Here's the Diehl

Fridays when I work from home, I sometimes resort to acts of desperation to be able to sit down for more than 5 minutes. This past Friday, I thought I was golden when I put Julia in front of Sesame Street for a little while. All was well for at least 10 minutes. I could hear her downstairs. She was sitting in her chair and singing Elmo E-I-E-I-O (even though the segment wasn't about farms). Then I heard some footsteps. Rustling. Footsteps. Rustling again. I came downstairs and caught this on film. My girl gone wild. And then we had to clean up. Julia tried really hard to help.

Seriously, what IS it about Elmo? We didn't have anything red or furry in our home when Julia became obsessed! Elmo everyday. Everything Elmo. And you can't find cute, cheap Elmo stuff...it's always sold out. As one woman from the toy store said to me, "Elmo has star power." So, we've acquired a few Elmo things. A new toothbrush. We record Sesame Street and watch Elmo's World almost every night before bed. And a small book of Elmo's ABCs (I do not recommend this book, however. It is no fun to read. It was just the cheapest one.) But NOW. NOW something new has come up. Julia has started talking about poo poo. ALL THE TIME. She doesn't know she's about to go, but she does know when she is going, and when she is done (and therefore has poo poo). So, I figured I'd be proactive and see if a new potty might be inspiring. I looked on my favorite online store, amazon, to see what reviews would show. Believe it or not, the ELMO potty seat is highly ...

o, it's been really hard lately to get this child to eat fruits and vegetables. She is just totally unwilling to eat any vegetable in cooked format (except for spaghetti sauce) and most fruits, especially if they are cut up. "I do it" is the adverse reaction to cut pieces, she wants to take bites herself. That's fine, so we give her whole berries, large chunks of melon. That typically works. Bananas are out lately, unless they have rainbow sprinkles (the cure for just about anything). Vegetables are even harder. No peas, no carrots, so squash. Pureed in sauces is ok, but roasted or steamed or grilled just doesn't cut it. Bolognese sauce comes back to the kitchen with the noodles, sauce, and meat eaten, but the veggies carefully picked out. One day, Julia found her way into the vegetable drawer and grabbed a whole cucumber and started eating it. Not sure why...she'd only been offered cucumber once before and didn't eat it. But now, she likes them whole. At ...

I don't know if it's her age, or a phase, or what, but we're totally in this complete aversion to any sort of healthy food. No vegetables, no fruits. No cheese. So, since it's been so hot, i bought a new popsicle mold kit thinking i could make yogurt and fruit popsicles as a healthy snack. Well, I started with lemonade pops just to test my theory that Julia would like them. So far, so good. Next up, strawberry smoothie pops.

We came back from our overnight in Philly to Julia missing Bella terribly. She was really upset when Bella wasn't at the door when we came home (she was still at overnight camp). After we picked Bella up, she quickly made it to the couch and proceeded to pass out from exhaustion as she typically does when she's played nonstop for 36 hours. And all Julia wanted to do was snuggle with her and give her kisses. It was just so adorable. To this day, kisses are only for Bella. And sometimes Blankie.

Go, Dog. Go! is probably Julia's most favorite bedtime story right now. Thank goodness, because it used to be Llamas in Pajamas....and that is just not a good one. We probably read Go, Dog. Go! at least three times a night. She had only the little board book version, but i broke down and bought her the whole book (which is a totally different story). We love how she asks for the book. See if you can hear her say it...

August 5. Del Ray saw the worst storm in more than forty years. At least that is what Backside Bob (our neighbor) told us. We lost power for about 36 hours, but were one of the lucky ones. We had no trees fall on our property at all. A couple branches got blown around, but that is it. To see the extent of the tree damage, a Google Map has been created to attempt to map out the damage from the storm on August 5th, 2010. Click here to view the map. Here are just a couple photos I took on a walk the morning after the storm. PS. He's called Backside Bob because the two neighbors we have on one side are both named Bob. So, we nicknamed them Front Bob and Backside Bob.

With our trips to the pool, I've been teaching Julia how to blow bubbles. She doesn't really seem to get it while at the pool, but the tub...that is her playground. That pool is way more her size. She's really getting the hang of blowing bubbles. She tries to do it all over town too while we're carrying her. Of course, out of water it just sounds like a big fart. Which is always a nice sound, I think. Especially in the company of strangers.

Our yard is so big. Or maybe Julia is still so little. Either way, we spent all weekend trimming, weeding and mowing our green pasture. Julia splashed in her water table and kicked her big blue ball. And there were lots of bitey bugs that made Mommy very unhappy.

Sometimes on the afternoons when I work from home, we girls will take a break and roll around on the bed for a bit. The bedroom gets really nice sunlight and the whole room has this nice airy quality. Bella prefers to nap upstairs (with her rear end on my pillow, mind you) and Julia loves to wake Bella up and roll around on the bed like a little wild indian. She rolls all over the place. I can only imagine what will happen when she learns how to bounce up and down.