Happy Memorial Day!

I'm sort of typing with one hand here, the other wrapped around an ice-cold diet coke can after an unfortunate run-in that my left hand had with a hot grill pan following a mommy-brain-fart that led me to try to pick up the falling pan with my un-potholdered appendage. Doesn't help that I'm a lefty, either. Anyway, I think it'll be okay but suffice it to say that even a mild second degree burn on several of your fingertips does not a happy ending (or at least a comfortable one) to my Memorial Day make.

Oh well. Hopefully my fingerprints will remain intact and my coke can will stay cold enough to let me get to sleep pain free imminently.

Meanwhile, a brief post, with pictures, about how we spent the day.

Hallie was up at 6am (after not falling asleep much before midnight; she spent the two hours prior to this redecorating her room, which involves dumping all of her clothing baskets out all over her floor). Sharon gave up on trying to get her to go back down after an hour, so I fed her prilosec and breakfast, which was finished (with some fussing) before 9am. She didn't want to drink her milk from a cup, so I grabbed her a bottle. I went back into the kitchen to put away excess pears and applesauce and came back to find our girl fast asleep in her high chair. I laid her down on the couch and she took a nice pre-9am nap:



After she woke up, Sharon and Hallie headed off to the playground but her friend Isiah, an older boy of around 4, whom she just met yesterday but who indulged her in numerous games of peek-a-boo and races down the slides, wasn't there, so she got bored quickly and they came back home. A bit later, following an early lunch, Sharon and I decided to give Hallie an early birthday present---the Step 2 Sand and Water Table. Alas the promise of pre-drilled holes was a false one, so assembly took more time than we thought, but the thing did go together pretty easily.

We then headed out to Lowe's for some play sand and to Whole Food for some meat for the grill (the OFFENDING grill) for our impromptu barbecue with Renee and Kim. Hallie had another good, long nap in the car and was ready to play when we got home.

We stripped her down to her diaper and let her explore the sensory joys of water and sand (she vastly prefers the former to the latter):



The diaper did not, however, last long:



And here's a nice, gratuitous closeup of adorable naked toddler butt:



Hallie ended her outdoor experience by slathering herself with "some" (we've determined that this is a catch-all word she uses when she wants to color herself with crayons, washable markers, finger paints, or bathtub paints, which is what she's wearing in this shot) and eating her beloved sticks in the buff while seated in mommy' chair:



Meanwhile, here's one shot of the plantings I arranged this week after I had finished cleaning up all of the detritus and debris from last summer (including several dead tomato plants, my blueberry bushes that managed to succumb this winter after surviving the last three, and lots of slug carcasses and leaves...ewww). The perennials (two roses, one planted last year in memory of Olivia, and Nan's rose bush; a few astilbes; two clematis; a hydrangea; a bleeding heart; and a lilac bush that should flower next year) all managed to overwinter, no doubt insulated by lots of dried leaves and such):

Anyway, we hope everyone out there had a lovely Memorial Day and that you had weather as lovely as ours was and that you were spared all kinds of burns, sunburns included!