Camping!

Our usual (four years strong!) spot has been decimated to a dust pile, so we went 3 miles further up the road to find this beautiful green spot - which we shared with a bunch of cows. It was fun, we stayed up until 1 am talking and laughing so hard our sides hurt (thanks Chris). Time just seems to fly around the campfire. We got up about 6 am... the night was pretty cold and uncomfortable. Adrie slept great in the car but her poor hands and feet were freezing when she woke up!
We had Kurt & Alaina & Adrie, Becky & Nate & Caleb & Madi, Jake & Jen & Mikey & Simmy, and Chris & Autumn joined us until bedtime.

We're thinking of going again July 20th if anyone wants to join us!

I took some darling photos of Adrie that you'll find on my Digital Darkroom blog.

Yay! Shopping

I bought a maternity shirt today. I feel like Natalie. But, truth be told, I bought two other shirts that look & are cut very similar and one looks even more maternity-like, so who's to tell?!

Adrie is so adorable when shopping. She LOVES people-watching. She watched a little girl cry at the top of her lungs for a good three minutes, a curious look on her face.

Two More

Adrie and her Grandpa :)

Now that she crawls, I find her in all sorts of places! She managed to get to the back of our deep coat closet and pull out an old favorite toy. I found her by following the music it plays.

Finally!

I'm waiting for Kurt to get home so we can get CAMPING! and Adrie is asleep so I have a moment to update you on all those family photos you've been missing during the last zillion posts.

"Sup Dawg?":

The ONLY picture we have of us laying grass (Sorry Mal!):

Kurt's Eye Directly after Surgery:

Adrie's First Trip to Cabela's. I LOVED this tiny little chair! She loved these animals so much she refused to look at me. Kids are funny.She loves Grandma Wood:

That's the last couple of weeks for us!

Barf

Arrowhead water makes me gag. Literally, I've felt nauseous all day as I drink this 700 mL, or 1 pt, 7.7 fl oz. If it weren't 19867million degrees outside I would boycott H20.

Why would you bottle something that tastes even worse than tap water?

More Proof that she's MINE!

She ate bean with bacon soup tonight for dinner. Nectar of the Gods.

Like I'm Six Years Old Again

I have butterflies in my stomach. Literally. This is crazy! See what time it is? I can't sleep I'm so excited. I can't remember the last time I felt this way. My mind is just spinning with creativity and every time I close my eyes I'm picturing a computer screen and photoshop and what-ifs and then I just have to try it.

I ordered a really nice Digital SLR today - time to turn all of my photography wanna-be's into reality! No more point-and-shoot pics just doctored up. Okay, maybe I'll keep doing that. But I'm so excited to have a camera where the sky's the limit.

So when you're bored go check out my Digital Darkroom blog and I promise, it's just going to keep getting better.

P.S. I can't get my SD card with pictures from this weekend to upload, so sorry for all these text-only posts. I'll make up for it, don't you worry.

Sod sod sod

We have grass! We hurt everywhere! It requires a lot of water! My Dad is a superhero! I can't believe how much a wheelbarrow weighs! I didn't know I had some of these back muscles! My new awakening is that if I have a huge beautiful yard in my dream house a) I won't need a gym membership and b) I'll have something productive to show for my exercise!

:) Happy Sunday. I'm so glad for the coming day of rest.

Digital Darkroom Stuff

My super-computer is back and better than ever! Thank you, Kurt the Amazing!

So I've got a couple new pictures on my Digital Darkroom blog and more to come, so keep checking and tell me what you like!

http://adigitaldarkroom.blogspot.com

And I am still waiting on more pictures from absolutely anyone - even people I don't know - to work with. Send them to adigitaldarkroom@gmail.com. I mean it!!!

Hot Tubbing... with 16 of our closest friends.

The title just about explains this post. Kurt and I were looking forward to a nice, relaxing heart-to-heart in our hot tub last night. It was 8:45 pm and Adrie was safely in bed, sleeping the night away.

Worth complaining about is that of these 16 friends:

ZERO of them were "close"
11 of them were under the age of ten
10 of them were screaming and shrieking
6 of them had flotation devices of some kind - arm wings, life jackets, body boards...
5 of them were adults oblivious to the havoc these kids were causing
4 of them had squirt guns with which they were nailing people in the back of the head
3 of them kept trying cannonballs despite our dirty looks
2 of them had huge flotation mattresses
1 of them kept crawling across our laps as he made laps around the tub

We toughed it out for fifteen minutes, hoping these racous families would leave and put their kids to bed.

They outlasted us.

Isn't the whole purpose of a hot tub that it's a place for adults to get away from the shrieking circus in the pool ? I seem to remember we weren't even allowed to TOUCH grandma's hot tub until we were at least 12. Grrrrrr.

So much for our heart to heart. We just griped to each other and vowed to have better kids.

Just Stuff - or maybe a Journal?

I like short blogs. They are better than no blogs and I've become quite the addict; I like to read even one-liners in each of your days.

Adrie is officially crawling and it's absolutely adorable. She can now keep herself entertained for LONG stretches of time, and it's darling to hear her talking to herself as she moves around the floor exploring everything imagineable. Today I walked into her nursery to find her licking the baby monitor, chewing on the antenna to see what it feels like. She still resorts to army crawling sometimes and it's hilarious to see her dig her toes and elbows into the carpet to propel herself forward.

I am a big baby when it comes to being sick. I must've eaten something spoiled or just gotten punished for eating Doritos, Cookie Dough, & a Barq's for dinner. I've felt nauseous and throwing up and junk since about 2 am.

I think I'm a little bit bipolar. I can swing from feeling like life is absolutely wonderful and amazing and how did I get so lucky, down to feeling blah and what's the point of it all, and then back to wonderful (luckily I spend more time in wonderful-land than blah-land.) But still, a shout out to all of you who might be a little bit bipolar too.

My real computer is out of commission and I am missing it terribly. That's why you haven't seen any good photo blogs or digital darkroom stuff for awhile.

Back to work! (Yes, I am here despite swimming underwater from my good friend Percocet.) get to cash out my sick and vacation days when I drop to part-time and I am determined not to waste a single one!

By Popular Demand...

Here they are... those perfectly dorky front teeth.


AND visual proof that gone are the days where I can hand her anything in the grocery cart to play with. See what she did to the jello?! Lucky me I caught it before she got through to the good stuff.

Today

*Kurt had eye surgery (ptosis repair, aka the same thing as Adrie) and it is swollen and purple and looks absolutely awful. Poor guy is half asleep all the time when he's not worrying about ice and pills and internal bleeding. Before it started swelling he looked like a different person with two wide open eyes! Really!

*Adrie looks kinda funny with her two front teeth coming in miles apart. Hello, Bucky! My precious baby is becoming somewhat dorky looking.

*While at the hospital thismorning I read an interesting article on kids and technology. It said to teach your kids that their blogs could be internet-archived forever and even years down the road future job interviewers, college application reviewers, and many others could find junk that could sink them. Interesting thought to keep in mind for myself even.

*I learned such COOL stuff in my photoshop class last night and I'm just so excited about all of it and I wish there were a bazillion hours in the day to do everything I want to, like doctoring up fun photos, more scanning stuff and family history, photo restoration (G&G's pics), business and web page building. Any ideas for me on a niche I could find in the market that is actually profitable? I can't stop thinking about it.

*To further Natalie's idea that Kurt and I are obsessed with strange cat photos (really, we're not!) my brother in law Kevin showed me the greatest site called Kitten Wars. Sounds demented, but it's actually so fun and addicting! Go vote for your favorite kitten photo. I'm going to upload the one of Indigo in the cinder block as soon as my real computer gets up and running again. Aaaaargh even now as I went to that website to make sure the link works I had to vote on a few. I love kittens.

*I saw Pirates last night finally. I didn't get half of it. I guess that's what I get when I'm not a repeat-movie-watcher. that's why, sadly, I can't see or read Harry Potter until I either a) read them all again, which isn't likely to happen until I do it with Adrie as a fourth-grader or b) find some great cliff's notes.

*At the hospital thismorning (again) I read another great article on homeschooling. I have NEVER found the idea attractive but this great article really got me thinking. I think the IDEAL situation would be to have my kids in school half a day (high school, at least) where they do math, science, choir, and gain social interaction. After that it would be so fun to explore whatever else interests them and I bet you'd cover a whole lot of topics, and learning would be a fun and exciting thing. Like, if your eight year-old is obsessed with swords, you study everything imagineable related to swords - the metals they're made of, the times in history they were made, what dynasties used them, why they rust, etc. etc. etc. It sounds like a lot of work though, too.

*Okay it's not even nine o'clock and I'm dying for bed. (Cuz I stayed out til 2 am watching Pirates.) Good night everyone!

Google Cat Photo of the Day

:) :) :)

Sell Out

Facebook sold me out.

I have NEVER had a piece of genuine spam in my Gmail account (Yay Gmail! You are amazing!)

Until now.

The day after I sign up for Facebook.

I have had TWO offending messages now regarding male size and ecstasy.

I am so sad. I feel so violated. And I can't undo what's been done.

CURSE YOU FACEBOOK!!!

Dill Pickles

Adrie IS related to me! Finally! Since she looks nothing like me I have wondered how much of my daughter is a part of me...

Today I got my answer.

While BBQing hamburgers for dinner I handed her a pickle chip to watch her grimace and squirm at its potent taste.

No reaction.

Thinking she hadn't gotten a good whiff yet, we watched and waited. And waited.

She proceeded to put the whole thing in her mouth and sucked and sucked and sucked.

She cried when I wrestled it out for fear she'd choke.

So, I got out the knife and cut up little dill pickle strips for my daughter. Mmmm she has good taste.

I am Woman

Hello Mother Earth... I am back. I haven't pulled a weed in at least 16 years, but this weekend I made up for lost time. Observe my yard before (and actually, this picture is six weeks old. Instead imagine those weeds waist-high and very jungle-like): After two days of braving spiders of every size and color, and one wicked sunburn reminiscent of Kino Bay, here is my yard today:

Hear me Roar. (mostly because I hurt EVERYWHERE from my she-woman activities.)

The Greatest Dad

Kurt is absolutely, wholeheartedly, wonderfully amazing as a father. Not something I put a whole lot of stock in back in the day when searching for that 'perfect someone', but I am blown away time and time again by how great he is with Adrie. How much he loves her, loves to be with her, volunteers to take her, feed her, hold her, rock her, entertain her, and on and on. His favorite phrase to her - "We are so in love with you!" His favorite phrase to me regarding her - "Do you think most parents feel this way about their kids?"

P.S. - go to my Digital Darkroom blog to see a few more...

Sally's Visit

Here's Adrie meeting Ava. Funny how Ava is ten months older than Adrie but was so enamored with "the baby" and brought her toys and asked to touch her and on and on. That's like Rachel calling Kendall "the baby" and taking care of her! Wait a minute...

Ashlyn and Ava are so cute together - it's amazing how well they get along! (at least from what I saw... correct me if I'm wrong!) I hope my girls get along this well. (Yes, I am having a girl next and no, I'm not expecting.)

Sally it was SO fun to see you and we wish it happened a lot more often!!!

Army Crawling

Adrie started Army Crawling, which is a mix of belly-sliding and arm-pulling combined with digging her toes into the carpet to push herself forward.

She decided to demonstrate this new talent by reaching the dried cat barf on the carpet and shoving a handful into her mouth before Kurt could stop her. I heard Kurt singing"Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh" over and over while running in what appeared to be slow motion toward her. She found it hilarious and flailed wildly to shove the other handful in her mouth before he could stop her. You would think it's obvious who would win when wrestling with an 18 pound baby, but I guarantee you are wrong... she is delightfully strong when it's something she reeeeally wants.

I can't wait to tell this story to her boyfriends in 290847567 years.

A Digital Darkroom

Okay, due to some great input (thanks Natalie!) I am changing the hokey "Art by Alaina" to "A Digital Darkroom." Sounds more professional and describes what I do much better.

Sadly, plain old Digital Darkroom and The Digital Darkroom and many other versions of this were already taken, so my new company will be called A Digital Darkroom.

Go check is out for a bazillion versions of our favorite Erica and Ryan wedding photo.

http://adigitaldarkroom.blogspot.com

Swimming!

Today was Adrie's first swimming ever. She didn't really like the rowdy kids splashing water in her face but she got past it. She put her face in the water a few times and came up snorting, but didn't cry or let it bug her too much. She did NOT like me helping her float on her back and instead clawed my face off trying to get up. We sat there and wondered how on earth you teach kids to swim!?

Side note: they make the coolest sunscreen now. It sprays on like an aerosol! Maybe if I'd had that as a kid or teen I wouldn't have all those dark freckles you see above ;)

Swimsuits

Every once in awhile a miracle happens. This weekend was a combination of them in that oh-so-dreaded female event in life we call swimsuit shopping.



Miracle #1: Shade clothing had my swim top! After a summer of backorders and all the wrong colors in stock, they had it when I went by on Friday. So here's a picture: and ironically, Rachel and Erica both bought their dream Shade suits on the very same day.

I think I look kind of wide and truck-like here, but that's what happens when you get the big dad instead of the petite one I guess.

And as you can tell I didn't buy the bottoms that go with mine. So on with my story.

Miracle #2: After trying on 12 swimsuit bottoms at Target and 21 pairs at Ross (I'm not kidding), I stumbled across the PERFECT black bottoms. Thank you, Ross, for coming through for us poor girls. About six years ago I found my dream swimsuit bottoms at AS IS (the Arizona version of the Junk Store). They were the perfect fit of Anne Cole black high-quality name-brand swimsuit bottoms for something like $4.99. I have worn them faithfully for said six years with various swimsuit tops that fade and go the way of all the earth while my black bottoms keep on truckin'. SO, back to thanking Ross, they had another pair of Anne Cole black bottoms that fit like a dream. And are sure to last at least as long as my figure does (wanna make bets on which one goes first!? Be careful.)

Miracle #3: Attached to my dream Anne Cole bottoms was a beautiful swimsuit top that is Miracle 3a: high-cut enough for my cleaveage that came from the busty mom instead of the sweet one and 3b: long enough to be mostly modest and 3c: fit like a dream. Funny thing is I didn't even try the top on until I got home, I just bought the suit for the bottoms and figured there's no way the top could be my dream come true.


Miracle #4: $92.00 Anne Cole Swimsuit was $19.99. Do you love it? I think even when I'm a gadzillionaire I'm still going to shop at Ross.

Links! I have Friends!

Thank you to Radical Rachel for finally showing me how to link my friend's blogs over there on the right. She wins the sister of the year award for helping me out after six months of bugging my biological sisters.

Today was a totally fun day with Sally, Erica, Rachel, and those other short people that are really loud. It was really fun shopping (thanks for babysitting Erica!) and the funnest part was sitting around talk talk talking about life and marriage and families and stuff. I think women are just designed that way, we need to talk. In heartfelt ways and about real life things. We don't do it enough. I feel healthier for having met souls like that, thank you to you amazing ladies for a great evening.

P.S. to ANYBODY that is linked on my page and would rather be kept private, just tell me or email me and I will happily remove you. I guess some people might like their blogs private (?) and I'm happy to oblige.