Happy Birthday Corpsman!

Putting Andelynn down for a nap is kind of a gamble.  I never really know what I will find when I come out.  So I was not a little alarmed when I couldn't actually find the Vivs or Raferoo at all the other day . . . They are getting quite creative in their hiding places.

 If I haven't taken my phone in to read on the Kindle app while I feed Annie to sleep, it's a pretty safe bet Vivien will have it.

But every now and again I come out and they're drawing nicely together.  I rather liked this one Vivi did.  "Rafe is yelling in my ears."

I like the art station.  We were all water coloring the other day and I decided to paint one of Rafe's favorite toys.  

 Today was Father's Day and Vivien drew her daddy a special picture.  "Dancing on the lawn in the moonlight with bathrobes but no shoes."  The dots all over Daddy's face are moles.  We also made him a little decor for his office.  Vivien stitched the border with yarn, Rafe arranged the nature treasures into a heart, and both of them helped glue together a paper collage out of which we cut the D, A, and D.  They had a lot of fun working on it and presenting it to Drew.  We love him very much!

 Rafe had a couple of good funnies this week.  He's been walking around snarling, "I will not be the weak link of the mighty dynasty!" at random.  I think Prince of Egypt might be his favorite movie.  He also likes to come get in bed with us in the morning, but he doesn't do morning snuggles very well.  After he jumped on my stomach I told him it was time to get down, but Annie was already up and crawling around and he protested, "Baby will suck on my germs!"

And here's a sample of how he sounds 50% of the time right now.

  Andelynn is a cuddly baby.  "Yes, cuddly.  Oh that's me to a t!"

 And a squishy one too.

This is her favorite game to play with Mom.

And this is her favorite game to play by herself.  Except I have to stand close enough to catch the lamp if it topples.  Rafe pulled it over on himself when he was this age and the shade shattered all over the apartment.  

 The Corpsman Ball was this weekend.  It's like a big birthday party for the Navy Hospital Corps.  The program was really good this year; lots of stories about hospital corpsmen the speakers had known who had given their lives to take care of their marines.  Here is Handsome Drew with Mario Bencivenga (the Occupational Therapist friend that's helping me with my arm) and HM3 Derkovic, with whom Drew works closely in Prev Med.

 And here is one of my favorite green side corpsman I worked with when I was a nurse at the clinic, HM3 Medina.  She's maybe 5 feet tall, so I had to "go short."

 And heeeere we are together, together, together, oh heeeeere we are together, my Lieutenant and me.

 I took other pictures with other friends, but not on my phone.  So, here's a picture of the awesome bug we found on our car on the way home instead.