Archive for the ‘family life’ Category
Mira’s first piano recital
Mira had her first piano recital tonight. She’s been taking lessons for just a few months. We’re very proud of her performances tonight! She was very poised and professional for being so new to it. 
Now watch her perform!
Pillow attack!
Climbing, always climbing
Look at this climbing heathen! This bar is NOT meant to support his weight…
And, indeed, just moments after this photo, he fell sideways, snapping off the bar. we’re leaving it off now, so he’ll have to find somewhere else to climb…
Jake is 8 months old
I have a cup…
…and I know what to do with it!
My parents keep thinking this is funny. I don’t get it.
I’m awake! Get me outta baby jail!
Mama’s boy
My Scott is SUCH a sweetie. His parents raised him just right.
Now they are reaping their reward. By all accounts he made his mama, in particular, pull her hair out when he was a teenager and young adult. But THESE days he is the kind of adult son any mom would dream of having.
One cute thing he started doing a couple months ago is taking sending at least one camera phone photo to his mom every morning and every evening. When we take pix on outings, we send them to her right then and there so she can sort of be in the moment with us. 
He’s very conscientious about getting the daily shots and mailing them off. And she just loves it. This sweet consideration has been wonderful for their bond. And it makes me fall in love with him even more. ♥
So last night, Jake went down for a nap just after Scott got home at 6 pm. That’s not terribly unusual, but when he was still asleep at NINE (which is odd), Scott was bumming because he hadn’t sent a photo to his mom yet.
So he took the following picture and sent it with the subject line: Peacefully sleeping.
Cracked me up!
Then he sent this photo at 10:30 pm 
Jake didn’t fall back asleep until midnight, which was frustrating. By some mercy, though, he slept until 5:30 am, so I actually got more uninterrupted sleep than I have been lately.
Baby look-a-like
HM was flipping through an old photo album just now and shouted, Mom, who IS this who looks like Jake?? (It’s me lol)
Weekend hike: Sears Kay Ruin
The beautiful days of AZ winter are winding down. We have to take advantage of every comfortable day we can (once summer temps hit in May, we don’t spend much time outside anymore). In our quest to do one mini-adventure most weekends, this past Saturday we visited the Sears-Kay ruin – 800 year old Hohokam village remains. This place is in Carefree area of AZ, where I’ve never visited before. The houses and properties en route were just… O-o
I told Scott we had to go back sometimes sans kids just to drive around and gape. This one subdivision had a HUGE stable/arena facility where it looked like homeowners could board their horses right there in the community. And there are gorgeous mountain trails for hiking/riding in this area. Homes in the area are 1.5M plus.
Anyway, here are some pix from our day.
Hiking up – it was COLD (the ruins were at a significantly higher elevation than our house is)! We weren’t dressed for it, hence the huddled look we all have LOL.
Jake and daddy:
HM and mom:
Mira wanted to wear the ergo:
Baby gate land
Early last week, I was shut up with Jake in my MBR/office. The stupid door was shut, but it doesn’t completely latch. He managed to get it open, sneak out and crawl into HM/Mira’s room before I even noticed he was gone. (The door is around the corner from my office and I never thought for a second he’d get on the other side of the door!!!)
Thank goodness he didn’t head for the stairs instead. 
There’s still more.
HM was having a snack and she came upstairs, went into her room to read on her bed. Suddenly, she shrieked! She heard baby sounds emerging from under her bed. She peeked below and sure enough, Jake had crawled under there and was playing with various choking objects.
He’s on the tail end of a cold, plus the dogs spend the night in the girls room. So when HM brought him to me, he was wiggling and gurgling with delight. And his face looked like it had been tarred and feathered, except with snot and dog hair. He was totally pleased with himself, though.
Isn’t he too young for these shenanigans??????
So if awards are being handed out today, I think I win for most neglectful, yet luckiest mommy. Wahhhhhh and PHEW that he was safe.
Ironically, I was researching baby gates when this went down.
And this weekend, my amazing husband solved some of these problems! We now have a master bedroom door that latches again AND we have gates. He also spent a significant amount of time in the attic yesterday dropping cable so he can rewire the network (the cables for which are currently snaking around Jake’s room, where he is never left to play unattended, but someday he will be).
This gate is on the landing hallway, blocking Jake from the balcony and stairs:
Gate #2 – this one traps Jake in the master bedroom/office when that’s where I am. By far the most childproofed and child friendly space in the house.
The bear represents Jake, who is taking a nap right now.
We’re putting this same gate (Kidco Configure) at the bottom of the staircase. Will post that photo when it’s installed!
Baby on the move
I still can’t get over how active this boy is! Here is is 7 months and cruising around his exersaucer. There are some speed crawling bits in here, too. 
Weekend fun
This past weekend, we went to Heritage Square in downtown Phoenix and had lunch at a Victorian tearoom and then toured a Victorian house built in 1895. The girly grandchildren had “Children’s Tea” – they loved it! I had a chai latte (which I haven’t had since prepregnancy) and *delicious* veggie sandwhich. Yummmmm.
The tour was wonderful – it was supposed to be a 30 minute guided tour, but took an hour because the kids were so engaged and had a kabillion questions.
Here’s Jake, playing airplane with Mira…
Grandma so happy to see her baby! In the two months since she last saw him he went from barely creeping and rolling over to mobile, into EVERYTHING baby. She’s amazed at the changes!
Grandma Karen left yesterday. What fun, but a whirlwind! She’s back next month for a week – we’ll miss her in the meantime.
Here are a few pictures that I snagged off HER camera, which is cool because she caught some shots I would usually not get!
Here are a few from the Sunday afternoon tea party:
Waiting for the tea, was getting boring. I love this shot LOL – it shows perfectly how restless they were getting. (The littlest one is their three year old cousin, my SIL’s daughter)…
Ah, now they have “tea” (which was, in fact, hot cocoa lol)…
I was looking at Bailey at the “chldren’s table” that day and thinking how close she is to outgrowing that. This was probably one of the last occasions where she’s going to be one of the Little Girls. And HM is right on her heels. Wahhhhhh.
Not a fabulous pic, but a RARE candid of Scott, me AND Jake!
Here we are sitting down to dinner…
I love this photo of me and my boy. 
His silly side shows through a little here – he’s wearing Jake’s hat… Jake is technically in the photo, too – he’s on my back! 
And the gratuitous baby shot! He’s cruising around the outside of his walker (brakes engaged!)
Mom to 4 kids and 2 stepkids, I am a writer writing in the heart of chaos. I am the co-founder and former editor of 
