Dirty Girls

First, you may have noticed that I gave my blog a face-lift. Well, actually a face-widening, too, because I figured out how to widen the columns without messing up the layout. Wahoo!

Second, the baby ticker isn't completely gone. I moved it to the bottom of the page because it completely clashed with everything at the top. Gave me the shudders.

Anyway.

I went out to water the lawn on Monday evening and took Sophie out so Steve could study. For a girl who won't step foot in a cold kiddie pool, she's awfully brave around the hose. When I was spraying around, she ran up to the water and waved her arms around in it. Sometimes she walked right through, getting soaked in the process. She thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Then she thought it would be fun to go play in the dirt. Good thing we both had our cleaning/laundry day outfits on.

Attempting to kiss Miss Dirty Face. And I guess that's a decent shot of my belly, in case you were curious to see what it looks like now.


Soaked from head to toe. And cold, too. I stripped her right in the doorway and took her straight to the bathtub.

Picnic at the Temple

On Steve's birthday he wanted to pack up dinner (luckily he told me this before I made it) and eat on the grounds of the Oakland Temple. I love being up there with the music, the perfectly landscaped grounds, and the gorgeous views of the bridges and San Francisco. It's always so peaceful, full of the Spirit, and such a good place to escape from life.

It was nice to let Sophie play on some real grass, too. Not like the brownish green prickly mess that has become our front yard.

I find lately that she'll eat more if I let her do it herself. She's becoming so independent. I wonder where she gets it? ;)


She's learning how to sniff things. Or maybe she just thinks it tickles when she sticks her face in it. Not sure.

Announcements

1. If you haven't noticed, I added an "Email subscription" box to the side panel. Some of you use feed readers like Google Reader (my favorite), so you won't need this. For the rest of you who are still manually clicking on all of your friends' blogs to check for updates, I really, really, hope you start using a feed reader. It will change your life and save you a LOT of time. But if you still refuse, you can receive updates from here by email and it will save you a click.

2. I also took off the link to my Etsy store. I've spread myself pretty thin the last few months and my store has been frighteningly neglected. Running an Etsy store successfully takes a lot of time and attention -- both of which I'm short of. I quit making things and started posting more vintage items I picked up at estate sales, but then I quit going to estate sales.

So, I've decided to let my items expire (they expire 4 months from the post date), and maybe close the store after that. Learning to make jewelry was a fun little hobby that kept me busy for a while, but now I don't need another reason to be busy. I'll keep my supplies and make things here and there, but I won't be selling anything online.

If anyone wants anything from my store, just email me. I'll knock 50% off the clearance items and 75% off everything else. Instead of making you go through an Etsy transaction, I'll simply pull it out and give it to you. If you live far away, I'd be happy to mail it. Shipping is a flat $3.00.

Here's what's left... by the way, this group of pics isn't a link. Click HERE to go to the store. I'll leave a little reminder on the side panel where my Etsy gadget used to be.

Weekend of Parties

OK, I finally have some pictures to work with, so I'll tell you about last weekend in Idaho. How did end up in Idaho? I share my birthday with my grandma (dad's mom), and because she turned 80 this year and had a big ol' party, my mom offered to fly me up for my birthday. It was definitely one of the best presents ever. Thanks, Mom!

We were pretty tired when we arrived at 10PM Thursday night. Sophie did really well on the plane, which surprised me. (It definitely helped having an empty seat next to me.)

Friday was my sister's bridal shower. Sorry, I don't have pics. Dad wasn't there, so . . . that's my excuse.

Saturday was the big birthday bash. There was lots of food, family, and a bunch of my grandma's friends came -- some she hadn't seen in years.

We made these centerpieces for the tables and they turned out so cute! Probably the biggest surprise of the weekend was that the weather cooperated the night of the party. There wasn't any wind. Amazing.


There was a table set up with a bunch of pictures from my grandma's life and blankets she'd quilted. I love that wedding picture of her and my grandpa. They look so cute. :)

Here's some of the food. And here's Sophie pointing at the watermelon she spotted, which she loves (more on that later). And there's my other grandma's arm giving Sophie food, which pretty much sums up the weekend. Oh and my sister is way cute.


Here's a shot of the birthday girls with Mom and Sophie. My grandma and I both wore the same color. Kinda funny. Doesn't my grandma look amazing for 80?

K, here are a bunch of pics of Sophie. Yes, there were a lot of people at the party, but you'd never know by looking at my pictures (sorry). When there's a cute one-year-old in my life, she tends to consume every bit of my time, attention, watermelon, and photo ops.

Freshly awake from a nap and a quick piggie-tail fix.

I tried to get some cute ones of her sitting on the grass, but she was so preoccupied with getting every last speck of grass, dirt, and whatever else off her feet.


Um. My brother's a little weird. If I were Sophie, I'd probably turn the other way, too.




Sophie really, really liked the empty milk jugs sitting by the back door. (Yes, they're from the milk man, and yes, milk men still exist. How awesome is that?) And when it's after 7 and she escapes from a diaper change without her pants, I just let her go.


Sophie really liked this chair. Mostly because she could climb into it without any help. No, I didn't plant the book in her hands, that's how we found her sitting there. She also sat there on Sunday morning while my brother played the piano and quietly listened. Aww.

Speaking of Sunday . . . that was my birthday. My mom made me a cake. That made me really happy because I don't think she'd made me a birthday cake since I was, like, 12. (I sorta took over the birthday baking for the family when I was that age.) It made me feel all fuzzy inside. Ha.

Happy Birthday Steve!

It's a little late in the day. I've been playing catch-up for the past couple of days since we got back from Idaho, but here it is. (I'll blog about that later.) Happy Birthday Hon'!

Freshly deployed in Afghanistan and sporting a mustache. He could only get away with that if he was 10,000 miles away.

A favorite past time... and not aimed at anyone in particular, mind you. Now we have a full beard. Sigh...

Freshly shaven at my brother's wedding last summer. I like this picture a lot. You both look really cute. :)

I like this one a lot, too. It was taken at our wedding reception. As far as I know the photographer didn't tell him to do that.

Enjoy the last year of your 20s. (HA!) I love you, and I'm glad I married you. It's awfully hard to be miffed at you on your birthday, so all is forgiven. (Sorry I didn't make you a cheesecake. I wasn't done being miffed in time.)

Dressing and Grooming

Brushing Sophie's teeth has been an uphill battle since the beginning. The only way her teeth get somewhat of a brushing is if I give her the toothbrush and let her "do it" herself. Most of the time she just chews on it, but still . . . at least the bristles are touching her teeth.

This week she's started to notice that her little kid-sized pink toothbrush is very different from Mom & Dad's buzzing electric ones. Last night she decided she'd rather have ours. We found a clean head and gave it to her (turned off). She loved it. I turned it on for a few seconds and stuck it partly in her mouth. Sophie was surprised, of course, but then started giggling. I had the same reaction the first time I used on, too. It tickles like crazy until you get used to it.

This next picture is one of my prego-brain moments. I'd taken pics of Sophie and me in front of the bathroom mirror before because the light's good, and I can see when she's smiling. Today was a successful piggie-tail day and because she looked so cute, I wanted some pics of her. I was trying to remember how I did it, and for some reason I ended up taking a picture of our reflection instead. I threw it in because, hey, I look sorta skinny. You can't even tell I'm pregnant or see my bulging abdomen.

I don't know what's better -- neither of us looking at the camera or being able to see the camera itself. I'm such a dork.

Here's a little clip of us heading to the car this morning for a little shopping trip. Steve's parents came to visit on Saturday and brought her a doll. I'd planned on getting her one for Christmas, but I think before the baby gets here is better. She already gives her hugs, pats her on the back, throws (literally. . . we need to work on that) her into her mini-carrier, and puts a blanket over her. You'll see how well she's walking now, too.

Side note: Much to Steve's dismay I usually forget to change the video settings for when we're outside. That's why it's blue. I guess I just assume that it has a brain and can think on its own.

Sit, Sophie, Sit

This photo is a little fuzzy, but this is what I see about 30 seconds after putting Sophie in the tub. She knows she's not supposed to stand up, which is why she gives me a smirky little smile. (This isn't the smile I was talking about, but it's still pretty cute.) You'd think she'd learn after slipping in the tub a few times. Nope. She loves to walk over to the faucet and try to twist the knobs around. Luckily we live in the 50s around here where the faucets are old and hard to turn.

Names

Lately the popular question we get is "Have you picked a name yet?" Nope, we haven't. And chances are the little lady won't have one until after she makes her debut into the world. We (I) have made a list, and it's currently under revision and a one-by-one elimination process. No, I'm not going to tell you what some of them are. I really don't like telling because when people start spouting off baby names, you get one of three reactions:

1. A genuine compliment of "that's cute!", which is what I always hope for, but probably won't get every time.
2. A fake compliment of "that's cute!", which is lame because it's fake.
3. Either raised eyebrows, "huh", or "are you serious?"

Not that I have a lot of crazy names on my list or anything. (The baby will be born in Berkeley, so we would have a good excuse to give her a hippie name.) I just like keeping it a surprise. Or maybe I'm afraid of rejection. Ya, that's probably it.

To aid our hunt for names, I re-read my favorite name book: Cool Names for Babies (2003 ed.). I also swiped a book from PaperBackSwap. (60,000+ Baby Names by Bruce Lansky) I've never liked those all-encompassing encyclopedia-type name books, but I got one anyway. I finished wading through the girls names and . . . dang. I think this book is trying to be more than it should be. There are not only lame, sorta-lame, kinda-cute, and way-cute-but-everyone's-already-used-it names, but also names from lots of different cultures (Indian, Japanese, Swahili, Arabic, etc.). I'm sure those names are beautiful in their own culture, but honestly, I'm not going to be able to sleep at night if I name my daughter Fachalig.

There were some that simply floored me, and I had to give them some kind of an award.

Best meaning:
Radegunda (German) she who counsels regarding battling.
At least she won't get beat up on the playground.

Best "ring" to it:
Miao (Chinese) wonderful.
Here, kitty kitty.

Overall best of show:
Mehbooba (Indian) beloved.
Does this really need any comment attached? I think it speaks for itself.

Relief

I finished Breaking Dawn today, and I think I'm more relieved than anything. No more Twilight books. Hurray.

Yes, it sucked me in, but this book was more like watching a train wreck. I couldn't stop reading no matter how ridiculous it got. And just when I thought it couldn't get more ridiculous, I got through a few more chapters and found even more reasons why these books drive me crazy.

Sorry, this might be blasphemous to a lot of you who are crazy Stephenie Meyer (SM) fans. I guess I am one, too -- a fan. Just not crazy. She puts enough redeeming qualities in her books to tilt the scale towards making me want to read whatever else she writes.

If anyone cares to know how I feel about the Twilight books, including this one, read on. There aren't any spoilers. I'm not that cruel. I'll start with the things that drove me nuts so I can end on a good note.

Why these books drove me crazy:
Repetition. SM repeated things over and over and over . . . and over. And gave way too much detail about everything else. There are a few classic paragraphs that grace about every other page: "How beautiful Edward is", "How Bella would absolutely die without Edward", and "How Bella feels unworthy/not attractive enough/too clumsy/too mortal for the love that Edward has for her". I get it. You only had to say it once or twice.
Bella. The main character herself drove me more nuts with each book I read. She's overdramatic, recklessly self-sacrificing, and would be more at home in a Jane Austen novel. She is 18, so I'll cut her a little slack.
Predictability. Most of the characters in the book are very one-dimensional and extremely predictable. If it weren't for the crazy twists and turns in the plot, she would have lost my interest after the first book. I like to be surprised when I read.

Why I couldn't stop reading them:
SM's imagination. I loved the way she characterizes vampires and werewolves. Similar to the Harry Potter books, SM created a whole other world of creatures that no one knows exists. She put in so much detail and history, it almost has me convinced they're real. Almost. And after reading all the books, I feel like I'm a vampire/werewolf expert. Don't you?
Edward and Jacob. I felt torn between these two. And the fact that Edward is ridiculously good-looking was nice, too. It's going to be hard watching "Cedric Diggory" in the movie.
The end. Probably the only other reason why I lasted this long was because I had to know how all of this crazy crap ended. I hate reading books or watching movies of which I never find out the resolution. Even if they're way cheesy. I have to know. Now I do. And on a side note -- the end of this book did redeem itself from the ridiculousness of the prior 600 pages.

Flip Flop Lines

Yesterday we went to the park for about an hour and a half. I sat on a partially shaded bench while Sophie played. About 30 minutes into our park time, I realized I hadn't put sunscreen on her (it wasn't that hot - maybe 72 degrees - so I didn't think about it). After lathering her up a bit, she impatiently went back out to inspect the bark that covered the play area. Apparently it's a lot more interesting than the toys themselves.

A couple of hours after we got home, I realized that I should have put some sunscreen on, too. I checked Sophie to see if she'd gotten burned anywhere, but there wasn't a trace of pink on her. Just a couple of cute flip flop lines on her feet that hadn't been there before. I, however, was fried all the way up one side of my legs.

I love flip flop lines -- it's one of my favorite things about summer. Sophie's lines had taken her about an hour, and it wasn't even on purpose. Mine had taken about 2 months to get the point she's at, and I even burned a couple of times. Lucky girl's got her daddy's skin.