*happy birthday peanut!

This is one of my favorite pictures.  I took it with my cell phone in the hospital room on Vera's first night.  Ben had gone home to sleep and it was just me and her.  I remember it was [finally] really quiet and still and I just stared at her sweet alert little face.  It was surreal after all that waiting to finally meet her, and looking at the picture fills me with a sweet sense of nostalgia for that moment.

Happy Birthday Vera!  

We love you so much - we can't even believe how much!

*happy 4th

I love to think back on that happiest of days ... an amazingly beautiful setting, [almost] all our friends and family present, beautiful flowers, good food, a delicious/gorgeous cake [rivaled only by julie + jeremy's], a wonderful Christ-centered ceremony - all to crown the joyous happy excitement we felt at the prospect of what our lives together would bring. And here we are 4 years later. Memories of new homes put together, new friends made together, meals shared together, a few character building arguments together [just a couple :)], a precious little family started together - - - Ben, I'm so glad we get to do this together!



*(sorry, i can't figure out pictures on ben's laptop)
** I feel I should thank everyone again for helping make our wedding so amazing. so many beautiful details!

*here we are

::::{a much much anticipated trip to tahoe.  i did find a wireless connection in the cabin [smokeyjoe's - i'm quite disciplined, only online a couple times] but having a hard time uploading photos.  this is my favorite pirated picture off google.  it's really that beautiful here }::::

*three friendies

*fresh herbs

This is my other favorite summer dinner, especially if the goods come from the garden. Just about everything did - even the lettuce! Well the broccolini was from the farmer's market [so good!]. Man, it was delicious - I'm still upset I didn't make more.

{...eaten on the front step b/c we don't have a porch...}

.:Pasta:.

garlic

lots of olive oil

broccolini

basil, oregano, thyme

rosemary, italian parsley

couple drops of balsamic vinegar [which liz brought from italy!]

lots of pinenuts

grated parmesan

salt+pepper

.:Salad:.
lettuce
radishes
carrots
feta
oil+vinegar

*one year ago

Celebrating an early anniversary: watching **the amazing** Pink Martini at Deer Valley. Brie, baguettes, corn/basil salad and a big fat pregnant belly [she was already about 9 lbs in there!!!!].

*la cocinita

I bought this at a garage sale today for twenty bucks! I often drool over these ridiculously expensive ones as well as this one, so I am so excited to have found this! I can't wait to [have Ben sand first - I hate sanding] paint it and stock it with some pots & pans. I remember lusting after a kitchen set when I was little and am happy to live through Vera :)

*these little hands...

[you should have seen the look she gave me: uh mom, i'm trying to read a book here..]

*walking

I've been told I should get a video of Vera while she's in her wobbly-walking stage. She's already transitioning from holding her arms out Frankenstein-style and even though she still mostly crawls, is more confident every day...:



:...and yes I've posted a lot lately...:

*first artwork

I know the day will come when she'll be in trouble for defacing a favorite book, but for now I'm so excited to see she's discovered what to do with a colored pencil! I sat back and watched her figure it out all on her own :)

*sparklers

[...at our neighbors' last night...]

*

...lately Vera is really into getting into things...

*first word [maybe]

Vera is making a new sound that I think is her attempt at a first word (besides Dada). She started saying it every time she saw my parents' dogs and now says it sometimes when she sees Boone or any other dog/animal. Or she doesn't say it at all - maybe it's just a new sound.

*buen viaje!

Jessie and Ben stayed with us last night on their way through to New York. Jessie got into Columbia's journalism program and Ben got a sweet [my Ben would say] job nearby. We are so proud of them!!! We really enjoy these two so much, and there were a couple tears on this end as they drove away.

*ok.

She does look a lot like me. However, those pictures were the closest I found! Vera is far cuter than I was with that hint of her chinese/filipino roots that I see developing more and more. I guess that's what I keep looking for. And it's there :)

*little annie

Vera and I have been in Nevada all week. Whenever I'm home I love looking and relooking at old photos. I keep searching for Vera's face in mine. It's there, but she is definitely her own little person. Here I am at 10 mos./18 mos:

*11 months!

Vera is almost 1! I can't believe it. She is seriously the most precious, amazing thing that we could have imagined. I love peeking in on her as she plays by herself. Like pulling her books off the shelf, flipping through them one by one and pointing things out to herself - I just love to watch her little determined expressions, so purposeful. Every day it seems something new clicks in her little developing brain. The other day she crawled right over to the rocking chair stool, flipped it over and climbed in. Later she flipped it over again and put a stuffed animal in and gave it a ride around the carpet. Learning to put objects in another is apparently some sort of milestone and the other day she sat for 10 minutes putting a plastic bag in a jar, taking it out and doing it over again. These might not seem all that exciting, but it's fascinating when you see your own little one learning all these little skills for the first time. Oh we love it and we love our little snap-pea more and more and more.

*compartments

The other day I thought it would be fun to fill Vera's cute little tray with some different foods. I thought she could move the apricots to another slot or something, but she wasn't too interested in the organizational aspect:

*little cutie

We've been taking videos like crazy lately. Here's a couple...

...:trying on her [broken] sunglasses. a little long, but really cute:...



...:learning to drink from a cup. lest you think she's mastered it, the very next try she missed her mouth and dumped it down her front:...

*a good weekend

saturday purge - felt so good:

still in her sunday dress, exploring our neighbor's shady garden:

not pictured:

*a beautiful hike up mill creek, dreaming about our some-day cabin in the woods.

*a lovely dinner out, just the two of us. our neighbor stayed with vera who went down for bed without nursing and without a whimper [this was the first time since she was 8 weeks old someone else put her to bed!!].

*that's my girl!

{peanutbutter}

*amiguitos

Sam and Amelia [and their momma of course] have come to be some of our most favorite friends. It's been so neat to see them all develop and grow - each at their own little pace. We met them bright and early at the Gardens this morning and had great time exploring. Looking forward to lots more summer memories...

¿Have I mentioned that Vera likes to stick her tongue out?

*fines

Ben just took Vera to the park for an hour and a half. I can't tell you how nice that is and how much I got done. Anyway, I was going through things and found this little scrap of paper from last year. To be honest, teaching Middle School was one of the most trying things I've ever done or maybe ever will. Things like this though made it [kind of] worth it:

*Ben reports that at the park they had a snowcone which Vera thought was amazing. They also walked through the sprinklers at the playground and she took 13 steps which is her new record.

*tres pasitos

still working on it:

*and a river runs through it

Salt Lake is growing on us, but I don't think we'll ever get over Missoula. Of course it wasn't perfect - a bit isolated, in the midst of bear country [if you know me at all...], and far away from family - but by the end we were pretty devastated at the thought of leaving. It's just such a one-of-a-kind place. I miss riding my bike everywhere, I miss walking down the street and knowing the people I see, I miss the Good Food Store, Scotty's Table and baguettes from Le Petite Outre. I miss our tree-lined street, I miss running along the Clark Fork...

I miss our friends. such good friends:

I miss our cute little [money pit-of-a] house:

I miss the rivers:



I miss all the dog-friendly [you can't take your dog anywhere here!] hiking trails within minutes of town:

..and yes it's a little silly, but I miss my old stove that didn't work well which didn't matter because it was so cute:

oh and I miss my green kitchen too: