October

The girls had a fabulous time at the Clayton Pumpkin Patch this past weekend. It was a balmy 80 degrees. They spent most of their time at the play area, where the three large pools full of fava beans was the main event. Abigail and Olivia pretended to swim and bury themselves. Olivia also did lots of full body jumping in them. Caraline also joined in the fun. She amazingly didn't eat them but really enjoyed playing there. Needless to say I found enough beans in the dryer to make a pot of soup after I did laundry today! We ended the night by eating out which is a treat for us. Abigail declared the grilled cheese dinner "the best ever".

All three girls.

This is what Olivia wore to drop Abigail off at kindergarten today. Don't even know how her face got so dirty...all she did was ride in the stroller! She has her babies stuffed in a bathing suit top.

Abigail lost her first tooth. Another is on its way out. She is very excited.

Caraline at 7 months. She is a pretty happy kiddo!

Olivia jumping into the beans. She did this for hours.

Six Months and Other Fun

Caraline is 6 months old now! We have started her on rice cereal and tried a few days of peas. She is still a very happy baby and loves interacting with her sisters. She is sleeping great and we love her!


One of probably 10 outfits that Olivia went through one Saturday. Most of them involved some configuration of bathing suits, usually Abigails. At one point it was just a firefighters hat and panties. (yes she is pretty much potty trained - she decided about two weeks ago that she had enough of diapers and is doing great)


Olivia eating chocolate pudding in Novato.


One of the joys of home ownership is that our sewer backs up semi frequently due to the combo of old clay pipes and roots in our front yard. This particular night Jeremy was up until midnight fixing the problem. Well, the girls needed a bath before bed so I decided to fill their kiddie pool with bubble bath and they had a ball in the suds. A complete success. I threatened to wash dishes in the pool too but Jeremy made me wait until later.

1st Day of School

Oh my, we have a kindergartner on our hands. Abigail started school at the end of August. She goes to a public school in our neighborhood. So far she seems to like it pretty well. She can't seem to remember anyones name but kids are frequently saying hi to her when we walk her to school. She bravely walks up to her classroom door by herself at dropoff and we are quite proud of her!

Olivia does miss her sister during school, but I have really enjoyed having some time with her!

August

Another great three weeks in Michigan and Indiana were had in August. We started the time with the Novotnys and their extended clan. The photo to the left are all of the kids lined up from oldest to youngest with three little ones sprinkled in there. My girls loved all of the cousins as we call them and had lots of fun. After the Novotnys left we had some time with just the Smiths. Some friends from Indiana also came and visited for a few days. As always, we had a lot of fun. Abigail did some more 'skiing' and even tried the saucer with daddy. She went horseback riding and caught a very tiny fish. Olivia spent most of vacation naked and loved every minute of it. We tried to get her up on the skiis too but she just drank a lot of lake water. I even tried wakeboarding for the first time but don't think I will make a career out of it. Jeremy was in ski heaven. The weather was great, the blueberries wonderful, and friends/family memories made were amazing as usual. Thank you God for lake houses! We ended our time with a few days in Ft Wayne and really enjoyed seeing the Smiths new house, which is beautiful.

July

Here's the newest addition to our backyard. Jeremy has been working on this since Caraline was born and it looks terrific. Still a few more things to do. Our neighbor asked us if we were building a temple. It's just a shed to store all of our stuff in!


Caraline turned 5 months yesterday. She is such a happy baby. Her newest tricks include rolling over, grabbing toys, and she can move herself 360 on her back if she plays for a while on the floor. So she's ready for break dancing.

Yesterday we welcomed my mom home from a month in Bangladesh. She spent the day at Lafayette Reservoir. Gail and Ben brought their kayaks and the girls got to go for a ride. It was a lovely day. Abigail is sporting a wig that Nani brought from Aunt Linda to add to the dressup collection.

Aftermath of a sandy headstand.

Spent last Saturday at the beach, so Olivia had about 5 tons of sand in her body. At one point she was drinking sandy, ocean water from a puddle further up the beach. Lovely! This adds to her current collection of things she has injested from the ground, including cotton candy from her shoe, peanut shells at As stadium, water from the lily pad area at the zoo, etc. It nevers seems to bother her tummy.

We celebrated Daddys birthday last week. Abigail wanted to go to chuck e cheese, but we settle for burritos at home.

Jeremy watched the girls one Saturday morning while I was at a baby shower. They went to Lowes and built binoculars. Adorable photos!

Monthly Post

So it seems that I don't get to updating this blog much more than once a month. There's a lot that has happened since the last time, so here are some photos and updates.

Olivia got to decorating her face the other day, with Abigail's help. Not to be outdone, Abigail wanted to get a picture of herself in daddy's clothes.

Shot of the girls with Gail at her graduation party. She had a busy June...graduated, married, bought a house, and got a new job.

The Jelly Belly Factory tour - always a hit. They are funny about making us all, Caraline included, wear the hats.

Our big event this month was Aunt Gails wedding. Overall, the kids did great and we had a blast. Olivia and Abigail shared a queen bed at the hotel and it was so exciting that they didn't get to sleep until after 10pm that first night. When we pulled up to the hotel (Holiday Inn Express) Abigail was very impressed with how fancy it was. If they weren't running between our and Nani/Papas hotel room next door, they were in the pool. Abigail told her cousin that her mom lets her swim at 10pm every night (not true). Olivia has no fear of water and loved jumping in with the big kids. Abigail has become quite the swimmer and got around just fine.

The girls did great on the wedding day. I learned from last year, threw any biblicial parenting skills out the window and bribed the girls with jelly beans if they would smile for the camera. It worked quite well. Olivia fell asleep right before the ceremony started so we didn't wake her for it. Abigail did a terrific job on her own. Caraline had her cute matching dress on, but also some crazy orange pants because it was a bit chilly until the sun came out in the afternoon. It was a lovely day. Aunt Gail looked amazing and Abigail really enjoyed being part of the festivities. As usual, Olivia was a complete mess by the end of the day. She was really impressed with these banana slugs some little boys found (the wedding was in a park). She came up to me with her own stick and kept saying slug please. For the slugs sake, I didn't help her find one. Olivia walked around and begged food off whomever she saw and had a lot of fun. It was a really special day. Jeremy was an amazing help with the girls too!

Our lovely cousin Melissa played with my kiddos during the rehearsal dinner. It was at the Wilson complex in Santa Cruz, where Ben's folks and grandma live. It was a beautiful setting.

Here are some photos from the wedding.

I wish I could include all of the photos that Abigail snapped during the wedding. They were pretty priceless. Here are just two of them.

Olivia was a total mess, surprise, after the wedding. She helped herself to baskets of strawberries and ate enough sunflower seeds to fill a swimming pool.

Our attempt at getting a photo of the girls with the bride and groom. No such luck. Caraline didn't make many of the photos so we snapped one back at the hotel room of our cutie pie.

That next day we had a day at Natural Bridges State Park. Really nice beach and I loved showing Olivia crabs in the tide pools.

Caraline is four months old now. She weighs 12 pounds and is a typtical petite Smith kid. She is really happy most of the time and loves interacting with her big sisters.

This are their silly faces for the camera.

Caraline's 4th outfit, thanks to the Sidors!