actually think it's neat.  But soooooooo Seattle.

Grandma got an easel before we arrived and Lulu spends a lot of time there.  This is called "Rainforest with a Cheetah."  And she has pants on but you can't tell.  Apparently the shirt was too confining.

Today we went to Lincoln Park.   Doesn't my kid look enormous? 

Seattle Aquarium naturalists were there and thank God because somebody has to answer the questions.
They were great. 

Not a great picture.  This was steep but Lulu kept up.

The kids have been very busy doing things like having dance parties and making banana bread and picking strawberries and doing all the things I don't really have enough energy to do.  OH!  And we went to a family swim on Monday morning and guess what Lulu did???  SHE SWAM BY HERSELF.  It was a huge breakthrough and though she's far from an independent swimmer she is going to be one at a much earlier age than her big brother.  I am so impressed (and she knows it, whenever I scold her she likes to remind me about how she swam by herself).

My sister is about to pop, behold:  sidandemmathews.blogspot.com
She thinks it's a boy, what do you think?