Camera Fun!

One of the things I'm enjoying about our new camera is it's ability to take beautiful close-ups!

It's Here!!!

Our camera is here!!!!! Yay!!!! And I love it!!!!! It looks like it's going to be a really good camera! Of course I had to set it up and go take some shots, including some of the favorite camera subject around here... even though she was taking her nap!

Lots Of Yum - Less Guilt

Recently, we subscribed to a magazine called Eating Well. It comes out every other month. The one draw back about the magazine is that it's written from a distinctly liberal perspective. However, I've got lots of enjoyment flipping through the pages, checking out healthy recipes, and interesting food and health related info.

The other day I tried two of the cookie recipes in their latest issue... and boy, were they good!!! You want to try some fabulous cookies that are healthier then a lot of other cookies out there???!!! Well, then, give these a shot! Stephen and I both really like the results! Of course, part of our enjoyment may have sprung from the fact that I tend to get stuck in a MAJOR rut when it comes to cookies, and make the same thing over and over and over.... So the fact that these cookies were just something DIFFERENT might have had something to do with it! :-)

Anyway, the first ones I tried were Fig 'n' Flax, a healthy version of Thumbprint Cookies. I think I may have liked these more then any Thumbprint Cookie I've had before!!! They were moist and soft... unlike some of their less healthy counterparts. So, ya'll give Fig 'n' Flax Thumbprint Cookies a try!!! Oh, and I didn't have fig jam sitting around the house (how many of us do?). :-) So, I used Black Raspberry and you can use most anything you like. I might try getting some fig for a future batch though.

Ok, batch number 2 was Almond Cherry Bites! Yum!!! If you like Almond flavor... give these a shot!!! Some differences in how I did it: I didn't have cherries, so I used cranberries. Also I didn't do the chocolate drizzle on top, but I'm sure that would be great!!!

Give one a shot! And enjoy!!!

A little news

Dear All.
This is Stephen reporting. We have just come back from a trip to North Carolina to visit the McCarts, friends we met in Phoenix. Anyway, we ordered a camera last Friday so it is going to arrive in ~6 business days. I think it takes videos too so we will have to see if it all works. Hang on!...the light at the end of the picture-less tunnel has just appeared! Not only are there going to be pics of the blondie, blue-eyed, cranberry-eater and her beautiful mother of two, but the leaves are turning deep yellows, reds, and oranges and we will have to try to capture some of that as well. The drive scenery today was just delightful. -S.

All In A Day's Mothering...

... hear suspicious sounds. Go investigate. Find a little girl playing in the toilet. It's a "no-no" in this house... but apparently it's worth the risk. Which also makes it apparent that the risk factor needs to be raised.

...a little later on.... into the living room walks the same precious girl and cheerfully hands me a candle to play with, while she plays with the other. Both are candles I keep on TOP of the roll top desk in the guest room.

... on proceeds the day... I discover a little girl STANDING on a dining room chair (also a no-no, she's suppose to only SIT on them), and helping herself, by hand, to apple walnut cake.

... on we go... Mommy notices a little munchkin stomping with her tennis shoed foot on the kitchen floor. Next to the little foot Mommy notices a small dead bug.... I don't think the little girl did the job, but she appears to know the basic idea of how! Mommy thinks it's soooooo cute!

... and once again on we go... Momma turns around to see another "no-no" being committed. This time it's the major offense of activating the spout on the water filter. However, this time, instead of making a lovely puddle on the ground for Momma to clean up we have a mug perfectly positioned with one hand and are running the spout with the other. However, it's still a "no-no", so when a little girl's name is called she moves away and spills water from both the spout AND the mug.

... in the early evening it was off to swimming... where Mommy had fun watching Clara have fun and helping her "swim". Mommy was soooo proud of Clara doing such a great job with her kicking!!!

I love you, my baby Clara! You bring Mommy and Daddy so many challenges and smiles and such happy moments when it strikes us how very precious you are!!!

Part Three

... Then it was down to the water...

Is it just me or does she look like she's training to be in the Russian military? :-)












Hmmmmm... how far through this railing can I squeeze my chunky little cheeks?"



Clara and Auntie Quyen!

Part 2

After lunch we were off to do some sightseeing....

This impressive arch war put up to welcome home victorious, returning troops from World War I. And yes, those little teeny tiny people below the arch are us.



Neat building!

Auntie Quyen comes for a visit!

Last weekend, we had a very nice visit from our friend Quyen! Thanks again for coming, Quyen!!! Because we have not yet made our new camera selection, Quyen very thoughtfully sent us a CDROM of pictures from the trip! I may have to stretch these out over a time period to keep certain blog "fans" (you know who you are) happy! After Quyen arrived and we had a short stop at the house, we went off adventuring. The first adventure was checking out a BBQ place we had never been to. Quyen captured some fun shots:

Hush Puppy for Miss Big Eyes!




Hush Puppy for Daddy! Clara loves to feed other people... as you can probably see! :-)



Father - Daughter sweetness!



This girl LOVES sweet tea!!! She could probably down a whole glass by herself! She loves warm tea too... she definitely belongs to this family.



And finally.... the real food!!!! "Let me help ya with that, Daddy!"


Much more to come... later. :-)

As Requested...

I understand that my family held a breakfast time discussion and decided that old pictures were better then no pictures, and I'd better look through old pictures files and find some that hadn't be posted!!! I finally took a look this evening and came up with quite a few in short time, that I don't clearly recall posting. If, in reality, I have previously posted some of them, please forgive me. :-)
So, my dear fam, here are a few pictures to help ease the withdrawal symptoms. :-)


I think some of these were captured by Mom M. on her visit.





Sooooooo cozy!



"Big" helper!



Serious business!!! Love the way her toe is tweaked!




And here is lunch time at Daddy's work. I think this was while Mom M. was here visiting.




MAKE SURE YOU DON'T MISS OUR BIG NEWS OF THE DAY IN THE POST BELOW!!!

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..." is something like the first sounds we heard today from our little baby, as my midwife's apprentice picked up our little one's heartbeat on the doppler! Yay! Not only did Clara and I get to hear the sweet sound... but so did Stephen, after my great midwife suggested that we call him up and work and let him hear!!! It was an exciting moment to hear that little "whooshing" finally be picked up!!! Clara seemed pretty unsure about these new people and I think the doppler and blood pressure band kind of scared her, poor baby. However, my midwife says she'll have something special for her next time, like a lollipop, so that the midwife becomes a good thing in Clara's eyes! :-) Hopefully, by the end of the pregnancy, Clara will at least understand more and maybe even be excited to hear her little brother or sister!

In The Absence Of New Pictures...

Well, as Stephen mentioned in his post, it appears that our camera may have "thrown in the towel". We're not terribly sad though, as we'd done some thinking about getting a new one. However, now the research must really begin into the great question of WHAT camera to buy. I'm dreadfully clueless when it comes to cameras. I did some reading today that helped some, but if anyone of you have ANY input, PLEASE give it. We want something that takes good quality, digital pictures and also takes nice video clips. If you have a favorite camera, brand, or must-have gadget, that you want to mention, PLEASE do!!!!

In the absence of recent pictures, I must give you some Clara stories instead! These are all stories that I shared with family recently in emails. Here it goes!

Clara still only has a handful of words that she sort of uses, however, she uses her sign language quite a bit and mimics sounds. She'll do the sound for a cow (it's more like "booooooo" then "moooooo" :-) ), a rooster, used to do a horse but I haven't heard it lately. She does the sound for dogs a lot! She loves dogs! She'll bark back at them! It also sounded like she did a cat sound today and possibly a sheep as well. Also, sometimes we sit down with her foam letters and I tell her some of the sounds and she will mimic some of them. It's pretty cute when she will then do something like hold up the letter y and say "b" "d". :-) She has also started saying "uh-oh", which is really cute!

Clara is really into playing with keys and playing in the cars right now. When we come home from somewhere or other, she often doesn't want to come inside... she wants to stay and play in the car. And she's already figured out where the keys going in the steering column!!! And when Stephen comes home from work she wants to run and play in the car! Today, after coming home from a morning out, I let her play for a while while I did some work out front. When I took her out to come inside, she had an absolutely explosive melt down. Need to work more on making that sort of behavior absolutely NON OPTIONAL! We've also had the peace of the neighborhood completely destroyed by the little lady setting off the car alarm.

A few nights ago, she was standing holding onto the dishwasher rack (which she really isn't suppose to even touch) and she starts jabbering away in her little adorable gibberish, then she would laugh this very fake, very funny little laugh. Then jabber some more, then laugh her put on little laugh again and so on. It was so funny and adorable!!!

On Sunday, a visiting gentleman was speaking at chapel and, in reference to a person becoming saved, he said he could almost imagine an angel in heaven saying: (and this was a loud proclamation) "Bought!" Well, almost immediately, from our second to last row comes a little voice "Bo!" ("Bought" without the "t" on the end).

Warning: If stories involving vomit are a little too-much-information for you, you might want to consider yourself "done" with reading this post! :-)

Several days ago, Clara and I took a picnic lunch to Stephen's work. We arrived, and as I was getting the stuff out, getting situated and waiting for Stephen to come out from work, I was feeling kind of yucky. Well, eventually the urge to, ummm, errrr, vomit came on pretty strong. So, off I scurried, turned my back to the parking lot and had my second vomit session of this pregnancy. Well, as I'm there having my session, up trots my little girl to see what Momma's up to. Down she squats near Momma and starts going "p", "p"! :-) I guess she was trying to join in the great fun! Maybe you could call it "attempted sympathy vomiting". But I don't really think there was any sympathy involved. Oh well, gave Momma some comic relief. :-)

Well, no new pictures for now... but hopefully, the stories were a good alternative. Remember, leave a comment with your camera recommendations!!! Thanks a million (as my Mom would say)!!!!

Stephen's Thoughts

It's about time to do my semi-annual post. Let's see. I bought a new car and sold my Tercel. The Tercel had a bad engine and a bad transmission. I was able to find a 2000 Lincoln Town Car in our price range and we went for it. It has 119k miles. Talk about a step up! I would post a picture but I think our digital camera gave up the ghost so I am not sure when we will get back to posting pictures. Hopefully not too long, because I know we have devoted fans that would go on SEVERE withdrawal if they don't get any pictures. I need to get a fancy enough one so that we can post little videos too. Think about that, and it will all be worth the wait.

This evening Gracie cooked some steak and some perrogies (sp?). Clara loved them, but she loved the cheese sauce more. We wanted to get a picture of her scooping up the cheese sauce with her perrogie like it was a spatula and licking it all off, with her intense concentration and long period of quiet scooping and licking, but you will have to see it in your minds eye.

I got a new bible. It's a MSTC (Modern Spelling Tyndale-Coverdale) It was the first full English bible ever publish (1535) and used the Textus Receptus as the translation manuscript. I was reading in 1 Samuel and found out that in Chp 5-7 where the Philistines are judged for taking the ark of the covenant it says in the Kings James and other versions that they were inflicted with tumors. I never knew what kind of tumors. It turns out they were hemorrhoids...really bad ones. Also called "bloody piles." So the MSTC just comes right out and says that it was hemorrhoids. So I am thinking about what it all means.

My last thought that I will leave you with is the first description of Boaz in Ruth Chp 2. Before it even mentions his name, he is known as a "kinsman." What kind of kinsman is he? It says he is a "mighty man of wealth." Even though he is a mighty man of wealth, it does not mention any other wives. Most rich men had many wives in the Old Testament. Most might recall that he is the Great-grandfather to King David, and it is not only nice to have a rich man in your family, but a rich man that is a NEAR kinsman. In addition to a near kinsman that is rich, it is exceptionally nice when the wealthy man is very nice himself (as in a humble/pleasant disposition). Not only does he stoop to marry "Ruth the Moabitess" (Ruth 2:2) (Moabitess = foreigner and stranger), not only does he protect her in the fields and give her plenty of barley and women companions to talk to, see what happens when she comes to ask him in the middle of the night to perform the duties of a near kinsman. What he does is bless her, makes a promise to her, lets her get rest, and then loads her up with barley for the simple stated reason, "Go not empty unto thy mother in law." Go not empty. Boaz is like Jesus Christ. When we really come to Him and ask Him to be our kinsman redeemer, even though we are as a stranger to His holiness, we do not leave empty handed.