Getting to know her letters & numbers

Emily can usually identify the letters in her name, and she told me that there were three E's in "Steele" on the bottom of the boppy, but she's still working on the rest of the letters & numbers. The bath toys definitely help.

Silly sleeper

It's been hot here...

It's not as bad as Louisiana, but at least we had air conditioning there.

Creative napping

Emily asked to sleep on the floor for her nap the other day, so I let her. It was the quickest she had fallen asleep in a long time.

Ellen's smiles

I love how much she's smiling and talking these days.

Silly videos

Oregonian

I'm officially an Oregonian again. I went and had the title changed & registered the Pathfinder, and renewed my license as well. It only took two trips to the DMV, too...the first time I forgot the envelope that my "proof of residence" letter came in, even though the address was on the letter and showed through one of those little clear windows. Luckily I had written a grocery list on the back of the envelope, so I was able to grab it from the fridge and go back. Oh, and how odd was it that they'd let me register my vehicle in Oregon without proof of residence, but wouldn't give me a license?

Our produce

Last week there was an "issue" with a driver, so our produce didn't arrive until this week. Emily was really, really excited to get the fruits & veggies out of the box, and I was excited to have fresh produce. For those in the area, Kim got them for us at www.organicstoyou.org.

Brooklyn

We watched Brooklyn for a few hours this morning, and Emily LOVED it. We stayed with the Ubels for the first week we were here, but somehow it was different for Emily here at our house. She had to feed Brooklyn, and had fun choosing toys to share (not that she really shared).
Then we went on a long walk, and poor Brooklyn fell asleep.

Weather explained--for my LA friends

Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
74° F | 49° F 23° C | 9° C	76° F | 52° F 24° C | 11° C	92° F | 54° F 33° C | 12° C	94° F | 58° F 34° C | 14° C	94° F | 56° F 34° C | 13° C

So the graphic is a little goofy, bu this is our weather forecast for the rest of the week. As you can see, the weather can jump from 70s to 90s pretty quickly (not unlike LA), and also the lows, even when it's "miserably" hot, still get pretty darn nice. So we can wear sweatshirts right before we swim. Oh, another key piece of information is that our pool is heated to 84 degrees...so it doesn't have to be hot to swim. I'm not going to like it much when it is hot, but it's kind of nice now.

Dresses

Lately Emily has wanted to wear only dresses. Not pants, not shorts, just dresses. Tonight when Ellen was laying in her crib watching the mobile, Emily decided that she needed to wear a dress as well. So she went through the dirty-clothes bucket and found Ellen's dress from yesterday and threw it in the crib so that I could put it on Ellen. I obliged, of course, but I foresee a time when poor Ellen will let Emily dress her up in whatever she wants.

Picking strawberries with the Budds

Sarah invited us to go strawberry picking at a farm that is actually really close to us. It was my first experience, and I loved it. I mean, when I pick them, they're all good (theoretically), and I can get as much as I want. It was only $1 something per pound, so we got a pretty good deal. Plus in a few weeks they have boysenberries, raspberries, and blackberries. I can't wait to go back!!

Okay, so this really was full when we came home. It cost my mom a whopping $2 and some change for roughly a gallon of strawberries.
Oregon strawberries are funny-looking, but delicious.
So since I don't have pectin to make freezer jam, shortcake was the next best thing.
Mom also bought us some local honey--always good for fighting allergies.
Emily got tired of picking strawberries pretty quickly, and got my dad to take her back to the goats.
There were two goats, a rooster, and a hen. Not quite a petting zoo, but Emily's first goat experience.

Feeding the goats a little grass...
Emily was particularly excited to hold Ellen's hand.
Sneaking a strawberry...

Grandma & Papa

My parents are in town for a quick three days. Originally it was to watch the kids while we unpacked (& to have free babysitters on our anniversary), but we actually got pretty unpacked this week. So instead we're using the time to play. Saturday we spend some time at the park in the morning. Even Ellen put her feet in the water.

5 years

Yesterday Jon and I celebrated our 5th anniversary. Dave & Sarah came over with their kids for dinner, and then they helped my parents babysit our kids while Jon and I went to see "Get Smart" (HILARIOUS) and took a walk. We had a good day.

Water park

The park was slightly more crowded now that we broke 80 degrees.


We also went swimming again, but I didn't take pictures because all three of us were in the pool. And since Ellen was sleeping in her carrier, I thought it unfair to ask her to take them.

The apartment

Our cool new desk from Ikea:
I like how it closes up so that you can't see the computer.
Our our back door: the pool & hot tub.
E & E's room


Living room from the kitchen:
Dining room/kitchen from the living room (I completely missed the whole other wall of cabinets, etc. in the kitchen on the left):

Ellen loves the mobile now

I did clean her crib out just after this--never fear.

Big events

We (Jon) set the aquarium up today and put some cute little guppies in it.
Emily is still just as in love with it, and was so excited to go to Petsmart with Daddy to pick the fish out. She watched them A LOT today. This picture is also highlighting the blue face from a piece of Garret's candy...she repeatedly said "Thanks, Garret" while eating it.
The other big even was a trip to the pool (right out our back door). Jon & Emily went swimming...I'll go next time. At first she was really, really hesitant about the water and clung to Jon like a leech, but eventually got used to it, blowing bubbles and even going underwater. Hopefully I'll get pictures if we go tomorrow.

Exploring our new hometown

We had the best time walking around town today. It's pretty stinking awesome that we basically WALKED across town. I mean, the Target & Costco are a couple of miles north, but this is essentially "downtown". I LOVE it. We are close to two amazing parks, the library, restaurants, grocery stores, Starbucks... and there are sidewalks and paths throughout. As long as the weather stays nice, I plan on walking!

This is the first (and smaller) park that we visited.
That's our apartment complex you can see through the trees--we are REALLY close.

The small park has this neat water "feature". It's a series of waterfalls that intimidated me at first--but then I realized the current wasn't really that much of a current.

The second park had fountains where the water level kept rising and falling. Emily was more reluctant to play in this, but still had lots of fun & soaked both of us. They had a much cooler play area, but at that point she was shivering so we opted to head home for warm towels out of the dryer.


Some videos: