We sure love it when grandpa comes to visit

I love you Dad!

Our March ::

Here are some images of our life in March.  I did a somewhat better job of archiving this month, but still, I like compiling them all in one place.

March is still very wintry, but because the light is increasing so quickly all the time, we started taking some lovely evening walks.  I think we are all feeling more upbeat in general.

June is increasingly a big girl.  Hardly any toddler left in her.  She helps her brother put his coat on and similar things.  She is like a little mama.  She has started to branch out with her color preferences - now loving blue and green and not so much pink and purple.  She's even started wearing jeans a lot.

Miles is a love bug.  Always hugging on mom.  He is smart, puts things together easily.  Has a great vocabulary and talks a lot.  He's so damn cute too.  It's hard to think of what may have been different last month from this one.  Somewhere I have a list of all his funny words, like glubs (gloves).  I don't think I've posted it yet, but will soon.

Dinner at one of our favorite places.

Playing together.

Milo Silhouette.

Alaskan girl.  Going home to her igloo.

June.

Miles.  He has almost ditched that green plug for good.  Almost.

June making faces while drawing.

Snowboardin'

So here is snowboarding post number one.   Soon to be followed up with a post of Adam doing some real snowboarding with his friends last weekend.  But this is not to be taken lightly....

Check out these videos we took near our house.  Even though for some reason they have the stripes in front, they still play for me, so I hope they work for you too.

Our little kids are so brave.  June went for several rides.  I think I would've been holding on for dear life.  And Miles is only two!


Perhaps it takes a mom to be impressed, but I am.

A cave is a nice place for a picnic

A cave is a nice place for a picnic.  Especially when it is made of snow.





And you made it with your Dad over many afternoons of shoveling.

And it is in the front yard.

And Mom makes hot food to eat inside.
Like Spaghettio's.
And pizza.

Now how is that for a lovely weekend afternoon?

P.S. It is evening time.  The kids are "jammied" (as Milo says), and they are shrieking and giggling and laughing in their room with their Dad.  I just might have given them too much leftover Halloween candy for dessert.  It is so great while it lasts... but I just know it will end in tears.  Or maybe not?

Anyway, all this crazy cacophony is my soundtrack for this post, and I like it.

School Pictures and Little Tidbits

Here are some things June has said to me recently.

::  I don't like you Mom.

:: I know how to fight!

:: If you don't give me the M&M's, I'm not gonna hug you.

::  I always want to snuggle you Mom.  Sometimes I pretend not to.

:: She ADORES all things princess still, though she will now wear pants.  I am very grateful about the pants.

(Please, please let me get through parenting June with grace and fortitude, especially when she is a teenager.)

Here are some things Miles does and says recently.

:: Do it again?  (After he repeatedly jumps off things and giggles.)

:: Want firework.  (By which he means, Katy Perry's version.  He also often wants Bieber's Baby Oh song, Shufflin', or my favorite request, Only Love by Ben Howard.)

::  He also has started singing more songs.  Most recently "Little Bumblebee" and the alphabet song.  It is so adorable, because he hardly knows any of the words but has the tune.

::He's great at counting though.... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, Blastoff!!!!

Lots of love for these little growing up kids.

Our Halloween

Here is a little photo to share of our bunny and princess.

Miles was having a major fit every time trick-or-treaters came to the door and took away our his candy.  We rushed them out the door, my thought being that he would start to get the general idea once he was given candy by knocking on doors.  We let the kids gobble candy the whole time.  I just did not feel like fighting it, and they had absolutely no interest in dinner.

Our sweet little Beanie cat followed us for most of the way, even trying to go inside someone's house at one point!

The snow fell softly and we walked to about a dozen houses, still scoring plenty of loot.  June had a lot more stamina than in years' past, perhaps because due to the snow it was a bit warmer.  I wish I had a video of the white bunny walking confidently through the snowfall.  So dang cute.

Still, by the end we had bright red cold hands and were ready to greet Nana and Karl inside the house.

Love in the House Tonight

I couldn't help noticing.

June and Beans watching Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses snuggling.

A boy and his Dad.  Books before bed.

There was lots of love in the house tonight.  Mine was captured behind the camera.

And these pictures were YES, taken at bedtime.  We may not have buds of green sprouting up like everyone in the lower 48, but we have got some sunlight people.  And we have got to be excited about something with all this leftover snow white crud.

First big owie

Our little Miles had his first big fall yesterday. Here are the best photos I could get of him (and it) this morning. He did not want to sit still and has no patience for the thing he can't touch that gets held up in his face far too often.

He was holding himself up on Grandpa Tom's coffee table and shuffling side to side, kind of walking himself down the coffee table. At some point he put his hand down on a book or something that slid, and so did he, off to the side, cheek scraping the corner of the coffee table and a big old whump onto the hard wood floor.

Poor guy.

He is so very different from June. Plays independently, sleeps easily. Last night Adam had the perfect description for it, if only I could remember. It was something like, "he fits into our life so easily." Soon I will catch up with at least the 9 month post. Before he turns ten months old. Heh. I hope.

Family Portrait

Here are two pictures of us. I love these pictures.

They were taken by Chris at Emery's baby shower. Thanks man!

Family Portrait

We went away Friday night up to Flagstaff with some friends of ours. Adam got to go snowboarding and I spent the day roaming around with my friend Emery and her friend Julianna. We all stayed at Emery's mom's house and had a great time. I really should have taken more pictures, but here is one taken by Chris of Adam, June, and I. I love the motion of it; it feels like real life.

The next week is going to be really busy and I feel like I'll be playing catch up the whole time, so I will primarily be posting pictures.

As for life with June, it is fabulous as usual. She is really walking now and talking up a storm. Today we went to the park and slid on the slides. I said, "weeee" as we went down, and so did June. Then she'd walk around the bottom of the slide and say "weee." It is so fun getting to see the world anew with her. In Flagstaff she got to see snow, though we didn't really play in it.

Family Resemblance

I just came across this photo of myself taken when I was ten months old. I've been showing it to people and at first they've all thought it was June! Here is a picture of her at ten months old as well.

Secrets Revealed

Right now we were supposed to be en route here. But, our first flight was so delayed that we would've missed all of our subsequent flights. We were nearly s.o.l. completely - but they figured out a way for us to fly tomorrow.

So, I actually have a little bit of time to blog, and I don't know when I will have time again. We won't be back until January 3, so perhaps not until then.

But here is a big thing I have been cooking up, and aching to blog about. Before we moved to Tucson I started working on some quilt squares for my mom. I secretly finished the entire quilt this fall and gave it to her for Christmas. I had a lot of help from Adam's aunt Pat. Here are some photos of my first ever quilt.

Detail.

This is the back of the quilt.

I also am including a picture of June with my Mom, and another of June and my brother Tom. Tom and my Mom came here recently to celebrate June's birthday and for an early Christmas celebration. It is the big reason I've had blog silence for what feels like forever. I didn't ask them if I could include the photos, so hopefully this'll be ok. And it is why you can't really see my mom in these pictures ~ she is less likely to object!

Well, I hope everyone is having a great ramp-up to Christmas. The anticipation is really the best part.

Back to what feels like suspended reality... at least it is better (way better) than sitting on a plane or in an airport. But I can't wait to get to the beach!!

Happiness is :: The Family Bed

A cool night and a warm bed.
Pre-dawn awakening to a snuggler who wants to nurse.
Knowing that I had a good night's rest, and that I have more time to sleep.
The cat curled against my feet.
The love of my life warm, steady, and present with me,
His hands reach up and pet my head.