Pictures from our most recent trip to Vancouver

(for those of you who do not look at the Picassa web album)

Pool time with Papa

Papa Shark

Fishing

Splashing in the kid pool

Obviously we forgot to post the "no bare buns" rule

Aunt AJ learned a secret to keeping Etta happy: 

hold her & give her mum-mum crackers

Is Asa pushing or is Addie dragging?

See that baby bump on Cheryl? She is due end of Oct

Grandma Ellie's playland always has enough toys to keep all the grandkids busy

Playing together quite nice

Aubree & Addie in tutu's

The new kitten loves to play

(the old kitten was, we think, eaten by a coyote -

 but without clear evidence we just say she is missing/lost)

The kid table will need to get bigger soon

The bib says it all (adorable)!

Think they look related?

Up your butt

I have had yet another incident which makes it perfectly clear that I need to choose my words very carefully because little ears hear everything and little mouths repeat everything.

Before her nap the other day Addie was wearing her underwear but no pants. I noticed that her undies were on backwards and suggested that she fix them because they were currently "up your butt crack." oops. "Up your butt" my little Addie parrot said, "up your butt, up your butt". I was careful not to laugh as she said this but I sure wanted too. Thankfully she has not repeated this in any other contexts.

I'm a grandma!

Addie has made it very clear that she is Lion's mommy. There have been times that last few days where I refer to her as Addie and she corrects me "I Lion's mommy". She has clear mothering instincts.
Another development along this line is Addie's realization that if she is Lion's mom, I am Lion's grandma. So now it is "Lion's mommy go out in car. Lion's grandma babysit Lion." She will leave me with a bottle and clear instructions on what I am expected to do with Lion (feed him snack, change his diaper, put him down for nap). Then she quickly comes back in her car (horse on wheels) to check and make sure I did what I was supposed to. Did she learn this from me on the rare occasion that I leave the girls with babysitters?

Anyways... not sure how I feel about not yet being 30 (less than a month now though) and being a grandma!

Who? what? where? when? why? how?

Addie is learning the art of asking questions. So far, thankfully, this has not consisted of the word "why" repeated 20 times in that many minutes. Instead it is:
"why computer broken?"
"who park their car there?"
"why her doing that?"
"how mommy fix it?"
"what inside the package?"
"when daddy come home?"
"where we buy more?"

Often they are very logical questions and I truly enjoy her curiosity. She is still working on her use of pronouns, etc and there are times when only Matt or I can understand what her words are. Speaking of words, Addie & I are both looking forward to when Etta has words she can use instead of her loud shreaks :)

Marston family reunion

This weekend we had a family reunion at a lodge near Mt Rainier. A big thanks to May for sharing the pictures she took. If any other family members took some pictures, please share! No one even attempted a group shot: there were almost 30 adults, 10 kids and 3 babies, plus there are 3 babies-on-the-way due in January (don't worry there are 3 different moms, not triplets). It was really nice to have time with the group all together. We see some, but not all, of these people at Christmas time as well. A big thank you to those who drove or flew from places like Pullman, Boise and beyond.

And now for the pictures:

Our car stopped at Alder Lake for some playtime before going to the lodge...

Addie in the classic childrens summer pose: bum in the sand, hands busy at work

Etta normally loves water but was not such a fan of this particular water. 

She preferred being an observer like her mama.

Pictures of some cuties & their relationship to us:

these first two you should recognize

Camilla (she is Matt's cousin Paula's sweet 1 year old)

Camilla with Serena

(Serena is the youngest of the 4 Pook kids. Their mom Camille  is Matt's cousin. 

I used to babysit the 4 of them and also worked as an assistant to their dad Jon)

Silas

(his mom Janelle is Matt's cousin)

Ellie (Matt's brother Mike's little peanut)

Sam (Matt's "cousin" Susy's daughter)

Maya (Addie's favorite dog) & Stewie (a very cute little puppy)

Etta trying to either kiss or eat Maya

Matt & Addie went on a hike with some family.

  TJ (Susy's older daughter) & her dad Steve went on the hike too.

 Addie was in the pack most of the time, but I hear that TJ walked almost the entire time. 

And now for a parting shot of the splendors of the Pacific Northwest.

Can anyone name that mountain?

Chilling in the Cooler

We have had our kid pool blown-up on-an-off the past month. At one point I was trying to think of a way for Etta to enjoy the water without being in the big pool with Addie becuase I did not want her getting splashed or accidentally knocked over by Addie's friends, and I did not want her attempting to eat every single blade of grass that made its way into the pool. So this is what we came up with:

She is the perfect size for the shallow cooler!

 At one point she had pink water in her mini-cooler. It was very pink & I really wish I had a picture. No she did not excrete something nasty that discolored the water. She did the classic baby move of pulling off her hat and dropping it in the water. But I guess this hat had never been washed before because the bright pink bled into the water. Addie was almost upset at first by this color change but then she wanted a turn in the "baby pool" with pink water :)

Summer

We like the things that summer brings.
It brings the sun. It brings the heat. It brings the things we like to eat.
We like cold things. We eat them up. And when we eat, so does our pup.
Summer brings so many things. Summer brings us rides on swings! We swing up high into the trees. We swing so fast we make a breeze.
Summer brings us things with wings! We like to catch them with and see how many we can get.
Summer sun brings garden fun. We have to water well we know, to make our garden grow and grow. You water me. I water you. And that will make us grow fast, too!
In summertime we say hello to all the fish way down below. They look at us. They seem to say, "what kind of fish have come our way?"
We like this way to spend a day. We make a sand house on the shore. We make some windows and a door. Then waves come up. They come up fast. Sometimes our sand house does not last.
Some summer nights we cook and eat. Our pup is not so very neat.
We like the thing that summer brings. It brings us fireworks late at night, all red and  yellow, blue and white. 
We stay awake and think of things... the happy things that summer brings!
(Summer by Alice Low)
__________________________________________________________________________________
We have been having a fun, busy summer. I have not been taking my camera out much to document the fun, but here are a few things we have been up to the last few weeks:
-an overnight visit with Papa Loren and Grandma Karen
 then on to Papa Wally and Grandma Ellie's house for time with cousins
while Matt hiked Glacier Peak
-fun at the local wading pool
-fun with friends:
      -my college friend Arielle came with her sweet almost one year old James
      -our college friends Jeannette & Brian came up from CA for a wedding & stayed a few nights with us
      -Carkeek park with "Auntie" Katie, Blaise, Evy & Rhett
      -PEPS playdates at Bitter Lake Park
      -pool party in our yard with our neighbor friends Catherine, Maddy & Owen
      -playdate with baby Maya (not to be confused with the also popular doggy Maya)

In other news we have (finally) found renters for our basement and we are looking forward to building relationships with them.

Mess

One of Etta's very favorite things to do these days is empty out containers. She is not quite crawling yet but she scootches & rolls & reaches & is able to create an amazing amount of mess when left to her own devices. She, of course, is quite proud of her abilities. Addie feels annoyance at this mess and an odd since of obligation towards cleaning it up. 

oh! you caught me!

just minding my own business

make a mess? who me?

wait! look what else I can do!

Tutu

I got Addie her first tutu and just had to show it off because it is so dang cute!

her new Dora paper doll is wearing a tutu too

is she trying to sing opera too? I don't remember what brought on this face :)

that's all folks

Recipe: Pistachio Bread

This is a recipe my mom made while we were growing up. She got it from a friend who lives in Michigan. It has been around a while & has stood the test of time.

This is more a cake than bread. It falls in the "dessert foods that can be eaten for breakfast" category. This is a really easy recipe to make, enjoy!

Pistachio Bread

Grease 2 loaf pans.

Mix together:
1 box yellow cake mix
1 package instant pistachio pudding (not a cheapo off-brand please)
1 cup sour cream
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water

In a small bowl stir together:
2 Tb brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Layer in pans: cake mixture, then cinnamon mixture, cake mixture, then cinnamon mixture. Take a knife and cut through to make pretty swirl patterns.

Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes. Adjust your oven if its temperature runs different: the bread is not good burnt & it will not come out of your loaf pan if you undercook it.

One tooth, two tooth (and lots of pictures of other things)

Etta has 2 teeth now! She did not sleep well on 4th of July and we had a hard time knowing if it was from the fireworks or something else. Something else in the form of a tooth was the culprit. No pictures of the second tooth yet, but here are a few I took last week of the first tooth.

Etta's hair looks red in the sun these days. I am so curious what the end color will be. 

I feel like I should have snipped a little off each month to save and have a page in her baby-book 

that shows the color progression!

She has been rolling on her stomach a lot more lately. She especially loves to do this while naked. Between rolling and scootching and reaching, she can move pretty far. Like underneath a chair. It is even more funny when her head and front half end up under it, but I did not get a picture of that.

When I have been getting her up from nap lately she is often on her tummy and smiling. Often she is pulling at her crib bumper to find the strings she knows are hiding on the other side.

My two little froggies.

Addie has been working on cleaning up food messes she creates. If she "accidentally" drops broccoli on the floor during dinner, she needs to pick it up after. If she eats a snack at her "tea table" and gets crumbs everywhere, we pull out the hand-vac and she (happily) sucks up the mess. Etta loves watching.

Addie's very first macaroni artwork creation. She started off by having fun sorting some dry black beans and white beans, then I added the noodles. We pulled out paper & a glue stick towards the end and a masterpiece was created!

And here we have our very own naked chef!