Out from behind the camera

Above is James with the kids and below is me with both of them too!

Galerie de Jake

James let me sleep in one Saturday morning and when I came downstairs Jake was proud to show me his art display on our front hall closet door. If you look at the doorknob in the second picture, you can see Jake's gleeful face as he interpreted his masterpiece to me (It was obviously a picture of our house and dog Daisy and Jake, Mama, Daddy and Mari and Daddy's truck).

Mirror, Mirror on the wall...

(Mari:) ...I am the fairest baby of them all!

Jake: Wait a minute! I thought I was the fairest baby of them all!

Mari: No, I am pretty sure it is me!

Jake: NO ME! And here is my evil 'I just took a toy away from my sister' grin to prove it!

Mari: Ooooh, You just wait until I can crawl better!

Later that day - The revenge of the little sister...

Mari: That's okay Jake, you may have won earlier but now I am going to chew on your toy camel! (Maniacal baby laughter)

Magazines

Jake has decided to move on from picture books to magazines. With all of the educationally redeeming magazines surrounding him like National Geographic, what does he choose to read? A magazine about food!

Fun with Jello

In order to make mealtime run more smoothly, sometimes we give Mari edible things to play with after she is done eating. This keeps her happy while the rest of us eat! Jello seems to be her favorite and occasionally she will taste a bite of it as well!

Why my housework never gets done these days...

...and why my blog updates are scarce.
Everytime I turn my back, a little monkey is into something else that he should not be!

Here is an example of how he is teaching Mari things. She never realized she could grab the butterflies and pull on them until Jake climbed into the portable crib (for daytime naps downstairs) and showed her!

Starting the day off right!

Mari: (YAWN) I am so tired. It is so hard waking mama up two to three times a night just to get some food and then she is too tired to put me back in my bed so I have to put up with Daddy's snoring! It is tough work being a baby.

Mari: Mmm, this smells good. Mama drinks loads of it so it must be something I need to grow big and strong like her.

It is not half bad, I think I could make a habit out of this!

Mari has a fascination with cups and is always trying to get her hands and gums on them. Don't worry, no babies were given coffee in the making of this picture sequence (although she got closer than I planned at one point as I was taking pictures with one hand and holding her and the coffee with the other) and in fact as you can tell from the cup turning black (the picture of an incredibly cute Christmas Jake from 2006 only shows up when the cup is warm or hot) the coffee was cold so she was in no danger of being scalded.

A moment of meditation alone in the garden.

A trip to Ballard Park.

This top picture is my favorite because it really captures the essence of Jake's all over the place at once energy!

May holidays at my parents' house (Nana and Papoo's)

Jake tries out his first rod and reel while James shows him how.

Mari seems quite entertained by it all!

Mari enjoys swinging but we have to wrap her up in a blanket as she is so cold natured.

Jake catches his first fish with James' assistance.

Above, Jake enjoys some peas straight out of the pod after picking them with my dad. Below, he throws rocks at the fig tree and play with his toys from the sandbox.