The tale of the leaf-diaper

While we were out in the backyard one evening, Julia decided she wanted to give her doll a new diaper. But we didn't have any diapers handy, so we suggested to Julia that she pretend. I handed her a small leaf and told her to pretend it was a diaper. She said, "It's a leaf!" I said "I know, but lets pretend it's a diaper." She gave me a quizzical look, and then gamely tried to diaper her doll with the leaf. After a little trying she said, "It's tricky! ... It's a leaf!" A cute moment for sure.




Giving up on that, she decided to practic climbing the furniture...






Meanwhile here's Andrew doing Tummy Time.

Julia and Andrew enjoying each other in the backyard

 

Test video post

I don't know what I'm doing yet... so bear with me. Lets see if this works. First I'm going to try to embed the video in the post (click on the play button in the center middle of the screen.) If it doesn't work for you this way, I'm also including a link to the video on YouTube (click here).

Sunset at Joshua Tree

While we were in Big Bear Jeff took a side trip for a night to Joshusa Tree. He captured a great picture of the sunset. See it here.

Introducing our new minivan

Well, okay, i'ts actually a Ford Expedition. But I think I will affectionately refer to it as our minivan. Jeff loves that! Here he is with his brand new vehicle:


Pedestrians, watch out!


Julia is only as tall as it's tires!


While I'm not thrilled by the large size and terrible gas mileage (who in their right mind would buy something like this now, while the world is at war with oil producing countries and the everyone else in CA is converting to hybrids??) I must admit the 3rd row backseat will be handy, and having 4 doors will be awfully nice when it comes to getting the kids in and out of their carseats. Plenty of room in this vehicle for Jeff and I and our 6 kids! Plus camping gear!

We will be selling the Ford Bronco which Jeff had been driving. While it may be a great utility truck for hauling lumber and 4 wheel driving in the Sierras, it's definitely not family friendly. Anyone interested? We're taking offers...

Starting a new blog for my quilting

I decided I wanted to see all my quilts together in one place, and tell the story of my quilting (inspired by Aunt Cheri's quilting blog). So I got on a roll and culled through all my pictures from the past several years to find pictures of my quilts. I threw them up on a blog, which you can see here. I'm also adding a link to this blog on the right. Hopefully I'll have time to continue quilting and add more posts over time!

If you check out the new blog, it might make most sense to start from the bottom (first post) and work up.

Andrew Smiles

 

4th of July Fireworks at Big Bear

Click here to see a slideshow of Jeff's images of the Big Bear fireworks display.

Enjoying Big Bear Lake

Nana took Julia down to the lakeshore and they dipped their feet in the water:

And then we went out on the Holman Party Boat where Julia helped Grumps drive!


Both Julia and Andrew wore life jackets. Julia wasn't a huge fan of hers, but Andrew didn't seem to mind despite the fact that it squished his face. He fell asleep, believe it or not, and slept almost the whole trip.P.S. What a great picture to get me motivated to shed my baby weight! I'm going to print it out and tape it to the refrigerator... : ) Aren't you proud of me for being brave enough to post it?

Meeting Kira

We are in Big Bear visiting Jeff's parents for the 4th of July week, and Brad, Kim and new baby Kira came as well. We were so excited to meet Kira. Here are Andrew and Kira playing together for the first time. Kira is about 3 months old, and 6 weeks older than Andrew.