10 Things Done Over the 4th

1. James had fun building sand castles. (And Natalie too)


2. Watched this life guard tower topple over...twice. It was replaced the next morning.



3. Spent quality time with our girls, just relaxing.



4. Catan was played. Efforts were made by the Whites to become Lord(ess) of Catan, and we failed miserably. Darn it!



5. We attended the 4th of July Parade in Coronado, as you can see it was a big hit with Natalie.



6. Annie liked it!



7. Sand was eaten...and enjoyed thoroughly actually.



8. This view was enjoyed, every night.



9. Fireworks were watched (and a little tv, too).



10. A surrey ride with the L.'s. Yes, we did actually do this. And it WAS the highlight of the trip!

We are Outta Here!

Well, we will be off very soon for our Coronado trip (yay!). A week of beach living with great friends, we're so excited. I'll leave you with a few pictures of the girls.

Is it just me, or is Annie's head bigger than my almost three year olds? Let's just hope it's the camera angle.



Timber!



Another fun birthday party for the Nat girl, anything with face paint and a bounce house, she's there!

They call me Fluffy

Just try and pass me and not touch my head, I dare you!



Oft said at the White house by Natalie: "Annie, your hair is so nice and fluffy!"

Delicious!

I have a great summer recipe for you, it's an Apple and Pear Crisp. I saw it on "The Barefoot Contessa" and decided to give it a whirl. It was really yummy and even tasted great the next day after heating it up in the microwave. It was so yummy that somebody even took a bite out of the recipe, hmm, who could that have been? Maybe someone who loves to put things in her mouth and has an unnaturally long reach...



And for the record, I halved the recipe, and it still made a rather large portion.

Swim Lessons and Gymnastics

Natalie has completed her swim lessons, and survived, even though an enormous fit was thrown each time I casually mentioned it was time for swim lessons. I don't get it, once we were there she was just fine, but the idea of it scared her to death. After those were done I signed her up for gymnastics. Our first day was yesterday, and it was so cute, she did great and was really good at listening to her teacher. I'm excited to go back!



Annie liked going to swim lessons, "What's the problem, sis?"



I didn't get some great pictures, but here she is on the trampoline, yay Natalie!

Summer Shows

So we all know there's a serious slump when it comes to Summer tv. Which actually can be a good thing, maybe we could actually get something done during "prime time". But these shows are getting me through my summertime blues (i.e. no 30 Rock, Office, or House). Re-runs of this: da-da. (That's supposed to be the sound effect from Law & Order) I love this show, what can I say, figuring out "who did it", than the great angles the D.A.'s come up with to convict the criminals, even when obstacles come up. Oh, and they will come up, you can count on it.



This reality show really sucked James and I in a few years back, and if you're curiosity gets the better of you, we have it on DVD.



The equation: Corbin Bernsen + Stephen Baldwin + Kathy Griffin = pure hilarity, you wouldn't think so, but really...




So imagine how excited I was when I heard they were doing the Mole again. A bit disappointing it wasn't "Celebrity" Mole, but we were definitely going to give it a try. And if you have any doubts about its entertainment value, just picture this guy:



Being pushed in a wheelbarrow by this girl:



because his muscles were sore from a soccer game the day before. I don't think I can describe how pathetic/comical this incident was.

Anywho, those are the shows I'm currently watching, what about you?

Sisterly Love

Sampler Quilt

This is called a sampler quilt, all the blocks are different, so it is a good way for a beginner to learn how to quilt. I pieced this quilt together when I was pregnant with Natalie. An amazing woman, Betty Rossiter, passed on her quilting knowledge to me and helped me with it. This lady has made literally hundreds, if not thousands, of quilts in her lifetime, and donated most of them. I was fortunate enough to have an "in" with her, and learned from the best! So now, three years later, it has been sent off to the quilters (they have a special machine that does all the decorative stitching on top of the quilt) and returned to me. I'm so excited to finally be able to display and use my first "real" quilt.





Some close ups so you can see the beautiful quilting that was done.

Musical Instruments

Natalie is really into musical instruments. She likes to "play" them all the time. Her "flute" is a snorkel, her "trombone" is a plastic straw that whistles when she blows on it, her "cymbals" are two plastic pot lids. She loves one of James' Dave Matthews Band t-shirts because it has a picture of each instrument they use in the band, and she can name all of them. She is constantly singing a Dora song that is about musical instruments "I play the flute, dee dee dee dee dee, you play the trombone, bomba, bomba, bomba, etc." So she just loved this musical fountain at Legoland. When you stand in front of the instrument it will play that instrument. She had a great time with her friend Coleman running around this fountain and making the instruments play.

The Nat Girl

Our Natalie. She's a character. She makes us laugh every day.

Here she is trying on every single piece of jewelry she owns. On one arm.



This is after she took a bite of a Smores on family night. She didn't want to eat the rest because it made her hands sticky.



She likes me to take her picture so she can see it on the little screen afterward.

Going on Year No. 3

We went on our annual strawberry fields trip a couple weeks ago, thanks for joining us Shannon! As always, fun was had, strawberries were eaten, even an onion was tried, and quickly spit out. Oh, and my camera's battery died right after we started picking, but luckily I got a few pics.

Paint

I've been letting Natalie paint a lot lately. She's having a lot of fun with it. I ordered "Young at Art" and "First Art" off of Amazon and really like the ideas in the books. They both focus a lot more on the process rather than the finished product, which is perfect for this age. I'm excited to try more projects!

The Girls

Updates on the girls. They get along great. Natalie only allows Annette to play with her baby toys, if I ever hand Annette one of Natalie's toys, she almost immediately takes it away and replaces it with a baby toy. Natalie loves to pat Annette's head and tickle her face and smoosh her with hugs. Annette loves to watch whatever Natalie is doing.



Natalie is being potty trained. She is wonderful at going number one on the toilet, not so great at the other one. It may be a long road.



Annie is sitting up on her own, eating baby food, and still can't turn from her stomach to her back. That's a lot of baby to move around, you know?

Before and After

I was going for the tousled, just out of bed look.



Here's my new do. Medium length, kind of strawberry blondish. Don't ask about the shushing...I don't know, just one of my many modeling poses, ha ha.

Quick Vote

Okay, my hair appointment is Thursday, so hurry up with the voting.

Short?



Medium? By the way, I'm pregnant in this picture, thus, chubby cheeks.



Long? Well, as long as my hair gets, dangit!



You are welcome to add other opinions too, like color, bangs, etc.

Quilt Borders

So I finally picked out some fabric for the borders of my quilt. I decided to go with fabric that wasn't matchy matchy. I like how it turned out, what do you think? Now I just need to quilt it and bind it...that should only take a few hours. I'm anxious to see how I do with machine quilting, I've never done it before. Hopefully my next post on this quilt will be the finished product. By the way, the quilt is really quite small, it may look large, but it's actually about the size of a toddler quilt.

Step one:



Step Two:



Different views:

Back to Real Life

James and I had a great time on our trip! We really didn't take that many pictures, I guess after you get married pictures of yourselves seriously taper off. Anyway, here we are at the Ben Folds concert, which was fabulous! He's so talented, there were times when his hands were a blur because he was playing the piano so fast.



Our view of the stage



Our friends Dave and Holly met us, James surprised me!



Room service at our hotel...ah, this is the life!