Maybe she's just trying to fit in.

After all the iPhone mania around here, Lucy has become a Mac Baby, or is it, MacBaby?
Her product line contains the following:

iDoIt
iHoldIt
iHelp
iHaveIt
iSwing

Maybe it's the influence of all the apples.

*Check out the story of the tattooed apples here.
If I ever have an apple tree-you can bet I'm doing this.

Creativity part 2

Grammi gave us a wonderful book called, 101 Easy Wacky Crazy Activities for Young Children, by Carole H. Dibble and Kathy H. Lee. There are a lot of ideas in here for younger (toddler) and older (elementary) kids. I made a list of the ideas I want to try with Lucy and came up with 16 ideas I really liked for her abilities. It's a great way to have some fun, creativity and learning. Today, I made the play dough. Excuse our jammies and undone hair---projects tend to always happen that way.

I thought this recipe for play dough was really great. It's the only one I've tried, so I don't have anything to compare it to except store bought dough and I thought it was very close. So here it is: 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 1 T. oil, and 4 t. cream of tarter. Mix it together (it was really sticky, I was nervous) microwave on high until it's the desired consistency, stirring between each minute. It took us 4 minutes. We played with cookie cutters (again, Thanks Grammi!) and made some animals. We will definitely be doing this again.

Pudding Painting

See how she...

adores him.

Happy Father's Day.

Dear Macro

**PLEASE, click to enlarge**


I love you.

I love shooting in macro. It is my favorite function on the camera. Whenever I take pictures of an event I try to take a couple macro shots in order to give some depth to the project. I feel like I can remember the details of the event better. I also love it for photographing food, it's perfect for blogging. It doesn't work so well on toddlers b/c you need a fairly still subject and toddlers are the antithesis of still. So, someday, when my ship comes in, and by ship I mean Digital SLR...my first lens purchase will be a macro.

Love, Anna

It's not flowers or chocolate but...

it might as well be. Tony found a great deal on a new hard drive. I have been in desperate need of more storage for pictures and music. I had only 12 gigs left on my current hard drive.

Welcome to the family, Tera.

Swing Swing Swing

She likes to swing...

Not only does she like to actually swing, she likes to just sit there, not moving, for a long time.

A bad memory.

One year ago was my back surgery. My laminectomy. I remember saying, "at some point, this will all just be a bad memory." And, thank goodness, now it is. Today, at Playgroup, Jen and I were actually laughing about some of the funnier parts...remember the breast pump? What a year it's been. It's sometimes hard to remember that this was all part of the plan for me, even the retched radiation, and that it all started with something as sweet as this:



I still have to have periodic MRIs, but I have no other lingering symptoms or complications. I'm thankful for the perspective it has given me, but really feel like I haven't realized the true reason for the whole ordeal. I don't yet know what I was supposed to learn, I'm just glad it's over. I haven't been to the doctor in SIX MONTHS!!!!! YAHOO!

Thank you to everyone who brought over meals, did my laundry, cared for my baby, came and spent the night with me, came and spent the night with me in the hospital, came and spent the summer with me, drove me to doctor's appointments, called, sent cards, and prayed on my behalf. I definitley owe you one.

Talents

Today, Jen, some of the kids, and I, went to Music in the Park. It is one of my favorite summer traditions. I love the entertainers, the dancing, and being out amongst the people. The performer today was Guy Louis-he is my very favorite. He really knows how to get and keep the kids' attention and acts silly with them and encourages their dancing and singing. He seems like such a nice guy, someone you would want as a friend. It started to rain towards the end and I was actually prepared with a raincoat and umbrella (!) I took this cool picture. I LOVE to take pictures. Sometimes I like to go places just because I know there will be cool pictures to be had after. I almost always have my digital camera with me. I have tens of thousands of pictures on my computer. I think my obsession with photos has to do with my poor memory. I say, "I forgot," all the time. It's true, I just simply forget things really easily. I think by taking pictures I'll be able to remember events and people. Which is probably why I take so many of Lucy. I know her childhood will be short and so I must have zillions of pictures to document what we've done together. I have an exceptionally difficult time deleting pictures. I only delete if they're REALLY bad. I do spend some time cropping, de-red-eyeing, and otherwise improving my photos. I usually use Picasa because I am very intimidated by PhotoShop. I consider myself to be a relatively intelligent person but PhotoShop is an enigma. For my birthday this year, I got a new scanner and it came with some photo editing software, ArcSoft PhotoStudio. I decided to try it out today on this picture. It's not perfect, but I learned some valuable skills. It has many more applications than Picasa, not as many as PhotoShop but is somewhat easier to use...in my opinion. So, I've been thinking about talents and photography is definitley something I enjoy and will continue to improve. Here is the original photo:

I had a dream last night

Image by quinn.anya via Flickr

That I worked for Oprah. I don't know what I did, but I worked in a little cubicle. I dreamt that one night her car service was unavailable and she needed ME to take her home. In my dream she had a nice house, probably not as nice as it really is, but it was messy! There were papers everywhere and dishes and so I asked if she needed help. I offered to help her with the dishes. I knew that if I did the dishes well that she would be pleased and maybe I would be rewarded. So, I did them really well...she was organizing some props for her show the next day, of which the topic was gardening. She looked over my work and saw that it was good. She gave me a gardening book.

Can you say...

Creativity

Has anyone read the Toddler's Busy Book? Or something like that. Lucy and I are home most days and I'm going out of my mind trying to come up with new and fun activities that we both enjoy. We do go on walks and read a lot of books but after that I have a good chunk of the day where I'm tempted to plunk her down in front of the TV. Anyone have any good ideas? The above collage illustrates one of my finer, more creative MOMents. I made a makeshift water-table out of her table and some food storage containers and a cookie sheet. She loved it. I did too, but it lasted about 15 minutes. Moms out there, let me know if you have any good, at-home, ideas for fun before June, Quincy, Leo, and Annie get the better of us. Thanks!

Three Today

Happy Birthday Doodle!

Fresh Faces Contest

Thank you for your votes, sadly we didn't win.
We were 4th or 5th they said, so hey...that's not bad. And like my aunt said, she's still the cutest to us and that's what counts. Thanks again to everyone.

We have blossoms!!!

Over the weekend...

The Farmer's Market-a veritable feast for the eyes, nose and ears. To me, it's akin to paradise.

The Stake Preparedness Fair---not as lame as I thought.

The good surprise!
Check out those feather boa doughnuts!
*click to enlarge*


A RITE OF PASSAGE:

What great fun to have your daughter in the kitchen with you. She was the "pourer." Hopefully she'll be eager to take on more sophisticated tasks as time goes on. Here is the link to the incredible dessert we made. Heed the chilling time, it was sooo much better after it had chilled. Yum, yum, yum, I am going to try with strawberry fruit/pudding next time.
If you like cheesecake-it's a must.