Tulips Day 28

The tulip bulbs have been in their vase for 28 days.  The green shoots are getting bigger and I can't wait for them to fully bloom!  I still don't see any roots coming out of the bottoms...but maybe they are hiding.

Day 28

Day 28

Vote for Averie

Parents Magazine has selected one of Averie's photos for the Cute Kid of the Week Contest!  Everybody vote for her!  She needs votes every day!  The voting ends January 2nd, so GET YOUR VOTES IN!!!  She is so beautiful, she deserves to win!  Her page is HERE:
http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/655965

OMG People Food!

I finally downloaded some pictures of Averie and her first experience with rice cereal.  We try to give her a little bit every day, if we remember, in the evenings.  I thought she loved it!  She would open her mouth for the spoon and have no problem eating everything that was in the bowl...it made for some pretty cute pictures!  Little did I know that she would love bananas even more!  But DUH!  Who's going to choose bland rice cereal over sweet creamy bananas?!?!  Needless to say, she opens her mouth for a spoonful of rice cereal, but she will dive face first into a spoon of bananas...I'm going to try and get it on video sometime soon because its fairly amusing.  For now, enjoy the pictures of the baby with people food on her face!

Hey, that's not milk

It's tasty!

Wait...I think I've got some on my face...

Do you have any more?

 And just a quick update on the tulips.  Can you see a difference?

Day 20 from the top

Day 20 from the side

Visiting Santa

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is for my family members to have low expectations.  That way, when all they get from us this year is homemade candy (secret ingredient - love!) they will not be disappointed.

Averie's first encounter with Santa

Its a good thing Averie is social :)  She had a smile on her face pretty much the entire time with Santa!  Notice the camo shirt and chair...Santa was at Cabella's, and you can't really see it in this picture, but Averie was wearing her pink John Deer boots (Thanks Aunt Keri and Uncle Chris!).

Averie is reaching new milestones everyday.  Tasting rice cereal, rolling from tummy to back, realizing that she can actually walk in the walker...she's growing so fast!

On a futuristic note, here's a weekly update on the tulips!

Day 15

Averie's Video Debut

I know I promised pictures of the snow and the rice cereal, but this video is just too good!  She has a music box that I had when I was a kid, and during tummy time she decided it belonged in her mouth!

Tulip Update Day 8

Its day 8 and the tulips have already sprouted little green shoots!  No roots as of yet, but here's a pic from the top of the vase!

Day 8

On a family note, Averie had her first taste of rice cereal this weekend, and she LOVED it!  She realized what the spoon was for pretty quickly and even grabbed it from me at one point.  Pics of the rice cereal extravaganza coming soon!  For now, here's a snow day picture instead!

Happy Thanksgiving!

November Showers Bring May Flowers

Yes, I know it's December and I'm a little late with this post, but it is what it is.

About halfway through November Howard and I picked up and planted the tulip bulbs that we bought in April at the Tulip Festival in Mt. Vernon.  I had totally forgotten about them, considering you purchase in April, but don't recieve until October/November, and don't see them until the next April...so it's safe to say that I'll probably forget about them again sometime soon until I see the little green shoots sprouting out of the earth in the spring!

I claim to hate gardening, mostly because I hate getting dirt under my fingernails.  And gardening gloves just do NOT keep enough dirt out from under your fingernails.  But Howard forced me out there to help him while Averie was napping one drizzly afternoon, and about an hour and 28 bulbs later, I realized it wasn't that bad.  I think what saved my experience was actually the drizzle...who knew!

The smell of damp dirt is fairly pleasant, and cool moist air always smells clean and fresh.  We got our little flowerbed all weeded and clear, and mixed up the dirt so it was all dark and crumbly...kinda like cake : )  We got them in the ground about 2 weeks before the freeze and snow, and we didn't have to water them in because of all the rain.  It feels really good to grow things, even though the anticipation is a little painful right now.  And because I couldn't wait until April to see some tulips, I kept 2 of the bulbs for myself and put them in a vase with stones to try and force them to grow indoors.  Maybe I'll give a weekly photo update!  It'll be like a tiny bit of spring in the middle of winter!

Winter Tulips Day 1

What Season?

This season has many names:  Fall, Autumn, Rainy, Flu, and my personal favorite, Apple.  I love the crisp mornings with the cool dry air and just a hint of sharp frost if you're up early enough.  This year's harvest of fresh Washington grown apples are hitting produce stands everywhere, and now is the best time of year for delicious apple treats of many kinds.  The leaves are starting to turn a slightly shocking red color, and as I look out my window, it starts to rain...it probably won't stop for the next 3 months...it will just keep raining.  Making me long for some fresh hot-out-of-the-oven apple cobbler, a steaming mug of apple cider, and possibly an anti-depressant...we'll just have to see how it goes : )

This season also calls for slower drivers, increased congestion (both on the freeway and in your sinuses), and busier shopping centers.  It doesn't matter what kind of shopping center you're at, its going to be busier than it would have been if now was exactly 2 months ago.  People are starting to feel the panic of the holidays creeping up on them.  But I prefer to take is slower...ok, we'll call it procrastination...and enjoy some of the seasonal activities that don't include barreling through the doors of the latest retail establishment to get my 30% off some crazy expensive and high-tech gadget.

First activity of the season?  PUMPKIN PATCH!!!  Yes, we went twice in one weekend, here are some pictures to prove it!



Hay Bale Spider!

Tall Extra-Hot Pumpkin Spice...

Lost in the ornamental corn

Yay!  Wheelbarrow!

Wheelbarrow the next day!

Hangin with Mom




 

Creation #1

Sometimes I find the time to create something delicious in the kitchen.  Sometimes I don't actually have the time, but I do it anyways and it just takes forever...like this morning.  Breakfast Crepes a la Pugmire should have taken ~45min from the first egg cracked to the moment fork enters mouth, but with clumpy flour, dirty diapers and a cranky baby it took me about 2hrs instead.  But I don't think you can put a time frame on good food and I'm proud of some of my delicacies, so I decided to start documenting them.

I know what you're all thinking...OMG, crepes...those are impossible.  So I thought as well, but I decided to challenge the impossible, and it turns out the crepes were the easiest part.  They don't even require flipping!  So here they are, Breakfast Crepes a la Pugmire, featuring scrambled eggs, cheese, cherry tomatoes and cilantro.  The only thing missing was the hollandaise sauce.  I'll have to make some next time : )

The finished product

He almost inhaled them before I could take the picture!

Rotten, Rotten Children

We've all seen them.  There's always That Kid in Target who does the throw down temper tantrum, screaming for his mom to buy him that new electronic Big Foot toy that's 2 ft. tall, really obnoxious, and will hold a toddler's attention for all of 5 minutes.  That Kid usually comes with That Parent that promises him "said toy" or something else just as good just to shut him up, instead of dragging him out of the store by his thrashing little heels.  It's the circle that makes baby boomers today say things like "back in my day..." and "if that was my kid..." and the first words that come out of most of our mouths are "spoiled rotten."


Being new parents, we've gotten all kinds of tips and advise.  And according to some of our elders, we're probably spoiling our kid.  But her little cry breaks our hearts and so I guess we've got a spoiled child.  It's a good thing she's only 6 weeks old, because I don't think babies can experience too much coddling.  What we will find out in time is if she's just spoiled, or if she's spoiled rotten...I dunno, she smells ok to me...

YAY! A smile!

Averie at 5wks old

pug-mEYE-er

We know that the Pugmire name is rooted deeply somewhere in the Mormon community, delicately intertwined in history with more famous names (like Joseph Smith), which would explain why the majority of Pugmires in the U.S. today are still residing in the Idaho/Utah area.  There are a few sprinkled around here in Washington, as well as California and Nevada, and an even lighter dusting of Pugmires can be found on the East Coast, but most of them are in Idaho/Utah.  The name itself came from England, and while we haven't done any significant research on bloodlines yet, I did come across a definition of sorts.

Definition of Pugmire according to Ancestry.com:  English:  habitational name from a lost place in Yardley, Birmingham, recorded in 1645 as Puggmyre Farm.  this derives from the name of its 13th century landlord, Robert Pugg, whose surname is of unknown etymology and the middle English word myre now "mire" meaning "bog"

So my next questions are:  How much of the place is lost?  Is it the farm that's lost?  Or the whole bog?  And what exactly do you farm if your property is on a bog?  And who is Robert Pugg?

Hellooo World!

This blog has many purposes.  Another space for pictures, online rants and raves that will at least amuse me as I'm writing them, to give our friends one more thing to look at that has our smilimg faces on it, but mostly for family.  We'll keep the blog updated as best as possible with recent pictures and events to keep the family cued in, and hopefully our blog will one day reach extended family members that we maybe don't even know we have yet!

For now, here's some pictures of Averie, our precious angel born July 28th.