The Last Fling

Today, we went to the "Last Fling" in Naperville. It's basically just a really big carnival. All of the kids (old and young alike) had a great time.

Daniel's First Birthday

We're in Chicago for the long weekend to celebrate Maya's youngest cousin's birthday. Maya's been having a great time playing with all of her cousins, including the second youngest one, who's just two weeks older than Maya. Here are some photos from the birthday festivities.

There will be more...

Chicago pictures. But for now, here's Maya "loving" Daniel's monkeys. She made the hug each other and was then super camera-ready when everyone in the room went "Aw"... repeatedly.

In the middle of breakfast...

In the middle of breakfast this morning, this random conversation occurred:

Maya (surprised and all of the sudden): "Where'd the kangaroo go?"
Tim: "What?"
Maya: "Where'd the kangaroo go?"
Tim: "What are you talking about?"
Maya: "Did he go home?"
Tim: "Sure, he probably went home."
Maya: "He's having breakfast."
Tim: "OK, Maya."

(After a bit more questioning, which included asking Maya when and where she last saw the kangaroo, we realized she was talking about the wallaby they had at day care several weeks ago. What made her think of it, we have no idea.)

The (Dog) Name Game

Our friend Nicki (see the blog list on the right) has a post on her blog about the "name game" for her dogs. The idea is to tell where your dogs names came from and if they have any nicknames. And since our dogs actually have stories behind their names, and since I'm not really excited about working this morning (sorry Seth...) I'll take a minute to share.

We have two dogs: Hannah and Casey.



Hannah was OUR first dog. She's a labrador retriever who joined us as we moved to Texas. We got her from the same breeder as Tim's dad's dogs; the breeders had thought they would keep her, but decided that they had too many dogs. So they gave her to us. She was already six months old, and she was really well trained. But her name was Panda. And we just didn't like it and it didn't seem to suit her. So we went with "Hannah." It sounds kinda like Panda, but it fit her. Ever since, she's had a little bit of name confusion, we think. I call her "Hannah-Bear." Tim insists he has no nicknames for the dogs.




After we'd been in our house a little bit, we started talking about getting a second dog. I went out of town for the weekend with some friends, and while I was gone, someone deposited a dog (a black lab/border collie mix) in the backyard at Tim's clinic. She was the sweetest dog ever, so Tim brought her home to see how she would get along with Hannah. Obviously, once you do that, game over. We thought she was house-broken. Not exactly. But she does get along great with Hannah, and she really is the sweetest dog ever, if a little hyper with an over-active tongue. What's her name? "Casey" Why? I was in Kansas City for the weekend. I call her "Case" all the time. Tim sometimes calls her "Dummy."




All in all, they're great dogs, great with Maya, if a little over-exuberant when visitors arrive.

The Circus

On Sunday, we went to the circus with our friend Addie and her parents. My parents and my sister were also supposed to go with us, but my parents bailed at the last minute, so Miryung and JoAnn came with us instead. Here are some pictures Tim took.

When asked what she liked best about the circus, Maya said:

"Addie!"
"I like the people swinging."
"I saw tigers!"
"Motorcycles go vroom."

Overheard...

Maya and I have been having to pick Tim up every day this week because his car is in dire need of new tires. One evening, Tim was putting his scrubs and stethoscope away in his drawer in the office. Maya wanted to help, so she pointed to the stethoscope and said "Daddy, I wanna carry your heart."