This is My Life Now...

January Happenings:



Square dancing on New Years Eve



Ice Cream on New Yrs! Yummy!


Kevin's Birth day Party

Evelyn decided to bury the Birthday boy with all the gourds decorating the living room.



Winter Time Hiking Upper elwah Lake with our Friend Mudra. This dam is slated for removal in a few years and the lake will be returned to a river for Salmon habitat. The are two dams and this is the largest dam removal project in the country.












Inauguration Day. I woke them up to come and watch the events on my laptop. I worked from home that day and we got to watch the live video feed from NPR.








That is the highlights for now!

We took the crib out of her room! She has been sleeping on the Futon for over a month so we asked her if she wanted to sleep in her crib and she said no. So we took it out to create more room in the tiny space. We let her jump in it one last time before we took it out.



Mama taught her about ossicones on Giraffes. They are the horns, called ossicones, are bone protuberances covered with skin and fur.

More Christmas present pics:


Piano time










A Horse! The head was from Aunt Marylin and I attached it to an old mop handle.



Little broom I custom made for her so she can 'help' us sweep the floor:



Playing a duet with Mama on piano and Evie on the penny whistle

The next Thelonius Monk?



Thank you Odin Cakes for the Piano!

Stocking Stuffer


Stocking Stuffer in Action:



For Me? Of Course!

We did a few modifications to the snowman:



Baking Christmas Cookies!!! C is for cookie that's good enough for me.....






















The cookie cutter come from my family(Mom's side) and have cut many Christmas Cookies over the years and generations. I used to love baking cookies with Grandma Cherney and when she was not around she sent them to us.

Audrey did almost all the baking this year with many amazing treats, Evie and I are in Heaven on Earth.

We let Evie open one present on Christmas Eve as was the tradition of my Mom's family. She got a great toy from Suzanne:



So we played the Holy Family for our Church's Christmas Eve Service. We kept telling Evie that we where going to church, wrap here in a blanket and she was going to pretend to be baby Jesus. It was great. So we get home, have dinner and we where doing dishes. I go out to the living room to check on Evie and see this:




I was about to tell her, No Sweetie, the Nutcracker is not a toy! When she said "Baby Jesus Sleeping" I wasn't going to argue with that. It was so sweet.

Round 2 coming soon.

and No blog entry.

Christmas is here!



Up goes the tree!




Dreaming of Christmas Magic



We even got a bunch of snow so we got to make a snowman with Grandma's kit and the snowsuit she gave us last year.






like this papa?





But papa I'm cold, I don't care how cute the snowman is, where is the hot chocolate?

Audrey had three litle girls on her hands, Evie, Aurora and Akeyla. The result, plug you ears:

Some amazing Black and white photos of Audrey and Evie

















My Favorite

Sept. 20th was the WSU farm tour of many of our local farms. We got an email that our friends at



where opening up the blueberry patch one last time this year since they got great weather to produce a good late summer batch of blueberries! We where all very excited since we had not been able to pick any and they have the best in the county. So off we went to see our friends and pick blueberries:



Ummmmm.....Blueberries!




Look papa these berries match my eyes!




Happy family

All told we got 10.8 lbs of blueberries. We have had them plain and with whipped cream so far. I am going to make some pie and our neighbors cleaned out their garage and they gave me their This is a food saver vacuum sealer. It sucks all the air out of the bag so that it prevents freezer burn. This will allow me to keep the blueberries much longer, assuming we don't eat them all before I get them into the freezer.

Evie also got to paint a great picture since one of the families that lives on the farm property has an art supply store. Evie did a great impersonation of Andy Warhol by pointing to which paint she wanted, mama picked it up, then Evie would point to where on the paper she wanted the paint. Then she would choose a brush or scraper and create great 2 year old art! Check back and I will post some pics of that.

Well, I hardly dare say it, but Audrey is done with her collaborative children book project! You can preview the book here:

http://www.iamlearningallthetime.com/

This has been a wonderful and challenging process for all those involved and we are very excited to see the book when it comes back!

You can see more about it at Audrey's blog as well
http://huckleberry-jam.livejournal.com/

Mama wanted a break from her drawing so we went to the Wooden Boat Festival. This is the largest festival of it's kind on the west coast, it draws about 20K people and LOTS of boats. We have never gone casue of the cost. But this year our neighbor who works for a Marine education program for Skagit Valley College got us in for free. Evie liked the boats, then we wandered to the Tent where they where doing fish prints.

Fish printing is a Japanese art from where you paint or ink a real fish and then press it onto paper, t-shirt whatever. We used a fake starfish and Mama and Evie made a t-shirt.



Audrey was showing her how to do it and she was a bit hesitant at first, but then got into it.






After the painting was done it was time for the shirt:




You can see she is not real sure about it but after some pressing:



TaDa!



She loves her starfish shirt and so do we, thanks Marine Science Center!

It was a fantastic September day to watch boats:



We ran into our Friend Annika and her little boy McCoy:



Hug!

With Mom working on her project deadline, Evie and I had a a nice long weekend together. We went Disc Golfing on Sat and Monday, had lunch at the park and went on the slide swings and other playground equipment. We also had a wonderful potluck at with our dear friends Emmy, Adam and Aurora at Corona Farms:



Can't drive as far a papa yet, but she is getting better.

She wanted to be my caddy:



Then she complained that the bag was to heavy:



On to the playground!


On Sat. she wanted my hand to go down the slide. On Monday she reached for it but I encouraged her to go without it. She did. The next round as I was leaning on the slide, not reaching my hand up, she waved me away from the slide saying "No papa!" This is a big slide for her but she is Little Miss Independent. One of her favorite phrases is "No, Evie do it" Remember folks she is not even 2 yet!








Corona Farm Harvest Potluck.













All in all a great weekend, not the big hiking trip I had in mind, but a great time to have three days

I took Evelyn down to my Salmon fishing spot this Saturday morning. It was a bit late for fishing and there was a seal cruising the beach (which pretty much guarantees you won't catch fish) but I didn't care. I wanted to show Evelyn fishing. I showed her the lures, which she loved, and showed her the sharp hooks and how to be careful with them.

Then I threw the lure in the water and started to reel it in. I let her crank the lure in which she was pretty into. Then I let her hold the rod:



I was thinking that I should have brought the camera, which I thought about and it sat on the bench at the house, but then I realized I had my phone which had a camera, boy am I glad. Is that cute or what?




She loved to swing the rod and watch the lure dangling and move, then she would dip it in the water and say 'Fishing!' It was a very special moment:






I think it's time to get her one of her own, hopefully she won't want a pink Barbie one, but if she does, I'll be happy to get it for her as long as she wants to fish with Papa.

I must admit that I was re-inspired by a story from North Carolina Jen emailed me:

Barbie fishing rod reels in record-setting catfish
Man helps his 3-year-old granddaughter bring in the 21-pound fish




Turns out it was a state record fish!

After we got home, Evelyn was so excited to tell mama all about fishing. She told her fishing, water, a round and round, making circle motions with her hands. She was referring to the part where I let her reel in the lure. It was great!

Audrey and I had Evelyn baptized two weeks ago at our Church, Grace Lutheran of Port Townsend.




We where privileged to have Pastor Howard Fosser perform his final baptism for Evelyn before he retired on July 27th. Pastor Beth was also there, she will be the interim pastor until we find a permanent pastor.



She likes to play in water and she I let her do so after the service in the font




Then she was having fun in the courtyard


Mamacita visited us for a week and on my birthday we went on a State Park tour of Whidbey Island


After we got home and had a nice b-b-que, Audrey gave me my birthday cake, a homemade coffee cheesecake with a ghiradelli chocolate topping, and lavender flower garnish, it was super yummy!



After my gifts from Evie climbed in the box to play. She is obsessed with toe fuzz.

Fuzz?


Fuzz!


Family photo time!



Toast:


My cute pink jacket

Seems as if we have had a very chilly summer, lots of coats and breezy nights. Better then sweating though!

Evie trys on mama's gardening gloves in he Sunday dress.




She loves to smile for me, I turned around while we where driving and said Smile! And she did:



Papa takes her to the beach to give mama a break and we explore!





And snack:



My new job is going well, I get to work form home and town several days a week. Life is great, except half summer is about gone, but no hiking yet.

Evelyn was baptized last Sunday no pics yet, but soon.

Here are some pics of her new slide that mama got for free:










We got her the lady bug boots today. I am proud to say these are only the second piece of clothing we got her that was new. I take great pride in the reduce reuse recycle principle especially for baby clothes!

Before we went home in Feb we decided to have our hairstylist get rid of Evelyn's baby mullet. Yes, her first Haircut and she was mavhalous.......







Shaun LOVED her and said it was the best first haircut he had given. Well Evelyn, do you like it?



I LOVE it. Come on baby say it SALON!