*pescaderos

::gorgeous photo courtesy of mike cater::

Ben and his dad went up fishing on Strawberry Reservoir one day and had such a good time that we all went up together again later in the week. We rented a big fishing boat and had a really nice day catching rainbows and barbecuing on the shore. Vera and I caught 2 decent trout on her new 3 foot long Dora pole!

I like this one:

Bummer her head is cut off here :/ can you believe she's holding the fish? She's come a long way: remember this video? one of my favorites!!

We also went to the pool a couple times. Vera is now "swimming" in the deep water with a life vest on - she's really proud of herself!

*qué calor!

Whew it's been so hot this week! It's actually been the nicest, mildest summer yet - this is the first time I've really felt the heat. I think we've only hit 100 like twice [I like to throw it out there that the summer I was pregnant with Vera was the hottest on record with something like 20+ days over 100]... anyway, the temptation to stay inside is pretty high, but I really don't do well if we stay home and I don't have a good plan for the day. Usually I end up spending the whole day trying to clean up the living room or clean out their toys, moving piles from here to there while Edie and Vera mess them up. So anyway on Thursday we decided to take a little picnic to Red Butte Gardens, even though it was roasting outside. We had a nice little time together looking at the flowers and enjoying our lunch. I let Vera take as many pictures as she wanted which she thought was soo fun. A sampling:

***

I really want to learn how to grow/train one of these trees that make a little fort-space underneath - so magical :) Edie was piling wood chips up on the chair - she's starting to 'organize' things like that and it's so cute.

She took exactly 28 pictures of these fish:

*familia

Ben's parents were here for a week recently and we are still feeling the emptiness after visitors leave. It was such - a - good - time! Really there is nothing like seeing your children get to know their grandparents [and cousins and aunties/uncles, old friends...]. It was especially wonderful to see them get to know Edie this time - she really has the cutest little personality now!! I loved hearing her giggle and 'talk' with them - so fun. Vera loved having them here too - she jumped right in with a picnic and a "hula-hoop show" in the driveway as they arrived and had painted them a welcome sign and pictures before.

Hopefully I can get the other pictures off Ben's camera - I hardly took any with mine. Here they are, mostly of the day we hiked up to Cecret Lake to see the wildflowers. Seriously, we live in such a beautiful place! That picture above is from Mike's camera - the flowers were so beautiful.

the welcome picnic:

lots of stories were read:

and of course, we ate really really well.

*thirsties

I can't believe I'm doing this, but in order to get some bonus entries in this giveaway, I am posting about it! It's to win 2 of these Thirsties "duo" diapers. I bought one recently and really really like it! I've been using it for Edie at nighttime and it never leaks. I used a disposable a few nights ago and even it leaked onto her jammies! Also I'd get 2 hemp prefolds... I hear hemp washes better and I would really love to try it for free!! Anyway, hope I win a couple new ones :) Please forgive this shameless use of my blog.

I apologize for not updating recently: it's what happens when too many pictures/thoughts/experiences pile up - I don't know where to start...

Here's a cute little bottom in the meantime:

*birth-month

Lucky Vera gets to celebrate her birthday pretty much over a whole month. A couple weeks ago Tia, who missed the first party, threw a little bday dinner for Vera and Graham [his is the 21st - I can't believe they are 3 and 4 years old!!!]. It was such a fun evening - she made them both feel so special and loved! What would we do without our amazing neighbors???

**I'm getting behind - lots to catch up on! Lots to get done around here too and I am finding how efficient I can be when I limit my internet time....**

*wings

I forgot, she also really sincerely thinks she can fly if she's wearing tinkerbell wings. She thinks she just needs to jump the right way or maybe get some real pixie dust. Ben has a scar above his eyebrow from thinking he could fly at about the same age. Flew right into a glass coffee table, I think. So we try to tell her to be really really careful and not jump off things. "But I didn't jump! I flied!!"

*4 años

It is so amazing to see how a child develops in 4 short years!! We enjoy Vera so incredibly much - it is so fun to see her still-sweet innocence and naivety, her joy, her curiosity, her silliness and her eagerness to learn. She can now swing all by herself, sound out 3 letter words [they have to be small: she tried to sound out the l-a-d-d-e-r phonics flashcard, gave up and guessed "window"!], get the stuff out and make a pbj, write Bunny, Mommy, Daddy, Edie and Vera, add small numbers [really small] ..... it's all truly amazing and so much fun.

She spends much of her time "making a stage," dressing up, making tents and forts, reading books, coloring and making things for her friends, playing in her sandbox, making a picnic, pretending it's Bunny's birthday, looking in Edie's toes for toe jam [yes that is gross], tickling Edie and trying to hug her.

Here she was dressed up, dressing up all her stuffed animals so they could get in a train to go to ballet class where she would be the teacher.

Here she was at UNO DOS and TRES años. It just took me like an hour to look up those links -it's so easy to get diverted reading back on the blog! I love it. I really really need to get it printed out somehow in case the internet collapses.

*

Edie was looking so cute after our walk on Sunday in her Aunt Liz screen-printed t-shirt - I had to take pictures:

Her little bottom is pretty cute too:

Liz screen-printed my shirt too! She should sell them!

Poor baby had her first fever yesterday and today. She did have a tooth break through this morning - hopefully that's all it was :( So sad to see her a tad miserable. This morning she wouldn't let me put her down and just snuggled into my chest. Sweet thing, we all love her so much!

*caminata

We went for a nice little walk up in Park City on Sunday - a thousand feet up is at least several degrees cooler! I wish I could say Vera is a good little hiker, but she just prefers to be in the stroller :) ... and Edie preferred to be held! Anyway, it's so pretty up there.

It's so weird to live somewhere that if I wear a t-shirt and a long skirt I can't help but feel self-conscious that everyone is going to think I'm mormon! Is that terrible?

You should ask Vera to tell the story of when we saw the little snake and Daddy got scared :)

*el hambre

I just posted a bunch of pictures of new dress up clothes for my 2 healthy, happy, sweet girls. As I uploaded the pictures, we were watching the evening news. I often stress about having too many clothes and toys, and we were hearing about 37THOUSAND children dying of hunger in the last months [I didn't catch the exact time frame.] One mom walked 3 months toward food, losing 2 children on the way. It just makes my heart break - it is so incomprehensible, and makes me feel silly attempting to put such tragedy into words. I mean we're meeting at our neighbor's tonight for burgers and beer and birthday cake. I really hope that I would "pray without ceasing" for these hungry families, for grace and mercy and food. As broke as we are, we can still afford to donate something! Here's where we do.

*dress-up

Rosie always gets the most fun dress up clothes! Here was an attempt to get a photo of Edie in the adorable baby rice hat Rosie and Jessie found in Hawaii. As you can tell, she thinks it's really fun too:

Vera wearing her super-fun new belly dancing skirt. She was making a "surprise dinner" for me here:

I love this picture:

This one was from Auntie Carol. I rarely let Vera wear dress up clothes out and about, but she really really wanted to wear this to the store the other day so I let her. She feels sooo special in it:

*dos videos

1) Edie loved Gegi. Most or all babies/kids do! Everytime Edie saw her she would growl or laugh like they had a private joke going.

2)I haven't had a good video of Vera dancing in a long time. You probably can't detect the subtlety [I had to google that spelling!] of her little moves, but it was pretty cute. Especially the trying-not-to-smile-smile. Also George and Ben, pretty cool!