Christmas

Lots to write! I'm eating Adessa's Lindt chocolate reindeer whilst I type, to aid the creative process. (She enjoyed it, too, in the wrapper, she just had no idea it was edible. One of my better stocking stuffer plans, fun for the whole family.)

Christmas was great. We had a cozy family time, followed by a larger family time, and it was all around fabulous and fun. We are so thankful. Calvin had Christmas off, and the few days leading up to Christmas, so we were saturated in togetherness and love, and basked in it. All this thankfulness and feelings of blessedness caused a familiar reaction for me: fear. As Calvin went back to work the day after our lovely Christmas, I made myself cry (okay, well, I AM pregnant, remember) thinking about how sad it would be if he died on the job the day after Christmas. Or what if Adessa died, or if I died... it was no wonder that I was crying, really. I go through phases of similar scenarios in my head often, I think it's part of being a law enforcement spouse. Another officer's wife calls it "pre-grieving", we try to prepare ourselves at all times, for the just in case. Of course, you can't prepare yourself anyway, and worrying does no good, unless it just helps you to enjoy the present moment and be so glad for what you have. As I was trying to express this to my parents, my dad gave me this gift from the Psalms:

Psalm 127
Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
to sit up late,
To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.

Behold, children are a Heritage from the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of ones youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies at the gate.

Ahhhh!! The first section is exactly I needed to hear, though it is still hard to trust and let go of my fierce watchman tendencies. The second part reassures me that the Psalm was indeed meant for parents, though I have yet to figure out the last part about enemies at the gate. So I am thankful, for all that I have, and also so incredibly grateful that the Lord builds my house, and the Lord guards my city!! (So I've stopped eating chocolate and am crying again.)

A quick story about Adessa: (Because this blog acts as her baby book, as well as the life and times of Adessa and our family.) On Christmas Eve, the local fire department drives around the community with Santa waving to kids from a decorated fire truck, loud-speaking Christmas cheer all over our valley. Adessa likes trucks and lights, so when I heard the gravely "Ho-Ho-Ho, Merry Christmas" over the loudspeaker, I called for her loudly (was it a yell?) and went thrashing around the house trying to find her and get my shoes to try to catch the truck. She came running, perhaps at the urgency in my voice, and I scooped her up, no jacket or shoes and we dashed out into the rain. As I'm running after the truck's lights through the waterlogged tree leaves on the side of the house and in the substantial rain and near total darkness, with me laughing and trying to explain to Adessa what on earth we're doing, I finally tune into the word she keeps repeating as I run: "Scared. Scared." Ohhhhhh. Whoops. I stop trying to catch the truck, stop trying to explain, and scurry back inside where we belong. Poor girl! She was quickly reassured (especially by her dry, warm daddy) and then she spent a half an hour, truly, 30 minutes, trying to process the event. She told daddy over and over again, inches from his face--how she communicates when in earnest--the details of the story. "Running, mommy, wet, lights, truck, scared, raining." is how she told it, again and again with the words in different orders. Awwwwwww. Sorry to scare you, bunny girl! It gave me pause to think about the grave new responsibility of parenthood that comes with her increasing awareness. Yikes.

18 Months Old!

That would be Miss Adessa, one and 1/2 years old. It was on Friday, December 12th, and... what a nice day I had with her. She's had a miserable cold, and shared it with Calvin and I, and she has been miserable, it seems like for a few weeks.  She wouldn't play on her own like she normally does, and would follow me around asking to be held ALL THE TIME and crying about everything and throwing fits.  The crying and throwing fits sound like normal toddler behavior to me, and I was just kind of getting used to it and feeling like I'd figured out how to ride them out, when... Friday, she got better!  She felt better a few days before that, played and had more energy, and then on Friday we had smiles and playfulness and laughter and cheerfulness!  Amazing! It was so nice to enjoy her, to enjoy being with her and to see her cute personality again. Sheee's back! (Hopefully). Since Friday we've had some tantrums, but overall she's agreeable and nice to be around. 
We have some quickening happening in my belly to report, also!  For about a week I've been feeling the tiny kung-pow of Baby #2.  He/she seems to be active, as I feel him/her frequently, and as the last time I went in to hear the heartbeat, we could also hear the chop chop of movements in my womb.  Pretty exciting! 

Enduring a visit on St. Nicholas's lap.



This was the face she made even before she figured out I would let her eat candy off of her Gingerbread House. She loves it and visits it often in her laps around our house. Sadly, she was unable to help me make it because I put her down for a late nap after a GIANT fit when I cut off her candy intake during the making of the houses. Maybe next year!

Baby, It's Cold Outttt siiide!

So far Adessa's favorite Christmas song, or at least the one she joins in and sings with, is "Baby, It's Cold Outside." She mostly chimes in on "cold outside" and it is so very adorable. She loves our Christmas tree, and waves to it in passing, says "Hi" and "Bye" to it, and enjoys decorating, undecorating and redecorating the lower layers of it's lovely branches.

Thanksgiving, quick, before it's Christmas!

Getting ready for a nap in our lovely room compliments of cousin Josh.

Color!? Color!? That's what I hear before Adessa carefully splays out on the floor to color.

Off and on with baby Alex's socks!

We have fish! Two goldfish and a betta. Feeding time is a highlight of our days.

This year we road tripped it down to Riverside to spend Thanksgiving with Calvin's sister and family. His parents came down, too, and we had a lovely time mostly just hanging out. We tried out their Wii,(I liked bowling!) and went to their neighborhood park every day (Adessa was in heaven) and ate ourselves silly. It was great!

Adessa surprises me all the time with words she knows, she pops them out at the right time unprompted and it is amazing to watch her. First language aquisition, developing right before my very eyes. Fascinating. She's also getting super frustrated when she can't communicate what she wants, or when she doesn't get what she wants even when she communicated it perfectly. I am assured this is normal, but it is a bit bone-jarring to see her so upset, red and puffy and crying, and not be what she wants or able to comfort her. We're getting better at helping her through it, and we also see the benefit of preventative actions: our little lady can only handle so much. Only so much stimulation, noise, action, interaction, etc., before she needs down time and to recoup in a familiar setting, if possible. Good things to learn. 8)

Halloween, quick! Before it's Thanksgiving!

Major events going on around here, I've got to keep up! Halloween was pretty darn fun, actually. How amazing to find that holidays are exponentially more wonder-filled when experiencing them close in hand with a tot! Adessa didn't mind being dressed up (she made a lovely Tinker Bell) and thought it was great that we were visiting so many people. She (logically) thought that we were going to go inside every door we knocked on to trick-or-treat, and I got to see some very nice entryways and halls as I retrieved her. (The girl makes sense, so far in her experience when we go up to someone's door, we go IN!)

Adessa's now 17 months old, and talking up a storm. Her more surprising words, meaning it still surprises me to hear her use them correctly: belt, bug, cake, eyebrow, dirty, wash, home, watch, cook, cereal, meat! (loves meat), toast, jam, ewwww (as in, gross), and fish. Especially fish!

Ever since we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the girl just loves fish. She sees them everywhere, in anything that's slightly triangular. So our game lately is figuring out where she sees something fish shaped when she starts going nuts about fish.

We're doing a "Music Together" class for her first birthday, and she loves it. She tries to do the motions, loves the instruments, and jingles the jangles off the best of 'em. Very fun.

She concentrates hard on her self-appointed duties, like putting her socks on. (She has gotten a lot faster at it, but isn't consistent. Sometimes the effort is too great for her and only one sock makes it on. We're still pretty proud, though. I think she's ahead of the sock curve, not that there's any competition!)

I'm feeling so much better as I'm through the first trimester, everything about being a mom is easier, these days. Thank the Lord!

Adessa, Gwen,(lion) and Ryan(dinosaur) getting ready to trick-or-treat. We got them to sit still by feeding them-- which had them all in one place-- but made it difficult to get a good picture.


Yay! Dessa and Daddy. Calvin got off of work in time for some of the treats.


Wearing the Tink costume to a harvest festival. While she quite happily rode horses at Skylake, here I had to ride, too. Bonus!


Her dazzling smile. She is wonderful, full of sparkly smiles and glee.

Bonus Pics

Here are a few more, since I'm behind:

Hear no evil...


Speak no evil...


Smell no evil.

Blog stuff, Part 3, and finally: some pics of Adessa

Here's one more blog that's dear to my heart. I lost the address but it's now in my favorites, it's found!  Sweet godson Alex's life and times are recorded here.  He's already featured in our blog, and his mom Amy is my lonnnnnnng time friend (since she was born, lo those many moons ago, as our parents were friends back in the D-A-Y (circa 1976.)  Here he is: www.babycastillosblog.blogspot.com

And now, what I'm sure will be a refreshing respite from my ramblings, pictures of Adessa: 

No more posing for the camera. Now, when asked to smile, she gives me this:


Riding around the pumpkin patch with (second)cousin Henry.



Perched on pumpkins with friend Gwennie. (No, the pacifier didn't leave her mouth the entire time.) Kind of fun to think about, last year when we went, she couldn't even sit on her own and had to be propped against the pumpkins for photos. Progress!



Happy to be home and digging in her garden (consisting of last years old potting soil and empty pots--she loves it!)

I'm getting into this blog stuff! (Part 2)

I've been spending a small chunk of time online.  Even with countless hours, however, I have become no more computer savvy than when I started. So I can't do fancy links to the amazing people who's blogs I frequent. Here are my favorite blogs: 

http://www.andrewmatessa.blogspot.com/  This is the blog that got me started, I was inspired by my dear friend Barbara's lovely blog about raising her son, Andy.

http://www.livinglifewithspice.blogspot.com/This blog is a fun one from a friend I went to elementary school with who soon after moved to Arizona. She's very candid and funny, an old Mt. Hermon girl, Holly.

http://sarahburkett.blogspot.com/Another high school and youth group friend, Sarah, blogs about being a mom (to almost 3 kids!)and records the funny things her munchkins do and say. Cute!

http://www.therollins4.blogspot.com/This blog keeps us up to date on the best man from our wedding, Dusty, and his wife Arin and their kiddos, Anson and Ella. And from Arin of the last blog, I got tagged!  This means I have to list 6 unspectacular quirks about myself and tag my blogging buddies. Here goes!

Rules: 
Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
List 6 unspectacular quirks you have.
Tag 6 bloggers by linking them.
Leave a comment on each taggee's blog to let them know they've been tagged.

(Sadly, I have no idea how to do this.  I even tried but couldn't figure out how to link it, soooooo... friends, who are hopefully sometimes reading this blog, this is your only notification: You're tagged!! (If you want to be.) I hereby tag:  Sarah Jo, Barb, Holly, Amy K(don't have your blog address at all...resend as I haven't seen the updates!).

Unspectacular Quirks:

1. I greatly enjoy crunching fresh pine cones, redwood cones, or even leaves under my feet while walking around our neighborhood. I will go quite out of my way for a good cruch.

2. List making is one of my favorite things to do.  I have lists on small pieces of paper all over the place, mostly just writing things I need to do down is all I need for peace of mind when there's lots going on. 

3. I have to exercise in exercise clothes.  Especially tennis shoes, but I can't (and don't) consider it exercise unless I have on my sporty clothes.

4. I am an adamant night showerer.  I can count on one hand the number of times in my life I've showered in the morning. I don't sleep very well unless I go to bed clean.

5. Highlighters make me happy.  I just love color coding stuff. I use them at home, (on my lists), at school, I make the students use them, and my daily planner is beautiful with highlighted information.  Sometimes I just sit back and admire it. 

6! I read four or five (or more) books at a time.  This is probably because some of them I think I should read, for edification, or parenting, or school, and I don't go through them so quickly as the ones I just read for fun. That's it! Unspectacular! Quirky!

I'm getting into this blog stuff! (Part 1)

Just a few to share with you: http:/www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com I don't know how to do links, but type it in and go there! Everyone! I was laughing until crying, chortling to myself trying not to wake up napping Adessa the other day. The woman finds pictures of real, professional cakes with hilarious spelling errors or unintended outcomes, then writes super funny descriptions and explanations of why she considers it a "wreck." I also enjoy: http:/fakeinterviewswithrealcelebrities.blogspot.com, something about the lady just makes me laugh. There's a lot of time to be spent blog-watching, I'm finally catching on.

Getting into blogs means: the house is a mess, chores are left undone, I spend hours listless and still, I have difficulty sleeping, I'm not eating well, I feel nauseous often etc. Actually, that could also be because... drum roll please... I'm pregnant.

I guess this is going to be kind of a big blog, really. Comparatively to other blogs. Maybe I'll do a few parts, so as to give readers a break. Yep, 9 weeks or so pregnant, due May 11th. The baby and Adessa will be about 23 months apart (EXACTLY), Adessa's b-day is June 12th. Crazy! I had my first ultrasound to look at the tiny peanut's heartbeat, and it was going strong, praise God! (That's a good sign, means everything should statistically go well.) I have felt much sicker this time gestating than I did with Adessa, which I think is not just in my head. With Adessa, I felt like: "Oh wow, I feel terrible: how wonderful! I'm pregnant." Now I'm just thinking: "Oh wow, I feel terrible." Not that I'm not so excited about the second kiddo, no way, it is different though to have already been through it.

Adessa is doing well. I'm realizing that while I always love her, there are some points in our day when I don't really feel the mama-love so intensely. I think this is normal, and am trying to process it as so. I still kiss her a bunch because she's really soft, and I'm sure she can't tell that I'm not feeling so enamored of her. It's the back arching screaming thing I'm not so wild about, or the whining and crying that has urgency but no resolution because I can't figure out what she wants. Again, I think it's normal. And I think partly it's because I'm pregnant. Patience is minimal. Before, I could put her needs first and make sure she was absolutely and completely taken care of, but I'm less interested in doing that when I'm feeling nauseous and tired. Hmmmm.

On the other hand, she continues to have her sweet and darling moments and there are days where I am loopy with love for her. The other morning I was breast-feeding her in bed, and she was barely awake but said: "Thank you." before rolling over and going back to sleep. Yesterday, I gave her the top half of a banana and set about washing the dishes. A few minutes later she was sitting near my feet playing with a doll and the banana was nowhere to be found. I asked her several times where the banana was, she's normally pretty good at "where" questions, but to no avail. I picked her up to find the banana squished under her buns, she sat on it! This is sort of funny on it's own, but the background story is Adessa's fascination with sitting on things. She is experiencing her world right now by, yes, sitting on it. She carefully arranges her doll, pillow, activity center, puzzle, the bathroom scale, a piece of paper,mini-piano, whatever, and then slowly backs up to it with her rear end lowered, leading to her target, and sits. If she isn't exactly centered, she starts all over again to make a better sitting attempt. Quite funny. Apparently she got squared away on the banana the first time.

Skylake Camp

Last weekend we had the extreme good fortune of joining my Aunt Deborah and her family at Skylake Camp (Yosemite/Bass Lake). What a blast! It was like all the best parts of camping, the dirt, campfire, and slumber party effects remained, without the... worst parts of camping (we stayed in a tent-cabin, no tent set up, and all our meals were provided: no cooking or clean up!) It was fabulous, see for yourselves!

It's hard to see, but look carefully for Adessa's dirt-beard. Lovely.


Horseback riding! She loved it, we went around the ring several times on "Maxi". Adessa thought it the height of great adventures, but didn't want to hold on.


Basking in the shore-silt at Bass Lake.


Goofing around at camp.


Home Sweet Cabin.

Imagine my suprise...

...to wake up to this!


Adessa's hair is significantly sprouting, and we have the bed-head to prove it. She is so fun! She's starting to really immitate and respond to us. It's darling. If I say: "Eat your chicken," she says: "Bock-bock-bock". When I point to her scrapes and bruises, she says: "Owie". If I say "Did you make a poopie?" she says: "Uhhhgrrr" and grunts! It's so fun. I recently watched her take her (lense-less, plastic) Mr. Potato Head glasses and hold them up to her mouth to breathe on them, the way I clean my sunglasses. Funny girl! She tries to be helpful, and loves sorting laundry (unfolding it and dragging it all over the house), wiping things down (she has her own sponge) and being in my arms for all parts of food preparation (arrgg!). I keep catching myself getting frustrated by simple tasks that are normally no problem for me, and wondering, "Why is this so hard to do right now?" Then comes the light-bulb: "Oh that's right, I'm holding Adessa and only have the use of one hand, and she keeps leaning into my view to see things better. Now it all makes sense."

A little trip to Santa Monica

We spent our Labor Day on a lovely little trip down to Santa Monica for baby Alex's baptism. We had a great time meeting and holding and kissing baby Alex, and were so honored to be his godparents. Orthodoxy takes god-parenting very seriously, so we will be praying for Alex every day. Here's a great and amazing prayer in our prayer book that we use for our god-children and for Adessa: (I changed it a bit, to modernize the language.)

A Prayer of Parents:
O God, our heavenly Father, who loves mankind, and are most merciful and compassionate, have mercy on Your servants ___Adessa, Alex, etc...___ for whom I humbly pray, and commend them to Your gracious care and protection. Be, O God, their guide and guardian in all their endeavors, lead them in the path of Your truth, and draw them nearer to You, that they may lead a godly and righteous life in Your love and fear; doing Your will in all things. Give them grace that they may be temperate, industrious, diligent, devout and charitable. Defend them against the assaults of the enemy, and grant them wisdom and strength to resist all tempation and corruption of this life. Direct them in the way of salvation, through the power of Your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and the intercessions of his Holy Mother and Your blessed saints. Amen.

I love that prayer. Sometimes I add to the lists all the other adjectives and states I wish for them: joyful, kind, peaceful, merciful, discerning, etc. but they're kind of all included within it anyways. Anyhootie- we had a great time being with Alex's family, Amy and Ale, and his grandparents Rich and Laura, and hanging out in Santa Monica!

Alex's little family at the baptism.


Our little family at the baptism.


A school of fishy kites on the beach. Very cool!


Ale and Amy with Alex and Adessa.


Adessa eating breakfast (delicious beef stroggenof) with daddy on the balcony.

A Few More Firsts

First in cuteness!  First time allowed close enough to inspect the tomatos.First time picking a tomato. (She went on a brief picking frenzy, until I put the camera down and stopped her. I can see she'd be quite good in the fields, but sadly these tomatos were not ready. It will be her last time for a while.) Reading with Daddy in the kitchen. The list of firsts is slowing down, but to me, it's getting funnier.  We've now had Adessa's first dirty look (on Monday, August 18th for the baby book, after I asked her if she wanted more chicken.)  We loved her "first talking with her mouth full"  experience, (Wednesday, August 20th) as she was so adamant about talking and eating at the same time, and so suprised that food kept leaving her mouth as she lectured in gibberish.  She's pulled her first all-dayer (not so funny), where she resisted all sleep for an entire day, (well, all the way to 4:00, that's a longggg time to be awake for our bunny.) Her first molar has three of it's vicious barbs through her gum, ouch. She's started hurrying, which isn't quite running, but can no longer be classified as walking-- its an unsteady scurry.  She's started making faces to be funny that we've never seen before, her first show of creativity?  One is her with her lips pulled back into a small "O" over her teeth, I'll try to get it on film. Very funny.                                                                                                                                                                  Also funny are her words.  She's talking up a storm, some words appropriate for subject and time, some not.  It often sounds like Cantonese to me (Really! Like Joy Luck Club on video) with harsh r's and lots of zzz sounds. I've ruined her for thank you, though. She can say it, but since I say it when I'm taking something contraband away from her, she now says: "thank ooo" whenever she gives me something.  Whoops.  She's also become a weilder of the word "no". I guess it was bound to happen, but it sure is shocking to hear it amid her crying, "No no nononono no no."  Calvin was trying to use "Please refrain" but sadly, it didn't catch on.   

Summer Fun

Sharing a banana with Sadie.

Adessa's first pig-tails!

Posing with cousins in front of Mt. Hermon's waterfall.

Creek walking fun.

Like all teachers, as soon as the first day of August arrives, I start mourning the end of summer. School starts early this year, which makes it seem worse. I've really loved (as always) my summer, but especially with Adessa. It's been great to do things on her schedule and be a stay at home mom. I'm only working part time, again this year, which is great. Calvin will be able to do part of her childcare starting in October as his schedule changes and he moves out of the office and back onto the road, which is also great.

Adessa has had quite the parade of friends and family around this summer.  This week, her cousins from Riverside have been staying in Mt. Hermon, and they adore Adessa.  She adores them, too, but sometimes gets overwhelmed with their attentions.  She is trying to talk, still lots of mumbo-jumbo, that I respond to in Spanish, and more words: shoe, bubble, tree, cheese, more, wa-wa (for water), bah (for bath). 

Fun in the Sun!

Driving, driving, driving. We did a lot of driving. Adessa was a trooper, but was happy to be anywhere but in her car seat by the end.


Kissing baby Alex at our stop in Santa Monica. (Who's mom, Amy, is in labor RIGHT NOW (9:00pm, 7/29/08). We are excited to meet him and are praying hard!


Floating on the "Lazy River", part of our hotels water-park-complex-concentrated-fun-for-all-ages-extravaganza-spectacular-area. This photo captures one of the brief moments that Adessa wore her glasses.


Back at home, hooray! She's a walker, hooray! (July 24th she was using it as her preferred method to get around.) And another hip hip hooray for Adessa's first pony tail. Are you as suprised as she is?


Palm Desert was great, but... we learned many valuable lessons about vacationing with a child. It is interesting to see, though we've adjusted so much since leaving our old lives and becoming parents, there are still more paradigm shifts in store for us.

Our epiphany: Having a child is not relaxing. We didn't relax very much. Gone are the days (that we both somehow still expected) where we could sit by the pool under an umbrella with a book, jump in when it's too hot, get out and read some more. That was the previous definition of relaxing vacation for me. No time limits, long hours just reading and swimming, maybe a little snooze, some slight sun burn.
Not so with a kid. She didn't last countless hours by the pool, she could be depended on for about one hour, and then we were taking our chances. And the naps! At home, naps are wonderful respite, because she sleeps and we get stuff done around the house. In our (lovely) hotel room, however, she slept and we waited for her to wake up so we could turn the light on, or took turns at the pool or workout room, but always with a time limit.

Interesting. It left us wondering about our next vacations. Probably won't be going to 108+ degree temperature places any time soon. We've ruled out camping for the forseable future. We don't particularly enjoy trying to eat in restaurants with Adessa. Hmmmm... We might be enjoying our time off from home for the next few years. And I look forward to reading, care-free, when our kids are...in middle school? teenagers? married?

Tahoe Family Vacation 2008

Before we left: (We hadn't downloaded pics for a while, these are catch-up.)

Her blueberries are so bright, she has to wear shades.


Is she posing? Looks like she's posing, in a tree, in San Luis Obispo. (We went the other weekend for a friends wedding.)


Tahoe
At Moon Dunes Beach, North Shore:
Bathing beauty, see how she basks.


We love Tahoe!


She did great on the car ride, too.


We had a terrific time in Tahoe. Adessa had a terrific time, especially. She loved the sand, the beach, the water, her cousins and aunts and uncles, all the stairs to crawl up and down in our condo, the pool,the rocks and sticks, and the boats. She has two new words: boat and Noah, thanks to the exposure in Tahoe to both.

This is a big post, really. Today Adessa is 13 months, 1 & 1/12 years old. And sometime this week, she got up and walked. She started standing up on her own, and then it was a few steps towards someone, and now she's taking steps here and there all over the place and falling down in between. Her greatest amount is probably around nine or ten steps, and sometimes she prefers to crawl or be walked. Its cute to watch, her walk is very wobbly, with lots of pausing and balancing and almost falling over. But it's walking!!

Terrible Ones?

I'm sure it's not really terrible, yet, or as terrible as it could be.  However, we're having some shrill shrieks, some head-thrown, back arched, body stiff, all around tantrums. Hmmmmm. Interesting. Adessa's realizing she's separate from me, wants to be and doesn't want to be at the same time. She also realizes there's a wide world of pretty, yummy things, and she wants them all Right Now. So far our parenting strategy has been to watch with eyebrows up, bemused and slightly irritated. Mostly, I miss the sweet thing she was, really thought I had parenting sewn up. Not so much.

She's also progressing like mad, much more steady on her feet but still not walking. She says: ball, oww, eye, hi, mama, dada, Li-Jah (for Elijah), and barks for dogs. She signs: more, bird, milk, and all done.We're going to Tahoe next week and are so excited to hang out by the lake and let her play in the sand. We'll have lots of pics and stories. 8)

Watching the neighborhood.


Our favorite gypsy.


Bathtub fun.

Here are the teeth!