Getting So Coordinated!!!

Two hands, two feet. Makes sense :o) In the last 3 days she has mastered the art of seeing something, grabbing it with her hands and bringing it to her mouth. It's so fun to watch her hit this mile stone. Mama's so proud!

A Day at the Knik River..

Today after church we had an impromtu get together at the Knik River in Palmer. It was a beautiful location!. All kids went swimming (sorry no pics), and they had a blast digging a whole. What was the hole for you say? To hide in, while playing hide and go seek. Needless to say the kids never got that far. The hole digging was much more fun than hiding in it.

Melissa has a new little baby Ida that she's fostering, she's adorable. Melissa hit a delema when she realized she had no way to heat a bottle and a baby who wouldn't drink cold milk. So I got creative. I heated the milk up in a glass, then put it in the bottle. So much fun making do with what you have.

We spent a little over 4 hourse there, and the WHOLE time Melissa and Vanessa smelled different candle scents and placed Scentsy orders. 4 hours, really!

When Adelle got tired I wrapped her up and put her in Rayna and Joe's car. She went right to sleep. It was fun watching her through the window, like watching a cool fish in a tank.

And thats all folks! I am really loving this fun summer of the wonderful campfire smell!!!

FINALLY I Don't Think Mom's Trying To Kill Me!!

I don't know why this has been so hard for Adelle, but tummy time is my time to torture her, or so she thinks. But she's getting better. She seems to like tummy time on her dresser a bit better (as you can see by her smiles). Makes Mama happy, she might crawl after all! And her many therapy sessions in the future might be cut back.

And Time Goes On..

Adelle met her Great Granddad Watson today for the first time. (It's been REALLY hard getting there at the same time Adelle is awake AND happy.) It was very precious! In my baby book my Mother wrote that when I was born and Grandpa came to visit me at the hospital, he didn't want to put me down. That was always very sweet to me, so I was very excited to have him meet Adelle. This is her last surviving Great-Grandparent on my side, and he's doing so well. (He informed me today he was almost to the 90 mark!)

We also saw that Grandpa had his own little one. He and Kathleen got a little new babydoll kitten a few weeks ago, they named her peaches. I could tell Grandpa was awestruck by her, he's missed his previous cat Kawn. So we shared "baby" stories and admired each others. It was a sweet visit.

We love you Grandpa! (Oops, sorry I didn't get a picture of your baby.)

Puzzle Pieces...

Ryan went back on the slope Thursday and he's been having problems downloading Adelle pictures through email on his phone. So today he called and asked that I put up some pictures of Adelle on the blog, since he can access that just fine.

My struggle is that just posting random pieces of Adelle with no real reason seems way too disorganized for me, plus I feel like people would be in Adelle overload. (Can that really happen? Its not like you can hear her crying..). But whatever. Ryan needs to see his daughter so I apologize in advance for the random puzzle pieces that make up our life. I'll be doing these montages more often. I hope you enjoy, this means many more posts. (But I'll give you a two weak break when Ryan's back.)

"I think I can get a third hand in...."

Adelle decided she likes to suck on string cheese. She was really motivated to hold on to it and not lose it. She's still working on the coordination :o)

We went camping for the day at my Dad's property, I love the way her face looks while sitting in her bumbo!

First cereal!

K, that was a lot! Stay tuned....

Bear With Me...

Just a normal day in Anchorage. Adelle and I dropped Ryan off at the airport, we ran some errands and then I stopped by my Dad's. When we left and were driving away I saw a medium sized black bear running besides the road. Now for those of you who don't live in Alaska, you may be thinking this is a regular occurrence. Well it's not, bears aren't like Moose, we don't see them often in the heart of Anchorage. Occasionally they break the borders but it's rare, and normally they stay close to the borders. Living in Alaska my whole life this is the second bear I've seen in Anchorage, the other was up on hillside which is pretty much wild country anyway.

So I did the crazy driver thing, freaked out with excitement, grabbed my camera and started driving crazily through all the back neighborhoods as it snuck through yards and came out on the other side. We found it again coming off someones porch, he walked over to their dumpster, jumped up and started scavenging for lunch.

It is illegal to have an uncovered garbage can or dumpster for this reason. As to why Fish and Game aren't doing anything about it I really have no clue. I called 911 to report this sighting and the lady treated me like I was crazy. "Yes Ma'm we know, anythingelse?" "Ya, the bear ate my arm". Rude ol 911 operator. I should have gotten her name so if I ever do have an emergency I can tell them I have an emergency and I don't want to talk to ________.

Antique Waffles Anyone?

So I found a fun little toy on craigslist yesterday, and I sold some stuff to pay for it. An Antique Waffle Iron, made in 1925 that is in great condition and is I think very beautiful! It's quite shnazy how it works. The two sides of the waffle iron fit together perfectly, each with a coiled handle to keep from getting too hot to hold. The the top of the irons (left side in picture) has two semi-spheres that come together to creat a ball that fits into a socket on the base. So to flip the waffle you just rotate the ball in the socket and voila, Flip. What a creative contraption! The base has a metal handle and holds it all together perfectly. It is easily placed on hot coals and removed, and as you can see it works quite dandy on my stove.

This is just a pankcake mix that I had waiting in the fridge sans eggs and water. (Dry homemade mixes are great, just keep em cold and add water and eggs when the craving hits.)

Beautiful color!

As I was cooking I heard a *Clink Clink*, and I looked over and saw Adelle playing with a glass cup. Whats funny is she hasn't quite learned how deliberatly grab at something she likes. But I think as she did this on accident it peaked her interest. Whats that sound?

And VOILA! Yummy waffles! I am excited to make waffles a new family camping tradition. Anyone want to buy my electric waffle iron?

Memorial Day Eve....

The day before memorial day my fandamily got together for a bonfire at the Campbells and ate yummy smores and had great conversation. I have learned a TRICK to being better at taking pictures, but it requires some trust. I have started entrusting certain older cousins with my camera and asking them to go hog wild taking pictures of EVERYONE! (if you don't specify this you will end up with 100 pictures of just the kids making stupid faces.) It's great because they love taking pictures and being "responsible", and you get a good choice of pictures to chose from without having to always step away to take them. So this picture was taken by Emma Olsen.


Ryan and I went on our first bike ride with Adelle, and it was....interesting. We drove just down the road to visit Vanessa and Nathan. It was a beautiful day, sun a shinning, birds a chirping and wind a blowin. Unfortunately we didn't take into account that little Adelle babies don't like the wind a blowin so much, so she was pretty fussy the whole way there.

We felt bad turning around to drive home and putting her through that all over again, so Vanessa volunteered to drive her home. (DO NOT ask us how she did it, we don't remember...) So this picture was taken after a sweet aunt Vanessa made a little wind blown Adelle feel better. Unfortunately sweet Aunt Vanessa wasn't wearing any make-up so I am doing her the honors of not posting her beautiful face in the picture. Only because I love you Vanessa, no one would have noticed!

Great Great Great Great Grandma Neilson, I did it!

I planted my Garden!! For Mothers Day Ryan's Grandpa Best and brother Casey came over and rototilled me a garden spot. It sat vacant and lonely, as I am sans my husband and with baby, it's a scary task to take on alone.


Remember my attempt at doing veggie starters inside? Well they all survived until I transplanted them into those cardboard jiffy pots. That didn't go over so well. The cardboard sucked up all the water I put in so I could never keep them watered enough. Some survived including all the peas. So here's the 3rd transplant, right into the garden. (Stupid cardboard jiffy pots)


After the transplanted peas I put in a WHOLE row of more peas. I will be eating peas until next summer! (Assuming they grow of course...and grow peas.)


WHOOP WHOOP! As I was "gardening" I reflected on my ancestors, and how this used to be their equivalent of grocery shopping. I thought how amazing they were, their wealth of knowledge and I wished that that knowledge had been passed to me. How humble their lives were. What mattered to them really mattered, pride wasn't a luxury they had. To them Pride was being able to grow a straight and fruitful garden. Straight being the key word, look at this row! I can hear my Great Great Great Ma and Pa Kettle laughing at me, "has that Sister Marley never seen a straight line before?" "Look at that Sister Marley and her floopy Garden." "I am glad all my wives know what a straight line looks like". Ya, well, I am going to pass the buck to my nicer relatives that helped rototill this garden, they started it crooked.

See when you look at it from the side you can't tell it's floopy. Thats the trick. I only got the first row planted, so I'll keep you updated. Hopefully this fall I will have some yummy veggies to pick from!

If this is your car would you please stand up...

Really people. Really. I guess this is our "welcome to the valley" wake-up call.