*cheese and cookies

[comte, delice de bourgoune (sp) and testun al foglie de noce]

I've been craving cheese, baguette and wine for dinner for a while now and we finally did it last night. I get a nice little discount where I work so I got some extra-special yummy cheeses, which of course called for my favorite extra-special plate from Granada and a dozen or so photos. I love cheese! After finishing up at home and putting Vera to bed, I walked down and enjoyed another lovely triple-cream and glass of wine with my neighbor :)


Our dinner was nice and uninterrupted because Vera just got a new fun gift in the mail from Auntie Carol - the Melissa and Doug cookie baking set!! Such an awesome and adorable toy - already occupying some big chunks of her time. While Ben and I snacked on our dinner, she lined up her animals for fresh-baked cookies:

*

... and I like this family photo a lot:


.. in case you're wondering, vera is covered in ice cream, chocolate, and dirt. and whatever we had earlier for dinner.

*tahoe

Another amazing family get-together at Tahoe. This year everyone was able to be there and obviously the highlights were just being together, hanging out, [drinking wine], watching the kids play and enjoying the most beautiful [to me] place in the world!!!

This year was a lot more fun with Vera being more independent and more social. Every morning she couldn't wait to get downstairs to see her cousins ["cousins, yayyyy!"]. She knew everyone by name [a mix-up here and there], and I loved how she'd say hi Uncle George, Hi Liz, Hi Ivor, hi We-we [olivia] whenever anyone entered the room. She was definitely positively influenced by peer pressure - they got her to eat her whole dinner, hold their hands walking down the stairs, go on the "big potty", and start calling me Mom in a very 8-year-old sounding way :) She also especially loved my mom and often preferred to be held by her, not me!

...

... Papa Sam ...

... she ate SO MUCH ice cream and cookies and junk food! she was in heaven ...

... Grandma! ...

... olivia, jamesen (katie?) and vera ...

... vera and tyler. she is obviously in awe of him, and was usually super shy. I loved when she finally opened up and colored with him - you could see how proud and happy she was :) ...

... painting toes with the girl cousins ...

... rough-housing with eliot ...

... la playa ...

... birthday girls ...

... hitting the piñata with daddy ...

*HAPpy DAY VE-A!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VERA!!!! You are TWO!

We love you so so so much, so much we are constantly astounded how we can love you even more each day. You are a smart, bright, happy [except for your frequent tantrum-throwing], fun-loving, hopping, humming, jabbering, circle-running, demanding, polite, Elmo/Signing Time-watching, beautiful, hearty hug-giving, "do it self", Bunny-Mommy-Daddy-Horsey-Friend-loving little girl. WE LOVE YOU!


*the title is what she's been exclaiming all morning :)

*still here

*el champú

I think this was Vera's first of this kind of moment - the kind where you leave for a second and come back to your child in some sort of mess. You try to scold, but can't hide the laughter. In this case she was washing her hair with the bubbles:

..::On another exciting note, we are leaving tomorrow for TAHOE!::..

*

I think we're getting close...? Lately she'll get out of the bathtub to go pee and yesterday she went twice of her own accord - tearing off her diaper and running to the bathroom yelling "POOOOOTTYYYYYYY!" I think when we get home from our 2 summer trips I'll attempt to implement - to steal Jenny's words - a potty-training boot camp. Any advice?

*a day

A pretty normal, great day here. After sleeping until 8:00 in her own bed, Vera and I had a fun little trip to the grocery store. We came back with some little hair things which I tried to talk up the whole way home. Is it bad that I think she is about the cutest thing in the world with these little ponytails?? Too bad they lasted about 10 minutes... the rest of the day if I tried to put them in I was met with fierce opposition.


One nice advantage to Ben being a student is that he is around during the day to help out with Vera. He's actually taken most of the summer off from serious studying and I've been a bit spoiled. So today, during her 2 hour nap, I went to the mall and found some cute shorts + a top [thank you you know who!] and a cute on-sale bathroom rug at Anthropologie. When I got home, Ben and Vera went on a nice long bike ride out for ice cream and the park:

Meanwhile I got to be home alone. I made popsicles [more coconut ones... I think this batch will be gooood] as well as an attempt to copy a dish from work. It tasted good but didn't look very pretty :) Either way, I really enjoyed the time by myself. I haven't had much time to cook lately and it was so nice - thank you Ben!!

Before Vera went off to bed we hung out over at our neighbors' for a bit. She truly loves these 2 and it makes us so happy to see. It also makes us realize how great it would be to live near more family!!!! [I say more because we do live near my brother, who also stopped by today. Vera showed him every possible toy and activity she loves, from Bunny to making a train with chairs to drinking tea :)]

She was a bit too wound up perhaps and didn't go to bed well, unfortunately. I guess it couldn't be all perfect :)

*So that was our day! We've been in need of this kind...*

*los ríos chiquitos

I don't think I've ever posted about these before.. probably because I never have my camera on me when we play here. The park near our house has this amazing children's water play-area: there are 7 little rivers coming down from 7 little canyons, named after each of the 7 canyons to our east. They meet in one bigger "river" and collect in a mini Salt Lake. Seriously, this would have been heaven to me when I was little!!! So many rocks and waterfalls to climb, hidden pools to find. This morning Vera and I went on a short walk to the park and happened to be right there when they turned the waters on. We were the only ones and she had such a great time just walking in the water, watching sticks float downstream and climbing over the bridges. Next time I'll bring my camera, but I got a couple with my phone. [they're all from this morning. Before we took off her dress and before/after I realized I had one of those required plasticky diaper covers.]

***On another note! Remember when I said my happiness is tied to Vera's sleeping? Well she just went down for a nap without crying and has been asleep approx. 51 minutes. In fact, she said good night to Ben and went up to her crib and tried to climb in!! Perhaps she's realized she needs to get some sleep???***

*

I love to see Vera's imagination at work. It's really an amazing thing when a little person begins to look at a line of blocks, for example, and can make the mental jump to exclaiming it looks like a train [one of my first glimpses of Vera's imagination many months ago]. Now she is constantly making things [that's usually how I hear about it - she yells "made!" from the other room] and seeing things in new and creative ways. Here's a couple:

her "bike." She even put Bunny on the back, just like she rides behind Daddy:

a "train" she made out of noodles at the restaurant:

posing by her "boat" made of blocks:

...and I couldn't find the picture of her "caterpillar" made of My Little Pony shoes :)

*cuatro de julio

We had a pleasant 4th... went to the farmer's market in the morning and to Red Butte in the afternoon with our friends. We ran into my boss at the market who said I could take the night off. Since I work every night it's open, we thought this would be our only opportunity to eat there together. It was delicious and fun to get to sit and enjoy. Later I heard some fireworks from the back step - didn't need to see them this year :)

the bike all decked out for our ride to the market

i like this one :)

smoked pork ravioli with onion jam + fresh peas


vera's arugula-tarragon pasta [she still doesn't know green=yucky]

la familia

*descanso

It's amazing what a little rest does for us. You have probably figured out that my happiness tends to be tied directly to Vera's sleep - or lack thereof. This was how happy we all felt yesterday after a loooong nap in her own bed. She barely cried out a few "mama's!" before passing out for almost 2 hours. What a beautiful, rested afternoon we had:



[I have to be honest and tell you that she suffered a little fat lip just moments after this. She felt much better after we exclaimed that her cartwheels were just too big :)]

*notas del trabajo 2

*Despite all the greatness my job should be, I find myself really drug [dragged?] down by certain people, things, things people have said, etc. Tonight I left early for work so I could have a minute to read my Daily Light [scripture excerpts]. I decided to just find one that I could keep in my head all night, and this was it: "the fruit of the spirit is goodness." If you're not Bible-saavy, you might be creeped out by the wording there, but really it just means that if you are a Christian, one thing that should show up in your life is goodness. Now that's one thing I do not see flowing from my life as of late! So tonight every time I wanted to complain or gripe in my head or be negative, I dismissed the thought and tried to fill it with good, thankful thoughts and to be all-around nice even to the few people who might not show me the same. And you know what? It worked, I left for home feeling so much better about it all.

*I really really like my one coworker, and I'm not saying that because she knows about this blog :) You know the kind of person you can just talk and talk and talk with? And is happy and so interesting and kind and fun?

*One of my favorite things is getting to garnish the chocolate truffle plates with a curlicue of dulce de leche. It makes my night and makes me miss T's creations at Old Venice and D's at Scotty's.

*So we have these huge wall-sized doors that are open to the patio. Tonight there was some cra---zy lighting and thunder. We've had some huge storms since like May, but tonight I think the lightning was extra close. At one point I was talking to a table [who happens to own one of the best restaurants in town] and there was an enormous crack of lightning - I yelped and grabbed my customer's arm! oops. He was very cute and nice about it :)

*Ben's text to me about Vera was "asleep without a peep" !!

*

Some random pictures - because Vera is sleeping, and I don't know what to do with myself! By the way, the other day when I thought she was, of course she was not. This time for real - 20 minutes anyway.

Running in circles with Amelia:

Last Sunday boating with my brother's family.. she liked the 'floating', but was terrified for anyone getting pulled on the inner tube - I think she thought they were getting hurt :( She finally fell asleep murmering "no to, no to" which either meant "I don't want a turn!" or "don't turn!"

Finally warm enough for popsicles... we each eat at least a couple (or 4) a day:

Her toenail polish wore off and the other day she tried re-applying with a blue crayon: