Beauty Parlor

Remember calling it beauty parlor? Such a funny name...

Ella was the stylist.

Berry Picking

Little Miss wouldn't settle for sitting on the ground, or walking around. She insisted on sitting as close as possible to the berries...and eating as many as possible.

She also insisted on dumping everything else from the wagon, excepting her water.

Sparse blueberries

The girls waiting for me to pick just one more pint of strawberries

June Catch-up

Clearly I have been slacking on the blog-writing these days. So many things to document, and just haven't sat down to do it. I'm just going to post a link to our June 2010 album on Picasa for an update, and hope to improve for July and beyond!

Photos HERE

New Pool

We were ahead of the game this year and bought a decent kiddie pool back in early May. Hasn't gotten much use yet this summer, as we've probably had 5 days of sunny weather. But, when we have used it, the kids love it. Especially Quinn. No fear craziness in the water~ kicking, splashing, sliding, bubble blowing, walking, falling, etc. Ella spends most of her time sitting on top of the slide so Quinn can't. Still working on that sharing thing...

Four Steps

Standing...

Step One...(switch camera to video)...

Step 3, Step 4, Crash

Cape Lookout

Looking down to the campground from the top of Cape Lookout (above the mass of trees in the photo)

At camp with my girls. We lucked into a yurt in the State Park and slept fairly comfortably on beds with heat. Definitely the way to go with little ones!

Despite the crazy rain in Portland, we were able to squeeze out 36 hours of sun from the weather gods at the beach. I think it was our determination to have fun despite the rain that earned the reward. Quinn was a wild woman crawling around on the sand, following Ella and Greg around as the "Baby Seal". The crawled around with their hands in Greg and my flip-flops, and Quinn tried to use Ella's crocs, before giving up and barreling across the sand to catch up. As I said earlier today, our little baby is quickly becoming a big toddler.

Ella and I got to spend a couple hours on the beach together while Quinn napped and Greg tended to the fire. It was so fun to have some alone time with her. She promptly stripped off her pants and boots to "feel the warm sun on my legs" and busied herself scooping sand. Once the bucket was full, I turned it over, and she'd send me off looking for "treasures" to decorate her castles with. We were the only ones on the beach for most of the afternoon. Just one of those memories I'll hold close to my heart forever. Such a sweet girl.

On our short hike up to Munson Falls. Oh my, the green in here was amazing. Maybe it is the Arizona in me, but these greens are startling to my eyes. The half-mile walk was Ella's warm-up for our attempt at the 2.5 mile hike out-and-back to the end of the Cape the following day. We made it about 1.5 miles out to a beautiful-enough lookout for a picnic, before we turned around and hiked out. The trail was really muddy, and our girls were really heavy. And Ella hiked about a mile on her own!


Anyways, we had a great trip and feel so hopeful for more trips like this during residency~Turns out camping with our kids is 110% worth the effort.

Many, many, many more photos HERE

Boise

Today was Greg's first day back to work after an 11 (!!!) day vacation. Boo. But, we had such a great vacation, visiting so many people and doing so many things that it seemed like a few weeks went by. First stop, Boise, Idaho to visit Great-Grandmama, and Great Lizzy and 3/4 of her family. The weather was crazy cold and rainy while we were there, so we spent most of our time inside chatting and catching up. We went up to Garden Valley for a night and ate dinner watching the snow fall. It was so beautiful, but I have to say I never thought I would see snow on our anniversary! Katie and John, Greg's cousins, took us out to the Dirty Shame for drinks and we made it until almost 2 am. Thanks Lizzy for being such a generous babysitter! We also got to spend a good amount of time with Great-Grandmama. She got out some of Lizzy's old dolls and doll furniture, a bunch of teddys, and even her own doll for Ella to play with. It was such fun to see her interacting with our girls~ even getting down on the floor to read books and color! Greg was thrilled to take the old MG out for a couple spins in the neighborhood. Ella and I joined him for a ride on Sunday. We had a wonderful trip, and are so happy to have finally made the trip to Idaho with the littles.

In Garden Valley, the morning after the snow.

Tinnus the MG

Great-Grandmama and Co.

Great Lizzy and Ella on the old rocking horse (Grandpa's? We don't remember the history of this, someone could comment with the details)

Quinn Update

In all of our general busy-ness (and a little bit of my laziness) Quinn has made some big strides. No, she's not walking, but she is standing on her own, using sounds with meaning (Ba-ba=bottle, food, Ella's juice; MaMa; DaDa; DA-da=doggie, bird; Cheeeee=cheese for the camera) and a whole lot of grunting and reaching to get her desires across to us, climbing, growing teeth (7 total now), clapping her hands in excitement, putting things into containers and taking them out, stacking items, going feet-first down some things (but not the stairs yet), gives kisses. She seems to have reached a milestone where all kinds of changes took place, and all of a sudden our baby is turning into a toddler.

Photos by Ella

Self-Portrait

Action Shot

In which Quinn slimes the lens...and after, she tries to take a close-up of a banana chunk, and super-slimes the lens. Camera on sabatical for a week...

Say Cheese MomQuinny (& Mom's armpits)

Just a few amid literally hundreds of pictures of the grass, rocks, weeds, flowers, her own feet and legs, etc. We're working on focusing, she doesn't quite have the patience. Maybe we need an SLR?

Breaking the Silence

I haven't been feeling the blogging mojo lately, but here are a couple cute videos of Quinny:




We have been busy and have lots to report on/show photos of...maybe this weekend I'll have time?