some film

I recently developed an older role of film, and neglected to post any of the pics! So, the earlier ones are from Spring Break '08, then we have May '08 (with my dad), and finally July '08! There's just some quality about film that can't be replicated, even with the fanciest digital camera! There's almost a grit, or a three dimensional quality that you can't get from digital negatives.

facebook videos

I'm not sure, Jennifer, but you may be the only blog reader that is also NOT on facebook. I posted some videos of Kate. Try these links. Hopefully they'll work even for non-fbers. :-) I just love making up new facebook words. Like F-mail. I guess it should really be FBmail.

Kate Speaks A Few Words in Spanish

Kate's Library

little purple flowers

This morning we squished five girls (three car seats in the back!) into my car and made a morning trip to our favorite renovated home & grounds in Winder. No, this isn't Lisa's house, but a good friend's home. She's an avid gardener & her home and garden provide so many quaint spots. It's great not to have to worry about awkward pipes or brown patches or unsightly bucket, bushes, etc. The girls accommodated the photo shoot for about 30 minutes. The soon to be one year old was by far the star of the show. I think that 1 year old is best for uninhibited joy. Kate is just old enough to have moods (I don't want to smile if someone is telling me to). Lydia has already started to have a smile that's just for cameras -- different than a purely joyful smile. But Lauren knows no such thing. If she's smiling, it's a ray of sunshine that lights up the room or the photograph! These are the girls' special dresses bought by Mima around Easter time.

boat on the lake (what a summer!)

Josh's parents recently put a contract on some land in North Carolina. Their piece of property is up on the ridge above Lake Nantahala. There are actually 4 families who bought an 8 acre tract (Bob Baileys, Len Autons, & two other families). Neither the Autons nor the Baileys have any immediate plans to build on the property, but they both plan to use their property for camping & day trips. In order to facilitate camping or just picnics, Jake (Josh's brother), Andrew (Josh's cousin) and Matt (Jake's friend) constructed a deck in four pieces & hauled it up to the property. This will provide an above ground tent pad or just a place to sit & eat around the fire pit.




What I'm most excited about is not camping, but getting on the water. This last weekend we had a foretaste of hopefully many such days on Lake Nantahala. We rented an 80 hp pontoon boat that could accommodate 13 or 14 people. We definitely tested out the capacity! The seats were cozy, there was plenty of room to maneuver without falling into people's laps, and Kate did pretty well walking around from person to person (or from snack to snack). She loved the freedom to roam around on a vehicle (something she cannot do in the car, of course!). And, she especially loved driving with her papa!


Kate also enjoyed being the only baby on this particular trip. Jen had a gig, so her family didn't accompany us. Kate was the star of her own show, and was able to spend a lot of quality time with her favorite people. No competition or shared limelight. Even Uncle Lenny got some respect on this trip! She is usually quite tentative around him. . not realizing that he is the sweetest guy. . and doesn't deserve the reputation she gives him of being 'sceery' or gruff. This picture was taken right after . . she touched his finger. Duh, duh, duh!!!!


Besides just boating around to see different parts of the lake, the major highlight of the trip was jumping off Super Tower Mongo the Second. Some of you may remember the original was an old jumping hole in MN that the Baileys affectionately titled Super Tower Mongo. This cliff deserves the name & more! The cliff is somewhat hidden as you approach. We turned the corner, and I could just see everyone thinking, this doesn't look that bad! Those who had jumped before, however, knew that looks could be deceiving. We made two stops at the Tower & many of our troupe of 13 gathered up courage & made the jump! I know my own strengths (and weaknesses) & declined! Andrew, Jonathan, Jake, Matt, Jackie, Josh, & Bob all made the plunge. It was quite something to see Josh take a few minutes to fly off that ledge. If he had pause, then I would never have made it. Later that evening, I had a dream of just climbing right up & walking off the edge. No thinking, just walking off. Of course, even if I prepared myself, I think I'd have a LOT of trouble taking that step into thin air.


This was my favorite picture of Kate.This is her obeying my request to Smile! She rarely gives such a big smile these days, on command, at least.


The problem with being behind the camera is that . . well, that I'm always BEHIND the camera. We got two family pics, though.



The lake itself is gorgeous! It's a mountain lake fed by the Nantahala River. (If you're ever in this area, the Nantahala Gorge is also worth seeing!). So, you get the beautiful water shifting from green to blue depending on the clouds and sun, and the mountains all around, with several layers of mountains in certain vistas. I told Brittny that I could hardly believe that this lake is OUR lake. It's like finding a treasure and knowing you'll be able to enjoy it for years to come.



Kate loved being on the boat & really thought that the 'pool' was pretty neat. We boarded the boat at 1, and didn't get on our way home until 8:30 pm. She took no nap, ate LOTS of sugar, and was generally sweet natured the whole day, until we got her in the car for the ride home. She napped for about 30 minutes, then woke up angrily crying, "No car! No like it! Hold you! (which really means hold me! of course)" and then just repeat. After 15 minutes of that track, we stopped for gas, and we were finally able to calm her down. Then she played & sang merrily with me until 10:45 pm. Finally, she dropped off to sleep. I simply could not believe it!

Cousin Camp, Day 2 & 3 & 4

Alright, people, you're supposed to be helping me! Just throw me a few ideas, please. To remind you. I need a name for Camp ____________.

Day 2 -- no pictures! Jen & I went over to Aunt Jenny's pool and the girls got to swim & eat lunch by the pool. Highlights, the girls started playing with some diving rings that the Moseley girls brought. It was funny to see Kate try to pick them up. She had to fight against the floaties that didn't want to let her get down that low in the water, and of course, she didn't really want her head to go in either! Sometimes she used her feet, just like a big girl!

Day 3 -- Winnie the Pooh was making a special appearance at our local library, so we went! After all, Anna's favorite stuffed animal is a Pooh bear. Little did we know that Lauren, the youngest member of the entourage would be the most excited! She wiggled & squealed & generally showed excitement at this humongous stuffed animal. Kate didn't care to get tooo close to Pooh without Auntie Jen, and Meg was downright afraid of over-sized Pooh-bear. We also got to sing a few songs & hear some stories!



Then we wended our way to Mima's house for an all day swim & play date! It was so amazing to feel the difference between the private pool & the neighborhood one. The girls were more relaxed & had so much more fun! We even got Anna to do some cool tricks jumping into the pool and catching a dive ring that I threw from the other side of the pool! Although Kate and Lauren did swim, I brought out my camera when Laurie was napping and Kate had moved on to the sand box.


Megan was intrepid! She showed Lydia a thing or two about what it means to Jump into the pool!




Lydia was getting the sand off of her buns before she got back in the pool. Check out that tan line!

After swim time was art. Jen had bought some foam shapes & fingerpaints. Who knew how well the two would mix! Lisa brought out papers & supplies she'd had since Jennifer, Josh, and Jake were little. I'm serious! It was fun to see all their various levels of creativity! Unfortunately, Kate was napping, so she didn't get to join in the art activity although she would have LOVED to. Pents (paints) & crowns (crayons) and pins and cu-lring are some of her favorite things.

Lydia is wearing an apron that used to be Josh or Jen's when they were little tykes.



Anna mixed the shapes & paint to create her images. Check out her bird! And, I love that she titled her work of art.




Kate started off making a pattern & then it ended up being a frame. I think it's adorable!


Day 4 -- They played in the pool AGAIN & Gagi took them all to see the American Girl movie, which they apparently loved. Grandma told me that it reminded her of life as she remembers it.

Cousin Camp, Day 1

This week, all the girl cousins (with the exception of Caroline M) got to spend some major time together. So much that I had to give it a name. A year ago, I read on someone else's blog about Camp Stinkyfeet, when all of the cousins came over to their Aunt's house for fun & games for three days or so. I was so taken with the name and the idea! It was an opportunity for cousins who didn't live nearby to enjoy each other not in the context of holidays, when the focus is not really on squirt gun fights or fingerpainting or playing cops & robbers with the fireflies. When I suggested it to Anna & Kate, they were practically offended. "We don't have stinky feet," they said, totally missing the whimsy & lemonade & summer time fun rolled up in that name. So, I am searching for a girlier name. Princess Camp? (I don't really like the whole princess theme thing). Camp Lipgloss? Pink & Purple Camp? I need some help coming up with some suggestions. And, we need some (more) boys in this family! Of course, only some of you can help me out with THAT particular problem. :-) Then I can run Camp Stinkyfeet.

Anna, Kate, and Meggie stayed with Aunt Jenny & Lisa while their parents were enjoying some R&R in Puerto Rico for their 10th anniversary. We got together with them for 3 of their days, but I only took pictures two days. I was ENJOYING life instead of just taking pictures of other people enjoying life. :-)

Day 1 included blueberry picking, water fights with the containers that were supposed to be for blueberry picking, filling up pools after the entire thing had been emptied by splashing girls!, lunch, and more blueberry picking (or should I say, eating). All this was at our house.



The girls were very gentle with their little cousin. This was their idea of how to involve Kate in the water wars!

They even made me get my suit on, just so I wouldn't get my street clothes totally drenched!


A couple observations. Megan (3.5) & Lydia (also 3) are such different girls. Meggie has spent her whole life trying to be the same as her older sisters. She plays like them and is brave in a lot of areas that Lydia isn't. Obviously, some of that is personality, but some of that is birth order, too.

Kate & Kate seem to get along particularly well. Obviously, it's not exactly their name that makes this so, but it's awfully cute to see Kate M take out special time to talk to & understand (a whole different ball of wax!) her little cousin Katie. I just noticed that if you enlarge the picture, you can see that Kate M's teeth are BLUE from all of the blueberries she ate. Ha!

sound familiar?

I began to hear little noises in the bedroom about a half hour ago. But, I thought, I'm not quite done with my e'mailing, so I shall let her play in her crib. She played, got quiet, chirped some more, and finally began to increase the volume of her playing and calling for mom. Finally, my mother's heart kicked into gear, and I opened the door to Kate's bedroom. What greets mine eyes but a buck naked child "jumping" in her crib! I laugh, I giggled, I left the room looking for my camera. Alas, the camera was in the trunk of the car. I return the room & approach the crib. At last, the smell hits me. Poop is detected. Oh no! As I take steps closer & closer, I look frantically for poop smears on Kate's body, face, the crib, her quilt or the walls. Nope. The only place I can find poop is in the air. What happened: Kate fell asleep on the way home from church, fellowship dinner, and congregational meeting. Josh just tucked her into bed in her completely adorable pillowcase dress sans diaper cover. She obviously got bored or tired of having poop on her buns, and took her dress and her diaper off. Thankfully, it was kind of a crusty poop, so it really stayed mostly in the diaper. I had to take her to the bath to get the crusties off of her buns, though. Air dried is no good. I am incredibly thankful it wasn't worse. In fact, I can laugh at it still! I have, however, shoved all of her linens, quilt, stuffed animals, and dress into the washing machine just to be sure!

is big bird a girl???

Were there any classic Sesame Street muppets/puppets that were girls? I know they've a whole new cast since I watched as a little girl: Zoe, Abby, probably more than I know. I don't think Elmo was a character way back when. As Josh & I chatted about this, he ventured a guess that maybe Big Bird was a girl? It rocked my world -- how could Big Bird be a girl?!? Then, I realized that maybe Big Bird was like a little kid's version of Pat from Saturday Night Live --- the androgynous mystery that never would quite give up the clue to its identity. As I had always assumed Big Bird was a boy, I looked at him from that perspective. But I GUESS there was nothing so gender specific about him that he would HAVE to be a boy, except the pronoun he. God bless pronouns! At least Wikipedia refers to Big Bird as a he. Another funny note. Carroll Spinney is the actor who plays Big Bird, but, as fate would have it, Carroll Edwin Spinney (also called Ed) happens to be a man! So, my question still stands. Were the original creators of Sesame Street so unPolitically Correct that they created a whole world where girls didn't exist (except for humans, of course!) Can you think of any classic Sesame Street girl monsters? Maybe Snuffleupagus (I always thought it was an f. . as in snuffleufagus. . oh well. I guess Sesame Street never looks quite the same through adult eyes.

sewin & swimmin

This summer, Kate & I have been working on some skills. I have been working on sewing. Below is my third project. I can't tell you how pleased I am with the outcome. This project was so brain consuming that I didn't have time to take pictures of any steps other than the finished product. Can I just say again that sewing can be forgiving? This dress has some unsightly parts on the inside, but the outside is cute as a button. The funniest thing: When I showed Josh the finished product, the first thing he does is look inside. Then again, when I showed it to Kate's grandma, great-aunt, and great-grandma, they too, all looked on the inside. Jen observed, "Why is that the first thing sewers always do?" I wanted to ask, "Why was that the first thing Josh, NOT a sewer, did?" The project took a day and a half, and I did a lot of ripping out seams & stitches. Cutting & marking were challenging, especially since I changed the size I was cutting half way through and had to re-cut & mark some pieces. It would have been much easier if I had known how little I would use the marks. When push came to shove, I did most of the alignment by eye, because in the end, that's what matters! I sewed & seam ripped three button holes, which was not very kind to the fabric. In the end, I only ended up w/ room for ONE buttonhole. But, I think sewing is a good hobby for me. I don't mind ripping up stitches & doing it again. My shoulders & back & eyes might mind, but it makes me feel good that I can redo it better. I'm excited to try the next project now that I understand some of the rudiments of garment making. I will say, though, that with the paltry selection of cute, modern fabrics at Joanne's does not inspire me! I'm not sure whether the time, effort, and money I put into a dress could possibly work out to cheaper than I could buy a cute one at the store. I am going to keep going because it's fun, and I want to get better at it! I also have a lot more respect & charitable feelings for dress prices. It used to make me gag myself when I turned over a tag in a store like Gap or Gymboree to see a $30 or $40 price tag. Now I know why! Fabric, finishing, patterns, everything costs more money than I thought. :-)

Katherine Boo has been working on lots of skills -- the most remarkable of which is swimming! We finally figured out a configuration that lets me relax when we go to the pool & lets her have the most amount of fun with the least amount of water in the mouth! She loves to paddle about to all of her favorite relatives. She stands on a ledge inside the pool and says, "three, four" & then jumps (really) into the pool. She's been practicing putting her face in the water to blow bubbles in the bath tub, and it's actually paying off in the pool.
We started off with just the innertube connected to a tank. But, she kept dipping into the water if she got off balance, so then we added......

swim wings & she's good to go!

Other new skills:

fingerpainting & coloring. Literally overnight, she holds a crayon correctly & gets some pretty good marks out of them. she loves to color & paint & asks me for these activities with frequency when we're at home.

building with blocks. Also, overnight, she no longer solely wishes to destroy towers of blocks that mommy builds. She delights in building & stacking & fitting together.

talking. Her language is exploding. She uses sentences a lot & we're starting to work on some Spanish words. Her first Spanish word that she used all on her own was "agua." She knows where her nariz, boca, and manos are, & can pronounce them, but doesn't use the words on her own. She says nasis for nariz. Sometimes she says agua water. It's amazing how quickly she can pick up a new word or phrase. Some of the hilarious 'adult' things she says are "ashy" (actually) and "I think."

playing w/ dolly. She recently began mothering her baby doll & wanting dolly to be with her in the crib at all times. preferably with her baw-tul. She's quite good at finding the dolly's mouth & putting the bottle on the mouth, after I explained that a baby bottle doesn't go in the eye.

singing. Another exploding skill. She knows many words in Jesus Loves Me & You Are My Sunshine. She knows almost all the words in the first verse of Holy, Holy, Holy. . So cute. She has a special sing-songy voice that she uses, too.

My next post is newish, too, folks. I know, when it rains it pours!

I couldn't post links in my comments, so here are two links re Jennifer's questions.

Similar inner tube at Target & Babies R Us. The one at Target has a crotch strap which looks potentially uncomfortable, but could solve the problem that Kate's has, which is that it rides up if she doesn't keep her arms down. That's one of the reason's the swim wings help. They make her arms fat & keeps the float down. Also, I saw that same float cheaper elsewhere online. The Babies R Us is a whole swim suit with a tube in it. I like the ease of Kate's over the head design. Easy off & easy on. Somehow I can't find one like it online, but I really think I've seen them in stores at Target or Babies R Us, somehow, just not online. Or find it used at a consignment or resale shop, like I did!

Pattern is Simplicity Easy to sew, #3511