Whether you think it's gross or not (and I would venture to guess that many of you secretly find much enjoyment from doing it yourselves), we introduced Micah to the wonderful world of picking skin off of his toes. 

He had this nice white skin that covered the bottom surface of his big toe.  It was too inviting so I reached over and picked at it.  This got him curious as to what I was doing, so he leaned in and started picking himself too -- I suppose possibly to see what the big deal was.  Isaac (who is himself a big fan of this sport) was then inspired to pick his own foot.  And then when that wasn't enough, he went over to pick Micah's.  Ah...brotherly love.  Warms a mother's heart.  And of course, this then becomes a Kodak moment.

Notice the deep concentration.  It was great.  They were so preoccupied with this that they didn't fight or ask me if they could watch TV for the millionth time.  Now I just need to wait patiently until the next round of foot peelies comes.

Aiya... the day has finally come.  I put Micah down for his nap this afternoon.  Lately he's been playing a lot in his crib (throwing toys out, yelling) and just generally takes a while to fall asleep.  Today was no different.  After a bit of this, he was mostly quiet so I proceeded with the day's chores.  I went to the basement to put clothes in the dryer as Isaac played with a toy on the couch.  I came up from the basement and to my confusion, there was Micah running around the living room.  I had to think really hard for a second as to what time of day it was and if this was correct for me to actually see Micah in front of me.  A quick moment later, I realized that Micah climbed out of his crib!

I put him back in his crib and he was soooooo mad.  Cried and cried.  A minute later, he was quiet so I peeked in the room.  He was in the process of climbing out of the crib again!!  I'm not entirely sure how he did it, but by the time I saw him, he had crawled over the onto the outside of the crib and was making his way down.  A moment longer and he would've been on the ground. 

This kid likes to climb on anything to reach his goal.  The other day, one of his toy cars was on the kitchen counter.  He wanted it, so he used the knobs of the drawers to climb up to reach his car.  Isaac never even attempted this kind of behavior so it's definitely a new thing for me.

Here's the culprit.

Here he is again, with headphones on, waiting to Skype with my parents.

And then here's another nod to non-fancy "toys" being funner than fancy toys.  An large empty box can bring hours of enjoyment.

Our family spent last week in sunny Orlando.  Jeff had a conference for work so we all just tagged along.  We had a good time thanks to...
- a friend who gave us free Disney passes.  Yay for freebies!
- deciding to bite the bullet and pay the $10 to rent a stroller for a day at Disney for our then whiny 4-yr-old.  It was worth every penny.
- the kids sleeping well.  Man oh man, it makes all the difference in the world.
- good weather (despite a brief visit from Tropical Storm Barry)
- the boys learning how to wave to the floats in a Disney parade.  Cheesy, but cute.  :)

The only disappointment was this - last summer, my legs were ghastly white even though I didn't stay indoors all the time nor did I wear long pants a lot.  Last week, I purposely used "sunscream" (as Isaac calls it) everywhere except for my legs because I was bound and determined to get some color on these gams.  In the end, I came away with sunburned shoulders and just a teensy bit of color on the legs.  Oh well.

Onward to photos!  (You Facebookers have seen these already.  I have other pics elsewhere online so if you're dying for more, lemme know.)

This is on the bus from the hotel to the park.

 Isaac met his hero Lightning McQueen.

Micah fell asleep...

...and look what we snacked on while the poor kid was out.

Here's at the hotel pool and playground.

A very blessed trip.  :)

 Who needs fancy (and expensive!) battery-operated, computer chip-infused toys, when you've got a good ol' kite, string, and a sunny day?  This is a kite that Jeff had as a kid and it still works...albeit it needed some packaging tape to put it back into working condition. 

On a separate note, the postage rate goes up tomorrow.  A whopping 41-cents to mail a letter.  However, now they've got this "Forever" stamp going on.  Asian people are going to hoard these while they're still 41-cents.
http://www.usps.com/prices/