All the Funny Things

Jamisen and Lily are so ridiculously funny lately. Lily is, of course, fully toddling around. She still has her little muscle twitch, even when she's walking, but we trust she'll grow out of it. She loves (loves loves) to escape out of everything - she opens doors and walks outside, she happily tackles latches and hates to be caged in her crib.

Jamisen is more than fully potty trained now. He is staying dry all through the night! Just this week, he went to the toilet with his toy coffee maker (it actually runs water through it) and was making coffee while he was sitting on his throne. I can already see that he's like his Mama; he hates to be bored!

We have started a new thing with Jamisen - good behavior rewards. The whole "star on the chart when you're good for 4 hours" is still a bit too abstract for him. However, good behavior rewards for 20 minute spans are absolutely doable and work wonderfully. This week, we're going to rachet up to 30 minutes at a time. His rewards are things like new books and theme toys (ant farm is coming up, playdough truck construction activity pieces etc.). It's been working like a charm.

We have enjoyed a lot of time at the lake this week because we've had friends visiting. Jamisen LOVES to fish and is quite adept at speaking his need for a life jacket "so he can go on the dock" clearly.

Jamisen switched from his normal school of Hillcrest to summer camp. The schedule is less convenient for the drop-off parent (Chris) and Jamisen asked to go back to Hillcrest for the week to see his friends. We're lucky Hillcrest knows him and accommodated his one-off, odd request. He'll be at Hillcrest this week.

Work wise, things cookin' right along. We've started a new division at Bramble Berry  - the Handmade Beauty Box - a DIY Handmade subscription box (monthly)  and that's been fun to take up my time. What I really should be doing is writing the manuscript for the next Soap Crafting Book (Pure Soapcrafting, all about natural and organic ingredients for soapmaking) but looking at logos and planning marketing strategies is more fun (go figure).

Jamisen has started the gift of embellishment. "Did you chip the wall?" "No Mama, a bee did!" and it's been fun to see his line of reasoning for some of his more elaborate stories.

Speaking of escape artists, I caught Jamisen going outside the other night at 10 p.m. Well, I didn't catch him b/c I thought the door opening and shutting was Chris but we figured out later, it was Jamisen. We have ordered a door lock for the back door that he can't undo (one that's high up).

Our garden is in full bloom and is gorgeous! We have four kinds of kale, corn, raspberries, marionberries, blackberries, beets, carrotts, potatoes, string beans, tomatoes, bok choy, spinach and all kinds of herbs.

Lily loves her peas from the garden!

Yes, she fell asleep like this. Little monkey ... =)

This is her look after she tried to eat soap for the first time. With how all the soap in this house can look like it's dessert or food, it probably won't be her last time.