California Trip Part 1 - Susie

The first part of our trip was a long weekend in northern California. We met my parents, who had flown out the day before. My aunt Robin graciously let us invade stay at her house. My paternal grandmother lives just a few minutes from Aunt Robin's house, so we got as much family together as we could on that Saturday and did a fantastic BBQ with Grandma Susie as the guest of honor!

We managed to get a photo of almost all of us. My mom and Uncle Tom are missing because they're taking the pictures. You may notice that Penny is missing as well. No, she was not honing her photo taking skills. She had been so excited by all the new people all morning, she took three naps that day instead of two! She was so asleep I didn't have the heart to wake her up for a photo op.

We did get some pictures of Penny with Susie. We had gone to her place to visit the day before (I'll try to find pictures of that too). When she arrived at Aunt Robin's house for the BBQ the first thing she asked Norah was, "Where's your baby sister, Penny?"

We also got a picture of Susie with all the great-grandkids and a great-niece and nephew in there for good measure too! (My dad had to stand in the back and hold Norah because she didn't want to stand in front.) She prefers that her great-grandchildren just call her Susie. It's so cute to see Norah run up to her calling out, "Susie, Susie!!"

At the end of the day I think Susie was just as tired from all the excitement as the kids were! What a sweet, sweet time we got to spend with our family. It was wonderful to see Norah and Penny with their great-grandma. I'm so glad we were able to make the trip!

There and Back Again

It has been over a week since we got back from our trip to California. While the tiny people I traveled with may not have hairy feet and a deep-seated fear or leaving home, I assure you that our journey was no less epic than than the one Bilbo Baggins took. Although we didn't have to travel to the mouth of a volcano or face any giant spiders there was plenty of talk about stopping for Second Breakfast, so I really feel like I got the basic overview of what Frodo and his friends went through.

All joking aside, we had a great trip and the girls were AMAZING in the car! We got to see lots and lots of family, take the girls to fun and exciting places and spend time shopping doing all sorts of stuff we can't do much of back home.

There's just too much to tell all in one post, so I'll be putting up several installments in the next few days.

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of our first days on the road. We left super early (3:30am) made it all the way to Bakersfield on our first day of driving. That's over 13 hours of driving plus stops, if you're counting (and trust me, I was!).

We spent the night at the home of a good friend from college and her husband. They'd given away their play pen and Penny is just too mobile these days to put her down on the floor, so we had to improvise a bed for her that night. The laundry basket worked great!

 

Mark and I slept on an air mattress. Norah and my friend's daughter, C (the Amazon pictured in this recent post), had tons of fun jumping on the bed.



More pictures of our epic adventure are on their way... stay tuned!

Super Baby! (Part Deux)

My dad taught this little trick to Norah when she was about 8 months old. We figured it was time for Penny to carry on the tradition. You can tell by the look on her face at the end that she takes her job very seriously. You can also tell by her face that she's been eating scrambled eggs, but that's a story for another day.

Hooray!

Yesterday, Penny discovered that slamming her little hands together makes a pleasing noise. Guess what she's been doing ever since.

Hey Penny, how do you feel about our 14 hour ride home in the car today?

The Pixie and The Amazon

This is Norah and her new friend C. She's the daughter of one of our close college friends. Maybe the title of this post is a bit of a giveaway, but guess which of these two is older... Norah turned 3 in August. C had her birthday in June. Difference is, C just turned 2. Moral of the story: my shrimpy kid will probably never be a point guard.

Fashion Fabulous Friday - Acessories With Purpose!

A couple of months ago, I read a post on my friend's blog about amber teething necklaces. Contrary to what I originally thought, they're not for babies to chew on. Trust me, Penny has tried.

The info from the Baltic Amber Website was pretty compelling. Here's the info from the site on the special acid contained in amber and why it helps with pain relief:

"Succinic Acid is found naturally in our bodies and in plants. It plays a vital role in our metabolic processes and in cellular respiration. It acts as a powerful antioxidant, ridding the body of toxins and free radicals. It stimulates neural system recovery, boosts our immune system, compensates for low energy levels in our brain and body, thus increasing alertness and awareness, concentration and reflexes. It also decreases stress, has a calming effect and has been proven equal or better than many commercial drugs in many health and wellness areas."

Basically, when you wear amber against your skin, your body heat releases and absorbs the acid from the amber. That's all pretty interesting stuff, but the reason I finally decided to buy one was the testimonial of my friend. Anina has twins. Both have had a lot of miserable teething symtoms. She got one teething necklace and tried it one one of her daughters. The daughter who wore the necklace cut two molars without her parents knowing. That was good enough for me!

Since we've had the necklace, Penny drools less and seems happier when she wears it. I wrap it around her ankle when she's sleeping so I don't have to take it off of at night or during nap time. I'm really impressed with how it's working. In fact, it got lost for about a week and she got pretty grumpy. About an hour after I found it and put it back on her, she stopped drooling again!

Norah was what I like to call "a difficult teether". I figured that something that got such good results for my friend's daughter was al least worth a try. So far I haven't been disappointed. Penny looks pertty cute in her little necklace too, doncha think?

Trip to the Farm

Last Sunday we took a tour of James Ranch, where we have been getting our produce this year. Norah was looking forward to the adventure and, to tell the truth, so was I. Not many people these days have the opportunity to learn about where their food comes from by actually seeing where it's grown and produced!

For more information on James Ranch visit this site. If you live here in Durango, I would highly recommend that you look into joining the CSA program and get your produce from them like we have.

We told Norah that she had to take a really good nap if she was going to go see all of the plants and animals. She took us seriously, because when I went up to get her, I found this:


She slept for about 3 hours.


Once I managed to wake her she was ready to go! The first thing she found at the farm was a table that was just her size.


She was pretty excited about it!


I was pretty excited about the view.


My parents were pretty excited too (believe it or not).

We took the electric cart tour. As members of the CSA, that tour was discounted for us. It was really smart of them to do that for us because now all I want to do is go on the Twilight Dinner Tour! How amazing does that sound, right? You can see the James Ranch tour options and pricing here. I will definitely be adding the ranch tour to my repertoire of fun activities to take our out-of-town visitors!

Our tour guide (who Norah calls Farmer Jen, and insists on waving and yelling to every time we pass the ranch) is one of the James' kids and grew up on the property. She did a great job of incorporating interesting facts about ranching with family stories and a lot of local history. The tour was incredibly informative and managed to keep Norah's attention most of the time. This is no small feat, trust me.

I didn't get any pictures of animals because they were all a little far away for my camera (and I didn't get off the cart much since I had 15 pounds of baby strapped to me).


I did get a few good pictures of my favorite little animal on the swing!


In the background you can see Mark, my dad, my in-laws and the one other guy who took the tour with us. That poor, brave soul!

Even though I didn't get pictures of them, Norah got to see the 5 acres of gardens where we get most of our produce. She got to see the dairy cows, the angus cows, the pigs, the chickens and their laying house, the sheep and the donkey who protects the chickens and sheep from predators. (Her name is Xena. She's a warrior princess donkey.) We even got to have a little snack of cheese, cherry tomatoes and locally made bread at a duck pond on the property. The baby ducks were adorable.

All in all, the girls were amazingly good for a two hour tour. I think it helped that we got to ride on the cart and there were planty of things to look at on the way. Penny got a little indignant at the end, but I kept giving her Cheerios for the last 20 minutes or so. Her mouth was busy enough chewing that she didn't have much time to complain.

And that, my friends, is where (a lot of) our food comes from!