Papai amoroso… y dinosauro

(loving papai… and dinosaur)

There are basically two things Joseline loves… putting things in her mouth, and her Papai. Watching them play together is so adorable. Russ has always been in love with his kids. The way his face lights up when he sees them makes all the diaper changing and late nights worth it.

And then there’s the dinosaur. Joseline loves putting anything she can reach into her mouth (this is a new experience for me, because Vince wasn’t really into putting things in his mouth). She especially loves eating Vince’s favorites toys … really, she likes most to eat anything that is his. His toys, his drawings, his shoes… him. I have never seen a baby so determined to put things in her mouth. Maybe that’s why she does the pacifier thing more than Vince did. Of course, part of Vince’s lack of fascination with his mouth might have had to do with the fact that he had teeth already when he was 6 months old, and was eating solid foods basically right off the table. Crazy child. Joseline is definitely more on-schedule as far as baby development goes, but it’s weird to me to have a “normal” developing child.

I love all my babies! It’s fun to see their individual personalities, even so young!

sweet dreams

 

 

 

There’s something about a sleeping baby that just melts my heart.

point and shoot

Our new camera came today! Hooray Nikon Coolpix P60. I am super excited to have a camera to call my own, and especially one with so many great features to figure out. The auto point-and-shoot mode is really good, but it also has a manual setting so you can do your own photography stuff. I don’t know a whole lot about cameras, but I am excited to learn now. And then when we have a little more money and a little more photography know-how, we’ll upgrade to a digital SLR.

So I’ve been experimenting already!

The first picture I took with our new camera. Crystal clear. I was very impressed.

This picture I took to experiment with the high ISO setting. Perfect. I love it. This camera takes VERY good low-light pictures.

Above: Pictures of a little blue bird who likes to dig in the dirt around (thankfully not IN) my vegetable garden. I think he’s looking for worms. So far I haven’t seen him steal any of my plants, but we’ll have to see if he keeps his beak to himself.

Below: Trying to capture my backyard with the right lighting. The first picture is with the auto setting, and it turned out too dark. So I put it on manual and messed with the shutter speed (I have a LOT to learn) – went too dark, too light, then just right!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another attempt to capture actual lighting. The rose on the right is what it really looked like to me. The left was with the auto setting, and was too dark.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Peixe, our female Betta Splenden

 

 

 

 

 

Trying to get a perfect picture of Mr. Peixe (Mr. Fish) our male Betta Splenden

my new normal v 3.0

Today was an amazing day...

watered the garden

studied the scriptures

watered the lawn

went to aerobics

watched baby Ethan for a friend

went to the bank

dropped off Russ' soldier hat on post

grocery shopping!

went to the farmers' market with the fam

did a few loads of laundry and one load of dishes

... and there are still 100 things to do.

I usually feel okay about going to bed with things left undone when I've been able to do so much in one day. Life is good.

My new normal rocks.

I wear my feet

Vincente’s declaration as he takes off his shoes.

assorted vincente

I’ve snapped a few miscellaneous pictures of Vince in the past few days. He is growing up a LOT. He is much more little boy and less baby, which is sad, but he still is a little bit baby… I think in my heart he will always be a little bit baby.

He loves to take showers now instead of baths. Which is actually better because he gets SO dirty playing outside that his bath water becomes muddy when he gets in it. Yes. It is that bad. But what do you expect from a two year old who LOVES the dirt. Russ says he gets it from me. (see my posts about my gardening). Vince and I love to play in the dirt, what can I say?

He used to eat beans all the time when he was younger. Black beans, kidney beans – you name it, if beans were served, he was eating them. Then suddenly he stopped eating beans. I think the stress of moving and having Russ gone and all that nonsense didn’t help. Anyway, he ate beans the other night for dinner. I mean ATE BEANS. We couldn’t stop him! When he wants some more food he’ll say “More beans and rice. Put it right there,” and points to his plate. It’s hilarious. Then he keeps saying “Put it right there,” until we fill up his plate again. My kids love their food.    

We also like to do video calls to Avô (Grandpa) and Avó (Grandma) Werner on Skype. We talked to them on Sunday and Vince had a blast showing them his cars, his drawings, his Lightening McQueen underwear, and he loved singing songs with them.

We love having Vince around. We have to keep reminding ourselves that he is still very much a baby. He’s grown up so fast that sometimes we think he should be 4 or 5!! Before we know it we’ll be sending him to school!

Splits (not the banana kind)

 

She Likes to Eat

 

Joseline has been discovering the joys of solid foods. We’ve been sitting her up with us at the table for a while, and she has been staring intently at us shoveling our food into our mouths, so she wanted to give it a go. Mostly she only like rice cereal mixed up with breast milk, but she has tried broccoli and she likes bananas. We’re just letting her try solids, it’s not like we’re trying to get her to eat or trying to wean her or anything. In fact, she nurses just as much as always… she’s always been a nurser. She’ll always nurse. Always. And apparently, she’ll always eat anything. Always.

Simple Pleasures

Rise and Shout!

On Saturday, we returned to the Hobson Student Center on post to watch the BYU game. I took Joseline and Vince and they both napped while Russ lifted weights at the gym next door. It was a fun game to watch. BYU seems like they’re doing much better this season. We snapped a few pictures while we were there. After the game Vince was still sleeping so Russ and I played ping pong for a little while. We decided that we should do date night up at the Hobson one of these weekends. We love hanging out together.

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Joseline right after Russ stepped on her foot. She was pretty mad for a while. It’s surprisingly easy to step on babies who lay on the floor all the time.

Green Thumbs

  I hadn’t looked at the garden for a few days (other than to water it) and went out on Saturday and THERE WERE LITTLE PLANTS GROWING IN MY GARDEN! I went out today after church to show Vince all the little plants, and there were even MORE little plants! So far the only plants that haven’t germinated are the lettuce and the bell peppers. I took pictures of all the little plantlings. I am SO excited.

I took pictures of the green beans, peas, sugar snap peas, spinach, lettuce and broccoli here. I had two broccoli plants, but one of them got eaten by something (I think a raccoon… odd, I know). This week’s project (aside from fixing up the backyard) is going to be animal-proofing the garden. I know it was a little digging animal, because it had been digging around in the dirt as well. And I found little paw prints on the front porch. 

The pictures of the really watery plants below are of my basil and my tomato plant. I accidentally watered them too much. They look much better today. I’ve started putting them out on the front porch (more sun) and hopefully they will start growing faster. The backyard is pretty shady, unfortunately. Anyway, I have two tomato plants (no bell peppers are peeping through, yet, but hopefully I’ll see some this week!)

The weather has been very warm and sunny, which I’m sure is helping my little garden! It was also sprinkling a little yesterday evening and this morning, so the extra moisture (without water) is always nice. The backyard lawn is growing in pretty well. My goal is to have the backyard looking nice (and hopefully fenced!) by our birthday BBQ on the 26th. We’ll see. It will only be fenced if we can get our dislocation allowance this week or next. I’m going to go in this week to harp on them to pay us. I’m hoping it will work out.   

(P.S. The picture at the top is me pointing to a little sprout coming out of one of the bulbs my friend gave me. They were all pretty dead looking when I got them from her, but I’m trying to nurse them back to life in my front garden. On Saturday I found a little leaf pushing its way to the sun!! Hooray plants! – I’ve decided that I really love gardening. Some people love crafts… I love plants. And the outdoors. Love outdoors.)

The Good Ole Days

I’ve been scanning in all of my old pictures that once upon a time I was going to scrapbook. I have since become a fan of blogging and digital scrapbooking, so I decided to scan in all of the old pictures so I can scrapbook them on my computer. That is going to take forever (not to mention the fact that I have to figure out how to scan in my already completed 12x12 paper scrapbook pages… I want to include them in my digital scrapbook).

Anyway, as I was going through, I decided to post a few pictures on my blog that I thought were way cool.

So here goes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Senior Pictures – taken by Araly Bowen

  

The group of Seniors at Arkansas All State Orchestra – outside the Belle Arti, a fancy Italian place our conductor always takes the seniors.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at Arkansas Governor’s School 2003

Me and my daddy at a father-daughter dance back in my girl scouts days!

Senior banquet with Jannae

I can’t wait to get started scrapbooking again! I love blogging, too, but blogging is more wordy that my scrapbook will be. I think of a scrapbook as a good balance between a photo album and a journal. Blogging is more of a journal with pictures. Scrapbooking is more of a photo album with words. :)