July 29, 2009

Our friend, the fan. Goodness, it's hot.

Calvin and Maisie are having trouble getting to bed, it's so hot. Calvin has been going to sleep on his own--I put him to bed on his tummy when he's drowsy and he will put himself to sleep. But in this crazy hot weather, he's having some trouble. :( Maisie has ditched all jammies and lays on top of her bed. Both have fans--we close the windows when they go to bed, but yikes....SO hot.

And....no more unsupervised Calvin on the bed. I went to another room to put away a pile of laundry and heard a "thump". Calvin, whom I'd left on his back in the middle of my bed, was on his tummy on the floor! :( He cried a little, I ran him out to Greg to do a pupil check, but he had quit crying already and he didn't hit his head, anyway, since he'd fallen on his front. Poor thing!! BAD MOMMY.

July 28, 2009

My family hidden amongst my tomato plants. Yes, they are taller than Greg. Wow. Maisie is in there, too. You have to search to find her! (Where's Waldo, anyone?)

Now if they would just turn RED! I don't know WHAT to do with 10 thousand green tomatoes!

July 27, 2009

Look what we found!! This is along the drive to Frenchman Coulee. So cool.

July 26, 2009

Squacklets!

Getting our photo op on our backyard swing. :)

July 25, 2009

Spent today at the water park in Moses Lake with the Squackers. It was a wonderful day, hot but not horrible. Maisie and I rode around the Lazy River a few times with Emma, who loved to roll us under the sprinklers! We also spent a lot of time in the pool, Maise loves to jump off the side, and so do Maddie and Sophie! What fun!

Maisie was taking a little break here, but she was awake. Calvin....not so much. He was a really good boy, just dozed off when he was tired.

July 24, 2009

Maisie has been enjoying her first swimming lessons in the Quincy pool. We missed sessions one and two, but have gotten her into 3 and 4. She is such a little fish! She did such a great job for the last two weeks-she learned to do the back stroke (which is hard for an adult! let alone a little kid!) and learned to flip from back floating to floating on her front. She is getting started on the crawl (we call it chicken wings, though!) and she even jumped off the lifeguard chair. The Quincy pool lacks diving boards. This picture was taken on "play day" which is the last day of swimming lessons. When we go to the water park, she has to go down the slides on our laps. During swimming lesson play day, she was allowed to go down all by herself! She was SO excited, she went down twice! ??? She and her classmate preferred to play in the regular pool with an inner tube. Ok. :) So next week she is on to the next level. Good work, Maise!

July 23, 2009

We discovered Gramma's old porch swing! It's been sitting over by the garage, but we needed to move it to sweep and clean the patio. It looked pretty unusable, but it was really just the umbrella part that was whipped into oblivion by the wind...so we pulled that part off, hosed it all off and have been enjoying swinging! Even Calvin was pretty entertained!

July 22, 2009

Calvinator, hanging out in his pack & play. Looking....pensive?

July 21, 2009

Yes. This weed is taller than I am. Sheesh.

July 20, 2009

Captured another gorgeous sunset! I need a tower in my yard so I don't have to crop or avoid the wind machines in the orchard next door. They managed to put one right in my primo picture taking spot between the house and the mountains.

July 19, 2009

Well, the corn field across the street has grown...into FIELD CORN. :( We were hoping for some friendly neighborhood sweet corn! Bummer.

July 18, 2009

Today's garden bounty! Whoop!


Ok. As you can see, we are missing a few days. Apparently, I've been prancing around taking photos WITHOUT my CF card. Argh!

I had the cutest picture of Calvin sleeping on my bed. He was so hot and so grumpy, and needed a nap so badly! I laid him on my bed in front of the fan for a sec, and when I returned, he was just staring at it, like it was the coolest thing in the world. (well, it kind of WAS, at that point--at least HIS world!)

Yesterday I took some shots of the back yard--I feel like we're finally getting somewhere with some spots in our yard! Mom and Dad procured long pine needles from their neighbors yard, and we are trying to use them to keep the weeds down. I put them around my blueberries, around my pumpkins, and a couple days ago Mom and I put them in the area right outside our family room window--I couldn't stand it, and finished off the area by removing some of those evil round rocks, and putting some chipped wood over it. Whew. One "rock area" gone. Only 2342385904574893 more to go! What a relief.

I will be doing a LOT more cf card checks in the future.

July 13, 2009

This is Calvin's little play area in the living room. Wouldn't this picture be better with a baby in it? :) Just couldn't get one done today. He was such a good boy today, so happy! He ate rice and millet with pears for breakfast and then zucchini from the garden for dinner! He also took a pretty serious nap for me, and fell asleep tonight on my lap. Such sweet days...

July 12, 2009

HOW IS IT THE MIDDLE OF JULY????? Whoa. Time goes by SO quickly!

Dad and Mom came over after church today. Dad is still working on the 2nd shop bay, and Mom helped me in the yard. Greg and Maisie went to Moses Lake to school to work on his room.

I found this lily when I was wandering around changing the water--it's kind of hiding behind the old willow stump. VERY pretty! :) Mom and I worked on the west Iris bed. Mom ripped out about a million weeds again (yes, this is the second time we've worked on this bed) and when we were finished I was able to plant the rest of the irises I got from Gramma's yard. There were about 6 left, and I also transplanted one that is going to be nearly homeless when we get to put our fence up.

So it was HOT all day. We were sweaty and gross! But tonight, the wind is WHIPPING!! I had to run outside in my jammies to rescue Maisie's pool (I emptied it today and then left it upside down on the lawn to dry) and her slip and slide! They had already made their way to the newly weeded flower bed!

July 11, 2009

Calvin is 6 months old! WOW this goes by so fast! I cannot believe we have a 4 year old and a 6 month old!

He's such a happy little camper. We've been enjoying squeals lately. He loves to make himself heard. He's just practicing--I've started working on sign language, but I have a feeling we're not going to need it. He screamed his little lungs out a couple of times today--hungry caterpillar! He had zucchini for dinner. Boiled and mashed. Yum. Ate every bite. :)

July 10, 2009

Maisie and Kristin, enjoying the sun in the pool. Even though it's small...all the kids played in the pool to cool off and had such fun!

July 9, 2009

Cousins EVERYWHERE!!!!!! Greg's family came over for the night--they arrived around noon today and the kids played HARD. They swam, and ran around and played with toys--they had a blast! This picture was taken pretty late, and Maisie was still awake! We put adults in Maisie's room and the playroom, and put all the kids in the living room on the floor. Gotta love sleeping bags! Maisie did sleep the whole night out there, and woke up running. She was sad to see them go. And exhausted. She slept on the living room floor again--nap style this time.

July 8, 2009

We had dinner at our house tonight--enjoyed our last evening with Martin before he heads off on his journey. Calvin was tuckered out already!!

July 7, 2009

Maisie and Calvin with Martin. Today was Martin's open house at Mom and Dad's--great turnout! Thanks everyone, for supporting our soldier and attending his send off party.

Maisie will miss him--the raspberry picking, the pea tossing, kitty chasing, flipball games, croquet, and the Eeek and Shriek! And that's just in two days!

July 6, 2009

Should have had my zoom lens with me today.

Maisie took to Martin right away! First she wanted to play football. Then they headed to Gogo's peas in her garden. Raspberries. Cats. Then we heard "CROQUET." "CROQUET!" Maisie was ready to set up the croquet set outside and play another game with Martin.

In this photo they are actually having a food fight. They were picking the over done peas from the garden and throwing them at each other. Martin said Maisie quickly learned the shot gun method is pretty effective. :)

July 5, 2009

Nana and Beeper surrounded by grandkids. :)

Jack and Kristin
Nana and Calvin, Beeper
Thomas, Maisie, Matthew

4th of July! 2009

Becker mini reunion in the Gig!

Dave and Charika and the kids got in on Friday night late, and Greg and I and the kids went over on Saturday morning. We got there around noon and the kids ran and jumped and yelled and played, made art with sidewalk chalk, and swam and did fireworks all day! It was a busy fun filled day! Maisie read a book on her own, and went to sleep by herself!! Whoop! Good girl!

Here Maisie and Thomas are working on the coloring portion of Thomas' name on the driveway. Nice work, kids!

July 3, 2009

Sweet potatoes anyone? Somebody was HUNGRY.

July 2, 2009

This is what happens to a Maisie girl when you play all day at the water park!

We visited the Quincy Aquatic Center for the first time today. They have 2 slides--but you have to be 48 inches tall to ride alone! So Maisie has to go down on the lap (how is that safer? she can SWIM, for heaven's sake!) of Mommy or Daddy. It was pretty fun, she also practiced floating, and did two assisted somersaults. We thought Greg was going to be blind for a few days until his new contacts come, since he lost his glasses on the slide the first time down! We searched (ok, I searched, since I was the only one who could SEE) for 1/2 hour before Greg thought to check lost and found--someone had already turned them in (but didn't notice us walking around glaring into the bottom of the pool?)!

And this is an unaltered photo that Greg took of Maisie with her first 4th of July Sparklers. Weird smile, but I guess that's what 4 year olds do.

July 1, 2009

And this is what happens when Mommy doesn't get the food to his mouth fast enough! Brother Bear has turned into the Hungry Little Caterpillar!!! He ate ALL morning! When this kid is hungry, he screams after he's done swallowing one bite until the next bite is on his lips!

This evening's meal was fresh zucchini (cooked!) from Gogo's garden, and bananas and peaches. But it took too long to cook! And so Calvin was OBVIOUSLY starving between bites, even. Whoa.

June 30, 2009

More tummy time for Calvin. That is ALMOST a smile! We have been hearing some really great belly laughs lately.

While I shopped for a wedding gift at Macy's last week, Greg tried to entertain the children. He played peek-a-boo with Calvin, complete with sound effects, and we got fabulous laughs!!

June 29, 2009

When Papa works here, Maisie "helps" him. Sometimes she just dances in the back of his pickup. :)

June 28, 2009

Remember my initial tomato pictures? They are GROWING! They are getting pretty babied here, Greg put in pvc pipes from the orchard irrigation water, so we can water our garden with "free" irrigation water now. Maisie and I planted pumpkins finally about four days ago, and today we found leaves popping up in several places! We are determined to grow GIANT ones. No reason we shouldn't be able to here! Good soil!

June 27, 2009

The monthly orchard picture. Getting some apples there!!!

June 26, 2009

Brother Bear has figured out tummy time! He will lay there for quite a while now, playing or looking around--until he gets bored, then he either rolls over or yells for someone to rescue him!

June 25, 2009

Maisie had a playdate! The girls spent a few minutes in the pool, rocking back and forth on the inner tube...before our orchard neighbors began spraying the trees. :( So we moved our playdate inside. Still had a wonderful time.