apple or bag of potato chips?

really? Its kind of like the diabetics I see who wont use artificial sweeteners but insist on drinking pop. Really? Minimal unknown risk vs. known risk thats really not worth it.

http://www.latimes.com/health/ct-x-0622-health-pesticide-20110622,0,6385683.story

we {heart} our yard.

fathers day trip.

mammas tak'n us to the zoo tomorrow

But we did not stay all day (sorry Raffi). The second tuesday of each month is only 4$ at the portland zoo - so Britt Jesse and I took the munchkins to the see the animals. I'm still trying to decide if the screaming car trip was worth it.......

However, someone did ask us if Anna and Zachie were twins. We haven't ever gotten that one before. But they are friends - although they did miss Avrie (come baaaack Kaelie!)


They do tend to stuff their faces together a lot. And they do both have blue eyes and light brown hair with blonde highlights. But zachie carries his weight in his thighs and Anna's is mostly in her gut.....
The smiths are very talented people, they posed sideways! I like how britt is looking at zachie in this picture.
sorry i couldn't help it. too hilarious.
Anna is flirting with strangers. Just as I thought, she enjoyed watching people a lot more than animals.
She got kisses from a goat. It made her a little nervous.Here she is flirting with strangers again. But I do think she could see the Zebra.
That backpack is heavy. Where is richard. What am I, a pack elephant?
Thanks for the zoo trip brittney it was a blast!

its a (late) golden birthday

at least until she is 11 years! I stared this 2 days before her birthday, but somehow I never finished it until a week later..........

Anna has become a mobile bobble this month. She went from 1 leg squat crawling to real crawling to fast crawling to cruising along furniture. Now she will stand unassisted at random intervals throughout the day for a few seconds. Yesterday she was trying to stand up in the grocery cart - a lot less than fun. She is on her way to walking. Her friend zachie loaned her his walker toy - so hopefully this helps along the process. Right now she will push it until she runs into something, then she doesn't know how to get unstuck, so she just gets down and crawls.


She is still making the surprised-circle face a lot. She makes people who don't know that she does that all the time feel really good - like they are really exciting. That is - if she doesn't cry in their face first. She's getting really shy too. She now understands that there are people on the other side of the computer when we talk on skype, and she will get really shy to gma and gpa and hide her face in my shirt. Silly baby.

I am trying to figure out how to keep her happy during 3 hours of church. Its a serious struggle. I don't understand how some babies just sit contentedly on mom's lap! Anna wants to go exploring and bang on the seats! Oh well. She likes our sunday school class and they get grossed out by all her snot and drool and bugger bubbles.

Speaking of snot - anna still has the persistent runny nose. It never stops! There are slime trails all over our house. The brown couch looks like it is infested with slugs. Gross. I can't wear dark shirts if I am headed out because she leaves slime trails on my shoulders. We go to a ENT next week - hopefully they can help us.

I'm trying to get anna back onto a schedule - mostly just to make my day easier. I've instituted something called playpen time - and she hates it. It basically equates to anna screaming for 15 minutes in her playpen - but usually i'm in the shower so its painless for me. So this is how our day usually rolls out: 5:00 anna screaming in bed. feed anna mommas milk and put her back down. 7:00 wake her up and play. 8:00 out for a run (sometimes she naps). 9:30 breakfast (eggs, toast, fruits). 9:45-10:00 playpen time. 10:30-11:30 ish out and about running errands or to the park. 11:30 lunch (mommas milk, veggies and tofu usually) 12:00-1:30ish naptime. 2:00-5:00 hanging around the house or visiting friends. 5-5:30 play pen time 6:00 dinner (whatever we are eating). 7:00 mommas milk and bed. The collage below is anna waking up.

Anna looooves outside. Anytime someone opens a door she makes a bee-line for it (including the fridge door but that's a different subject). She is a little wary of the step down into the garage but my friend was keeping an eye on her yesterday and said she almost went out on her own. She's getting a little too brave. She acts like she rules the backyard and enjoys eating rocks and grass. She also likes to help me water the plants. She's starting to track animals - birds and chipmunks. Its fun to watch her see the world.


Anna is an amazing eater. Her favorite thing lately is corkscrew pasta. She even likes the whole wheat kind (good girl). We've also discovered that she can eat cut green beans. They come out the same way they went in but hey it fills her up! We went to a Lebanese restaurant with her this week. It was perfect because everything was pureed. Anna is a fan of hummus, babaganoush, tahini, falafel and tabouli.

She still loves reading books. Probably b/c besides the farm its pretty much her only toy. She turns the pages and jibber jabbers like she knows what she is talking about. Its the cutest thing ever. She will read with me, but not for very long. Her great aunt Hanna gave her a little people flip book and she loves it. We also rent books from the library every few weeks to keep her interested. Hopefully she wants to continue that throughout her life.

She really loves to watch whats going on out the front window. My neighbor Dorothy says its the cutest thing to look out her front window and see this little baby head bobbing in the window waving her arms. Oh anna. speaking of neighbors, Anna has taken particular interest to the neighbors dog. She loves to see and watch him. We need to expose her to more animals! Also about neighbors - our neighbor TJ came over and read her books one day. It was the cutest thing to see her in his lap reading books.

Lets see what else. Well she's been gettign little diaper rashes here and there (yes we are still doing cloth) so I let her air dry. Problem with that is that the freedom moves her bowels. She's poo pooed on the carpet at least 5 times. Oh anna. another thing about poop is when I see she has to go I hurry and put on the potty. Its weird I know - but a lot easier than cleaning out a poopy diaper! Maybe this familiarity with the pot will train her early? We can always hope.

Anna is a very social girl. She loves her friends. She also loves strangers. Anytime we are at the park she is more interested in watching the big kids play than she is with playing with her mom. Yesterday a little boy saw that she was watching him so he played hide and seek with her on the playground. She loved it. What a little flirt. This is Anna playing with her friend Miki.

I finally put locks on the cupboards because I was sick of cleaning up rags and pots and pans. Its funny that I did not put locks on all the cupboards, but Anna doesn't know because she doesn't really try to get in them any more. We had to move our garbage into closed spaces. Anna likes to be naughty when we let her (:

Anna helps with the laundry. She pushes the baskets out to the garage for me. She also likes to pull the clothes out of the laundry basket one at a time and try to put them on. Its pretty cute. She also likes to help with weeding, but unfortunately she doesn't know the difference between weeds and flowers.

She can sign all done, more, down, bye bye and blow kisses. I've seen her do all of them. Will she always do them? No. I'm not sure what that's all about. I think it may be a bit of stubbornness.

She is absolutely adorable and growing like a weed and I can't wait for her birthday. She is going to LOVE her cake!

For Aunt Joy

Anna loves Sandra Boynton - thanks to you!

saturday

I started out the day with a run on my usual route. I forgot that there was a race going on - and it happened to go through my usual route. But I just kept on going and I even partook of the races water......shh don't tell (no - i actually asked before I had some).
After our run and some work in the yard we headed out to the farmers market where I bought a cool basil plant. It's got tiny leaves. I am too lazy to go take a picture of it - but if all our basils live we will have 10! Hooray for pesto and basil salads. Unlike basil, however, I must admit that I've become accostomed to the cool weather and I almost couldn't handle the heat. Anyways this is a view of Mt. Hood near our favorite park in sherwood - only visible on clear days.


We were at the park for anna's friends birthday. Zachie turned 1! As you can see he was pretty tired at his party - but he got used to the cake after a minute.
Anna had a great old time with the birthday mommy. Brittney kept feeding her jello and refilling her food supply. I'm pretty sure she sat there and ate for a full 30 minutes.
There is nothing better than being at a park on a warm day sitting in the shade eating good food.

Richard didn't come to the party because I put him to work in the backyard finishing up a flower bed border. We wanted to do brick pavers - but just like everything else in our lives the less expensive option won out and richard put in some concrete. I was a little grouchy at him when I got home because instead of working he was in the front room watching 2 games at the same time. No - he had to wait for the concrete to set in order to move the forms.
Another back yard project 1/2 way complete! Hopefully we can finish it up this week.
Anna kept entertained while we worked by flirting with the neighbors dog.
and playing with daddys level.
After all his hard work richard took off for an hour long bike ride. What a hard working man.
We love our summer saturdays!