photo party

The sun finally came out after a long week of rain, and this is what Meg and I did yesterday. What a great idea! Meg is 2nd from the top (why don't my pictures come out like that?). Hopefully I can share some of the others when I get them.

eight months

There it is, folks...the 8-month belly. It's out there! I was fiddling around with my camera and I had never tried not using a flash, so I turned to our glass laundry room door to see what would happen. When I uploaded it to the computer, lo and behold, I got quite a reflection!

dress

Katie's new dress (that came as a surprise gift from a friend). It's things like this that make me excited to have another girl.

parade

Good things that have happened so far this weekend:
-delicious organic burgers shared by and with friends
-sleeping in until 7:45 a.m. (even Meg)
-another batch of strawberry jam (really, this should be my last)
-watching Meg watch the Springtime Tallahassee parade
-Meg getting more beads and candy than we did - not that any of us asked for any of it
-running into our friends at the parade
-finding a package on the doorstep with a sweet tiny dress for baby Katie inside
-a long afternoon nap
-tackling a much-procrastinated project (weeding out papers in file cabinets-barf)
-tagalong cookie ice cream (as opposed to tagalog, as I was calling it)

picnic

Since the weather has been bugless and perfect we are trying to spend as much time outdoors as possible, including lots of picnics and lots of trips to parks. Saturday night we three ate dinner at Tom Brown park and it was packed. I have never seen it so crowded. Meg could hardly eat since she couldn't take her eyes off those kids climbing that spider-web thing behind her.

bonnie

I got a wonderful surprise visit from my longtime friend Bonnie last week - how fantastic! I hadn't seen her since she was a bridesmaid in my wedding 5.5 years ago. She is a smart, inspirational, thoughtful, lovely person and I am thrilled to have gotten to spend 24 hours in person with her! Thanks for stopping by, Bonnie!

homemade cleaner

This is a picture of my first foray into homemade cleaners (and an excuse for extra practice with my camera). I have been wanting to try this for a long time but was waiting to use up what I already had. I decided to start with a "toilet bowl cleaner" since the chemical fumes from commercial cleaners makes me feel like my lungs are burning. This is so easy...just make a paste with baking soda and vinegar. And it works extremely well!