Catching up.

We've been busy! Here are a bunch of pictures to show you what we've been up to:

Taking care of baby dolls.


Adessa is an earthy-crunchy mom, and exclusively breastfeeds her baby.


We've been going to birthday parties!! Here's Gwen, Danny, and Adessa at Danny's first birthday party. Adessa can say "Hap-birthday" and sing most of the song, and loves to play birthdays, with imaginary cake and candles to blow out. Fun, since we've a plethera more birthdays coming this season.


Cooking!
Sporting our Grandma-Beck-Made matching bumble bee aprons, we are cooking now! (Yes, yes, I know, it's baking!) Cookies!


Measuring. Most of the ingredients made it mostly into the bowl.


Stirring. (She now stirs everything, her Cheerios, yogurt, soup, whatever)


Tasting the batter, the best part.


Adessa also helped make and taste smoothies. Lots of messy yumminess.


...And her winning grin. It's rare to photograph her giant smile. I'm convinced that digital cameras are the worst thing for photo albums ever, as I always capture the moment right before or right after she gives a dazzling smile. She smiles when she hears her favorite songs, when there's anything sweet to eat, and especially when she sees herself dressed up in the mirror, like...


...when trying on my earings.

Time for more pictures!

And... it's a girl! Baby #2, night-kicker, daytime-thumper, belly-stretcher, heartburn-contributer... is a girl. 8) The hunt for a name begins, and after "Adessa" and the instant yes-ness of the name, we're having more trouble with a second girl's name. We're trying out A names, with three syllables to go with Adessa, and trying out fancy unique names, and trying out saints names and biblical ones, maybe to tweak like we did with Adessa. We'll keep you posted and alert all when we land on the right one. Meanwhile, my belly grows and here's Adessa:

"Hold you!? Hold you!?" is both how she asks to be held and how she asked to hold baby Alex. He seemed more pleased with the arrangement than she, in the end.

Daddy and Adessa checking out what's cooking on the stove.

Admiring herself with glasses on. It's become difficult to get a picture of Adessa smiling. I'll work on it for blogland, and for posterity, but she'll say "smile!" when she sees a camera without smiling at all.

At the beach. (Kind of obvious, I guess. I think those may be Jesus's footprints)