Backyard entertainment

Back at the start of Spring, in order to torture the cats to the greatest extent possible, we decided to move the bird feeders to right outside the kitchen window. We've spent the last six months or so watching an endless variety of gorgeous birds come and go, all while the cats freak the hell out beside the breakfast table.

BIRD! BIRD! THERE'S A BIRD RIGHT THERE RIGHT THERE I'M GONNA EAT HIM I CAN GET HIM JUST LET ME OUT ERMAHGURD THERE'S A BIRD! BIRD! THERE! AND THERE!

And so on.

Lately, Aerin's been fascinated by the hummingbird wars. Tuesday, she was home recovering from a nasty 12-hour stomach bug, and I took full advantage of her interest. She and the cats had a lovely time comparing notes on which hummingbird they'd like to catch the most.  Since I had nothing to add to the discussion, I just took pictures.

New shoes

Much to my surprise, my greatest weakness is cute baby shoes. 

It was bad with Micah, but now that I have a girl I find myself completely giddy over all the insanely adorable shoes out there.  I mean, JUST LOOK AT THESE:

If those don't make your heart go pitter-patter, I don't know that we can ever be friends.

This is despite their ridiculous cost.  To be fair, the shoes I choose are durable.  Micah's old ones are currently on their third child and still look great.  But still, I hardly ever pay $36 for shoes for myself. To pay that much for shoes that will only be worn for a few months...well, I admit it's a sickness. I try my best to limit it to one pair at a time, but a well-made, adorable pair of baby shoes is my kryptonite.

Anyway, these were Aerin's first shoes:

Oh, I loved them so.  So much that when the dog ate one, I got another pair. (I know. I know.)

Last week I was finally forced to admit they were too small for her to be walking in. It wasn't quite to Chinese-foot-binding levels yet, but they were clearly not right. So on Wednesday we officially exchanged her first shoes for these:

By Saturday, she was walking like a pro.

For the record, I love these too.

These kids

A lot has happened in the last month:

Abby came to visit:




Aerin started walking. First with a push toy, and now on her own (sometimes):




And she learned to "climb" the slide:








And biggest of all, Micah started Pre-K:



I really do intend to write more at some point, but 1) our computer is dead (it is no more! it has ceased to be!) and I'm having to use my work computer, which makes me uncomfortable, and 2) Blogger keeps shitting the bed and only giving me an inch-high window in which to type.  I don't know what that's all about, but I hate it.  A lot.

Four weeks worth

First, this happened as I was going to hand out cupcakes at the daycare on Aerin's birthday after a full morning of moving my office for the first time in 7 years:

RIP 1999 4Runner SR5 : June 27, 2005 – June 21, 2012

I was heading down Bradford and this woman suddenly turned left in front of me after I was already in the intersection. Fortunately, she admitted it was completely her fault and my unblemished driving record remains intact. Wish I could say the same for my totaled vehicle or my 50mm f1.4 camera lens. But at least I only had some burns and some bad bruises. Nothing broken or cut.

So, June 21 was a totally crappy day, but at the end of it I DID have a 1 year old baby girl! So it wasn't ALL bad.

And on Saturday the 23rd, we had a party to celebrate!  

Is my food...supposed to be on fire?

On Sunday June 24, Todd left for a week in Hawaii. Then on Friday, I collected him from the airport, we loaded up, and we drove to Oak Ridge, Tennessee for my MomBear's 80th birthday party. Family came from far and wide to celebrate this pretty incredible lady.

On the way home, we seriously considered strapping Aerin's carseat to the top of the car. Micah was awesome the whole way, though.

On Monday July 2, I found a new vehicle, a 2005 4Runner Limited. It pretty much looks like my old 4Runner got stung by a bee.

Watch out for Kia minivans with handicap tags, 2.0!

On Wednesday July 4th, we loaded up the new 4Runner and headed over to Mountain Park, Georgia to visit Todd's dad and Melissa. Mountain Park is this crazy little everyone-knows-everyone town smack in the middle of the suburbs of Atlanta, and I have no idea how they even found it, but it's a neat place. Their house was gorgeous and perfect for visiting with kids and Melissa even had books and toys on hand. AND she baby-proofed the place, so we didn't have to spend the entire time helicoptering over Aerin. The kids loved the pool, Melissa stuffed us with all kinds of cookies and s'mores and brownies, we took Micah to see Brave (which I loved, but he just didn’t really get), we watched the local fireworks show, Micah got to play with sparklers for the first time, and holy cow, it was such a nice break from everything here.

First time playing with sparklers!



Fireworks from the bridge

And the biggest event of all, they took us to the Georgia Aquarium! That pretty much deserves its own post, because wow.

The menfolks

On Wednesday July 11, Todd had knee surgery. They scoped it to clear out some debris, fix some torn cartilage, and to find a tack that had worked loose from his last knee surgery. We didn't get to talk to the doctor at the time because the nurse decided to ignore us when we asked if maybe she meant Watts instead of Watson family, but it turns out he didn't find the tack. Either it finally dissolved or it's hiding somewhere else. GAH.

I hate knee stuff, so you will never see any pictures from me about knee surgeries. EVER.

Then on Saturday July 14, Micah had a friend over for a sleepover. Micah had been to Trey's house twice for sleepovers, but this was Trey's first one going to someone else's house. But he did great and they had a blast. I wish I'd had a tape recorder to catch all of the stuff they were talking about. Nothing is cuter than two three-year-olds bullshitting each other. "I fink dat's a...a...CAR STOPPER. Yes. And it stop cars wif a great BIIIG boom." "Oh!"

This week, things have kind of calmed down a little. We're gearing up for a weekend of visitors, though, so things won’t be quiet for long. I'm hoping I'll have some new adorable pictures to post soon, when I finally get to meet Annabelle!

It'll probably be a month before I get around to it, though.

Starting over

The date of my first blog post at Pitas was January 22, 2001.  I've been posting there for eleven years and five months.  I have 133 archives, mostly by month.  That little blog follows me through three years of college, many all-nighters involving friends and concrete canoes, two Star Wars prequels, three relationships, my wedding, my first engineering job, two presidential elections, a series of remodeling projects, the death of my grandmother, my discovery of photography as a hobby, the birth of my son, two miscarriages, passing the PE exam, the birth of my daughter, and now life as a part-time working mom with two kids. That's a lot of baggage.

Pitas is really a terrible platform.  I've stayed there out of nostalgia, but Haloscan is shutting down in October and I like being able to get comments.  I'm not that good with HTML or CSS or whatever it is you kids are using these days, so it's time to hang it up and join a real blog community.

Maybe one day I'll manage to bring in my archives.  Or at least the ones that aren't so terribly embarassing.  You guys, I was 19 when I started that thing.  I was an idiot.