It's summer time alright!

Raine and I signed up for swim lessons at the end of the month. I think it will be a fun way to spend 2 hot Phoenix weeks and I'm sure we will learn a bunch. Raine really enjoys the water so I think she will enjoy it. I just hope she is cooperative. She loves to just do her own thing, so I'm not sure how she will like having to stay and learn first.

113 degrees today! ugh. Poor Raine starts wiping at her face when the heat from the car (or just outside) hits her. She loves spraying herself in the face with her spray bottle though. We keep a spray bottle in the car to help keep her cool and she will sit in her car seat and happily spray herself in the face. Luckily she hasn't tried to drink the water or spray me yet. ;)

Today Raine had her 16 month well check with her new pediatrician. I really like like the new doc. We have a woman, Dr. Kelly (both Dan and I had a Dr. Kelly, so I thought maybe it was a good choice). I thought maybe Raine would like a woman doctor better, but it appears she hates all people who poke and prod her, make her get naked and examine her. The office is quite nice, nice garden landscape with a fountain and everything, fun things to play with in the waiting room. Raine had a great time playing with all the stuff, walking around and exploring. They called us back and Raine happily held my hand and walked back with me, until ... (imagine horror movie music here) ... she heard screaming kids, saw scales, and the dreaded exam room. She stopped, let go of my hand and stood in the middle of the hall looking around and then she started back to where we came in screaming. I had to carry her screaming trying to climb over me into the exam room, where she continued to scream until the nurse left. We waited happily reading a story until the doctor came in. As soon as the doctor came in the room Raine started to try to climb over me and scream. Poor girl was not happy. Luckily the doctor was really nice about it, touched Raine as little as possible and stayed on the other side of the room when she was asking questions. Raine has put on a few pounds and is doing fine in her growth. She is still on the small side, but the doc said it was nothing to be worried about and to just try to get her to eat more solids before she gets milk.

Uber Happy Verna

I just ordered my new camera and it should be here by the end of the month! I am pretty excited about it. Dan has been making fun of me a bit. (Like when he saw me put a picture of it on the blog ...) I am just excited to be able to get good high quality shots of Raine, all of our family, and hopefully gain a mini career. We got a pretty good deal it came with the Canon Rebel SLR 12.2 megapixel camera, 2 lenses, case, 8 gb memory card, card reader, battery ... very nice.

If you need me, I will be camped out by the mailbox ...

Sad Verna

I am sad to say that I won't be able to post new pictures for a little while. Our digital camera died on us. The screen and all the pictures are just blurred shapes. I will try to do more video until I get my new camera. We are waiting for our stimulus check to get my dream camera. I am hoping to start up a little photography business once I get it. I am currently trying to re-learn photoshop so I can also do touch ups and that sort of thing. I am so excited about it I can hardly wait! We have been trying to set goals and save up for them.

We are all keeping pretty busy, Dan is back to crazy overtime. I am getting excited for my family to come to visit next month. And we are all excited for our trip to Colorado. We miss everyone sooooooo much! Dan and I are excited for Raine to experience the Sand Dunes, we think she will love it! The cooler weather will be nice too! 112 degrees here today! Yuck! Maybe that is why we get so homesick in the summer :)

Raine is keeping busy too. She amazes us all the time! She has discovered coloring lately. She loves to sit and color and draw. She draws with such purpose too, it is fun to watch her! I have been trying to get her to do all of her signs and body parts on video lately to share with you, but she likes to either be silly for the camera or shy and boring. :) Last night Raine and I taught yoga. Raine is becoming quite the little yogi. She sits with us at the start of class with her little hands at heart center in anjali mudra and she copies various poses throughout class. I can't wait until I can capture some of this on camera, it is the cutest thing.

What a character

Little Miss Raine gets more rambunctious by the day. She is so smart, sweet, caring and affectionate. She is also very particular, opinionated and mischievous. Her new favorite game is give Daddy all Mommy's kisses. I will ask her for a kiss and she will go over and kiss and hug Dan. She has been very into Mo lately. She loves hugging, kissing and petting Mo.




Last weekend we all went and got haircuts together. Raine did pretty well, she sat on my lap and enjoyed a sucker. Her hair was not quite what I asked for but it is cute all the same. My hair turned out to be exactly what I told her NOT to do, but it's not awful and it'll grow I guess. Dan's hair looks fine, not to easy to mess up I guess. Raine and Dan got to play at the mall play place while I was getting my haircut, which they seemed to enjoy.


This weekend Raine and I went to see Junie B। Jones. If you haven't read her stories they are adorably hilarious. The author is Barbra Park and she is touring promoting the books with the main character. So, we had show and tell with Junie B. Jones and then had our books signed. It was pretty cute.

Hocker Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Geneology software - Free family tree

We have internet again!!

We have been on media overload lately. We got a free month of digital cable with our internet and Dan now has his xbox 360 so we have all been wandering around trying to figure out what we want to do first.

Dan has finally had a week without overtime and even a weekend off! He has been very excited about the xbox too - I have not, because I feel like I need to be taking advantage of our digital cable. :) It is funny how after you get used to not having tv really you don't miss it, but once you have time with it again you don't want to loose it. I have been very excited to have HGTV back and with our free trial we have every single channel imaginable so I have found all kinds of new exciting things - like about 8 discovery channels, fit tv (where I do yoga and belly dancing), and noggin for Raine (we like Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends).

Back to Dan's weekend off... On Saturday Raine and I went to a farmer's market and got the best Chai tea, some honey just out of the hive and I got a really neat necklace made of wood with an amethyst stone. Dan stayed home to play xbox. Then we went to a birthday BBQ at Dan's friend James' house. Dan had a lot of fun, relaxing, talking, drinking, eating. Raine had a tone of fun too, she played and played - she stayed up until 10:30pm. She played on their son's playhouse and on his 2 tire swings. She had so much fun we are now in the process of making our own tire swing. I wish I would have gotten pictures of that, but it was dark by then and I was too worried about her falling off to think about a camera. On Sunday we went to an "aquatic center" almost a mini water park. We all had a lot of fun. Raine LOVED it. She played all over and of course wanted to do everything by herself. She went under for a second a couple times and didn't even care (while I was hyperventilating pulling her up - Dan just said, "she's fine, she held her breath").

The rest of the week has been pretty uneventful - except for the 109 degree weather...

I hope all of you are are happy and healthy and that we will get to see you sometime soon. With love - Verna, Dan, Raine and MoDog

Busy, busy, busy

I don't know where to begin. I should be keeping a list of the fun things I want to share with you. I will just have to try to remember it all for now. We are still waiting on our internet, so Raine and the kids I nanny for are all here at Imagination Ave. So that I can use the internet while they play.

We got Raine a potty chair a few weeks ago so she has been sitting on that most mornings after she gets up and sometimes during the day. She put pee in it the first time she sat on it and I was all excited for her and the next time she used it nothing and so I told her good try and she was wondering where the excited happy dance went. She loves flushing the toilet too, I let her flush it if we empty her potty into it. Raine and I went with our old neighbor to the global festival a few weeks ago and had a tone of fun! We learned a lot about other cultures, Raine got to drink coconut juice right out of a coconut, she got to build her own bird house, she got to play all kinds of fun world instruments, and we got to talk to some Australians. Raine loves playing in her yard with Mo and playing in her little pool.

Raine and I went to the Asian festival a few weekends ago and bought some baby turtles who are totally cute. Dan has named them Bill and Ted.

This last weekend Dan bought and xbox 360 and a bike for Raine so they are both happy! Raine gets so excited every time she sees bikes she loves to look at them in the store and she will try to take them if a kid gets off of one. So, Dan found one and couldn't resist. She is too funny on it because she is still too small to reach the pedals but she loves to sit on it and turn the handle bars. Dan is so excited about the xbox he plays every second he gets. It is a good thing we only have 3 fuzzy channels or I would be sad I was missing out on something good on tv.

Well, the kids need me to play with them, so that will have to be all for now. We love and miss you all. Enjoy the photos.