***Darden Adventures***: There is a silver lining...

If every cloud has one, we have had ample opportunity to find those linings. All it's done is RAIN RAIN RAIN. Check out this storm that rained out softball:

I think it's the one that caused my work's small creek to do this:

None of those trees are usually under water.

And here is a separate storm, separate day, also cancelling softball. This one rolled in CRAZY fast, had HUGE gusts of wind associated with it, and caused so much car traffic on the way home due to downed trees and everyone getting under cover. But it only lasted like 15 minutes.

My silver lining is that with so much rain, we're bound to see some of these:

Can you see the double rainbow?

We could see the whole arch. This was Mara's first rainbow. And she was super excited.

And this one only lasted a minute, can you see it?

That's the end of the rainbow, or the start of the rainbow, right outside our house! It was right next to our neighbor's mailbox, and very clear to the human eye but I was having issues with my lens fogging and then it disappeared so quickly... this was the best shot I got. I was so excited and wanted to run through it, but it disappeared by the time I set my camera down. There was no pot of gold and no leprechaun, and no Lucky Charms rained down... but it was still magical!

The rainbow is God's promise that He'll never flood the earth again, right? This rainbow treat came right in the middle of a hellish week for us, so it's fantastic that it won't flood again... but that doesn't mean the world won't come to an end due to vomiting, diarrhea, stomach bug, diarrhea cloud in the tub, new motorcross bike breakage, dog-now-on-antibiotics-and-steroids-for-chewing-himself-raw, dog pee all over the house which now smells like a porta-potty or dirty kennel, and us being responsible for spreading a plague of stomach bug at daycare.

Yeah, it's been one of those kinda weeks.

Granted, we had no idea about the stomach bug, no clue where it came from, that it WAS one, or that the kids weren't ok for daycare. I had lunch today with Mara's class and witnessed a girl puke in her lunch plate, then spew it all over the floor. Lunch wasn't so enjoyable after that... but I was comforted knowing that Mara was already past that stage (that was her Monday, and Isaac's Saturday and Tuesday). Some of the teachers are home, and a bunch of other kids have gone home with the same symptoms.

So, have you quit reading yet?

Still with me?

Awesome.

Isaac's walking.

Well, he walks 5-17 steps, can get himself into a stand from the middle of the room, and knows several signs. He can sign milk, all done, fan, dog, up, binky, and points/leans/motions to whatever else he wants. He got me to walk him out to the shed on several occasions, and if he points to the microwave and then to the freezer, he wants an Eggo waffle.

He can also use a spoon correctly, and prefers to use it over his hands the majority of the time. We've been out to eat 2x recently where people just stare at him and make astonished comments - look at him, he's so LITTLE and he can eat so well with a spoon.

That's right, ladies.

Here's Mara around the same age.

Isaac loves to climb the stairs, too.

Mo Monkey has grown so much.

We did a Build-a-Bear for the first time and she was stoked. She woke me up at 6:30 the morning we were going to go and whispered, "Mommy, can we go get my bear now?" It was a long time to wait until the mall opened at 10:00.

She watched the online video tour 5 times the night before and seemed to be an old pro at building her friend, which she calls "Did-id".

Did-id got a princess dress and pink high heels.

Momma bear was clearly happy.

She's still practicing on her new bike so that she can "ride with two wheels" soon. She has scared me and Zack to death already with how fast she's willing to pedal this bike!

Poor little Isaac is stuck in a pink car with slow Mommy. Sorry, man.

I adore both my kids, even in the worst weeks.

I called Mara a goofball the other day and she laughed and said "Mommy, you're a spaghetti ball!"

Isaac is learning to cook! Although, I found a stuffed animal in the play oven... so definitely not a vegetarian baby. He likes his food stuffed and well baked.

We try to bring a little culture into the house (hard to do for us, I know). We've been making bi-weekly trips to the library. The visits go surprisingly fast since the first 10 books she sees make it into my bag and then I try to drag out our expedition using stair racing and let's read this book tactics.

They each have a little ant that makes its way around the library and they get stickers when we check out new books.

Here is Isaac's ant.

Can you see Amara's? She wrote her own name.

BTW there's walls and walls of these ants.

We also practice spontaneous yoga... yes, sometimes in our underwear.

I stalk this at work:

The kids carpool at our friends' houses.

Finally, I spawned someone that likes chocolate ice cream.

And dreams about going fast.

Little man thinks he's all that and a bag of potato chips.

Stickers have taken over our house and come out of my pores.

The stroller is no longer an acceptable form of Mara transportation.

I fail at being a Mom sometimes, burn the toast, and daycare gets the visual story. There are no secrets.

We have too many of these.

One of my kids is a perfectionist and the other is a destructionist.

I have amazing biceps from our library trips. (and giddy kids)

These used an entire box of boo boo bands.

Dumps like a truck, truck truck...

Guy gets stuck, stuck, stuck. Baby move your butt... butt...butt.

I took this little monster to her first movie theater movie (Monster's University)! She insisted on me painting her face like a monster... which I had NO idea how to do.