More about that trip to WA!

I never finished my posts about our trip to Washington! Here are some more fun pictures:

1. Grandma Merrell and Naomi doing what Naomi loves - gardening!

2. Kenny letting Brittany do all the work on the tandem bicycle

3. Naomi relentlessy following Rajah (the cat) around the house and even outside

The Zoo in Tacoma!

Naomi enjoyed her first visit to the zoo. There was much to see! Here are a few fun pictures.

Misc pics from WA

More pictures from our trip to Washington! Grandma Merrell feeding Naomi a fudgesicle, Naomi and Nolan in their camp chairs, and Nolan wondering why Naomi is stuffing her shoe full of grass.

Mariners game

I'll be posting several times about our Washington trip. Here you can see some pictures of us at the Mariners game. Naomi had a good time at the game, complete with cheering, watching all the crazy people, dancing, and "borrowing" the foam fingers from the girls sitting behind us.

Party at My Gym!

My Gym is a definite favorite of ours. It's a place similar to Gymboree or J.W. Tumbles, a kid's gym. They have all kinds of fun activities for the kids - trampolines, mass bubble producers, mazes, slides, ball bins, etc. The first time we went, Naomi 's clear favorite was walking on a plank that had been propped up into an incline. The things that entertain that kid!! They keep changing the set-up, so there is a different arrangement and more fun activities every time we go.

Pedicure, please!

Matt is Naomi's personal pedicurist (and manicurist, for that matter), available any day of the week. Of course, Naomi's not always into the the whole nail-trimming thing, but he's usually able to hold her attention for long enough spurts to get the job done!

Hair in the air

Another post-nap picture...she's a beauty, isn't she? (See next post for why her hair looks like this!)

Those adorable pigtails!

I occasionally put serious effort into getting Naomi contained (usually in her high chair) and entertained for a few minutes so I can do something fun with her hair. We love pigtails, and Naomi usually leaves them in now! However, they almost always come out during naptime. As you can see in the first picture, even when the rubber band comes out, the hair remains in the air! In the second picture, Naomi's hair has settled down a little more, into what I call her ragamuffin look. I wonder if people realize it looks like that no matter what I do!

Sunglass options

Here Naomi is trying on some different sunglasses to see which look best.

Eskimo kisses - Mommy taught these to Naomi and loves getting them!

4th of July fun

We had fun celebrating the 4th of July. We played with friends, swam, bbqed, and played with a turtle named Mozart (who loves watermelon).

Naomi's shoe fetish

Naomi is on a real shoe kick. If she likes your shoes (and she likes pretty much all shoes), she'll take off with them. She especially likes to walk in them around the house.

This picture is of Naomi wearing Matt's flip flops. (Pic is blurry, we know, but you get the idea.) I had helped her do some laps in the kitchen wearing them. Then, awhile later, to my complete surprise, she slid her feet into them again and took off all by herself! I kept waiting for her to tip over and not be able to get going again, but she did great, even maneuvering through the turns beautifully. She did great, that is, until we pulled the camera out!

My baby's growing up!

I thought this when she started wearing two piece pajamas, then again when she started wearing a nightgown. It came up when she started demanding her own utensils to feed herself (although that's not always a successful venture). The idea pops up all the time, so it shouldn't have surprised me when I took this peaceful picture that she looked SO BIG to me! My baby's growing up!

Gardening Girl

We got Naomi a watering can so she could participate in caring for our very small garden (2 tomato plants, a few cucumber plants, a few pepper plants, and some flowers). It took a couple times of demonstrating how to use the watering can before she got the hang of it, but now whenever she sees Matt heading for the back door, she runs pell-mell over there and dances around by the door anxiously until I can get her shoes on and the watering can in her hand.

The first picture is of Naomi helping Matt water the flower area. With those wide bricks to reach across, she usually ends up watering mostly the bricks and her feet, but she sure has fun doing it! And we get squeals whenever Matt sends a squirt of water from the hose her way.

The second picture shows us hanging out on Naomi's bench. We used to hang out on it a lot more when Naomi wasn't an active participant in gardening!

Bedtime Reading

Naomi's new favorite bedtime book starts out "Hush little baby, don't say a word...Mama's going to show you a hummingbird." It goes along with the regular mockingbird song but focuses on nature appreciation instead of commercial purchases. To keep baby happy, Mama and baby listen to the crickets call, search for shooting stars, look at the harvest moon, play on the old banjo, etc.

Here Matt is reading the book with Naomi and her reading buddy. When the book mentions Mama finding baby's teddy bear, Naomi always looks around and grabs for her teddy bear!

Headstands

Naomi has been doing these headstands for quite some time now. It just took me awhile to get pictures of it! Most recently she's started getting in this position and then balancing on her head and one hand while reaching between her feet for a sippy cup or any other fun object.

I don't usually hang out in this position myself. Perhaps Matthew is a closet yoga addict, but I doubt it. So I'm guessing Naomi either picked this up after seeing my post-run stretches or just figured it out herself when messing around one day. Whatever the origination, it's one of her favorite things to do!

Bug antennae

Check out Naomi's new hairdo. I've been calling her my bug all along...now she has the hairstyle to match the nickname!

The sequence of events as pictured here is classic. Naomi checks out the camera (or whatever is going on), then heads for the kitchen and looks to see why we aren't following!

Hauling potatoes

Naomi discovered our bag of potatoes and decided to lug it around. She covered some pretty good ground before depositing the bag on our living room floor and heading for the toy bin!

Sippy cups

Here are Naomi and Sadie, just a-chuggin' away on their sippy cups!

We miss out on so much Seher fun!

From Bethany's latest email:

New Seher Family Rule:
Rule #13
No Eating Miracle-Gro
Even if just a little bit won't hurt a 3 year old, per Poison Control. That kind of stress is bad for Mommy's heart. I'm gonna fall over dead one of these days from fright.

Bobbie just kept watering the plants while I panicked and held Dahlia's head/mouth under the faucet and yelled Spit it out, SPIT IT OUT!!

Playing at the park

Matt got home early one day last week and we celebrated by heading to the park. Naomi chased birds, played with a little boy (and his shovel and pail!), and signed more, more, more every time she got near the slides or swings. We love dirt!!

Naomi's evolving hairstyle

Matt continues to tell me Naomi has a mullet. To detract attention from that, I decided to put Naomi's hair in a ponytail (harder than it sounds - that stuff is so dang wispy!). I was impressed by Jessica's family picture (in which Carolyn's hair was put in two pigtails), but I figured I better start with one and see how that went. So it pretty much looks like a spout coming off the top of her head. And sometimes it just....comes out looking a little worse than the other times!!

Once Naomi discovers that something is on her head, she takes it off immediately so she can examine it and then try to put it back on all by herself. She's definitely still in the sharing phase, because sometimes she tries to put the clip/barrette in Mommy's hair!

Sprint triathlon

I competed in the Lake Las Vegas Women's sprint triathlon the last weekend in April. It was my first triathlon, and I really enjoyed the challenge. I struggled with the first part of the swim - the water was 10 degrees cooler than the race coordinators had estimated, so it took a little while to calm down in the water. The bike course had lots of long hills but didn't prove to be a problem. The run course ended with a little bit of a downhill slope, and I turned in my best 5K time ever (by quite a bit, actually, meaning I've either been lazy in the past or just really trained well for this event!). I loved the feeling of accomplishing it so much that once I saw my times, I immediately started working on a training plan to better those times. Tune back in during August or September to see pictures from my next triathlon!

Las Vegas and fun with cousins!!

We spent the last weekend in April in Las Vegas with family. My parents were there for the first part, and Matt's family showed up for the second part. We had a great time! We didn't get a ton of pictures...mostly ones with the cousins (Naomi and Nolan). Here are a few...