Sneaking in an update...

Kate is 18 months old today! How the time has flown. We went to the park and she had a great time on the slide. She can't quite figure out how to sit down on it herself, but she slides, with help, and shrieks "wheeeeee!"

We just got back from Ohio on Saturday, and I've been busy getting things ready for my digi-designer debut (such as it is... one kit so far, but there's still a lot to do to get ready). I'll have pictures of Kate and fireflies (real ones and digi ones) soon!

With a "Waaah! Waaaah!" here (and a "Woot!")

Kate has been complaining a lot when I change her diaper. I think it's not so much that she hates getting her diaper changed, but that she doesn't like being interrupted. She's busy playing and gets dragged off to the changing table. Of course she's going to fuss. "Mom, you're cramping my style!" (In fact it was while she was on the changing table, hollering at me with her mouth wide open, that I first noticed that she had a molar up in the back.) So, I've been singing Old MacDonald to her to distract her. She's got quite a repertoire of animal sounds now, which makes for a very interesting farm. It goes something like this:

Me: "Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a ... tiger! What does a tiger say?"

Kate: "Raah!"

Me: "E-I-E-I-O!"

The farm is populated by the typical cows, sheep, and chickens, but has also been known to feature monkeys, crocodiles, and even dolphins.

We finally heard back from Olympia (actually we called them, since we got tired of waiting). Doug didn't get the job. So I suppose we'll be here for a while longer, yet. This is not a bad thing. It's been a good place for us.

And I have news! I'm going to be a digi-designer! I've got this firefly kit that I've been working on (the bug, not the TV show) for weeks now, and finally finished. More-or-less finished. I may end up doing a little more with it. Anyway, I contacted the owner of one of the online digital scrapbook shops, sent her my kit, and she liked it! She liked it a lot, even! She asked me to join their team. Wheee! Now I get to spend even more time on the computer! Details to follow.

Father's Day

I love watching Doug and Kate play together. They are just so cute. Doug is a great dad. He reads her stories and makes up funny little songs (it's quite hilarious to hear "The Gingerbread Man" in various critical interpretations, like the Marxist reading or the feminist reading) and even lets her play with his cittern sometimes. It's fun to see how excited Kate is when Doug comes home. "Daddy" was one of her first words (along with "hi!"--she started saying them both right around the same time). Sometimes when we're in church she points up at the stand and yells "Daddy!" Here she's finding Daddy's nose.



This is my dad, piled on by most of his progeny. Barb was either a very small baby or not born yet. I was probably about 11. When Dad used to give us horse-back rides, or throw us up in the air and catch us, I always got to go first. He said it was easier to start with the heaviest one and work his way down.

Happy Father's Day to my daddy and Kate's daddy!

Knotty!

I spent a good part of the day yesterday (and part of this morning) making this knot in Photoshop. Isn't it beautiful?

Land of the Lost

I hate losing stuff. I have a couple of big sketchbooks that used to be under our bed in our old apartment. Since the move I haven't seen hide nor hair of them. I can't figure out how something that big could get lost. I mean, they're flat, but they're huge. It's not like they could be tucked away in a drawer or something. I kept things in those sketchbooks, like some homework and handouts from my calligraphy class at BYU, some cool printed papers from Korea, and a drawing of a dragon that my sister Betsey made for me. I searched for them again today with no luck. I was wanting to look through the calligraphy stuff and see if anything there might be useful. Bummer.

Kate has learned "noodles." She says "loo-loo."

wildflowers

We went to the park yesterday looking for ducklings. The ducks were uncooperative, but we did find these pretty blue flowers. Does anybody know what they are?

Ding ding! We have a winner! (Identified by IPeaFreely on Two Peas.) They are Baby Blue-Eyes. Isn't that just perfect?