9 Months

So this is what 9 months looks like?

Where you are the center of their world & mine too.

Where muscles never looked so darn cute.

& the expression, "I slept like a baby!" must have come about because of you.

You love to clap your hands whenever you do something awesome.

You can pull yourself up on everything and you have even started taking a few steps with my help.

We had to lower your crib. Now we wake up to you standing in your crib.

You love music. You play on your little piano as much as you are able & when your sister practices piano you want to be right next to her.

You love it when I sing to you. You sing along in your own sweet way.

You wave hello to people & then when they say hi back you get shy & hide your face in my shoulder while you take peaks to see if they are still watching you.

You also have 2 teeth now. Your new favorite is tiny pieces of bread.

You are by far much rougher than any of my girls. With that being said you snuggle me up like none of my girls ever would.

I love you little Oblio!

On Slowing Down

 First day of Spring 2011. Seriously?

Melted snow 

Signs of spring 

Water on grass in my backyard

We are back in business folks! Computer wise that is. After a few months of Internet problems & a computer that kept shutting off intermittently we decided it would be best to take our Mac in before our warranty ends. Good thing too (more on that later). Before we took it in we even had the Charter man out here over a dozen times trying to fix our Internet. I'm not kidding. The little ones were waking up in the morning asking if they were going to get to see Dan that day. Poor Dan, he rewired our house from the crawlspace to the power poll & things still weren't working properly. Our dear friends backed up our computer for us (thankfully) & dropped it off to be fixed. After 2 weeks & no word on how the computer was coming along I decided to call. The guy was like, "Looks like it's a software problem & we are working on updating it." Really? Software problem? So I asked if software problems would be causing the Internet to shutdown, discoloration on our computer screen, ghosting (where the image stays even when it's no longer there), & a couple of other things. He said they should probably take another look. Good thing they did. They basically replaced most of the inside of the computer including the hard drive. If we didn't have the warranty it would have cost us almost $800 in repairs. So grateful we had it. Everything is working so perfectly now.

To say I didn't miss having the computer would be a total lie. I will admit the first 3 days I found myself walking over to the computer desk. Really! I was like a druggie looking for his fix. Then came the withdraws. The 2 days of sulking. Poor me, lol! Then something magical happened. Silence. A chance to listen to life, children, my imagination. A chance to slow down. I hadn't even realized that my life had been so sucked into this modern contraption. Where had I gone wrong? Why had I allowed this to happen? The best wake up call I have had in years. I got so much work done, spent time with my girls, worked out, organized the kitchen, sketched, wrote out goals, & enjoyed the quiet. Enjoying the quiet is something that I usually have a hard time with. Now I crave it. So thankful I was forced into this realization. I strongly recommend this to anyone who might be struggling with too much media. It will only benefit you & your family. 

So over the next couple of days I plan on posting some fun pictures from the last couple of weeks. I look forward to catching up on all of your blogs too. I'm off to go play outside with my kids. Hope you enjoy the rest of this beautiful day!

St. Paddy's Day Nerds

The 4 nerdos all in a row.

(Nerd #1 is holding Oblio)

Nerdy nerd #2 

Nerdlet #3

Little Man Poindexter

(Nerd #4)

That about wraps up the St. Paddy's Day Nerd update for this year. Now back to your regular shenanigans.

P.S. We've been having some major problems with our Mac. I'm pretty sure something inside has fried. It gets way too hot. I'll be taking it in this weekend. So I won't be around for a week or so. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Can't wait to share pics of all the projects I'm almost finished with when I get the computer back. 

Pirate's

Playing pirate's on Daddy's truck. All hands on deck!

Pirate Aris & Pirate Zoe

"Ahoy Matey's!"

It all ended with a little suntanning on the "beach". I love these little pirates!

Greenhouse

Saturday my sweetheart turned 34.

Dean hates birthday's almost as much as he hates going to the Doctor. If he could he'd skip them both. Alas he married a girl who loves holidays & birthdays (Dr. visits, not so much) so I like to celebrate. He spent most of the day putting up the greenhouse. It's been on his list of things to do for a few weeks now. Just had to wait for the right weather. We have had some pretty crazy wind & rain with the occasional snow storms over the past month. Saturday started out warm & sunny & by the end of the day it was cold & windy. Dean had just enough time to get everything done that he needed. All he has to do is to hook up the water, electric, & to fill up the tank for the heater. This shed is amazing. What I didn't know was that Dean didn't even do work for this. I misunderstood. He has often traded his labor for materials on side jobs after work. This, I found out was a throw away from a man who bought a home up at Tahoe. Dusty (our family friend that you see helping Dean put the shed up) helped to clear out almost a whole hose of stuff that this man didn't want. He asked Dusty to throw the greenhouse away or give it to someone that would use it. He just didn't want it. This is a pretty common occurrence up at Lake Tahoe. Property is so expensive that often people will by a perfectly good home, knock it down or gut it & start over. Almost everyone wants new. So this greenhouse was free. FREE!!! We would have never in a million years have been able to afford something this nice. We are so grateful to Dusty for thinking of us & passing it our way.

Dean has already started quite a few of our seeds. We chose mostly heirloom seeds from two different catalogues. The first was Seed Savers Exchange the second was Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Both provided wonderful customer service & seeds were shipped quickly. Why did we decide to grow mostly heirloom seed? I'll be honest, we are new to gardening. However Dean really does his research & he liked the idea of growing a piece of the past. We are growing things that you can't find when shopping at the market these days. It's also fun to try new varieties. Some of these seed varieties date back to the early 1800's. We also like the idea of being able to save our seeds after a harvest so we can keep the cycle going. I know all of this isn't easy but both of us feel a real pull to get back to basics. Do any of you have garden plans this year? I'd love to hear what you plan on growing.


Next on our list of things to do for the back yard (I say our but Dean does most of the work ;) is to build the planter boxes & the chicken coop. The girls are so excited that we are getting chickens. I will admit that I'm kind of excited myself. We will start with 10 because you have to prepare to lose at least 3. Right now we're just deciding what breeds to get. 


Last but not least I'm halfway done with 2 illustrations & hoping to share a few finishes this week with you. I also have been working on a few projects that I can't tell you what they are yet, but as soon as I'm able I will share them with you. I've actually been pretty busy art wise, just haven't been able to spill the beans quite yet. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend & hope you have a wonderful week!