Gearing up for the Holidays

Grammy graciously allowed Anali her own setting of fine china for her Thanksgiving meal.

Our second annual trip to the Red Barn Tree Farm with our great friends the Dumontets. You get your money's worth by buying the tree the day after Thanksgiving and keeping it up all December. Think about it, if you buy your tree mid-December, you are paying twice as much per day! It's not early; it's economics!

Anali trimming the tree. Why do they call it trimming when we're really adding to its bulk? Fifteen seconds later, she began untrimming the tree. This should be fun!

Anali and The Baby

Every morning, as I get ready for work, Anali loves to bumble around our bathroom, take out all of my jewelry, and adorn herself. The necklaces look especially feminine with her footie pajamas.

You can never start too early! Anali also loves to play with my GRE study cards. Geometry and vocabulary are her favorite subjects.

Six months along! I can't imagine where I'll store the next few months's growth. (Yes, there is an extra "s" after plural possessives these days. The retired English teachers who make the rules have just elected new officials who have revised them.) Well, I don't want to imagine... Have you ever heard of a Bella Band? They're lovely. I can wear many of my pre-pregnancy pants totally unzipped with this wide nylon band covering them and going all the way up my belly. It's warm and cozy and hides my little secret: my fly's down! I'm going to outgrow that option pretty soon, I think. After my morning sickness slowed down, I kinda picked up the pace in the weight department. Let's just say, we can't have a repeat of last month's growth chart.

Wednesday, we had a follow up ultrasound and found that the cysts that were previously growing on our baby's brain have disappeared. This is not totally unusual, as most cysts that occur in utero disappear by the end of the pregnancy, but the blessing lies in how quickly they healed. All is well now and he (We're having a SON!) is growing beautifully. Right on schedule for a Leap Day birth, February 29th.

Baby Mullet

So, my daughter is growing a mullet. I don't know what to do! Do I cut her baby hair and try to crop it into a reasonable baby bob, not Bob like the scary Quiznos baby with the man's voice, but bob like the hairdo women in the 1920s cut in protest? Her hair works well now in pigtails or a ponytail, but those last fewer than five minutes in the hair of this one-year-old. So, it's cut the bottom of her precious locks or pretend I don't notice that she's got a mullet as I wait for the front of her hair to catch up with the back. Suggestions?

Halloween 2007

I DON'T WANT TO BE A PRINCESS!

Spooner Farms. Anali and Chloe.

Anali, this afternoon, on the hill above our house. Out on a walk with Dad.

Pigtails and Golden Retrievers

Aunt Shannon

September 2007

Anali likes to help with laundry... well, what she calls "Help." This day, she decided Dad's socks were her socks. Only on her, she learned, they are pants!

Jasmine and Anali at The Puyallup Fair, waiting for me while I ...

...could not take my eyes from this poor mother pig.
Next time breastfeeding becomes difficult, I'll remember this sow. The second and third piglets from the right are actually suckling from the same nipple. Ladies, we've got it easy.

Anali after a good cry.

Exploring the Big Island...Every Last Inch

Though, I had to return home to vacaction from my go-go-go vacation (Next time we rent a car, I'm going to make sure it has a mileage cap. Brandon has the must-see-everything traveling disposition. Endearing, but exhausting for a pregnant mama. [Oh, yes, I'm pregnant. Due in February. We are thrilled, of course.]) our trip with Anali and Brandon's parents to visit my Aunt Pam and her family in Hilo, Hawaii was priceless. I hadn't seen Pam in over a decade and a half, so her kindness in opening her home to us was overwhelming. The Big Island was big and lush and diverse and beautiful on so many levels.

Anali and Rachel at Akaka Falls, The Big Island, Hawaii.

A warm beach at Mauna Kea. Brandon though it would be "cute" to bury Anali's legs in the sand. She didn't think it was so cute. But she sure liked playing with her bucket.

A black sand beach at the edge of a 1990s lava flow.

This was one of my favorite spots on the Island, the entrance to the Waipi'o Valley, where the kings of old purportedly lived. We had to drive a 4x4 down a 25% grade to the bottom of the valley to get to the real scene. This was the kind of fun that is really, really freaky, the kind of fun that's more fun when it's over and you know you survived. You should have seen Brandon's mom, the picture of grace. Me, I was a doubting Thomas, a whiny bedwetter who wouldn't trust our Mercury Mariner its 4x4 capabilities. Despite my wussiness, I loved every minute. Most minutes. We were going to a place no rental car company would bail us out of, and I was extremely aware of that fact while we drove through streams and up a hill so steep the downhill traffic had to yield to the uphill lest we lose our grip. That said, I've seen few places more beautiful on earth...The view standing beside Anali's crib still tops it, though.

The Seattle Aquarium

Thursday, Mom and I took Anali to the Seattle Aquarium. One of her favorite "words" lately is fish, which she says like "sh, sh" as she makes the sign for it. She was beside herself when I let her reach in and pet the starfish and other sea creatures (it's allowed). She wanted to climb in, at one point. Our favorite was the octupus, who would swim right up against our faces and give us quite a view.

Time with Friends

Susan, Jasmine, and Anali at the Carbon River.

Isaac and Natalie DeBoer "cuddling" with Anali.

Running in the sand at Spring Canyon where Brandon's 10th high school reunion was held.

Summer Fun

Swimming at Lake Tapps.

Anali is really taken with her Daddy lately. She rarely cuddles, but when they hug, they hum together in some strange sort of loving dissonance. It's off key, but endearing.

Brandon feeding Anali. After I fed Anali, she fed herself, stole food from her friend Jasmine's breakfast plate, then crawled on Dad's lap for another bite to eat. Her appetite made our loads easier to pack up. Here we are camping on the Carbon River with our friends the Dumontets. Though the tent frightened her at first, she became fascinated by it and spend a good fifteen minutes walking around and bouncing on the Thermarests. First camping trip: successful.

Cannon Beach, Oregon

I cannot believe how dainty Anali looks in this picture. You should see her sling a purse over shoulder. She even knows what to do with a brush.

HOWEVER, she's a balanced young lady. I think she prefers dirt, rocks, and sand to any pretty purse.

She was one happy wet little sand flea.