Rafting on the American River

Earlier this summer, Tyler asked me if I wanted to go rafting. Sure, why not? Then, when it got closer to the time we picked, everything was falling apart. The people we invited couldn't go, the person we got to watch Lillian couldn't do it, and so on and so forth. I was being practical and suggested that we nix the trip, but Tyler would have nothing to do with it.


I had so much fun, I'm glad we made it work. And no one fell out this time.


Left to right Jen, Austin, Tyler, me, Claire, Blake, Noelle. Blake was our guide.

The box

The only reason I turned the light on on her bum is because I could see her face between her legs, but couldn't see it in the camera. Sorry about the extreme close up.

Balboa Dance

So, Tyler and I decided to take a lindy hop dance class this summer through the city parks and rec. The couple that teaches it decided to teach us this dance as well, which I had seen done, but never knew it had a name.



You only have to watch the first minute or so to get the gist. The dance is called Balboa and it's way trickier than it looks. Needless to say, Tyler and I have stomped on each other's feet more than once.

It is true, anything can be a toy

Peak-a-boo

Where's Lillian?

There she is!

Lillian's birthday

Lillian turned one on Monday. She says thank you for all the presents and cards. These pictures were taken after she opened the box that Amy and Mom sent.



A second before I took this picture, she was "talking" on her rice cake like it was a phone. But as soon as I went to take the picture, she threw the rice cake down and was just talking into her hand.


We did get pictures of her smashing a cupcake into her face, but those are locked (probably forever :) ) on Tyler's parent's camera as we forgot ours.


Tyler's sister Tonya gave us a whole bunch of toys that her kids have grown out of. Among them was this Wiggles guitar. Up side: Lillian loves it and will play with it for hours. Down side: I constantly hear the first three notes of "Play your guitar with Murray" over and over and over again. Play your Play Play Play your gui Play your Play your guitar Play your guitar Pla Pl Play Thanks Tonya!

Silly Face

Mom taught Lillian how to make this silly face when she was about 5 months old.

So tired

Lillian is such a ham. This picture doesn't quite capture it, but what she'll do is crawl for five feet, then lay down like she's going to go to sleep. Right after she lays down, she'll look over at you, to make sure you see that she's being cute. Really, she does it all day long. After she does anything: puts a piece of sandwich in her mouth, bangs her cup on the table, makes her toy play a song, throws a ball, stacks a ring. You name it, after she does it, she looks up and you and grins. And if you don't look back, she'll start whining or crying until you look and say, 'good job.'

My favorite holiday ever

I'm sorry, for some reason, my computer isn't letting me put these pictures in order. So they're a little jumbled.

I like the Archer slide show. It continues down at the bottom.





Yesterday, we went to visit Tyler's brother Jason and his fiance Megan in Huntington Beach. I felt like such a bad mother because I didn't bring a jacket for Lillian. It was so windy: my hair isn't in a rubber band, that's just the wind.


And, we're back to the picnic.





All the kids did relatively well with the fireworks. Lillian was more confused than scared, and Archer had his protective ear wear, which, I'm sorry to say, I don't have a picture of. But, it was great.

Thanks everyone for such a great holiday!

The skinny on Lillian's head

So, as most of you know, Lillian has an abnormally small head. On our pediatrician's advice, we went to a pediatric neurologist this morning. She said if someone had handed her Lillian's growth chart, she would have guessed that there was a 98% chance that she would have had mental delays or been mentally or physically handicapped. But, after looking at her, she says that in her opinion, she just has a small head.

So, we're supposed to keep our eye out for anything abnormal. But, as for now, she's as normal as they come: she crawls like a champ, can pull herself up to standing, has a good parachute reflex, gets into the kitchen drawers and cabinets and pulls out all the tupperware and bowls, she even says a few words (woah, bye-bye, thank you, and eye).

On a side note, the neurologist even measured my and Tyler's heads, and all those people who made fun of me for having a big head can just eat their words, because my head is 50th percentile! Tyler's head is a bit bigger, coming in the 60th percentile, so you can still make fun of him, I guess.

Antigen Matching

I just got a call from Johns Hopkins. I'm 2 out of 6 matching antigens. Whatever that means. She said the person with the closest to 6 out of 6 wins. Anyone else?

I think she likes it.

Beach Day

We're throwing a party for our friends who are graduating and/or moving away. We decided to have a corn feed at the beach, so we thought we'd go down and check out the scene, and see if Lillian was into it. She did OK.




I made her touch the water, and she hated it.

PS, I didn't know what a corn feed was until I moved to San Luis Obispo, so I don't know if that's a normal term or what, but basically, you cook the corn in the husk in sea water. It's really good.

Cottage Cheese

Apparently, I wasn't doing it fast enough with the spoon. She got so frustrated that she started grabbing it off the spoon and putting it in her mouth herself. So, we cut out the middle man.

The black hole

It's convenient to blame the recent black-hole quality our apartment has assumed on a certain little one with little hands that move things from one place to another. However, when said little one moves things, it's usually from the middle of one room, to the middle of another. At most, she'll take a shoe out of my closet and try to put it in a drawer in the kitchen. The following two items have disappeared into thin air: Tyler's watch and one of Lillian's church shoes. Just gone. The fingernail clippers were lost as well, which is what prompted me to write this entry, but I found them as I sat down at the computer.

So, keep your eyes open for the watch. Tyler's really starting to miss it.

It's almost over!

For a year now, Tyler has been working on his senior design project, "Odin's Fury." It's a cargo plane that had to be able to take off and land in a short distance on a muddy field and carry something so wide, so tall, and so heavy. Tyler's touching a model of the plane. Last night, they had their poster reception and today is the final symposium. Hooray! This project has meant lots of late nights, group meetings at all hours, weekend trips to Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Edward's AFB, and other places I can't recall.

I overheard him talking to Lillian last night saying, "After tomorrow, I can be your dad again. We'll play together and go on walks."


If you look at the pictures on the left, you can see that Odin's Fury can carry a tank, cargo, and storm troopers.

Mohawk

While getting ready for church this morning, Tyler re-styled Lillian's hair.

It didn't lay right all day.

Boo allergies

Year one: I never had allergies until I moved to San Luis Obispo. My first spring here, I thought I had a cold that was lasting for months. Tyler suggested it could be allergies, so I got a prescription for Allegra, and life was wonderful again.

Year two: My second spring here, I was married and had no insurance. I got through the first part of allergy season with a lot of Kleenexes and Claritin, but was still mostly miserable. Then, I experienced something called Eustachian tube malfunction (Caitlin, I know you feel me on this), and I couldn't hear or breathe, or see. Thus, going from mostly miserable, to all miserable.

Year three: I was pregnant and developed asthma to go along with my allergies. My doctor said that Claritin was no longer an option, so I got along with Benedryl and lived in a fog for 3 months. Then my asthma got worse, so I had to use a steroid inhaler, which gave me a permanent sore throat.

Year four: Which brings us up to date. I took a Claritin the other day, and it did about as much good a mint. I tried a Benedryl against medical advice, and Lillian slept for 17 hours. What to do? I bought some allergy relief eye drops, but the soothing relief promised remained illusive. Then, I saw it on Oprah:
The one they had on TV looked like a little tea pot but they didn't sell those at the neighborhood Rite Aid. This is the one I bought, and it's essentially a squirt bottle. It comes with little salt packets, so you mix up your own saline, and rinse out your nose. It's very far from what I'd call 'pleasant.' I do it twice a day and while it doesn't keep me 100% allergy free, it keeps me at a tolerable level.

Garden!

I decided I wanted a garden, which was tricky because of our living situation: upstairs apartment, all parking lot, no grass. So, I had Tyler build a planter that would stick in between the cars and the gate at the end of the parking lot.


Our bishop lives on a couple acres, so we went up to his property and asked if we could dig a hole. Not only did he give us that dirt, he also donated their compost pile, which is contained in the black trash bag.




Because we got started late, we just bought starter plants. Italian giant and Sugar sweet tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, basil, red bell pepper, cucumber, watermelon, and in seed form: romaine lettuce, giant radishes, and one pumpkin.