Finally... I painted.

This year I made a goal to paint 5 things.  Well it's July and I just finished my first.  I'm lame.  Don't judge it too harshly; it's my first watercolor in years. It looks much better in person (they always do) and Violet is very excited to have it in her room.

Dear Ashley,

 My mommy said that you wanted to see pictures of me with owahs on my fingers, so here is one.  I don't know why you think it's so funny, though, because this is obviously the only appropriate way to eat owahs.

Mommy and Daddy have also been taking me to the poo a lot lately.  They tell me to plug my nose when I go under but I think it's more fun to just look around.  Yesterday Mommy tried to take me to the poo on her bike but she crashed because her legs are too short to reach the ground.  How silly.  We were both wearing our ammets (helmets) so we are fine, even though Mommy keeps complaining about her bruised hip.

Last night Mommy also made caldo.  She really likes not having to cook every day. Reed said it was good but I only liked picking out the carrots and corn.

See, I would much rather eat eggs and watermelon for dinner.  Daddy put feta cheese in with my eggs-- my favorite!

I am getting really good at eating watermelon.  Mommy tells me that I don't have to eat the green part but I think it tastes just fine.  When are you going to come visit me?

Love, Violet

My weird daughter

I know you're all really sad that I haven't been blogging much lately.  I promise, I'm back.  It seems like Violet has changed so much since we moved out here for the summer so I will make this post all about her.  (As if most of my posts aren't all about Violet.)

First, she now LOVES going swimming.  One time she saw me go off the diving board and she thought it was so cool that she tried to go off it herself.  When we didn't let her, we had to take her home because she was screaming so much. I play games like "egg beaters" with her and when I'm done she just says, "Mo, mo, mo!"  (That means more.) Brandon taught her how to hold her nose and go under water, and when she comes up she will grab Brandon's nose because she wants him to go under.

 

 She is a little obsessive about watering the garden.  She tries to do it every day.  Yesterday after dinner when she was playing with her cousins, we came out and she had a pile of green tomatos that she had picked.

 She also likes wearing flowers in her hair now.  Before I took this picture, she was in her regular clothes and I told her that I would go to get her swimsuit and that she needed to take her clothes off to get in it.  When I came back out, I found her butt naked with the pink flower (on the ground in the picture) on top of her head.  Yet another hippie moment.

 This Saturday we went to Mary Jo Peckham park, where I took my first steps as a baby.  Between the playground, the mini golf course, the koi, the lake, and the ducks, she was in heaven.

She has weird food preferences, too.  She loves olives (owah, as she calls them) because Brandon taught her how to put them on her fingers.  So she will sit at her little table with 5 olives on her fingers and eat them off, one by one.  She also loves eggs, because she reads Are you my mother? and there is an egg in that book.  Most of all she LOVES ice cream, but will only eat it from a cone.  She crammed down 2 soft serve cones last week at the restaurant and kept saying "ice cream" the whole time.  She is definitely my daughter.

3 years

Yes, it has been three years since our wedding.  This anniversary was great-- we actually got to go out by ourselves.  Our first was on a Sunday, so we just stayed in and had dinner, and for our second we had to take Violet with us and Brandon spent half his time at the restaurant outside walking around with Violet.  Needless to say, I was very excited about going on a date alone. So excited that I made a dress and stole Mom's necklace to wear with it.

 But apparently I didn't need to steal Mom's because Brandon bought me a beautiful citrine necklace and earrings set.  And this was only after he brought me some peonies (being held in the picture).

 Oh yes, I scored big time with him.

And so far our marriage has survived one child, several trips, a few moves, three years of school, and three rounds of living with or by parents.  Gosh, that last one is embarassing.

Fudge popsicle.

Last night I sat down outside to eat a nice fudge popsicle.  About 2 seconds later Violet ran up and stole it from me.  Dad at least made her take her shirt off so that she wouldn't get it all messy.

 Oh, did I say shirt?  I lied.  Violet doesn't know how to take just one item of clothing off.  As soon as the shirt was off she decided to finish the job and got butt naked.

 This is the part where Ashley calls me a hippie.