Carkeek Park

I think it was about a week and a half ago that we decided to take a late afternoon trip to Carkeek Park (our first time as a family). It was beautiful and muggy, the way it often is before a big rain and Edie loved chasing seagulls and carrying rocks on the beach. From here we headed in to Ballard and tried a BBQ place that we've never been to. Edie enjoyed the sweet potato cornbread while all the Husky fans around us drowned their sorrows in large quantities of saucy meat and beer. When we left the restaurant it was pouring rain.

Wedding photos

I've been asked a few times for photos of my brother's wedding as well as people curious to see what Jessie's wedding looked like. Sad to say we took very few photographs at both weddings but this was because both events had amazing photographers that we knew were going to capture the event better than we could. As soon as we get access to some of those professional photos, we'll post them, but for now, all we have are these of Scott and Emily:Ceremony site. The weather was supposed to be mediocre, but instead we had the most beautiful sunshine. They had a great little Parisian type quartet (with an accordion!) playing while we were seated.

Reception site - this great white washed barn where we had dinner and merriment, but mostly forgot to take pictures. Here is Edie with the bride and groom, not looking her best in either but Scott and Emily look great.

And these of Jessie and Clay:

Signs directed the guests up a path to the clearing where we met Jessie and Clay for the ceremony.

Ceremony was in a clearing overlooking the Whidbey coast. The ceremony was no more than 6 minutes long (Jessie and Clay aren't ones for a spotlight), but every word was exactly the right one.

Edie slept through the entire ceremony. For modesty's sake we covered her rump with her jacket.

More to come (and of higher quality!) once the professional pics become accessible.

Two possible futures present themselves

Messiest Eater Ever

This photo shoot was taken during one of those weird dinners where she actually got super into the food. She just kept cramming spaghetti and meatballs in her mouth until eventually, I ran out. So I started rummaging through the fridge and fed my daughter one of those dinners. I'm thinking most parents of 1 year olds know what I'm talking about. One of those dinners where you just keep throwing random foods at your kid to see what they think, hoping that one will "take". Well, the guacamole took. As evidenced by her green face. Unfortunately, Edie will still not let me feed her with silverware, so I usually just let her get supremely messy at dinner, knowing a bath will follow.

Busy busy busy

We are all busy beavers around here these days.

Jeff's business is going strong and his schedule is jam packed with paying projects, board meetings and bringing in more new business. I don't think I've said it here before, but Jeff has worked SO HARD since leaving Wamu and while everyone knows that starting your own business is a challenge, living that challenge is another thing entirely. To see Jeff working so hard this last year and now reaping the benefits is very rewarding.

I also recently signed on as a freelancer to plan a big event next month and am hitting the ground at a sprint to get everything lined up with very little time (and no daycare). Posts might continue in this irregular manner until the gig is over in late October.

Perhaps the busiest member of our family these days is Edie though. She is so close to talking. Just today she was pointing at the helium balloons at the grocery store and tried saying, "Baaaabla" which I realize sounds nothing like balloon, but actually - it kind of does. Considering that a week ago I probably could have pointed at the balloon and said, "balloon!" and she would have said, "Pwep!", this is major. Her desire to say "cat" has intensified lately, with her alternating between "tat" and "cac" - now we're just trying to help her combine the two. We're also fairly certain that she is correctly saying "hat". Jeff has a baseball cap that he puts on Edie sometimes as a joke and she will point at it now and say "hat". I think we're only reluctant to say it's officially her first word because it sounds similar to her saying "dat" (which means "that"). "Dat" is used almost constantly around here - Edie essentially spends her entire day pointing at anything and everything and asking "dat?", which means I spend MY entire day just listing my surroundings - Refrigerator! Chair! That's a car!... you get the idea. So we aren't sure if we're giving her too much credit and she's really just saying "dat" or if we're right and she's actually saying "hat" while pointing at a hat. Which would be so exciting!

She also started signing "more" a week ago. The first time was for ice cream, but the second time was because she liked the water toy I used in the bath and when I stopped, she signed for "more". I found it pretty remarkable that she was able to actually understand the concept of more and not just think it was in relation to food.

When "quizzed" she can now consistently point correctly to her ball, her blanket, shoes (in fact, if asked "Where's Dad's shoe?" she'll actually point at Jeff's foot and not mine), books, the hat, and her toes. When I ask her where her nose is, she points at my nose, which is pretty cute and close enough for me to be impressed. She's developed an uncanny interest in shoes lately. When I leave mine laying around she'll find them and try to put them on. She also points at her own shoes while wearing them ALL the time.

One thing she is NOT learning is how to slow down. She runs so fast that she trips over her own feet and bites the dust like 500 times a day. We took her to the outlet mall today and she wanted to walk THE ENTIRE TIME. As in, she completely refused to be carried. This would be fine if she didn't run away from you as soon as you set her down. And run towards the most dangerous thing in sight. If she wasn't trying to grab cigarette butts from the ashtrays, then she was heading for the patch of dirt a dog just peed on, or a piece of garbage on the ground that you just know she wants to taste. I think it's time to break out the baby leash.

Diagnosis Mystery Rash

Hey there. Edie's experiencing a delayed reaction to her MMR shot and is COVERED in a terrible rash that appears to cause her no discomfort. Mostly it's other people discomfited by it. From her tiny ears to her tiny toes, she's a blotchy, red, puffy mess.

Instead of posting photos of her right now (which seems a little rude), I'm sharing with you a photo series of Edie eating her new favorite food: Limes. Notice that the only unhappy photo of her is the one where Jeff too the lime AWAY.

Thank you

I wanted to take a minute to post a belated thank you to everyone who came to Edie's first birthday party. We had such a great time and it meant so much to us that everyone was there. I asked for no presents, but was particularly surprised by how many thoughtful, adorable and often hand crafted gifts Edie received anyways. Thank you thank you thank you!

And now a few photos of this well documented event. First up is Edie eating beans with Grandma and Grandpa Bruton:
Maurice was a hot item at the party and allowed himself to be pet and chased by all the toddlers. Edie's friend Alison was particularly fond of him:
How priceless is this picture of Reid being held by Katherine (who flew all the way up from LA to visit in time for the party):
Or what about these ones of Edie and Reid together? They were blurrier than I first thought, but they still make me squeal from cuteness. Edie's patting his head!


Edie's individual cake:Singing and waiting for cake smashing to ensue:
Amy showing Edie how it's done in the background. The sheet cake I made for the guests in the foreground. Now I'm just going to pull this soap box out and stand on it for a minute so that I can urge you to try this chocolate buttermilk cake recipe. Because it was perhaps the best chocolate cake I've ever eaten. And I made it from scratch! And it wasn't very hard! I'm not going to try and say I invented the recipe or anything, so I'm mostly taking credit for following directions well, but I'll post the recipe shortly and again, I urge you to bake it. Because seriously. This cake was GOOD.
Edie feeding her leftovers to Aunt Kathleen:
Enjoying the crumbs.
Trying to feed the crumbs to Reid and her other friend Chloe snuggling in the background:
Edie's friend Mae who turned 1 three days later. Amy posing with Edie and the amazingly cute hand sewn strawberry pillows that she made. These are now displayed at the base of her nursery curtains and Edie devotes many afternoons to carrying them from one end of the room to the other. Please also note the beautiful quilt they are sitting on that Grandma Culver made just for Edie's birthday. Oh, and the white bear Edie is clutching is from Uncle Javi's family in Spain that and has developed a deep attachment to him in the last week.
I can't tell if this photo is animated or totally crazy. I'm leaning towards crazy. But these are the adorable and funny "tickle monster" gloves from Great Aunt Wendy.
And the quirky castle themed hand puppets from Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Javi:
And so many great board books to add to our collection.
Edie hamming it up with Grandma Culver with the quilt she made (please try not to look at my face):
So this doesn't even begin to capture the sweet clothes from Jessie, Darrah and Matt, Kathleen, Heidi O, or the perfect wooden blocks from my parents that include illustrations of the letters in American Sign Language, the generous gifts of "college money" from various family members (you know who you are), her first set of toddler friendly crayons and hipster picture books from Katherine, and wow, the list could go on.

Edie is so lucky to have people that love her this much and Jeff and I are grateful for all of you (including those who followed directions and didn't bring presents).

Update

Well it seems Edie's meds have finally kicked in. She woke twice last night, but was easy to put back down both times and slept all night in her crib for the first time in 4 nights. While I like a good snuggle, sleeping with Edie sprawled all over me was horrible. Even when she *did* sleep, I couldn't. She was only able to hack the day for an hour and a half this morning before falling asleep for her morning nap. She must be making up for lost sleep over the long weekend.

Roller Coaster

Hi there. Sorry for the lack of coverage lately, but we've been riding a bit of a roller coaster this week. Edie has her first ear infection and one minute she's the happiest camper and the next she's a bit of a clingy, weepy mess. The mess part seems to mostly occur at night. When we like to sleep. So, yeah. We've been rocking the hourly wake ups since Friday and capped it off last night with an epic scream fest that lasted from 10:20 until 12:45am and included such highlights as a midnight run to the pharmacy, pacing the dark street with Edie in the Ergo while wearing my pajamas and slippers, administering ear drops, and our first middle of the night call to the pediatrician. I can't stress enough how fun it was.

I called it a roller coaster because she wakes up each morning pleased as punch and spends most of the day running laps and happily terrorizing the cat. That, and despite Edie's earache, we (all 3) managed to have a really wonderful time on Whidbey Island for our friends' wedding on Sunday night. I'm so thankful for that reprieve. And then we decided not to risk another hotel night of crying and Tylenol and drove home at 10pm (to cry and give Tylenol in our own bed). Up and down the roller coaster goes....

It's currently 10:22pm and I'm hesitant to go to bed for fear of needing to wake in 10 minutes. Please take a moment to wish with me that the antibiotics we started on Sunday have finally kicked in.