My sister took our family pictures a couple weeks back. They turned out awesome - Here are some of our favorites.

A-"Maze"-ing

Officer's work association is really good about having familiy activities. Last night they rented a local Corn Maze/ "fair" for all of the employees and their families. Miss peanut was a little too small for the pony rides, so we tried playing with other "kids." She wasn't all that impressed by the goats. We were entertained by one goat that kept getting out, but rather than wandering off it climbed a stack of hay bails and jumped back into their pen again, and again, and again.

Her favorite thing to do was riding the saddle.

Riding off into the sunset. I love that her piggy-tails look like horns.

We actually didin't get lost in the corn maze. They had two mazes to choose from and we chose the shorter, but tougher course. Officer led the way - he has a much better sense of direction than I do. He does have a much longer stride too! It only took us 21 minutes to finish the maze.

A view from the top.

Officer couldn't contain his excitement. Beautiful sunset.

How was lunch?

I had to answer the phone and this is what I returned to. Yum!

For Officer

So, last summer we went out to visit Officer's family when his Grandmother passed away. He insisted on taking me shooting - not something I do all that much. His brother snapped this picture and finally just got it to officer today - Officer's been hounding him for a year. He tells people about this picture all the time, apparently there is something attractive about a pregnant girl with a gun. Although, I think most people would argue to steer clear. It's not like I really know how to shoot, but when you're 7 months pregnant you look that much more ridiculous. Anyway, this one is for you officer.

Update

I haven't really updated us much lately. I don't think there is really all that much to tell. I've been spending a lot of time trying to appeal to our medical insurance for coverage of Miss Peanut's helmet. It has been quite a process so far. I collected a lot of information from all of her doctors and I wrote a lengthy letter because of my background in physical therapy and because I'm a mom! This is our second round of appealing after it has taken more than 2 months and me mailing, faxing, and personally hand delivering copies several times after the insurance company convienently still "didn't have any record of it ever being filed" Very frustrating! We knew it would be a long process, but it really is ridiculous. On a much happier note Officer is officially done with his year of probabtion since being hired. What a relief, not that we didn't think he would make it. He started the Police Academy a year ago with 12 in his class and only 5 made it to 1 year. The city was trying to start their own academy so it seemed like a lot of trial and error in some aspects, but he did very well with it and is really happy in his career. Peanut is almost walking now. She will stand and balance, but she gets nervous and kind of wimpers until she can find something to hang onto. Did I say that she is a daddy's girl? Could you tell from the picutres? She was tackling Officer yesterday and she doesn't realize that her helmet is a deadly weapon at times. We've both been head-butted, gotten fat lips, and konked (is that really a word) in the nose etc. from that thing. Well, I told Peanut to give her daddy kisses and this is what she did! She is so silly! She will copy me when I ask what a fishy, a cow, and an elephant says. She started making fishy lips, elephant sounds, kind of a moo, and clicking her tongue too. So funny, she tries so hard. She says mum, mum all the time now and she will sign all done. We're working on please and more. She is a very determined little thing and when she knows what she wants it is hard to distract her. We're totally excited for Halloween, I think Peanut's going to be a martian - can't you see it with her helmet somehow green and her piggy tails. Officer and I haven't decided yet. Oh, there will be pictures though, just you wait! That's about it, we are just enjoying Fall and Officer is getting ready to go hunting with his dad in a couple weeks.

Story Time

I'm currently a cub scout leader and every week the den meetings are at my house. This month we're talking about "adventures in books." Now I haven't always made time for reading in recent years; one goal I made for myself this year was to read more for fun. I think that kids just don't enjoy reading as much as they used to; too many video games and sometimes just too busy with sports or homework, etc. Anyway I wanted to do something I thought would get them excited to read more. One of my favorites is still the Eleventh Hour - I hadn't pulled it off the shelf until recently, but what 8 or 9 year old wouldn't find it a challenge. If you've never read it, it's a simple children's story, but there is so much more to discover in it's pages. I loved reading it today with my scouts, so if you've never read it - it's kind of a fun thing to do.

The Red Cross called me this morning and asked if I could come donate blood. I try to do it pretty regularly because they like my blood. I was a little sad today when I got there because they have changed it alot since last time. They are still really friendly and all, but the saddest part is that they don't have popcorn anymore. They used to get it somewhere locally - of course no one remembers where, but it's gone. They did have the second best thing though, Vienna fingers! I never buy them so it's a treat. So if you're able to donate blood - go save a life and eat some cookies. Yum!

Little Piggies!

With the helmet, I haven't tried anything too adventurous with Miss Peanut's hair. She was patient enough tonight to let me try some pig tails. Of course she has my stick straight hair, so they're sticking straight up - we'll try curls another day. So cute though - I'm excited for when I can actually do her hair.

Through the years...

My sister and sister-in-law, both did this and I thought it was hilarious, so I had to do it too! Don't we make a cute couple! Try it: http://yearbookyourself.com/

Taking a little breather...

I've seen this a couple times on other blogs and Officer is putting Miss Peanut to bed tonight, so gratefully I have a couple minutes to do something mindless. Here's what happened.



1. strawberry shortcake cupcakes, 2. Shrimp and Penne Pasta Salad with Pesto, Bocconcini and Cherry Tomatoes, 3. Coming At Ya, 4. Red leaves/ 香山红叶, 5. 03_07_01, 6. "3 Vanilla Steamers please", 7. Rice Fields, 8. ginger cheesecake with a chocolate crust and chocolate bamboo leaves, 9. Mommy and me, 10. Day 27/365: Two years, 11. Look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it, 12. fibonacci strikes again

The Questions...
1.What is your first name? Shortcake
2.What is your favorite food? Pasta
3.What high school did you attend? Eagle
4.What is your favorite color? Red
5.Who is your celebrity crush? A crush - nah, my hubby - but he's not a celebrity yet :) We watched P.S. I love you a few months back and Jeffrey Dean Morgan was the first person to come to mind. Come on.
6.Favorite drink? vanilla steamer
7.Dream vacation? China
8.Favorite dessert? I have to pick one? Cheescake
9.What do you want to be when you grow up? Mommy
10.What do you love most in life? My family
11.One word to describe you? Ridiculous
12. What was your favorite school subject? Math, I thought Anatomy might give me a little more than I wanted to see when I was looking for images.

If you want to try it here's what you do:

Go to Flickr search and pick out a photo for each one of your answers to the questions below (I didn't post a picture for all of them).
Click on the picture you want and copy the URL
Open another browser, Mosaic Maker, and paste the URL for each picture into the desired space. (You'll see directions)
Once you have selected, copied and pasted all of your pictures, click Create to make your MosaicClick Share (at this point you can copy the html and paste it into your post)

The clock is ticking…

Miss Peanut finally went down for her nap and I now have about an hour to update my terribly neglected blog. The past couple weeks have flown by! You know when you have those weeks where everyday someone has a different appointment. That's been the last couple weeks, so I haven't gotten around to the blog.

We've been working in the yard; planting things that hopefully my non-green thumb won't kill. And enjoying the fruits of our labors from the garden. Yummy! Officer's been busy with extra training, so I haven't seen much of him lately. To fill some time, I've been trying to shed those last pesky pregnancy lbs and brushing up on my sweet scrapbooking skills. I'm making attempts at on some kind of scrapbook for Miss Peanut. I haven't scrapbooked in ages! So that and I also got introduced to Facebook; pathetic isn't it - definately an addictive online time waster. Miss Peanut is always keeping me busy; she is seriously into everything. Her latest discovery was that she is just tall enough reach the toilet seat and the garbage can. So gross, sometimes I really wonder how it is that first kids survive. And so the baby proofing continues. She really is the best baby we could ever hope for. Yesterday was a pretty busy afternoon and we didn't get home until way past bedtime. Tangent: When I see grouchy babies at the store late at night and parents are getting all in a tizzy at them - I always just think they can only blame themselves because those kids are SO ready for bed. I'm very blessed because even though we were gone until almost ten, she was an angel. End Tangent. Yesterday I got to do my little sister Mollee's hair for her Bridal pictures. I can't believe she's all grown up and getting married. It's been a while since I've done hair - kind of miss it sometimes. Anyway, you'll have to check out some of the pictures, they're gorgeous! Candice is doing some awesome things with her new camera. Here's a link: http://www.hawkleyphotography.blogspot.com/
We're going to have her take a real family picture in a few weeks (finally - it only took us 10 months).

That's about all the time I have for now folks, so we'll see you next time!

She's mobile!

It's official! She'll be nine months tomorrow and she decided to get all grown up. She will hardly touch baby food anymore, I've been trying to get creative with stuff she can eat (now that she has 4 teeth). Officer decided to give her the good stuff of course (I try to stick to the somewhat nutritional stuff). Here is the damage she did with some licorice. Have to say, after reading books about vampires all last week, these pictures kind of creeped me out a little at first.

And...she's been doing the army crawl for a couple weeks now and just yesterday she started really crawling. She's into everything! Then today she decided that she could stand all by herself. She was so excited and proud when she did it! I'll try to catch it on video tomorrow. It was so cute!

I thought about starting this a few times and hadn't yet, so bear with me. I was visiting my mom this past week and I came across some things that reminded me of Delaney. I had been thinking about her this last week anyway because this week marks four years already. I have just been quietly playing through the memories I have of her. She would have been a senior this year. It's crazy how time flies. Anyway, I don't want to say a lot, but I've just been missing her. I'm still amazed that in her brief life she touched so many hearts with so much laughter and love. Her example will always be remembered.

My name is....

Hello my name is "Shortcake" and I am officially a twilight-aholic. I fianlly started the Twilight books on the car trip home and as you can tell from my lack of blogs that I have become addicted. I started it last wednesday and I'm now halfway through the fourth book. I'm kind of glad I waited it until the fourth book was out before I started. Anyway. I'm sure I'll get more blogging done when I'm finished. Gotta get my fix for the day!

There is no place like home.

After about 27+ hours in a car and 1668 miles over the past two weeks we are finally home again. We have quite the little traveler. To keep her busy we had a bin of all her toy that she could reach and we read books.

Eventually she fell asleep. We tend to travel at night especially when we go to California because we miss all of the crazy traffic. Miss Peanut slept, no joke, 9 of the 12 hour trip to Ft. Bragg. We couldn't ask for a better traveler. We finally arrived at 4am to the campground to join the rest of Officer's family. They have been there every year for nearly 40 years. Camping with an infant was fun, but it is a lot of work - especially since Peanut decided to start the army crawl just before we left and didn't want to be held all the time. We bought a small tent and set it up that we could just put her in and let her crawl around with her toys. She loved it! She totally slept reasonably because had gotten her used to the pack-n-play before we left! I would recommend that to anyone!

The main reason for the trip is that Officer's family dives for Abolone. I don't think I even got a picture of one, most people have never tried it. The ocean was so calm at the point where they normally dive and spear fish. Officer said it was the most calm he had ever seen in all his years diving there. It really was beautiful. One day I was able to go out with Officer and some of the older nephews and one niece to put around the cove. It was so cold even in a wet suit. I'm always amazed at how the water magnifies the life under the surface. I guess I haven't dove enough for that to wear off. We were able to show the kids lots of crabs, starfish, sea anenomes (sp?), and even some sea lions swimming around us. They had such a good time.

Hanging out at the point waiting for the divers to return.

Peanut loved the cousins - she couldn't get enough. This picture is only 1/2 of them.

There is always at least one big abalone feed and it's a lot of work to prepare.

Miss peanut was a crack up most of the time to try and feed. She's deciding that she really does not like baby food so that was a challenge. What a stinker!

She was also teething and she kept pulling this face. This was the only shot I was able to catch of it.

We went to glass beach - it's a family favorite. It was basically a city dump years ago and all the glass has been broken and tumbled and smoothed over the years. All the kids love to search for certain colors and pottery pieces. I didn't take the camer there; the last time I was there I dropped our digital camera in davy jones locker! That was a sad day.

Peanut got to get in a swimming pool for the first time. She loved every second - I couldn't believe how much she kicked and splashed! So cute!
She was so tired afterwards. She doesn't usually fall asleep while I hold her.

Officer and I were able to go to the Oakland temple where we were sealed 5 years ago. We missed our exit and literally missed attending a session by minutes. It's funny how things workout though. Instead we had the opportunity to do the sealing work for some Chinese families dating back as far as 900 BC. Talk about being good with record keeping and family history! It was finally time to come home and we were ready. Don't get me wrong, vacations are great; we love to visit and be with family, but it's always nice to come home. Peanut was still good in the car considering she had put up with all the craziness! Last night when we finally got Miss Peanut into her very own crib around 1 in the morning she wiggled with excitement at recognizing her room. She slept until 10:00am when we finally woke her up. What a fun trip!