We are so excited about our new cousin, Baby Alice Vivian Dunlevy!  You are the baby cousin now, Alice, so Baby will be a permanent part of your name for at least two years.  We can't wait to see you in person (and congratulate you on your ability to read blogs when you are only hours old.)

For more info and pictures about Baby Alice, read here and here.  This is a very exciting Dunlevy day.  Nate has been planning to go to Indy on Sunday after church for a Colts preseason game.  Now we have a reason to go with him.  We are coming, Baby Alice, and we are bringing presents. 

In other (though much less momentous) bloggable news, we present a couple of conversations with our soon-to-be-four-year-old. 

On Sunday night:

Me:  Ellie you need to share that toy with your friend.

Ellie:  Haugh! (Obeys, but makes a face and storms to her room.  This not being dramatic enough, she comes out a moment later and closes the door, which naturally, Scotty immediately opens.  Cries of frustration come from the direction of Ellie's bed.)

Me:  Ellie, you can take a minute to calm down, but you can't shut your brother out of his bedroom.

Ellie:  (Emerging from her bedroom and descending on the toys that litter the floor.)  Haugh!

Me:  What are you doing?

Ellie:  I just need to kick everything.

That's a classic right there, folks.  I thought Nate was never going to stop laughing.  This of course made Ellie laugh, and she went back to playing with her friends.  But we'll probably be quoting that line for quite some time. 

Today in the car:

Me:  No, I mean it, we had to drive instead of taking the train because taking the train would have taken a lot longer.

Ellie:  (very accusing)  Are you telling me the truth again?

Me:  Yes, I am.  It's important to always tell people the truth.

Ellie:  I don't want you to tell me any more truths.

Apparently she never hears what she wants to hear when I tell the truth.

We've been having a great time in Chicago with Leah and Pat and Bridgit.  We've been to the park, been to story time at the library, been to the pool (and it's a really great pool), been to the zoo, played in the sprinkler, and eaten ice cream every day.  As Ellie said today over her ice cream sandwich, "Living with Aunt Leah is awesome."  Nate took the camera today to the Cubs/Reds game, so I'll have to post some pictures another day.  But it's been great.  We head home tomorrow. 

Thanks to everyone who prayed for us this week.  We've had a pretty great week.  It was great having my mom here.  The kids love doing fun things with Gramma and I love having long talks at night...not to mention that it's just really nice to have someone around to spoil you a little.    I do want to post more on the activities of the week and post some pictures, too, but I'm going to wait on that until this weekend when Nate brings back my laptop.  We are very happy to be picking him up tomorrow.  It sounds like he had a really great week, too.

I have been wanting to post more about Scotty's latest antics.  I just really don't want to forget what a little love he is at this age.  So here goes, in the order that things pop into my head...

-He's crazy into Dora right now.  I just happened to put it on for Ellie once a few weeks ago, and Scott went nuts over it.  He begs for it every day.  He watches it with rapt attention, yelling, "Map!" and "Bapap!" and "Abe!" (that would be "abre," the Spanish word for open.)  He also gets really upset about Swiper the fox, and every time he is mentioned or appears, Scott yells, "No!  No, no, fof!"  I think that last is a combo of wuf and fox.  And he holds out his hand in the stop sign when he does it.  All in all, it's pretty hilarious. 

-His word count has gone through the roof in the last few weeks.  All of a sudden he's back to saying some new word every day, and it surprises me sometimes.  A few new ones that come to mind are "knee, nose, mouf, milk, meat, ME, MINE, happy, blue, pool, vroom.

-He LOVES the color blue, and points it out wherever we go.  Anything that isn't blue, is "nee."  I think that is supposed to be pink.  But he applies it to all colors but blue at this point.  The blanket he sleeps with is blue, so he calls that Blue now and wants to carry it around the house, occasionally laying down on it or cuddling it up to his face and making little cooing noises.  He really likes to get my attention before doing this, presumably so I'll say, "oh, how sweet."  Of course, I always do.

-He also just occasionaly smiles and looks around and says, "Happy."  It's so sweet.  I say, "Are you happy, buddy?"  He says, "Na-na."

-"Na-na" still means yes.  And "Noo-noo" still means Ellie.  And "Ses-ses" still means anything or anyone he recognizes but doesn't know how to say yet.   Though he does say so many more words now, most things still end up either being "nano" or "ses-ses."

-In addition to loving Dora and Boots, he also recognizes and clearly says, "Pablo" from the Backyardigans.  We hardly ever watch that show.  It's all thanks to Clark.  If Clark loves Pablo, he's good in Scott's book.

-He still loves letters and points them out everywhere we go.  He can correctly identify almost all of them, and he says about two thirds of them.  If he's trying to show you a letter and you don't acknowledge it, he'll just start shouting it over and over until you look at the amazing S or astounding A that he has discovered.  And he expects the proper enthusiasm to be shown.  A halfhearted "Um-hmm, A"  will not cut it.  He'll keep on shouting about it until you say, "Yeah, Buddy!  And A!  That's so great!"

-Lately he loves being a "rawr."  He can roar quite loudly and effectively.  This whole week he's been roaring at my mom and cracking up when she pretends to be afraid.  He and Ellie play that game in the car, too.  She's gotten quite good at the pretend fear.  He can't get enough of it. 

There are so many little things that I can't even remember them all right now.  This is just a really fun age.  I mean, I'm glossing over the encroaching signs that TWO is right around the corner.  But he just is such a big boy now and so fun and still so cuddly and expressive and happy.  I'm sure this is all way more detail than any of you needed, but like I said, I just don't want to forget these things.  Here are a few pictures of the huge little guy.

EDIT:  I just have to add a couple of things I didn't think of last night.  Again, these are mostly for me...

-When we say no to something or he gets disappointed, Scott has this way of saying, "Awwwwww" in a long drawn out way that is just like he's a kid on a fifties sitcom.  It cracks me up.  He just did it right now because I didn't jump right up when he asked for juice.

-He recognizes the long driveway that leads to the missions residence.  Every time we turn into the drive, before we can even see the building, he starts saying "ome, ome, ome"  (Home)  He loves home. 

-If he does get his way or gets permission to do something, he just lights up and often says, "Yay!!!!"  He also has a little dance of joy that he does.  We love it.

It's been a nice summer week.  Full of good summer things like swimming in the lake, swimming in the pool, cooking hot dogs over a fire, catching fireflies, and picking blueberries.  Maybe not quite as idyllic as it sounds, but still solid summer goodness. 

That last one is Ellie with her bug catcher.  She was so excited about lightning bugs.  We've been spending tons of time with our cousins this week.  That is always very happy.

Um...Scotty was at the blueberry picking, too, just not that interested in posing.  Naturally, he spent this time doing this:

In my terribly uneven blogging, I know I've sort of skimmed over several weeks.  I would like to say that our June and most of July was sort of insane on the traveling front, but everyone held up really well.  I hate to sound melodramatic, but it's almost impossible to overstate how different things are for us all emotionally now versus last fall.  I feel incredibly thankful (and yes, a little odd and out of place) to be blogging about lovely little commonplace summer activities.  Anyhow, there's no catching up on all that's happened in those weeks I wasn't blogging much, but I thought I'd at least post a couple of pictures of our time at the big family reunion with Nate's mom's family. 

Yeah, the pinata was so cute it was almost disturbing to make your kids hit it with a bat, but the kids had fun.  And yeah, there were a LOT of people there, but it was fun to see some people we wouldn't have gotten to see otherwise, very fun to meet the newest baby cousins, and overall not really as crazy as it seems like it would be.  That's about all you can ask for from a family reunion.