the baby is one

Seriously, where does time go?

going, going,

gone.

yea!

Two reasons to celebrate this week.

1) We won two ridiculously cute dresses from the Misha Lulu blog. They arrived this week. Katie has worn the red dress three -- yes, three -- times already this week. She wouldn't let me wash it, she just keeps wearing it.

"Mama, I want all my friends to see it."

2) We got our new point-and-shoot camera (the Canon), so we have a means to document these adorable dresses.

The dresses came packaged all-too cute.

Katie was so excited it was hard to take pictures because all she wants to do is twirl in them.

lychees for me

I was so happy to find fresh lychee at Trader Joe's yesterday. What a treat!

My goong-goong (grandpa) used to buy these in Chinatown and peel them for me.

If you haven't tried them before you peel the hard red part off to find a fleshy almost translucent grape-like fruit underneath. The flavor is sweet and a bit floral. There is a pit in the middle. They also sell them canned at Trader's as well -- but I like the fresh ones better.

So, go get ethnic and try them!

making mush

I love, love, love my babycook. My friends Carrie and Susan got this for me when Maddie was born. It doesn't make huge quantities, but it's much less of a production than getting the steamer and blender out. It's small and clean up is very easy.

Maddie is not a very big eater and I worry about her nutritional intake so I still do a "super cereal" breakfast chockful of veggies (an idea loosely taken from the book Super Baby Food). I usually make kale, swiss chard, broccoli -- stuff so gross I don't even like to eat it when it's not mush.

naked

Because my little Canon -- R.I.P -- died recently I went out and bought a new point-and-shoot. I bought the Sony W290. I was swayed by the cool design, big screen, logical interface -- and, it was more than $100 cheaper than the Canon that was an upgrade of my old one.

I just returned the Sony last night. I felt like too many of the pictures were blurry and the video was way too choppy for my liking.

I ordered the new Canon Powershot SD970 which will be arriving late next week. Until them I am left naked with no means to shoot my Little Wickies.

Until then I leave you with some Katie-isms...

• Katie often pronounces "v" as "b" so when she says vegetables it sounds like "bitchtables."

• She had an American flag tattoo on her hand and proclaimed to Papa, "Look at my miracle (instead of American) flag."

• Papa was explaining why her cup with ice was wet "It's condensation Katie," followed by a scientific explanation that went over all of our heads. Later I helped her out of her chair and I exclaimed that her hands were wet. "No Mama, that's just combination on them."

beach days

As you've probably noticed we've logged a lot of time at the beach in the past few weeks.

This week was no different.

We convinced friends to go with us twice this week.

On Tuesday sweet, sweet Georgia came with us.

We built a pool for the girls and Parker and Katie had a great time launching themselves into it.

Logan hung out with a bevy of ladies at the beach.

Apparently we went to the well too many times and today it was really foggy and chilly at the beach.

Unfortunately that did not deter Katie.

"Mama, I want to go really deep in the water... up to here (putting her hand on her collar bone)!"

Sweet.

So, Mama got to take all her clothes off while all the other bundled up mommies and kiddos watched from dry land as she plunged waist deep into less than warm water.

My little cowgirl, lasso in hand.

Amazingly, she managed to whip herself in the eye only once.

Makayla stayed sand-free and dry until Maddie put her sandy hands in her hair two minutes before we left.

The sand monster...

The object of desire today -- and I mean seriously coveted and fought over by the girls -- was Hayley's Ariel sand mold.

Here Dylann is explaining the story of Ariel to me as she plays with the prized piece of plastic.

My little mermaid soaking in a tub full of sand after the beach...

Then the little princess pooped out in her castle we built earlier in the week.

Look closely she's in there...

orange chicken, tofu and broccoli, onion pancake, beef chow fun...

oh, and rice too.

As I gazed at the food and cholesterol-laden table before me on our mama and Katie afternoon out I thought "people must think we're a bit excessive."

But, I told Katie she could choose -- and, leftover Chinese food doesn't go to waste in our house. (Incidentally, I ordered two additional dim sum dishes to go for Papa on top of all the leftovers we had).

Here she is looking at the menu pointing and proclaiming, "Whoa Mama, this one here weighs $20."
Then, we stopped to get some frozen yogurt which she picked over ice cream -- a bit to Mama's dismay.

Later we went home picked up the rest of the family and headed over to the beach.

We have had a very grey May and June, so perhaps this is why we have been so beach-crazy lately. The weather has been so great the past few weeks it's hard to pass up.

We didn't get to the beach until almost 4:30 and stayed until 6:00 and it was simply gorgeous out.

maddie walking: the footage

good thing Miyo has a camera that works....

newsflash: maddie walks!

I had a dream last night that Maddie was walking.

Just now, Maddie took her first steps.

Of course - my camera is shot (see post below), so I couldn't record any of those moments which was a bummer.

It was so cute, Katie was cheering her on, Go, Diego, Go! was playing in the background...

Boy those Little Wickies grow up fast.

r.i.p.

My little Canon PowerShot SD550has been doing this a lot lately.

I'm afraid it's on its last legs.

I think I may ask Santa for fancier SLR camera, but in the meantime I feel naked without a point-and-shoot in my back pocket so I'll have to hop-to and write a few extra articles so I can go make this purchase now.

What camera do you have (SLR or point-and-shoot)? Do you like it?

a great ending

Today we trekked into Brentwood to visit Uncle Scott at the new restaurant he's a manager at.

Tavern is nothing less than stunning inside. Not exactly kid-friendly, we made sure to go before the lunch rush (which we saw some of as we were leaving -- a lot of power lunchers and folks-of-leisure, or at least people who look like their shoes cost about as much as my first car).

Uncle Scott treated us well -- of course. Katie had her first chocolate croissant.

One of her favorite books is This is Paris. She always talks about going there. We told her that this was a french restaurant and that croissants were regular fare there.

Like she needed prodding to eat something chocolate.

After we ate Uncle Scott took us over to the larder (fancy French name for bakery) and put together a bag of yummy things for us to take home with us.

When we got home we found cookies, tarts, a salad, a cupcake and some sandwiches in the bag.

Later in the day, we headed to Mondos with our goodies and while Papa and Mama ate, the kids played in the sand.

It's been a bit on the cold side and overcast for what seems like weeks, so we didn't bring our bathing suits -- which was a mistake because the weather was simply gorgeous.

So, we hiked Katie's skirt up and stripped Maddie down and played in the water.

What a great way to end the holiday weekend...

I love a parade

Katie has been talking for a full year about throwing candy at the Push-em Pull-em Parade.

This weekend, she got her chance.

She chucked candy everywhere. At people's ankles, back sides, you name it -- I saw her throw candy there.


Maddie drove the car with a little help from Uncle Scott and Amy.

Yes, that is Song leaning into the picture. It is one of his favorite pastimes -- to lean/jump into other people's pictures. He even does this to strangers.

I know, what a punk.

Love this picture of the kids, especially Logan getting his hair pulled by Wyatt and Dylann looking like she'd rather be -- well, anywhere else but sitting in a park taking this picture.

The girls yelling "Happy 4th of July" at me.

happy 4th of july

Like watching water boil

Like her mama, Katie is learning to love to bake. This week we made snickerdoodles.

My favorite part was when Katie decided she was going to watch the butter soften on the counter. She just stood there on a stool watching it, poking it every 40 seconds or so and reporting "it's not soft yet mama."

Snickerdoodles I've found are a great activity for us. Katie loves making little balls of dough and rolling them in the cinnamon sugar.

I've found no matter how disfigured the ball may look when Katie is done with it -- they always turn out looking (and tasting) pretty darn good.