some pics

top left: gifts from my parents in sweden (the clothes and the castle, among other things). soooo cute and fun and happy-making, especially since the package came 2 days after our flood! a nice surprise.

top right: ready for soccer game. this season has been an entertaining experience. i don't think carson's quite ready for cut-throat athletic competition yet. fortunately, his coach and the other kids on his team are understanding of the fact that he has no concept of the game...

bottom left: tough-girl layla in oregon. man, that was a fun vacation. seems so long ago.

bottom right: a queen and a princess. [editor's note: hypothetically speaking, wouldn't that be highly embarrassing for the queen if she forgot she was wearing such regal attire and opened the front door in it and proceeded to carry on a perfectly "normal" conversation with the father of carson's friend for about, oh, a full minute until she realized what she was wearing? not that i have experience, of course. strictly hypothetical.]

beach girl

so, last night i had YW and paul put the kids to bed, including addie. apparently she screamed for almost 2 hours before finally giving in. when i got home, paul recommended i go check on her, which i did but accidentally woke her up as i did so. she began loudly letting the world know just how annoyed she was.

after i re-tucked her in and headed for the door amidst her screams (i'm a nice, loving mother, i know), i turned her noise machine onto "ocean" (paul had accidentally forgotten about it). she basically fell right to sleep.

we've got a 9-month-old beach bum on our hands, folks.

incidentally, if anyone's looking for the perfect baby shower gift...viola.

so much for "blog = family history"

here's a brief update on our lives: our house is still under construction, but progress is being made. we hope we'll be back home by the time we leave for hawaii (late june), but that's a somewhat optimistic view. sighhhh... fortunately, we're able to stay with paul's parents, which has been a fabulous thing with only one drawback - a 15-minute drive to get to our house. dah well, a small price to pay.

carsonisms:
- "mom, not everyone can be very very good at building legos. i am, but not everybody is. it takes lots and lots of training." [really? who trained you?] "just myself. a LOT of training."
- [after telling the kids we got to stop at maverick for them to pick out a treat after a 1-hour drive, amidst excited squeals and cheers, i hear an emphatic:] "mom. you're duh BEST."
- "boys just have to wear shorts for swimming because dey don't have baby-feeders."

exciting things:
- we had a/c installed in our house while it's under construction. hello, bearable summer heat. too bad it couldn't have been last summer, when i was overweight with addie in ye ole belly (she was born mid-august). but better late than never.
- paul and i are planning a weeklong trip to hawaii in june (with his parents and sister/bro-in-law). katrina & jordan are saints and get to hang out with carson & layla; john & jenn are, too, and get to hang out with addie. i wonder if addie will get along better with her siblings around...comments? experience in this area? she'll be about 10 months old. or, i'll just get on the plane and try not to bawl about leaving my loves and let the competent, loving aunts and uncles work it out. :)
- we're going to get to sweden to visit my parents one of these days.
- michelle's wedding day is getting closer! june 19.

um, i'm sure there are other things to mention, but i can't think of them now.

peace out, and happy tuesday.