Happy Labor Day!

Once again, we had a good weekend.  Lots and lots and lots of pool time, because it has been rather ridiculously hot - in the high 80s and low 90s, with humidity that lasts all day long.  We go for our walk/run at 7 am and the temperature has been 78 degrees and sticky.  We know the east coasters think we're ridiculous, but it's just too much.  We live out here for a reason!

Friday night we went to a friend's parents' house for dinner.  There were six kids between the ages of five months and four years and it was pretty fun to watch them run around and sort of play together, sort of play next to each other.  One of my favorite moments was when Jayden and the two other two year olds (including one who was born seven hours after Jayden in the same hospital!) grabbed chairs and moved them over to a platform, lined them up and created a choo-choo train or a bus or something else like that.  They all sat in a chair and did the "choo-choo" noises.  It was so awesome.  I am oh so sorry that I do not have a picture of that, but I could not get to my camera fast enough.  Someone else did take a picture but I don't know that I'll ever get a copy since I didn't know the people so well.

Swimming in the pool with Daddy.  It was hilarious; not a single mom got in the pool - it was all the dads and the kids.

Friday was our five year anniversary!  As I wrote to my dad, it feels like just yesterday, plus five years.  :)  We knew we weren't likely to get a babysitter during Labor Day weekend so we had gone out to a nice dinner when we were in NYC to celebrate.

Saturday was swim lessons as usual and then errands.  We went to Costco and out to lunch.  Jayden was so tired that he literally fell asleep sitting up in the shopping cart in Costco.  The lady at the checkout was cracking up.

His head kept tipping over and then he'd jerk back up, the way I sleep on airplanes.  I kept being worried that he was going to hit his head on the handle of the shopping cart.

We came home and went swimming again after Jayden's nap because it was honestly the only way to be outside.  Jayden helped Carmen sweep the pool deck, which turned into him sweeping the pool and whatever else he came into contact with.  What mattered is that it made Jayden smile, no matter how much extra work it made for the rest of us.

Smiles!

Sunday we had people over in the afternoon.  We invited probably twenty people, maybe more including all the kids, and only six people showed up.  Oh well.  It was still fun and a nice, relaxing afternoon.  I managed to take no pictures.  So here's what I have from Sunday.

Ready to rock the shades before the party.

And today we had another low-key day.  A couple errands, including shopping for Jayden's birthday with Jayden (so great that we can do that now - I don't know if it'll be possible next year - although my mom did it for years and always managed to sneak things in when we weren't paying attention).  We also ate at this amazing restaurant called Slater's 50/50.  It's a burger place where their signature burger is 50% beef and 50% bacon.  Today the special was the "roo," which is 50% kangaroo and 50% bacon.  Neither Carmen nor I could handle it.  But the traditional 50/50 was really great.  The only downside was as we were putting Jayden into the car, Carmen put his glasses on top of the car.  And then drove off.  And didn't realize it until we got home.  They were in a case, but he went back to the restaurant to look around and couldn't find them anywhere.  So he lost his glasses.  Luckily he has about eight pairs of glasses so it's not like he won't be able to see.  It was just a bummer for him.

On the "swide" at the mall.  We went down the slide about 25 times before we could go eat lunch.

Jayden is talking more and more, and really developing his personality and his sense of humor.  It's amazing and really so funny for us.  He makes us laugh as much or more than we make him laugh.  We were getting him dressed the other day and I asked him to do something - sit still, stand up, something - and he says "OH!  oh-KAY" as if he was 15 years old and I had just asked him to take out the trash.  Hilarious.  He also knows when he's being funny and will look at us sideways out of the corner of his eyes to see if we're catching on.  Love.

We've been giving him medicine at night before bedtime because I really think he's getting molars in.  And of course he adores medicine, so he thinks it's a treat when he gets medicine.  In the beginning I would feed it to him and I'd pull his head back to get the last of the medicine in his mouth.  So when he started drinking it on his own, to pull his head back he did the same thing I do!

Gamma, he loves his robot and space pajamas, by the way.  They're not as soft as the ones I buy for him, but they zip up which he thinks is pretty cool.

And one last picture that he'll someday hate me for sharing:

Some of you may know right away what he's doing here.  But for those of you that don't, he was in this position for about five minutes and afterwards we went immediately upstairs to the changing table.  And it was stinky.  But it took him a whole lot of effort, poor kid.

We've enjoyed our long weekend and are not really looking forward to going back to work.  But at least it's four days.  We cannot believe our baby will be two in nine days!