the world awaits for my baby girl. i'm so glad she's in our life.

:calendar:

as a part of my renaissance into organization, i am implementing a schedule that structures each weekday with a theme. for example, fridays will now be Cookin' Fridays, or Bakin' Fridays. each friday we will make some sort of delicious dessert together, and then eat it! other ideas are craft day, park day and tea party day (chloe's idea).

yesterday was a test run on bakin' fridays with red velvet cake. chloe saw one at costco last week and wanted to buy it. we didn't buy it, but i told her we could try making it one day. it was less than stellar. i'm a great cook and a mediocre baker. ah well. it was a long and delicious process and she had fun. we also got to sport our matching starbucks aprons. that was my favorite part!

here's to many more delectable sweets and treats!

this season of life, mainly this winter, moving into spring, has been full. the metaphors of change, death, planting and re-growth are very evident in our family, which is both beautiful, and difficult.

in the midst of it all, there is chloe. she is the little sprout that continues to nourish us and others with her immense light and joy.

i love her.

:reminisce:

these photos were taken a few months ago, when chloe tried on my flower girl dress that i wore 26 years ago.

uncanny resemblance.

:halloween 4:

technically, this is her 4th halloween, but really the first in which she gets the whole dress up and candy thing.

i feel like a wretched mother because i did not know they were having a parade at school. when i got there to pick her up, all the kids (the whole school) were marching around the playground looking a bit dazed and confused, while parents lovingly snapped pictures for posterity. i brought my camera with me when i dropped her off, but not to pick up. because of this parade, i had to park pretty far away, and was not able to get my camera in time to capture her first halloween parade. i felt pretty badly. i know there are many more years of halloween charades to come, but this was her first.

alas, TODAY is actually halloween, and i will be ready with camera to shoot while she trick-or-treats in our neighborhood for the first time. we went last year in vegas, but she really had no clue what she was doing, besides the fact that there was candy at the end.

this year she is cinderella. princesses are a big thing right now. she is obsessed with pumpkins, and any store that we go into, she has to touch every single pumpkin. she loudly proclaims every time that she sees a pumpkin or spider web in someone's halloween decor. but there is one house around the corner that she is particularly obsessed with. it's certainly the most decorated of the neighborhood, and even a bit scary (to me..i'm a chicken). it has this HUGE spider, about the size of a small car, on top of the roof, with red eyes, and a big 'ol web coming down from the roof to the ground, with another large spider. pumpkins abound, and there's some life-size mummy thing hanging from the eaves of the house. thankfully, i don't think she realizes what that is, yet. everyday, without fail, when we get in the car, she asks to drive by the house. sometimes we do, sit for a moment, observe the spider in broad daylight, and move on. i am curious to see how she reacts when it's dark, and the house takes on a completely different persona.

yesterday, in the midst of my bad parenting moment, she started telling me she was scared of the witches. she wanted to go home from school as soon as i got there, which is unusual. lately, she's been watching snow white, which is quite scary. i actually thought it was too much for her, and even more so now. no more snow white. anyway, her teacher, ms. rita, was a witch, so i asked chloe if she was scary, too? chloe said, "no, she's just ms. rita." fair enough.

it's strange to watch how kids begin to develop this fear. it really does seem to be influenced by the environment they're in, or the things they see. until snow white, witches were not a problem. i suppose that sometimes, in life, ignorance is bliss.

anyway, here are a few shots from our 2nd pumpkin carving last night (our first pumpkin collapsed, literally, into a fruit fly grave of mold and stinkiness):

:later summer update:

this is more like the once every 2 months update.

summer has been busy. we keep thinking that life will slow down, but alas, it continues to speed up!

we went to washington a couple weeks ago, to celebrate my 29th birthday and enjoy a mariner's game on WSU alumni night. fun times, great weather.

we also had the pleasure of checking out sauvie island in portland, which is one of my new favorite spots!






last weekend we went to vegas for a sort of last minute adventure to the desert. really, there wasn't anything adventurous about it, but we had a lot of laughs and pool time. chloe finally let go and plunged in! it's been a process over this summer of getting her used to the water. at the beginning, she would barely get in the water. now she dives in with reckless abandon. so proud!



this past week, chloe started preschool. she is going to a public school nearby, and involved in what we call "State" preschool. basically, it's free because we don't make a lot of money. it's the answer to a lot of prayers. daycare is too expensive (as much as we love them!), and chloe really needs the daily social interaction that she thrives off of. we put her on the waiting list earlier this summer, expecting it would be another year before she was accepted. when i got the letter that she got it, i was so thrilled! today will be her 4th day as a preschooler, and she's not even 3! she will be 3 on tuesday, the 15th!
of course, she loves it, and comes out with the biggest smile everyday. she talks all about her friends, and how they love her. so precious.

last day of daycare...pics of school to come soon...




for her birthday, jared REALLY wants to take her to chuck-e-cheese, so on monday night, the locals are going to meet up for some pizza and robotic rats dancing. sort of like a rite of passage as an american toddler. for her birthday, everyone pitched in to get her tumbling classes at this place called JW Tumblers. it looks like chloe heaven. she starts on the 19th.

so, that brings us up to speed. we're going to big bear the end of this month for some family time with my parents, sisters, grandmas, etc. should be fun! and next month i begin my year long training for yoga therapy. i will be gone for about 10 days in L.A., half of which i have to do without chloe. i'm pretty nervous about that, but it's for the best.

we love you all!

:the summer post:

i don't know how life seems to snowball together into one giant lump of busyness, but it does. phew.

we have been all over the place: st. louis, L.A., bowling, the Welk, weddings, baseball games and on and on...

in the midst of going and going, we've been really enjoying chloe and her quirky personality. she is a true joy. my day begins and ends with the thought of her, and i love it.
that being said, she has still mastered the art of turning on the waterworks at any given time, and now insists that she gets a treat after every meal and every dookie. this will be a hard one to break...no pun intended.

she has a new friend, kaia, who is just a few months younger. thankfully for us, her parents are a lot like us and getting the kids together is a good excuse for us parents to chill with some beers and a game of mario kart.

more and more i am thankful for this time. sometimes it's difficult when you can't do your own thing, but we have health and family and there isn't much else that could be better.