Golly the Dolly

Reason #1047 why having a second child rocks: no need to buy any new toys. Big sister's toys will do just fine.

Mia will spend ages spinning the wheels on B's doll stroller and banging her play pots and pans together. Her special favorite is Golly (B's chosen name for her doll). Mia can spend 30 minutes poking Golly in the eyes. She has those eyes that open when she's upright and close when lays down, and for some reason, they fascinate Mia. Pretty soon we'll need to get Mia a baby of her own because sibling fights are already breaking out over poor Golly the Dolly.

Beating the heat

Steve was in Orlando last weekend when summer finally arrived. Almost 90 degrees for two days straight! We headed to a local spray park to meet some friends and cool down.

B insisted on carrying the backpack with our towels and picnic stuff. It was pretty heavy. I think the other park-goers thought I was using my child as a pack mule. :)

The spray park. These are all over Tacoma and run all summer long. Have I mentioned how much I love this city?

Oh yeah, Mia eats sandwiches now. :) Apparently two teeth are all you need.

And just as quickly as summer arrived, it was gone. We're back to 70 degrees and I'm loving it. Why couldn't it have been this cool last summer, when I was pregnant and sweltering?

A few photos from Kendra's shower

Just a few pics from Kendra's sweet-n-breezy Hawaiian-themed shower last weekend. It was a celebration of her honeymoon destination of Kauai, Hawaii (coincidentally where Steve and I honeymooned!) thrown by her now-MATRON of honor Laura. I'd been thinking of her as MAID of honor, but just realized she's a "matron" now. Welcome to the club, Laura! :) We can be matronly together. :)

Bianca was so excited about the shower that I wrapped our gift in brown paper and let her decorate. She drew this pic of aunt Kendra all on her own. I absolutely love it. Even kinda looks like her, right?

Crazy about this photo.

This one too. Do I not have the cutest kids in the world?

Hey, sis, let's put our hands like this.

She wanted to drink from an umbrella straw, so we got her the least-breakable cup we could find.

Miss Mia, oh-so-feminine in her signature pose: leaning on one arm, ankles crossed :)

Kendra with her mini-doppelganger.

Tissue-paper bride. We won! Bianca loved this game, in fact, she was quite the little taskmaster and she had quite a vision for our dress. She kept saying TUCK IT IN! TUCK IT IN!

The fam.

Coconut cupcakes from Trophy--a sweet ending to a great event!

It's official

Yes, folks, it's true.

We have a perfect baby.

I know it sounds a touch braggy, but that's what we moms do. Plus, I'm only repeating what Mia's doctor said at her 9-month-appointment. So forgive me if I go on and on. ;) OK, I would, but I'm too tired right now.

Her doctor says we checked all the right boxes when we ordered her. :) She's very precocious (his words), and off the charts for development, even if she's only in the 10th percentile for height and weight.

She's very flirtatious with a smile (usually batting her lashes too) for most everyone. She entertains the whole family with long monologues of baby-babble, especially in the car.

She's also a girl after my own heart, in that she loves people and doesn't mind big noisy gatherings, but she doesn't care much for loud sudden noises. She got quite a start from one of Bianca's toy trains today, started bawling, and came streaking toward mommy. I, of course, love it when my little scardey-baby snuggles up to me.

I'm squeezing her a little tighter these days. I know we only have a few months of "baby" left before she turns into a toddler.

She's just a doll.

HT 26.25 (10%)

WT 16.5 (10%)

HEAD 44.4cm (60%)

Hello my name is Bianca, and I like to do drawl-ings

(The post title for any old SNL-Mike Meyers fans out there) :)


I'm crazy about B's drawings! I love watching them get better and more detailed every day. Here are a few recent ones:

Daddy

Mommy dancing

Mia. After she finished this one she announced "Oh the legs are upside-down!" with some disappointment, as if she had no control over the outcome of the picture. :)

Here's one from yesterday of Mommy. She's getting really good at drawing hair.

Here's a photo of Dad and B on the great, old-fashioned carousal at the Point Definance Zoo yesterday. Notice Dad picked the Cougar. :)

Clips

So. When I'm not chasing kiddos, I am a writer. That is, when I'm well-rested enough to cobble together coherent sentences, people sometimes want to read them. Pay me, even!

In my last "real" job as executive editor of WSU's Dividend magazine, I stopped wanting to hire freelancers to write articles because I wanted to write them myself. That's when I felt an inkling that maybe I should. But no, I thought. Writers are boring. Nerdy. They stare at a screen all day. That could never be me.

Well, folks, never say never. Cut to a few years and two kids later, and my fourth-grade teacher who swore I would be a writer someday is turning out to be right. (Thanks, Mrs. Larsen!)

Who knows where this journey will lead? The biggest revelation of having two kids has been how little time I have to do things I want to do, like work. But I'm doing what I can.

And I know I've been sorta quiet about this. My work time gets taken up with work, and I forget to actually tell people what I'm so busy working on. :)

Anyhow--I have lotsa clips up at my business Web site, but things are taking an exciting new turn. I'm now writing for some new publications, including parenting magazines around the country. The articles aren't always online, but as they pop up I'll try and post them.

I've majorly lost my momentum with the move and a crazy-busy summer, but I'm part of a writing accountability and goal-setting group this fall and I hope it helps me get back on track. That, and the buzz of seeing my work from earlier this year finally make its way into print!

I just posted two new articles over on the right. :) Happy reading and I've love to hear what you think.

Thurston County Fair

I'm so glad we made the trek down to the Thurston County Fair today. It's become a family tradition. This year, Bianca rode a pony for the first time.


The look on her face was priceless. She was so proud!

We also got to pet some other animals (lots of hand sanitizer involved!) and enjoyed our regular fair desserts--strawberry shortcake and crepes. Good food, good memories--an all-around fun family day!

Dinner al fresco

After two long years of storage at my mom's, our patio table was finally reunited with our outdoor chairs this weekend. Now it feels like we have our last piece of furniture here and we're finally moved in. Yay! Dinners outside--finally!

Mia's first watermelon...she tried it from every angle and decided it wasn't so bad.

Bianca had a fit when we tried to cut her burger in half, so we let her tackle a whole one. I think she got two bites in. :) Sidenote--we had some brisket left over from our grass-fed organic steer, and I haven't been in the mood to roast anything in the oven, so we had it ground it up for burgers. Definitely a cut above regular ground beef--softer, leaner, and more flavorful. Totally wasted on a three-year-old. :)

After dinner we moseyed out into the yard like we've been doing most nights. The baby swing is the only place we can "set" Mia outside for now, since she'd have a mouthful of rocks and dirt in a heartbeat if we put her on the ground. Luckily she enjoys it...even if her sister wants to share.

Sisterhood means never having to swing alone!