Camping Trip

We spent the weekend in Mammoth. We didn't have anything specific planned and ended up not doing much, just a lot of relaxing and watching the girls play. Our normal days in Ridgecrest are usually hectic and scheduled, so it was very nice to just sit and do nothing. Even during the relaxation, we were still able to have dinner at our favorite restaurant, do some exploring of the area (we're looking for the "lost cement mine"--more on that later), and even a little fishing. I am still reeling a little from this picture of Melina--did we actually let her get that dirty??? Poor Isabelle being the first child never would have been able to play in the dirt like this, but we simply stuck Melina in the dish tub and used the outside shower to get her clean with hardly a cry on her part. Melina really enjoyed filling this green toy in her hand with pebbles and sand and then pouring it out, over and over.





Isabelle had some fun too. We went to Deadman Creek where Jeff and I hiked when we were dating. There was a really nice pool of water in the creek that looked very inviting, so Isabelle got to go swimming. And to her amazement, she found lots of dead caterpillars in the water too, which are now in our freezer!!--yuck! :).

Melina is 11 months old!!

Craft of the Week

Jeff brought this craft home from work for Isabelle to do (from one of his co-workers)

Remember This?

These pictures were taken in May 2007. Almost one year in April 2008, here's what has changed:

Craft of the Day--Sparkling Shape Mobile

Isabelle's choice of craft this afternoon:

Watermelon is Yummy!!

My Birthday and more!

Today, the first day of summer, we celebrated my 33rd birthday. It was a wonderful day. I got to sleep in, eat some yummy French toast and then later some delicious lumpia made by my friend Vivian, and later, a very tasty dinner with Jeff (just Jeff, no girls--they stayed with Morgann, our babysitter). It was one of the best dinners we've had eaten out in a very long time.

We then came home and my parents and Mackenzie came over for some birthday cheesecake. My Grandma Slay (Dad's mom) used to make me a cake of my choice every year for my birthday, and I always chose cheesecake. I have her recipe and try to make it for my birthday every year now that she is gone. Thanks, Grandma!!


And to make my birthday even more special, Melina decided to really start walking. While she's been taking steps for a couple of weeks now (2-3 steps at a time between 2 objects), she now decided to just walk with no need to grab on to anything. She is walking!! We now have an almost 11-month-old toddler! (Here is a quick video of Melina walking. It's not the best quality as I'm all over the place trying to keep up with her, but it shows you nonetheless that she is walking).

And, earlier that morning, while Jeff watched the girls while I slept in, Melina pushed a toy to the coffee table, climbed the toy, and then proceeded to try to climb onto the coffee table. Do you think we have a climber on our hands?...

What gets an almost 2-inch rubber ball out of a shower drain pipe?? Is it…

Two steak knives?

No

A fishing pole?

No

A vacuum cleaner hose that happens to have great suction?

Yes!!

How did this happen??

Well, Miss Melina decided to throw this ball into our stand-alone shower. She then decided to crawl into the shower, saw the drain, lifted it up, and alas, the ball dropped deep down into the pipe. Wow—what to do now??!! After some cussing on Jeff’s part, see above!

Isabelle wears glasses!

For the past 2-3 months or so, we've noticed that Isabelle would look at us cross-eyed, usually just the left eye, and would also squint with her left eye when looking at the TV or computer. We took her to the optometrist who said that she is farsighted and that she would benefit from glasses until at least her teenage years when she could possibly outgrow the farsightedness.

Isabelle tended to look at me cross-eyed with her left eye when I was talking to her or scolding her. I told her I felt this was very disrespectful and asked her to stop (she said she could control it, but obviously she couldn't). She would try to stop, but I would continue to see her looking at me that way, so in one of my bad parenting moments (one I'll feel guilty over for the rest of my life), this is how our conversation would usually go:

Marla: Isabelle, stop looking at me cross-eyed when I'm talking to you.
Isabelle: But Mama, I'm not.
Marla: Yes, you are.
Isabelle: I'm not.
Marla: Yes, you are; stop it!! Stop being so disrespectful!!

It turns out that all the poor thing was trying to do when looking at me was focus her eyes since I was a blurry image. Poor thing, I've probably scarred her for life!! :)


Anyway, she is treating the glasses very responsibly and in the last 3 days that she has had the glasses, we haven't noticed her looking cross-eyed to focus anymore.

Weekly Crafts

Isabelle made a flower, again from our favorite blog, and the next day made this paper plate collage:

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to a wonderful husband and fantastic father! While Isabelle is a "Mama's Girl," Melina is definitely without a doubt, "Daddy's Girl." As soon as he walks in the door, Melina crawls to him as fast as she possibly can, saying "dada, dada" over and over. And once she is in her Daddy's arms, it takes much coaxing to get her back in mine!

Crafts

Isabelle loves to do crafts. I am just not a "crafty" sort of mom, but I am making a resolution to do at least 2 crafts a week with her. There is a blog I've been reading, click here if interested, and this mom seems to do a craft or some type of baking with her 4 kids every day! If we get close to 2 crafts a week, great!! Here are our first 2 crafts taken from her website, crickets and a shark:

Well, I finally caved...

I have finally decided to do a family blog. After thinking that I haven't written in my journal for several months now and that Melina's baby calendar is quite sparse, I thought it would be nice to have a record of our lives as they are going by way too fast!! So, here goes...