I've got that urge again - the urge to purge. Like brain diarrhea. All coming out in spatters. Get comfy!
*Sienna is obsessed with lids. I fill my church entertainment bag not with toys - oh no - but with an assortment of plastic lotion bottles, shampoo bottles, lids without bottles, chapsticks, old make-up containers or anything with an interesting lid that she can flip open and closed or screw on and off. One time I gave her a small glass bottle with a cork lid that was formerly filled with bath salts and once she had enjoyed it to the fullest, she smashed it on the ground. Yikes! Bad idea. Also, it doesn't just have to be a bottle with a lid. It can be anything lid-like. Airplane tray tables are great; the handles on our desk work well. Something to remember when you're hanging out with her next.
*Sienna is walking! It is sooooooooo fun. I have five adorable videos that I'm dying to post but I don't have the right camera cord to get them onto the computer. Durn the technology sometimes! Anyway, she's up to about 10-12 steps at a time and her right leg is a bit stiff, so a good nickname is Peg Leg. Oohhhhh, it's so funny and cute and just .... uh! You know what I'm saying. She just kills me sometimes. But this milestone has not come without some encouragement (read: force) from me. I have been ready for her to walk for a couple months and am getting more and more anxious as we embark on a month-long road trip in August during which we will have only dirty gas stations and truck stops with which to get the small girl's energy out. I don't want her crawling all over grease-stained parking lots (which she will do, no problem, even if it is scalding). I want her walking all over grease-stained parking lots. Yes, even running. So I broke down and bought her a walker. Hey, I don't like to force milestones more than the next parent. But sometimes I just need the girl to get upright.
*Last summer at this time Sienna was 2.5 months old. I would run on the treadmill while she slept in the stroller at our gym while looking at the pool that is across the sidewalk. I would watch the moms and kids playing in the pool and it made me jealous that my kid wasn't old enough to understand the joy that is a nice, cool pool on a hot day. Now that the time is here for total pool enjoyment, she'd rather crawl all over the (scalding) cement, especially up and down the wide stairs leading up to the jacuzzi. My little dream of our pool fun kind of went poof! She's really no fun. Give her some sand and a gradual incline into water - now that she can do. It's crawling while swimming. The girl loves to move.
*Speaking of moving, we are headed to Seattle in 2 weeks. We're excited. We don't have a place yet but we're working on it. Then August will be one big roadtrip across Washington, through Idaho's panhandle, a mosey through Montana, a plunge into Utah and a straight shot to Denver and then repeat in reverse. Adam starts school at UW at the beginning of September and that's when I kiss our together time goodbye. I'm not looking forward to the craziness that is student life, but it's only two years, so I guess I will survive. Goodbye my LOVE.
*Every minute of Sienna's naptime the past couple months has been spent working on a new business with two of my friends, both named Cyndi with a y. It's an interior design business and I am soooooo excited about it. We are trying to square away many of the details before I leave so we can get up and running ASAP. We'll be a full-service design firm, but we're hoping to attract mostly online clients. Think of it as digi design. You fill out our online questionnaire, we put together a virtual design board of all the furniture, accessories, paint and materials you need along with the buying information, and we guide you on how to put everything together via email. Like I said, we'll offer the usual services of in person or phone consultation, but the idea is to be able to work with anyone anywhere. We'll charge a flat fee for our services and then you get to decide how much you want to spend on your materials. Make sense? I can't wait to get the website up to show you. You'll die. And then you'll tell everyone you know? Right?
*Back to the durn technology. We sent back our iPhones. Our decision to do so was threefold: 1. the phone function sucketh (dropped calls and fuzzy reception), 2. we don't need them, and 3. we can't afford them. Think: starving students. That's what we are. So thus endeth our dream of owning the most hyped thingamajig of all time. And thus endeth my scripture speak.
*Adam and I went on a real, live date last night. Felt good. We even paid a babysitter. Crizzazzy! Sushi with friends. They are Asian and adventurous, so they showed us many raw fish wonders. I thought I had tried sashimi before. Nope. I hadn't. It was good. Then they clarified this other thing that I thought was sashimi, but it was nigori. And then they rocked my world by saying that in Japan there is no such thing as sushi rolls. It's an American thing! If I didn't enjoy raw fish so much, I'd have cried on the spot. I would imagine that means there is no drizzling of barbeque sauce on tempura shrimp sushi rolls either. No TNT Roll. No Volcano Roll. No Hawaii Roll. And - gasp - no California roll. The indignity of it all! And then they made me eat sea urchin nigori. I thought it would be the last time we ever spoke to those friends. But then we all went to Baskin Robbins and my fudge walnut brownie chunk ice cream cone turned everything aright.
*I've been trying to teach Sienna to pucker her lips so she can kiss back instead of opening her mouth and trying to taste our puckered lips. She can't do it, but she did start doing one insanely adorable thing today: leaning her face in when we pucker our lips. She knows she wants a kiss, she just doesn't know how to give it back. Don't that just make you wanna have a durn baby? And use the word durn three more times?
And it came to pass, this post finally ended. Goodnight.
These next ones are of The Bird's and my exploration of the Puget Sound area down the road from our place.
These next ones are of The Bird's and my exploration of the Puget Sound area down the road from our place.
This is our neighborhood. The Bird and I were out playing in the street when Adam came home so he's in a few of these. These houses are directly across the street from us.
This is our backyard. We live in a triplex and the 3 dudes who live downstairs enter from the backyard, so although they are super nice and friendly , Birdie and I don't go back there much. We stick to walks in the street. She just likes puddles and rocks more than grass, what can I say?
This is our entrance on the right side of the house. 2 girls live next to us and they enter from the left side. Sienna goes up and down these steps a million times a day.
This is the front of the house. Our side is covered by that giant tree. It's lovely for privacy and shade but on the rare occasion that it's sunny and warm outside our place is still chilly inside. So I'm getting used to wearing socks and pants and long sleeved shirts and sometimes my big, poufy bathrobe around the house.
We have a garage and that's The Fo in front of it. We park Zippy inside the garage. She will not be used much in the next couple years because Adam rides the bus to and from school. 
Here's Adam coming home from the bus stop which is super close.
Birdie kneeling in the water and sampling rocks.
This is a different day when we were out when Adam was just getting off the bus. Birdie runs to say hello.
She thinks it's really funny that he carries a thermos of hot chocolate with him to school. Ha ha!
We are next door to this nondescript corner bakery. It bakes bread all day every day to be distributed to stores and bakeries. You can also walk in and buy your own loaf if you want. And we ALWAYS want. But at $4 a loaf, it's expensive. And sooooooo good. The smell is delicious torture, but good thing I have my trusty breadmaker that makes a loaf that is almost just as tasty for way cheaper.
Here is Crown Hill Cemetary where The Bird and I enjoy quiet exploration.
One last shot for you. THE BIRD! She's growing up and soooo insanely cute. She can now: go down a slide without me holding onto her, go down a few steps if there is a rail to hold on to, run, kiss with her mouth closed (video coming soon), hug, and loves saying UH OH! She'll also say Wuh Wuh when she sees a dog, Miii when she sees a cat, Buh Bye when daddy leaves for school, Yeah to every question asked (another video coming soon). And one more month until nursery!
