Gratuitous Cute Kid Pictures

A lot of heavy blogging this week, so here's a cute kid picture (as the featured image; click through if you're reading via RSS). This is SteelyKid and The Pip at play this morning, when they were back and forth across the yard a dozen times to pick up rocks from our gravel path and throw them into the pond (just behind them in this picture). They're such sad and solemn children.

SteelyKid seems to only get more social as time apsses-- at soccer this morning, her coach asked rhetorically why they stretch before playing, and got a five-minute spiel about getting hurt and being safe and this one time at preschool that they were in the gym and somebody didn't stretch out and they got hurt and that's why... She's also getting to be pretty good at swimming-- we were at the pool for an hour this afternoon, and she spent fifteen minutes going back and forth between me and the ladder in the 5-foot section, which was only a little terrifying when she insisted on "gliding" to the ladder without kicking...

The Pip is a busy little dude, who still tends to flail his arms like Kermit the Frog when he's excited about something-- watching him try to catch bubbles in the back yard was unbelievably cute. And he's talking more and more, now with frequent two-word phrases. And occasional lengthy outbursts of authentic toddler gibberish. The sooner he gets the whole language thing down, the better, because when he feels thwarted he tends to make the same noise as the Shrieking Eels in The Princess Bride...

And, just because I can, here's another photo from this morning; basically the same scene with better facial expressions but worse body positions.

Cute kids at play.

SteelyKid's fifth birthday is coming up, and the Big Party is next weekend. We're currently expecting something like 10-11 little kids, so it better not rain, because I hardly know where we'll put them in the yard, let alone in the house...