I'm a Real Artist

Hi everyone! Liana here tonight. You know how much I love being an artist. Well, now I can say I'm a real, award-winning artist. I won third prize in our local Jewish newspaper's High Holidays Art Contest!

Go me. I'm awesome.

Here's my picture--done in papercutting and crayon.

More Fun from the World of Home Maintenance

There's all kinds of fun going on at our house. You might remember last week I briefly mentioned that we had two trees taken down and that it was awesome. There were so many different vehicles parked by my house--so many wheels! Plus, the wood chipper. You don't get much more awesome than that.

Well, when they were taking the trees down, one was so rotted on the inside that it didn't fall where the tree guys planned for it to fall and it fell on our front walkway instead, thereby smooshing the sidewalk. Today they came back to replace the sidewalk. We didn't know what time they were coming, but it worked out very well that we were outside chalking when they showed up, which meant they invited us to watch them. First they had to cut out the old sidewalk past where the smooshed part was, which involved a guy sawing into the sidewalk. Wow. Talk about cool machines. Mom made us stay on the porch during that part, but I did my best to be louder than the saw and narrate the action.

Then they poured the new cement and you all know how tempting new cement can be. Gillian stuck several different body parts into the cement as the guys were trying to smooth it out and then tried to wipe it all over Mom and herself. I just tried throwing grass on it.

So, that was our excitement for today. I hear someone is coming to work on the toilet next week (it makes a loud, annoying noise every 5-10 minutes and lasts 3-7 seconds each time--Mom says it's like timing contractions), so I'll have a new adventure to share with you. Speaking of the toilet, I did poop in the potty again last night. My family treated it like I had achieved world peace.

Weekend Fun

I always thought that apples grew in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. I could go in there, get an apple, pear, peach, or whatever happened to be in there at the time (last week we had pluots!) and chow down. When the drawer started to empty, more would magically appear. It seemed like the perfect system.

Well, today we went apple picking and I learned that apples actually grow on trees. And they are awesome. The best part of the day? Riding on tractors. Tractors have wheels, which makes them tops in my book. I practiced saying "car" for most of the tractor ride because "car" is what I call anything with wheels. It's just easier that way. Who wants to yell, "car, truck, grocery cart, minivan, train, stroller" all the time when you can just yell, "car, car, caaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr?"

So, once we got into the orchard, I got to hang out on my mom's back in the carrier most of the time. Liana found me a perfect Asher-size apple that I worked on most of the time in between pulling apples off the trees. Mom enjoyed this part because it gave me something besides her hair to pull. I have to say it makes much more sense that apples grow in orchards rather than in a magical refrigerator drawer.

After the apple picking we hung out at the country store and sampled some fudge while listening to a strange one-man band singing weirdly synthesized versions of "Achy Breaky Heart" and other country songs. I showed off my new dance moves which my family describes as "sumo-esque." The day ended with the girls yelling about how boring the day was because Mom and Dad wouldn't let them ride on the crappy carnival rides that cost $2 per ride. There was a lot of crying on the way home, but then we all fell asleep, and then started crying again when we got home. I had fun at least. The girls seem to be hard to please nowadays.

The World According to Gillian

Now we all know Gillian has a strange view of the world. She knows what she knows, no matter how right or wrong it is, and she's not going to let you tell her it's any other way. So, Gillian had a playdate with her best friend today and apparently was quite chatty. Here are some highlights: 

Gillian on fruit: Grapefruit is made out of grapes and it's an orange.

Gillian's friend: When do I get to be a sister?
Friend's mom: God hasn't given me a baby yet.
Friend: You gotta get married again! That's how it works!
Gillian: No, you gotta get eggs! My Dad put 3 eggs in my mom and then ...
Friend's mom: Uh...! That's enough, no more talk of eggs! 
Friend: Eggs? Where do you get the eggs?

P.S. I'm typing this post as ants crawl in and out of the keyboard. Gillian left something sticky on it and I guess there are ants coming in by the desk. Ew.

P.P.S. We had two trees taken down at our house today and it was awesome! I spent most of the morning standing on my train table so I could look out the window and watch those wood chips fly. 

 

New Discoveries

As you all know, I'm just a toddler, so I'm making new discoveries every day. This week I've made some huge breakthroughs.

#1. I found Azer, my Kung Zhu Ninja Hamster. I chased him for a while and then put him in the trash can. Not such a ninja anymore.

#2. I got into my sisters' GoGurt stash. They take them to school in their lunches, so I've never really seen them before. Well, I'm quite fond of rummaging through the refrigerator now and got a hold of one. Amazingly, Mom let me have it and it was...awesome! Even more amazingly, I didn't make a huge mess with it. There's just something about sucking on a tube of yogurt... (P.S. Gila, Mom and Dad can't look at GoGurt without thinking of you and the GoMole.)

#3. The toilet. I've always loved playing with the toilet--closing the lid on people, throwing things into it, splashing in it. You may also remember my recent flirtation with the potty chair (if not, read about it here). That hasn't gone anywhere. I just like to wear it on my head now. But, I did learn how to flush the toilet. This may seem like a simple thing to most of you, but you can't imagine the power this now gives me. I now have a new way to torment my sisters (and I don't have that many ways of tormenting them other than turning the TV on and off). They're already scared of flushing toilets (don't ask me why), and now I can be all cute and sneak up on them and flush when they're going. Such power. Maybe even enough to get them to stop sitting on me.

I'll flush you too, camel.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Saturday was my dad's birthday, so we were too busy gallivanting for me to come and blog. I have to say it was a pretty awesome day. Now, I don't know exactly how old Dad is. Throughout the day, several different people asked him how old he was and he gave a different answer every time--I heard 23, 12, and 27. Mom also said something about the second anniversary of his 29th birthday, whatever that means. Though, my sisters did figure out in which year he was born. Here was the conversation:

Gillian: Asher loves playing with his cell phone. Mom, did you play with cell phones when you were a baby?
Mom: No, cell phones weren't invented when I was a baby.
Liana: Wow, you're old.
Gillian: Daddy, did you play with cell phones when you were a baby?
Dad: I'm not that much younger than Mom. There weren't cell phones when I was a baby either.
Liana: Wow, you're so old. You must have been born in like 1893.

Anyway, back to Dad's birthday. The real celebration began Friday night when we got to go to Shabbat services with Jewish rocker extraordinaire Rick Recht. Awesome! Happy birthday to me...oops, I mean, Dad. The next morning I was so excited that I woke up at 6:30 am. Dad was already in the shower because he had to go to a training at work, so I snuggled with Mom and then she gave me Dad's birthday bag of beef jerky and I got to be the one to surprise him with it. He loves me most now because I gave him beef jerky.

Then we went to synagogue, which means I got grape juice.  Mmmmmm... I love it so much I don't even spill it all over myself like my sisters do. After that we went to the zoo. You really would think it was my birthday. There's nothing I love more than yelling at animals. Dad seemed to enjoy it because he got to play with the camera and do his "photo safari," as he called it.

The night ended with bottomless steak fries at Red Robin followed by ice cream and homemade cookie cake (that was actually more sprinkles and frosting than cake because someone had the great idea of letting Liana and Gillian be in charge of it). All in all, an awesome day. Dad gets around pretty good for a 118-year-old.

Now, a photo of me and the girls in the closet, because all the birthday photos are still on the camera.

Huge Applause for the Simple and the Mundane

My parents make me laugh.  I do something really simple and they act like I have developed cold fusion.  I have two examples for you from today.

1.  After I was released from my really cool frog booster seat after dinner, I took my plate over to the trash, dumped the contents, and then put the plate in the sink.  Not a huge deal right?  My mom was awestruck. She directed my dad's attention to my table bussing and she kept saying how great I was.  It was not hard to do; I like throwing things away.

2.  I like playing around the toilet.  There, I said it.  It is usually a quiet and peacful location.  My mother took this as meaning that I was ready to use the potty.  She went into the garage and grabbed the Family Potty Training Certified Thrown.  After a long afternoon playing I wanted to take a break so I sat down.  She started cheering for me.  I was just sitting.  Later, I was forced to show off to Dad that I can sit on a training potty.  Big deal.  I decided to amaze my parents.  I had already pooped on the floor after dinner, thus I was not wearing a diapper.  Mom walked me to the potty, sat me down and encouraged me to poop in the potty.  I was turtleheading so I just let it go.  Everyone started cheering.  Liana started to cry because she missed it and Gillian kept running around yelling, "Asher pooped in the potty!"  I poop most days, what is the big deal on where I did it?  After the poop excitement died, I walked back into the WC and sat down and peed.  It was liked I peed out the King, Elvis Pressley,  I have never seen my mom so excited.  I pee and/or poop in my diaper, on the floor, or the train table all the time, what is the big deal?

So, I guess when cute babies do things that everyone else can do super easily, it is awesome, and I am super awesome so that makes it extra awesome.  I need to think about what I am going to do next to blow my mom's mind.  Maybe when she is on the computer I will take the keys and go pick up Gillian from school.  I just need to figure out how to get my super stinky feet down to the pedals.  Curse you toddler bone structure, you have foiled another of my master plans....