Water out of cloths, instead of rocks...

I mentioned a while back that Rebecca thinks anything made of cloth holds water. Well, here's a picture of where that belief came from. She really does like her time of cloth eating at every bath! This was from Saturday evening. We're starting to create a bed time routine of a bath, massage, story if she is in a good mood, or just eat and then sleep if she isn't in a good mood. If she's in a mood where I can read to her, then she eats after we read a story or two. It's been nice, because it lets me get 6-7 hours of sleep straight instead of 4-5 hours.

Rebecca was studying those elephants. She's recently figured out how to actually "catch" them, though she hasn't figured out how to hold on to them. She can make them swing a lot though!

And, my 365 pictures...

Justin raked the lawn for me on Saturday!! It looks soooooo nice now! I've been trying to get it done for the last few weeks, but it kept raining so much that the lawn was too soggy to even consider raking it. Now it's done, and I have five or so piles of leaves in the yard, just waiting for us to have plastic bags to put them into.

My friend Irina (she's on the far right of this picture) invited us to the baby dedication at her church. They were dedicating their son, Grant, and there were another seven babies/children dedicated at this service as well. This is a picture of the lot of them.

And... my avocado tree! This picture is a part of my highly productive morning/afternoon today! I got the diapers hung out to dry, a load of lights into the wash, the diapers into the dryer, the lights hung out to dry, the lights off the line because it started to rain (argh!), the avocado tree planted in this lovely pot and dirt that I got through freecycle, the front garden watered where the rain doesn't hit most times (because I want my bulbs to grow!!), the dog and baby walked, lunch made and eaten, clothing items that are too big for Rebecca put away, boy baby clothing sorted and put away/into bags to give away, and 49 little planting pots made from old phonebook pages using this cool little pot maker thingy my parents gave me for Christmas. Just looking at that list makes me feel tired, and there's still more that I'm going to do today... such as make supper!!

And... the mail came and the package my parents sent arrived!! Finally. After spending 16 shipping/business days in the mail, it arrived! What a relief that it is here, because we had started initiating a trace on it when it didn't arrive after 14 days in the mail. I guess the moral of that story is, if you're mailing presents to us that need to be here by a certain date, they have to be sent at LEAST a month in advance, or we need to purchase and be reimbursed for them, because 16 days is a rather long time for something to be in the mail, which likely means it got stuck at customs for a while.

Evening with a friend, among other things

On Saturday, Justin and I went to a park (not sure if it is a city, state, or national) called Dismal Swamp. We found some pretty cool stuff! We think we found a hornet's or wasp's nest, hanging in a tree! There was a flock of geese in the water, which were gorgeous! I particularly enjoyed seeing the wild(?) daffodils growing all over the place! But, the one problem with the place was... these funny little red seed things. There were a number of trees that were giving off red seed cases or something. Turns out they are called American Elm, and we think I may be allergic to them! I managed to have hives all over the place within half an hour of arriving there. And, of course, the red things were the only thing I haven't ever encountered before (to our knowledge). So... there you go. A new thing for me to have issues with. Now I'm just hoping that there aren't many (if any) American Elms right around here!!

Sunday, we went to our church really early, and then to Justin's parents' church for a pot-luck type lunch. It was kind of nice, though I'm always nervous eating out where you don't know what is in anything! Anyway, our niece developed a sudden fever, high enough that it was decided she needed to go see the doctor, so we took our nephew to a petting farm/park while they took her to an emergency clinic thing. Turned out she had two ear infections, and possibly a virus, but who knows. She's feeling better though, so I guess it didn't do too much damage. Our nephew woke up with a super high fever on Tuesday, and her mom wasn't feeling too great on Tuesday either. So, hopefully that 24-48 hour "I don't feel good" thing isn't going to come here! So far we have no sign of it at all (they all had runny noses before the fever, and there are no runny noses out of the ordinary here).

On Monday, I got really brave, and went and visited a friend and her 3 month old baby boy... without Justin going with me! Yes, that's right. I drove into the city, instead of out of it, and actually made it all the way there, and back again, without getting lost, or creamed by any of the nutty drivers there were on the roads! Of course, I stayed way too late, and hopefully didn't wearher out too much... I know *I* still haven't recovered from it, at least, lol! Maybe a nap every day for a month will cure me. I got to use her camera (a Nikon), which was kind of exciting, cause it has a speed light flashy thingy on it, and of course, the subjects of my photography were great! Who can beat pictures of a mommy and (sleeping) baby?? I probably should have dug out my camera as well, but oh well! :-) It was really nice to be able to get out for an evening, and hopefully we'll be able to do it again!

Let's see... other than that... I'm working on a new little baby blanket... it's so super soft! I just needed a break from knitting the purple sweater for my niece. I think this blanket might take me a long time to finish though, because I've been working on it for a few days now, and it is only like two inches long... and the finished product is like 40 inches... YIKES! At this rate it's going to take me to the end of March or April just to have it a foot long!! LOL! The purple sweater is more than half finished-- the front is done, the back is almost done. So, I'll have to put the two sides together, knit the neckband, and knit the sleeves, and then it will be finished. The only thing is, it is going to be quite large for her!

Anyway, I suppose I'll put pictures up sometime later!