This Almost Seems Mean

So, I have a few friends who are currently pregnant. Some of these friends have been posting pictures of their bellies on their blogs. I love this. I think baby bellies are beautiful, and so, in the spirit of sharing, I have decided to post some belly pictures as well...

Check out that belly! I know it's the pajamas that make his gut look big, but wow. And he's clearly not a fat kid. It's all right there in his belly. How about if we take another look, maybe a bit closer....

Whoa. His shirt can't even compete with it. Deacon's belly is a force to be reckoned with, or something like that. Sweet boy. Here he is, a fantastic eater (I wish Zeke would take lessons), with a sweet and happy disposition, and here I am, his mother, making fun of him. Shame on me. How about if we look at it this way: I LOVE that boy and his belly, the belly makes me happy, and I just want to share some of my "little" bits of happiness with you, my dear friends. There, that sounds much better.

Well, That Was...Efficient

I took Deacon to his 24 month well-baby exam Thursday. It was...interesting. Apparently, they set aside this one hour or so every week, maybe, for this exact purpose. So, at 8:45 when the appointment was for, a soldier comes out from the back and starts "The Briefing". She started by directing us all to strip our 24 monthers down to their diapers while she briefed us, then went on to say things like, "No more bottles, only this much milk, only this juice, wait for them to be ready to potty train, I'm not going to tell you how to discipline your kids but..." and so on. As soon as she was finished, she went back behind the doors and then all these other ladies came out and started calling kids names like rapid fire. We were ushered back, Deacon was weighed (just over 28lbs) and measured (just under 35") as I answered questions, he was given a free book (very cool), then we were sent to another room to wait for the first available doctor as another child was entering the room we left to have his measurements taken. The doctor then came in, looked him over for about five minutes and pronounced us good to go. And just like that, we were done. Very efficient.

All the while, and this is very cool, Zeke was in "Teddy's Watch". Teddy's Watch is a child care facility IN the hospital. IN THE HOSPITAL. So, if I ever have an appointment for myself, or whenever I need to make one for either boy, I can set up an appointment for the boys with Teddy Watch, and they can hang out there, for free, while other things are taken care of. It's really fabulous.

In other quick new, I FINALLY got my Alaska driver's license yesterday. I know, right. I was there a whole 3 months ago failing the test, and it took me until yesterday to get back and get it done. But it's done. And now, so's this post.

Playing For Change

So, the other day I found this website through another website, and I am here every day listening to these amazing songs. The website is Playing For Change. Basically (and you can read more about it on the site) this group of people travelled all over the world and recorded different musicians who were playing/singing/whatever on the streets for money, and combined all their talents to create these beautiful songs. It is truly amazing. Below is my current favorite of the ten they have up right now. Enjoy the song, then go to the site and check out the rest of the videos.

Bear Paw-ing It Up

This past week (From Wednesday until yesterday) was the Annual Bear Paw Festival, here in Eagle River. With our boys really being too young for most of the activities that went on all week, we didn't do much with it. We did, however, venture out twice on Saturday.

We started our celebration of the festival by going down to the parade. It was a pretty cool parade and the boys had a great time. This was their first parade and they did great just sitting on the curb, waving and clapping and pointing out all the cool things they saw. Added bonus: every so often people would walk through the parade handing out candy to kids who had bags or baskets or whatever to put them in. Sweet! I took about 150 pictures of the parade, but I won't post them all here. I'll just pick a few to highlight, with promises of them being on flickr soon enough.

Zeke was super excited to see the train go through the parade...

almost as excited as he was about the "bears and bubbles" float.

this is the beginning of the parade...the DARE car

and the military band.

and here we are super excited for it all to begin.

After the parade was over, we went home, had lunch, and put the boys down for naps. After their naps though, we headed out again. This time, we went to the carnival. This was a rather large set up with an area with rides and games and some food, plus another area of lines of tents with vendors and more food. There was also a little stage for the dance groups and gymnastic groups to perform (and I guess advertise) on. There was also music playing by the grassy area where people were just hanging out. Again, with the boys being a little young for most of it, and the crowd being a little too much for Josh, we got some ride tickets and took the boys on their first ever carousel ride (in honor of Josh's mom). Zeke freaked out at first when I tried to put him on the horse, but when the ride was over, he freaked out because I had to take him off of the horse. Zeke then wanted to try the little rollercoaster, but we didn't have enough tickets leftover from the carousel ride (the guy running the ride let the kids - or maybe us - ride for free, which was sweet) for him and me to go on it, so Josh took the kids to the park that was right there while I got us some funnel cake (in honor of my mom) and some lemonade. Mmm.

they even had a fire truck set up with the hose on for people to play in

and yes, it was hot enough to do that.

here is Josh and Deacon on the carousel, waiting for it to begin
(Deacon clearly isn't in any rush as he happily has a cracker in hand)

here is Zeke trying to play it cool, but he was very much enjoying himself


here they are at the park waiting for me to come back,
clearly, I was missed...or not

ahhh...nothing like cool lemonade on a hot summer day
after good times at the carnival

It was a lot of fun and I am now looking forward to the Alaska State Fair at the very end of next month. I can just see Josh rolling his eyes and starting to twitch nervously. Otherwise, we've just been hanging out, enjoying the incredible weather we've been blessed with lately. I did, however, finally get last month's pictures up on flickr. You can check them out by clicking here, if you are so inclined. And that is all for now.