Oh yeah, baby, he's grillin'.

Well isn't he cute? He grilled us up some steaks tonight, our very first meal on the grill, and it was quite tasty. Lookin forward to more. I found a "recipe" for Banana Boats, which we plan on making soon. Tonight we had Skirt Steak Romesco.

Yum!

Water girl.

This girl would be real happy if she just spent all day long playing in the water. The hose, her sand/water tray, her pool, the hose. Did I say the hose? Cause let's be honest here, she really just wants the hose with water running through it so she can drink the water, spray it in her pool, let it get her belly wet. And she usually ends up with everything else wet, too.

One other thing: this is her pretty girl smile. When you tell her to give it to you, this is what you get. Isn't she lovely?

Fifteen months.

She's fifteen months but I don't know how that happened. She knows a lot. 51 words and 25 signs, I counted the other day. She has a new friend here, "Mimi," who has been with her since in utero but whom she just discovered today. All of a sudden they are best buds. We will see tomorrow. She loves ice. When I tell her to smile, she makes this big cheesy smile (Megan, I remember Mazie doing that!). She doesn't like to try new foods. She goes to bed at six. She is spoon-proficient. She is a pro at the stairs in our new house. Her favorite sign is 'baby.' It might be her first word and sign each morning. She is working on those bottom molars. She is my love. I cannot love her enough each day. I hope she loves this life. I do.

hello.com

Tara introduced me to hello and it is just about the awesomest thing ever. You use to to i.m., to share photos and layouts, but most of all, for me, I can use it to blog! Anyone who uses blogger will love this! Download it today, it's free!

Back in Business.

Thank goodness.
Stupid Internet Explorer. We are now proud Firefox users.

Now I can catch up on all the photos I've been wanting to share!

Here's Al in our kitchen sink. Her new favorite fun. She says, "Wah-r" and that means, please put me up in the sink. She's pretty good about understanding that we can't always do that, so if you tell her no ahead of time, it's fine. If you take her down after she's already been up there, forget about it. Do you see her shirt (thanks, Nana)? It says, "I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. I want to speak to my Grandma." Fitting.

And that's all for now. Nighty-night. My daughter's waking by 5:30 these days so I need to get some rest!

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3.

My brilliant husband came home with his work computer, which has an older version of Internet Explorer, and low and behold, blogger doesn't have a problem with this older version of IE. God forbid you want to update your computer. Ladies and gentlemen, we have identified the problem. Now, onto the solution. And for that we will need Ron.

I just grabbed a disk and picked any old folder and any old photo and this is what I got. A family portrait by US. Six months old. Ahhhhhh.

Blogger issues.

Having MAJOR issues uploading images to blogger. UGH!

But there are ways around everything!

Last weekend was a HOT one, and we are hoping that this one is a little more normal in temperature. But when it was hot, I got some good ones of Alla cooling her behind in her "poo," which of course is her "pool," and she should know, cause she spent the last two weeks becoming a little tadpole in her First Splash class at the Shoreview Community Center.

Pre-pool, trying to get the blind-cords.

In the pool.


I definitely have a thing for those pursed lips.

The current poop face. There's a story here. See, I had the camera. She was naked at this point. (No need to waste a swim diaper on a few minutes of pool time.) I know that looks like a cute face, and it is, but she had just said "poop" and then proceeded to spend the next few minutes squeezing it out. Literally. I saw it coming out. And I caught it in a paper cup. Good mama that I am.


That face.

That's all for now. This is a real pain in all our behinds. So hopefully Blogger will get their act together soon to save us all a headache.

"Beach" Day.

Being desperate for friends, I quickly located the local Mom's Club, which thankfully has playgroups 2-3 times a week. Today was "Beach Day" at Snail Lake, which, as we Californians know, is not really a beach, but a lake, because it is quite a different thing when you can see not the horizon, but the other side. Details, details. Anyway, it was really fun, the water was warm, you could see your toes, and fish just swam right up to you, which of course Alla got a kick out of. She must have signed "fish" about a hundred times.

Here's what I'll be referring to as "beach" from here on out:

Photos from our journey.

I am bringing you highlights from the road. It's going to be awhile til we get the house in any kind of photo-taking state, so just bear with me. And for our first photograph...Notice the pen in hand. That's her thing. She must walk about with a pen. And she calls it "My." We have to take the ink out of whatever pen she picks up and must have. Amy and Rich have this great bench in their living room and I was dying to get Al's picture on it. But she just wanted "dow."
They also have a great leather chair, which I thought would make another great shot. Al had a second of fun and then wanted "dow." (Notice most of these photos will take place either at the Shertzer's or somewhere in Monument, because there really wasn't a lot of photo-taking on the road. We seriously got in the 'just get there' mindset.)
She turned 14 months on the road. Here's the official shot.
Seeing friends was wonderful. Little Sarah.
And her best friend, Caroline.
Watching Alla try out her new walking legs was awesome.
The best part of the journey was how much time Ron got to spend with his daughter. No more papers to write, conference calls, group meetings. Just free time for her.
And us. Me and my girl. (Isn't Amy and Rich's couch nice?) :)

We have arrived.

FINALLY!

We have been in our house since 30 June but just got our household goods 2 days ago.

Alla has mastered the stairs. She goes to the edge, sits down, turns around and scoots down on her belly.

She is a full-fledged walker, and I don't think running is too far behind.

Somewhere between California and Minnesota, she became a toddler.

She has got 75% of Moo, Baa, La La La by Sandra Boynton memorized.

We start swim class tomorrow.

Her favorite thing here so far is 'side' - also known as going outside. Because there she can play in her sand and water tray. Which is quickly becoming a mud tray. And she must be surrounded by bubbles while she does this, meaning I have to continuously blow them.

Ron starts his new job tomorrow.

It is heavenly to sleep in our own bed after a week on an air mattress.

We need a scrapbook work area/office space. Any ideas?

We miss all those we left.

I leave you with Alla's first walk in the rain. Her first rainstorm. I got her out of it just as the drops started coming, and of course the curious girl she is went right back out. And as it slowed she signed 'more,' but sadly I haven't figured out how to turn the rain on and off. Would make watering our nice new yard a whole lot cheaper.