Working

My dad always told me they had me first so that I could be their slave.

You better believe I am now making Daphne pay for my years of child labor.

Today I had her washing doors....


















.....and gardening. She is a huge help, so I am thrilled to have her as my little worker bee.


















Speaking of gardening, I will admit that we have thrown old pumpkins in our compost pile in years past and it seems the seeds have been lying dormant waiting to be given a chance to flourish and grow. Wouldn't you know that right now we have no fewer than 20 pumpkins plants happily and healthily growing in our garden boxes. I'm really torn about what to do with them, because obviously we do not have the set up for growing a pumpkin patch, but I also can't just pull them out and let them die! This is a big dilemma, but I need to figure out a solution very soon. Our chicken-poo-and-compost soil is doing its job and giving a lot of life to our veggies.

Oh the trials of being a farmer.

Swimsuit Season Is Nothing To Be Afraid Of

Maybe I should rephrase that title by saying that swimsuit season is nothing to be afraid of if you are 1 and your big belly is considered cute. I am still waiting for the episode of America's Next Top Model where Tyra says, "just look at that model's huge belly! isn't it so cute?" but I don't think that will be happening any time soon. Bummer.

These past few days have felt like summer has finally arrived and we are so happy about it. I give myself a lot of credit for the change in the weather, because it seems every time I get my canner out the weather gets warm and my un-air-conditioned kitchen heats up to a billion degrees. Then the canner gets going with all the boiling water and the kitchen easily reaches a billion and one degrees. David walks through and talks about how hot it is, and I tell him unless he is washing fruit he has no room to complain.

So he takes the Daph out for some swimming instead, and now every afternoon she says "dada water" over and over and over again.















P.S. Tonight Daphne said 'night night' to her teeth.
P.P.S We still owe Kyle Cox 5 bucks for that inner tube.

Please Don't Tell: We Skipped Church

On Sunday we went out to the beach to meet up with David's family.

As a disclaimer, these photos are not actually of the ocean but of the same river we were walking by on Saturday, just quite a few miles to the northwest. Isn't that just so interesting? I thought so.

Daph liked the boats.














And also seashells.


















David liked swimming in freezing cold water.
(This was supposed to be one of those pictures where you snap the photo and then realize, wow, you accidentally got a huge fish jumping in the background! Daphne was not cooperating and was too amazed at what her dad was doing.)














Any trip to the beach when the sun is shining is a good trip to the beach.

River Walk and Birthday Fun

The sun was out when we woke up this morning! Seeing the sun makes getting up early so much more tolerable.

We decided to spend the warm morning on a walk by the river.














One of Daphne favorite activities - a walk, combined with several of her favorite objects - airplanes, boats and water. Perfect.


















Our walk took us almost an hour and a half, so I was sure we had gone at least 7 miles. Surely.

Nope, only 4.8. It's very disappointing to be such a slow walker. I blame the small one.
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I realized this afternoon that Daph turned 19 months old today. To commemorate her birthday I will share that one of her new favorite things to do is to list off the things she wants to say 'night night' to as I am rocking her before bed. Tonight she said 'night night' to daddy, mama, Daphne, Lola, Brynner, airplanes, outside, milk and the stairs. Saying 'night night' to the stairs kind of threw me off, but she was very adamant about it. I guess she can say good night to whatever she wants.

This afternoon as she was playing she started saying 'beya' over and over again, getting louder each time. I could not figure out what she was so frantically trying to say. Finally she came over to me, touched my belly, said 'thank you' and took off again. Beya = belly. Got it. At least she was polite about the whole thing.

Berrylicious

I would like to take one minute to say I am very sad about this faux summer weather we are having. Yesterday the sun did not come out until 3:21 P.M. I know that because I was desperately watching for the sun and rejoiced when it finally started pushing its way through the clouds. It seems like by the end of July we should be able to plan outdoor activities without wondering if we will need to wear a woolen sweater. Can I get an amen?














We made plans to take Daphne berry picking on the farm on Sauvie Island that David and I have gone to for the past several years. Last year we didn't get to go, so we were really looking forward to the adventure.

You can imagine my dismay to wake up yesterday morning, our berry picking day, to find it raining. Hello, I do not berry pick in the rain. Berry picking in the rain is extremely anti-summer, if you ask me.

By the time we got ourselves up and at 'em, got to the grocery store for picnic food and through a drive through coffee hut, it was barely drizzling, just cloudy and windy and cold. Whatever. Better than rain.

Our goal to was to pick as many berries as we could before Daphne could realize what we were doing. She has this thing for berries where she will cross oceans and climb mountains to eat them. I'm sure berry farmers realize a few berries will get eaten before they are paid for, but I'm sure they would rather patrons not eat their weight in unpaid berries, if you know what I mean.

This plan lasted about 7.4 seconds. Smart one, that girl is.



















Saying 'more.'



















Throwing a fit when the berries do not come fast enough.

















That's more like it.















Once we moved on to blueberries, it took approximately .324 seconds for her to find her own berries to pick. She did not want us to get them for her. And I was impressed that she was good at not picking the green ones. You probably only have to eat one or two before you figure that one out.
































Our berry picking was fruitful and fun, despite the chilly weather. And I am really looking forward to today's diapers, as I know they will be coming in various shades of blue. In fact, I think I am smelling one right now...

OK, Veggies, It's Time to Grow

I am so thankful to have a beautiful garden this year. I especially love that we're growing a bunch of corn even though we don't really like corn. But chickens do! And I can decorate with the stalks this fall. Always thinking ahead.

You know that David built our amazing veggie boxes, but did you know that we also made that soil? Oh yes we did. It is years worth of a compost pile. It's especially nice with a little chicken poo mixed in.

Maybe if I made a sign that said "this soil made with chicken poo" no one will steal any of our crop.




























We bought some of our vegetable starts at our favorite little local nursery, which happens to share a parking lot with a B-17. We thought Daphne would like being up close and personal to an airplane, but apparently airplanes look more appealing when they are far, far away (and not a super loud A-6 Intruder, which is what scared her the other day).






































I could tell you how she bucked and yelled and tried to steer David away from that plane, but there is a huge fly in my living room that really needs to be taken care of. Gotta go.

Our Day

*Today Daphne scooted over to Lola's and Brynner's bowls while they ate, picked out dog food chunks, popped them in her mouth and said "mmmm" a lot. She did the same with Ellie the Cat.













*Today in the summer warmth Daphne kept herself covered in blankets. In the past couple of weeks she has become quite bonded to all of her minky blankets. If she sees one, she needs it in her hands, even if she already has one or two or three on her person. Tonight as I was readying her for bed, there happened to be three blankets in the living room, so when we went to the couch to read books she needed all three of them with us. It's very important that all the blankets touch her skin, so we had one on her right shoulder, one on her left shoulder, and one draped over her head. Then her Owl and new friend Skunk from Idaho had to sit on her lap. Did I mention it is 80 in our living room? To top it all off, the book she wanted to read was the Bed, Bath and Beyond catalog we got in the mail today. (It's also important to take all of these blankets to bed with her, where she positions herself in a little minky nest to fall asleep in.)

*Today we went out by the airport to watch airplanes, and an aircraft carrier bomber used in Vietnam flew overhead. It was so loud it scared poor little Daphne. (David was not with us, but he also heard and saw the airplane. He said it's only the second of its kind he's ever seen. Cool.)

*Today I counted mosquito bites. Has anyone else noticed that this year appears to have brought us a plague of mosquitoes? I counted 15 bites on Daphne's arms today, and this morning while in line at Costco a lady cut to the front of the line to tell me she was amazed at all the bites I had. (How does one respond to that, by the way?) The most impressive bite is the one on my forehead that looks like a goose egg. Like I ran into a door. Basically I'm walking around looking diseased and accident prone, while toting around my equally diseased daughter. We may as well start a colony.

*Today Daph tried to feed our chickens sticks.














*Today David is living on about 2 hours of sleep because he worked until 2 this morning and then had to be downtown at 8 for court. Now he's at work again.

*There's not much more to say, except that Daphne can speak chicken.

Mt Everest is in My Living Room

These days I turn my back for 2 seconds and come back to find that Daphne has climbed into or onto pretty much anything that looks appealing to her.







































































Apparently even a dustpan is fair game.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

(This post is mostly here because this blog is a scrapbook of sorts for our family, so I understand if you may not want to know what we did on vacation. I realize no one wants to sit and look at people's vacation slides. Even if they are super, duper interesting.)


















My grandparents are celebrating 50 years of marriage this summer, so they took their children/spouses, their grandchildren and their one beautiful great-grandchild (that would be Daphne, f.y.i.) to N. Idaho for a week. We stayed in the most gigantic house of all times (see the second window down on the tower? that was my room.) and did all sorts of fun things.

Swam:














Rode bison (who is noticing the trend of Daph appearing to have no face?):













Fished (just boys did that):













Went on a trolley ride through old silver mining towns:



















A lot of eating of things that are not necessarily healthy:



















And check out this insane bike ride David and I did with my aunt and uncle, The Hiawatha Trail. Do you see that super high train trestle there in the middle of the mountains? We had to ride over that and 7 others, plus ride through long, dark tunnels.













The long dark tunnels were the scariest, but we did it and rewarded ourselves with t-shirts. It's the longest bike ride I've ever done in my life, so I'm thinking this shirt will go with me to my grave.













This sign was at an intersection in Wallace. Is it really the center of the universe?! I don't know, but I had to take a photo just in case it was important. Wouldn't want Daphne (and Becca and Emma) to miss out on being in the center of the universe.



















Daphne with her GiGi and Grandpa B, the anniversary guests of honor:
































We had a really good time, and I give this vacation a solid A+.

Vacation Sneak Peak

We've been on a vacation.

We took a very, very, very long drive. Very long.

Daph had some good times in the car.