TEN Months!

I can't believe we're so close to Ainsley being one. Where has the time gone? She's crawling, pulling up, cruising, and saying a couple of words. She's doing all kinds of things and everyday she does something new. The only thing she's NOT doing is sleeping through the freaking night. I can't catch a break on this sleep stuff.

Light at the end of the tunnel

...well, with the inside improvements, anyway. The backyard has had one small additional thing completed, but we're still waiting to start putting the 'stuff' back in.

We had our kitchen lights redone. No more fluorescent -- canned lights instead. So much better. And do make up for being more energy inefficient, I've started to recycle EVERYTHING. No seriously, I'm rinsing anything and everything and recycling it.





And for the yard, we've got a fence up top!

M-I-C-K-E-Y

We spent too many hours walking around Disneyland yesterday. We didn't take Ainsley, she stayed home with grandma. Avery lucked out and got to meet Mickey, Pooh, and Eeyore. This is the second time she's met Mickey and we've only taken her twice. We're 2 for 2!

Click the picture for the whole set of pics.

I know, I know

I am slacking.

My mom got married on Sunday. It made life stressful for a few days. All is better now.

Here are a couple of random pictures -- I haven't been a good photo-taker lately. I tried taking the girls to the park today to feed the ducks, and let's just say it's not easy to take pictures with a heavy camera and hold a baby with your other arm. I have a velcro baby right now. This too shall pass.

My brave little toaster

So first off, it was like 145 degrees today. No easing into summer here. While I sat and sweated off 16 pounds, I wondered if there was a point to putting more than a diaper/pull up on my kids since they were already hotter than Hell. I decided against it. All of these half-nude pictures will be sweet when they're older, right?

Then it occured to me that I've taken no video of Ainsley crawling and she's already pulling up and cruising around. She is definitely going to think I loved Avery more when she's an adult and we force her to watch the hours of boring video clips of Avery doing minute and mundane things like picking her nose for the first time and eating a roly-poly.

So while Ainsley was all toasty warm and almost naked, I thought I'd take a few shots to show how fearless this kid is. I told a few friends that I think I was meant to have girls because boys are so rough, and I don't think I'd handle them well.

It turns out girls can be pretty rough too -- or at least that's the first thing that popped into my mind today when Ainsley lunged for Avery's arm and tried to extract a pound of flesh as revenge for ripping a book out of her hands. She's a fiesty one, that Ainsley. Let's just hope Avery doesn't lose a chunk of her ear in one of their daily wrestling matches.

So first, she climbed up onto the little push car, and proceeded to roll it all the way across the floor like she'd done it a hundred times before. This, the girl who still loses her balance while just sitting right in the middle of the floor and slams her head onto the tile. She was so proud too... Avery about keeled over because she had to share the little car she outgrew over a year ago.


Then, I took out the little tunnel that Avery loves so much, and at first Ainsley wanted nothing to do with it. Then she watched Avery crawl through and laugh and scream like a banshee, so she decided she'd give it a whirl. I don't remember Avery warming up so quickly to the idea of crawling through this thing.


Oh, and check out the choppers!

Valley of the Dirt People

Tonight, we celebrated the fact that the major construction of our yard is DONE. Finished. O-VER.

We had a little crab-stuffed salmon with sauteed, julienned broccoli stalks and a couple of libations. Milk for the little one. The other little one was sawing logs. No really, we had some logs back there that needed sawing and she was busy slaving away.


Now the fun begins -- the actual putting back in of stuff we want, we like, we need. I cannot wait for this shit to be completely behind us. My front yard is laughable. We are 'those' neighbors. The ones with the crappy yard. Well, really, we just have dirt.

All of the dirt to the left of the cactus, sago, and maple tree is new:


The hill I stood on to take this picture is what we used to have with some decks built on top of it. We've gained quite a bit of useable land:


Our front yard last week. All of that dirt is now in the backyard.


And just for fun... Avery wasn't allowed off of the concrete until she put shoes on. She is a problem solver, that one.

In the meadow

Fairy wings and fuzzy boots