I was vacuuming the floor tonight and wondering how in the world my floors got so dirty when I just wet mopped the entire house yesterday (we have all hard floors). It was the kind of thought you would Facebook. Then I said to myself, I want to talk all about myself so I will blog tonight! Plus, I have fun stories and news with regards to my ninos.

So I have cleared out my evening to blog. But I did still exercise first which leads me to my first piece of self news: I am back to below my pre-pregnancy weight! In fact I can't remember the last time I weighed this little. Nice! I was at my annual checkup ("What? It's time again? I just had a baby in November!" "Um, that's right." "Oh yeah.") when I weighed in. I came home to tell Tyler the good news and first thing he did was point at my chest "Yeah, you lost it here," then at my tush "and here" then his superego kicked in and he quickly pointed at my stomach and said, "and here!" Right, nice save, Tyler. But part of that is true. Since weaning Jane 2 months ago, I'm probably back down to my high school bra size. *Sigh.* Such is birthing children. Even if you manage to repeatedly work your weight off, you get saggy skin and then lose your boobs for good measure. It's a good thing children are (usually) the best things in the world!

...at least I think mine are!

So without further ado, let me give updates about my two sweetheart full-time employers, er, kids!

Cameron

First of all, let me say Tyler was not a huge fan of me giving Cameron a Dora Princess coloring book, but the kid has been inseparable from it since he got it. He even sleeps with it. The selection of coloring books at WalMart is only so-so and Dora was his favorite of the options. I figure it won't destroy any natural masculinity.

Some of you may know already, but Cameron has been diagnosed with Expressive/Receptive Language Disorder. What is that? Basically he has the language abilities of a 2 year old (he is going to be 4 in December). But we are very encouraged at the progress he is making. I remember he barely quoted some lines from his favorite shows before Jane was born, and he has come so far! There is almost some new milestone I notice for him every day. He is having 2 way conversations, telling stories and recounting past events and future plans. He is receiving speech therapy once a week but when the school year starts we will most likely be enrolling him in a specialized pre-school specifically just for children like him who have speech and language disorders. It will be like 4 hours of therapy a day. I am just so happy we live somewhere with that sort of a resource available to us. In fact I heard about the school from a new visiting teachee who moved from San Francisco just so she could enroll her daughter. (See the amazing blessings that happen when you do your visiting teaching?) Wow. I told Tyler we may find that the reason we ended up in Austin was so Cameron could attend this school.

That's enough of the serious, on to the fun stuff!
Since our new (hand me down) TV afforded us basic cable, Cameron loves the show Wipeout. He asks for it every day. (In the world of instant stream Netflix he doesn't understand he can't have some shows on demand.) The other night in the bath he was pretending shampoo bottles were contestants and making them "wipeout" into the water mid-trip across the edge of the tub. He added all the sound effects of screaming and even told the bottles "You made it!" when they finally made it safely across. He has also been setting up obstacle courses for himself with our furniture, off of which he makes sure to wipeout.

Jane

Poor baby Jane had wicked bad bum rash tonight. It was really sad. One of my attempts to heal her bum was to let her go without a diaper for a while. It was so cute I had to get a picture.

Jane is getting more personality every day. And she is a go getter. Big surprise! She is very, very close to walking. In fact, I am sure she would be if it weren't for our hard floors; they make for a hard fall. (In fact, I am worried about how often she hits her head and hope she's not getting brain damage.) When at a friend's house yesterday she was walking confidently around on the soft carpet. She has three teeth. She loves her baths and loves food.
And she LOVES Cameron. In fact, Cameron really likes her too. It's so fun for me to see them interact. I like to think about when they are older and will still be the best of friends and how it all started here.
Now to a random, serious question. Does anyone else feel "second child guilt"? I don't get to spend near as much time with Jane as I did with Cameron, for obvious reasons. But then Cameron takes extra work even now so Jane always gets put on hold. And she is growing up too fast for me. I don't feel like I get to shower her with attention as much as I want to. I don't want to feel like Jane always gets less than Cameron. Can anyone relate?

Pictures of My Parents' Visit
The highlight of July was my parents coming to visit. It was SO much fun! I didn't get to document the visit like I would have liked to, but there are lots of good pictures to show for it! Most of our fun centered around food, just the way we like it! The first night we didn't get any pictures of our kid-free outing to a moviehouse that served us dinner while we watched Super 8. So fun!

First morning, a patriotic pancake breakfast!

Then, to the pool! What else do you do in such hot weather?

That night, we went to eat at a restaurant that overlooks the lake. So pretty and fun!

Grandma building a Small World castle with Cameron.

Sunday night Tyler and Dad made a huge Chinese food feast. SO delish!
Then we played some cards and ate treats! (That is our friend Amra.)

Independence Day = free to spend all day in the kitchen cooking, including two pies from scratch,

and a tasty feast.

That night we watched a movie and Jane decided she wasn't going to go to sleep until midnight.

She also wanted Grandpa's popcorn.

The last morning. Grandpa does some final bonding with baby Jane, introducing her to bananas.