Five on Friday...but not actually posted until Monday

1) Brinnly used the sign for "more" for the first time today. She was on the swing at the park and decided that she wanted some of the big kids' crackers. Another mom noticed it first, and then she signed again for me. And wow, was she proud of herself when I gave her those crackers.

2) We had a fun and productive Memorial Day weekend. Jonathan made good progress on touching up the paint and fixing the water-damaged ceilings at home. Why is there always an endless to-do list for home owners?

3) And on the topic of houses, we have now been in ours for four years. I could live the rest of my life in a Cape Cod. Comfortable and spacious at the same time.

4) Since we all needed to be out of the house so he could work and the paint could dry, we stayed in a hotel one night. We used our all-time favorite site, priceline.com to book a fabulous, 3-star nearby hotel complete with full kitchen for only $35. If you've never used that site to book hotel rooms, you're missing out. You get to choose the location, star level, and dates, just not the specific hotel. Once you make a bid, if it is accepted, the hotel is booked for you. We usually pay around $35 for a room and have never been disappointed. I think priceline is tied for craiglist for my favorite cheap website.

5) There's a new Lutheran radio show in the works. Check this link.

Amalia's quote of the day

"Nice shirt, Mommy. Pretty".

(For the record, the shirt I was wearing does have orange in it, which is currently tied with purple for her favorite color).

Calling all bakers...

All of a sudden, I have the urge to make homemade whole-wheat bread in our machine, sans pre-packaged mix. My two favorite shopping places (Trader Joe's and the local farmer's market) have left us woefully unimpressed by their bread selection. The idea of waking up to warm bread is certianly appealing and having a bread machine does make that possible. Plus, my friend Kellie is 9 months pregnant and able to make bread for her family, so I'm sure I can find some time to fit that in if she can. I know some others of you out there are also experts in the bread-baking area, so I would appreciate your recipes and suggestions. Do I need to buy special bread flour? Do all of the ingredients have to be at room temperature? Any other tricks of the trade?

FIve on Friday

1) Welcome our friends, The Whites, to the world of blogging! We met them when Jonathan and Tim were in grad school at CMU and now we have four kids between us. They have boys, we have girls--it works out for a nice balance.

2) We now have the next-best-thing to a dog. Neighbors with a brand-new Boston Terrier puppy! The girls are fascinated by our new little canine friend, Jack. Regular readers of this blog know that Jack is also the name of Mali's best friend which did cause some confusion at first. Mali was also somewhat put-out by not having all of the neighbors' attention for a while.

3) Speaking of animals, is anyone else locally following the story of the new baby tiger at the Pittsburgh Zoo? Unfortunately, his mother is rejecting him so he is completely bottle-fed and cared for by humans. Mali looks for his picture in the news paper every day. We hope to go visit him soon.

4) We had our DirectTV canceled for the season (which I didn't even know was an option until I called) and now just have local channels. It is working out really well and we will continue with it until Jonathan needs his ESPN fix in the fall. We did just start a Netflix account. Any movie recommendations?

5) Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Gregg are coming for a weekend visit tonight!

8 Months Old

She is quite the character now! She has mastered the "army crawl" and loves the ability to move from place to place. At our weekly moms' group, she spent most of her time creeping along the floor instead of gigggling with the other kids like she normally does. She had places to go, I guess. Her other new development is that insists on feeding herself. This is quite difficult, as she does not have any teeth. So we attempt to spoon a few bites of pureed food into her mouth, but mainly she prefers that we spoon it onto cheerios or Kashi crackers and let her go to town with those. Maybe a quirk of a independence-seeking second-born child? If Mali doesn't need help eating, neither does she!

Happy Mother's Day

Ward Cam Up and Running

Check out our blog's newest feature--online albums. Click on any of the titles on the right to see our most recent photo fun.

Happy 30th Jonathan!

One year ago today, we were living it up with our friends, The Kurths, in sunny Califorina. But now, neither family can imagine packing up four kids and traveling cross-county, so we settled for a calm day at church and home to celebrate. We did manage a grown-up night-out party on Friday night, complete with staying out until past midnight! But it seems fitting to ring in the new decade in the place that we love best, playing with our girls, and enjoying a dinner of scallops, basmati rice, broccoli, cake, and of course, cheerios. (There's always a baby in the house!)


And it wouldn't be a birthday celebration without taking the chance to say how grateful we are to our husband/daddy. Jonathan's love and devotion to his family is apparent to anyone who knows him, and we learn more from him and his example every day. So, even though our waiter at the birthday party didn't know we were together the other night until we asked for the check, I can't imagine any part of my life without him. We love you, birthday boy!

(And by the way, the cool new place to be is our backyard, complete with a firepit!)