Ahoy Matey & More...

Last weekend we had ridiculous amounts of rain, which prompted Lou to declare Sunday "Pirate Day" at the Schneider House - complete with homemade pirate hats, a pirate ship, a parrot, and a treasure hunt.  Here are some of my favorite photos from the day. 
Here are my pirates aboard their ship - just before setting sail.

And Josie & Lou playing "I Spy" with the pirate "telescope" -

 

  

Josie couldn't be luckier to have such a wonderfully-involved, loving, creative & hilarious daddy. And I'm pretty darn lucky myself!

Speaking of how awesome Louie is...have I mentioned before that he does about 99% of the cooking? Okay, maybe that's not giving myself quite enough credit, but he certainly does more than the average bear. Lots more!   Recently, he's decided to add baking to his repertoire (which surprises even me after the Great Gingerbread Disaster of 2009).  First on the list was the "Chocolate Moose Mud Muffins" from Josie's "If You Give A Moose A Muffin" book that they love reading together.  They were delicious and the three of us had a really good time all baking together. Okay - well - we all had a great time except for the moment when Josie stuck a fistful of unsweetened baking chocolate in her mouth. 

 

Several minutes later, she was still sticking her tongue out and going "bleck, bleck, bleck..."

Here are a few photos of Josie today with her new favorite friend - the giant ladybug from Gina that she knew Josie would love! Gina helps us out with cleaning around here and has grown to be a very special person to us. Here she is teaching the ladybug how to ride her tricycle...
 

And flying on it to Chicago to see Tia, Tio & Lyla (using the antennae to steer)...

  

Here she has put the ladybug down for a nap and is rocking her caterpillar to sleep so he could lay down with the ladybug...
 

And finally. I'll leave you with another cute scene and funny moment from this afternoon. Josie was quietly painting and the lighting was good, so I grabbed my camera.  She gave me this look and said to me very politely "Actually I don't need my picture taken right now, thank you!"  I managed to snap this quick photo before she got too insistent.