Football!

Milo does thing where he will hold something in his mouth and show it off or crawl around with it... this time it was a little football. He was incredibly proud of this and having so much fun, it was fun to watch. And then Pete got hold of the ball and that was the end of that.

When it's a beautiful fall day outside....

Happy First Birthday, Milo Phillip!!!

Dear sweet baby Milo,

Today you turned one whole year old! You have been such a joy this past year, and although it feels like it was only yesterday that you entered our lives, I can't remember or imagine life without you. You are an intense person, so easy to make smile and laugh, and easy to make cry. You love hanging upside down, belly buttons, nu-nu's, your sister, coloring and finger painting, trees, the dog, airplanes, corn on the cob, books, and cats. "Let's go outside!" or "Let's go find a tree, Milo!" are phrases that calm you when you're upset and your eyes go from closed and teary to open, sparkly and full of anticipation and wonder. You're not one to let anything go unnoticed or unexplored, and you've already had more than your fair share of bumps and bruises from your fearless (and fast!) climbing adventures. You love playing in the dishwasher, and will stand and pull things out of the bottom rack, hand them to me, then grin proudly when I say "thank you, Milo!" and once the rack is light enough to yank completely out of the dishwasher, you do so, and proceed to try and climb inside before I can pull you out. The spinning contraption inside it fascinates you, as does anything else that spins, flips, or clicks. You love turning the light switches on and off, fitting things together like cups and the lids on all my pots and pans, and you're starting to stack the blocks instead of just knocking them down. You're a music lover and will wiggle and giggle and bounce as soon as you hear it, you hum to yourself and love playing with your voice in cups and empty paper towel tubes, you love the real instruments like the recorder, drum and cymbals, and could sit at Grandma's piano forever. You point at everything that interests you and tell me about it with an "eeeehh". You say mumum, dada, fish, hi, and plenty of other words that I know I just haven't recognized yet. You give kisses to everyone and we can't get enough of you! Milo Phillip, you are the sweetest, most loveable boy ever, and I am so blessed.

I love you, my snuggle buggle boy!

-Mumum

It's a crazy house.

Ack! Where did this come from?!?!
This big galumph is staying with us for a couple days. He's pretty much a puppy still, and goofy as can be. But cute too, in that scruffy sort of way.





Which one of these is not like the others?

The setters are such mellow, gentle, polite creatures, that after living with one for a while, one forgets that some dogs actually chew on things, and dig, and drag things outside that shouldn't be outside, and, well, require some maintenance besides food and water and love. But he's fun. :)

Forever Ending Falls

It's been a while since we got out the water colors. So today, finally a snowy day, seemed like as good a time as any.

This is a map of where Sara lives. Complete with mud puddles because it's in Washington where it rains a lot, and the Forever Ending Falls, where you'll get lost if you go. But next to the Forever Ending Falls is a brown dot marking the place where the rescuer people stand to find you if you do go there. She's got all the bases covered.

It's toilet paper rolls for crying out loud!

These little fabulosities caught my attention today as I was interneting instead of packing.

Going Places

I love this picture I got on the plane, it's the only one I got at all actually. Of course it was with my phone because that's what was the most readily available and I didn't want to miss the moment! They both did so well on all the flights, I had been paranoid about having to sit near an evil baby-hater or something, but Milo was an angel and everyone around us was kind and played peek-a-boo and "oohed" and "aahed". Amelia really loved the whole experience: being in the clouds and over the cities, spotting mountains and neighborhoods and lakes and rivers, being served cookies and juice by the flight attendants, taking a bajillion trips to the cool tiny bathroom, asking a bajillion questions... but that's not abnormal I guess, the curiosity part. Anyway, the window seat was a favorite spot for everyone.

And speaking of going places.... we're moving! To.... Cheyenne! Weird. It seems weird to me, but I'm excited about it too. Amelia is excited because that's where the cool library is, where Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Genevieve are, and because she's been promised dance classes there. New adventures await us all!

Washington Trip

Last week we flew up to Washington state for Conrad's grandmother's funeral, and stayed a while to see some of his family and hang out in the rain. So here are about a million pictures...

The leaves, the glorious leaves. If I only had a nickel for the number of times Conrad rolled his eyes at Amelia and me as we collected our souvenirs. No cheesy over-priced gift shops for us. Not that we don't do plenty of autumn leaf collecting here in Colorado, but there were these ginormous ones (like the one Amelia has in the pictures above) that you don't see here. Or at least I don't, but then maybe I just don't get out much. And maybe it was just the rain that made the colors more vibrant, but everything just looked so different! So plenty of nature was collected including an assortment of leaves, nuts and seed pods, and pebbles from the shore of Puget Sound, which I could not bring myself to stop picking up. It was a problem. Yes, we brought leaves, sticks, and rocks back on the plane. In our checked bag- not taking any chances. Although is anybody nerdy enough to listen to Bob Edwards Weekend on NPR every week like I am? This morning I just heard him interview Jeffrey Goldberg about his experimentation with getting away with crazy stuff in his carry-on.... I digress. My point is that Washington is so beautiful that we simply had to bring little pieces of it back with us.

When in Washington state one must always be prepared... with one's very own frog umbrella of course.

And here are some of the pictures Conrad's aunt took, she has a super-cool camera which I totally covet. Also she has some pretty cool photography skills, which I suppose are handy to make owning that super-cool camera worthwhile.

Milo was allowed to watch (a really big screen-yikes!) tv while at my in-laws. For a few minutes. Until he got "hungry" and had to be taken into the kitchen for a snack. It was some animal nature show so Mama wasn't freaking out too terribly bad. Killing all his precious little baby brain cells or something, I'm telling you. He liked it:

Kisses from Crash, the sweetest yellow lab:

What we have here is a nice close-up shot of Amelia's self-inflicted mullet. I evened out the front so she now has really cute bangs, but also some pretty short stuff on the sides that will need some time to grow out.

And yet she's still so beautiful...
Halloween happened while we were in Washington. Since November 1st, 2007, Amelia had decided she wanted to be a ghost for the next Halloween. I was thrilled... a good old-fashioned sheet-with-eye-holes costume. Then about a couple months ago she started changing her mind, much to my disappointment, even though I really did expect it. She wanted to be a witch at one point, which was fine, then went back to the ghost idea with added cowboy hat and boots, then of course came the "actually Mom, I want to be a princess again." There it was. *sigh* And the impromptu trip to Washington made it hard to fit in the sewing of a "Dopey" costume for Milo in order to have a whole Sleeping Beauty theme. Someone found him a monkey costume. At least there was the last-minute crown, there had to be something homemade. Both kids had loads of fun, which is what matters when it all comes down to it of course.

Is it? Could it be? A picture of all four of us? It is! Holy cow.