Summertime beauty

A while back my friend Tara posted a blog with all the cool flowers that just started springing up out of the ground in their yard. Well we have the same phenomenon! Here is what has appeared in our yard this summer...

this one above is about ready to bloom - it will be cool to see what the flowers look like!

There are tons of these growing in a little garden area in a corner of the yard, some purple and some white. There are usually some small bumble bees gathering pollen around these flowers, but none were out when I was taking pictures. They are really cute though and have red butts.

There are also tons of these daisy things growing in the garden area. Someone told me all the bulbs multiply, so there will keep being more every year - crazy!

I think this one is my favorite -
it's a reed growing up by our little pond/fountain, and it made a cool cat-tail!

And these are some herbs that I was inspired by my friend Jill to grow. I had herbs back in California, and it was easy to grow them there. I wasn't so sure about doing it here where it freezes in the winter. I think I'll just have to bring them inside. (I know the one with a flower is not an herb, it just happens to be on the same table so it got in the picure.) I have sweet basil (what Italian wouldn't have basil?), Italian parsley, and chives. The parsley isn't growing too well - I hope it starts to do better!

Father's Day #1

My first father's day has been great so far... I got up this morning and hung out with Laina, then had a lip smacking good breakfast (no, Tony the Tiger wasn't involved). Then I opened my gifts... Laina got me some books to read to her - called "Daddy Cuddles" and "Daddy Kisses".

Then Jenna brought me down to the basement where she had secretly hidden my other gift - a hammock chair. Funny I mentioned just last week that we should get a hammock for the backyard, and she had already ordered this badboy. I put it all together after church, set up some shade - under the umbrella that was thought dead after a windstorm last week (I managed to breathe new life into it on Saturday morning with some duct tape, a leftover metal bar from some unknown ikea item, and a philips-head. I figure I'm a regular MacGyver)



Then, after taking a "father's day nap" (soon to be an annual tradition I think) we walked over to our community pool to take Laina for her first swim. Unfortunately, the moment we walked out the door, the 90 degree sunny weather turned into a thunderstorm, and we started seeing lighting. We walked over anyway and waited for the storm to pass (which usually doesn't take long). They wait 20 minutes from the last sound of thunder to reopen the pool, so we had to wait about 40 minutes.



Finally we got the all-clear from the lifeguards, and we hopped in. Laina didn't like the wet sensation at first (probably worse since they don't make infant swimmer-diapers, so we had to put her in a regular disposable - which immediately soaked up a couple gallons of pool water). But she got used to it after a minute or so, and I got her floating on her back a little bit, and dipped her up to her shoulders. Mom started getting concerned that she'd get cold (which didn't even occur to me - shows you why moms are key), so we got her out after about 3-4 minutes of pool time. It was a pretty cool experience, though to take her to the pool for the first time. I taught "mommy and me" sort of classes back in my days as a lifeguard/swim instructor, but I didn't really have a clue what it was like to take a baby in the pool for the first time (who would at 18 years old?)



We took her home and got all the chlorine off of her in the bath, and bundled her up in her towel-hoodie, when she started striking poses like this one below



We ordered pizza for dinner, and wrapped up the night with "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny"...

Pretty much the perfect Father's Day

Behold the cuteness

Memorial Day Weekend

The Saturday before Memorial Day Jay's friend from California and his Girlfriend were out here in Colorado visiting her parents, and we were invited over to hang out. This was up north from where we are, though I can't remember the city off hand. It was an awesome neighborhood, with views of the Rockies to the west and the "Devil's Backbone" to the east, practically right in their backyard.


Then on Monday our neighbors had a bbq and we got to hang out and get to know many of our neighbors better. It sounds like the culdesac we live on does neighborhood bbqs often during the summer which is really awesome and we're looking forward to getting to know everyone even better.

Laina's big adventures

Laina had a great time at our community's pool grand opening today, as you can tell by the way she is sleeping. She is looking forward to visiting the pool a lot this summer and learning how to swim with Daddy. (Well, she might not be doing much swimming on her own this summer, but I'm sure she'll have fun being with Daddy while he swims).

Laina also is learning to like her swing. She has been happy in it a handful of times now and she's getting to the point where I can actually put her in it and walk away and do other things.

Next Laina is trying to get used to the front-pack carrier. I tried it one day and she cried and cried for what seemed like an eternity as I tried to walk around with her in it but she just didn't like it. Today Daddy tried her in it and she did cry for a minute, but soon dozed off to sleep! Yippee!

And no picture, but Laina came with me today to post-natal yoga. When she wasn't sleeping, she learned to lay on mommy's shins (as I laid on my back on the ground w/legs up but knees bent - it's difficult to describe) for some "tummy time" while being able to look at me. It was really a great position. And also she got to swing in a blanket held by me and the instructor and she loved that so much she fell asleep. She also made the biggest poo I've ever seen while we were there and I used up all the wipes in my diaper bag trying to clean her up! She really needed a bath after that one!

And after all that excitement, who wouldn't be as tuckered out as she is here...sleeping with her favorite stuffed bovine under Mommy's watchful eye (and camera lens).

(Ok, I just have to put a note on here that I tried and tried really hard to do some sort of nice layout on this post with the pictures alternating sides and the text in blocks to the side, but after about an hour of playing with the settings, I give up. That is the one area Blogger could improve on - the layout options, and giving you a bigger space to see what you're actually doing as you post!) Gripe and post officially over now...

Another assisted week

My parents came to town last week (Grandma and Grandpa Hoskinson), and we were really grateful for the help. We showed them more of the area, and they got to spend some quality time with their newest granddaughter. It was a good week in terms of us needing help, but not a great week in terms of me being able to spend time with my parents, since I'm closing in on a big deadline for a project at work... That's kind of how things go in architecture, its either slow or a mad rush. I usually don't mind the mad rushes too much, but it definitely sucks when you're trying to be home to hang out with your newborn baby and have visitors in town..

My dad took care of some business while in town, and they actually drove all the way to Grand Junction and back in a day for a meeting... Gorgeous drive (all the way through the Rockies), but 8 hours of driving is a lot in one day...

My dad helped me get in gear with getting the sprinklers started up (you have to blow all the water out in the winter and restart the whole system in the spring) and the fountain working. He also convinced us that we should get a whole house fan (which didn't take much convincing), and proceeded to spring for one! So we should have a nice cool house all summer (at least in the evenings) without having to use AC or a swamp cooler. Basically, the way a whole house fan works, is that you open up a window down low in the house after the sun goes down and the air starts to cool off, then you crank on this big fan up to the attic. It sucks all the hot air out of the upper floor, and at the same time pulls cool air through the open window, and also creates a cooling breeze in the house. Then the air blows through the attic and out attic vents. So you get natural cooling and fresh air through the whole house. Its way cheaper to run than A/C, the only downside is its less convenient since it takes more effort.

We'll do an update on how well it works once we get it installed

We're on our own for a while now, and Laina's still having some rough nights, so this week could be interesting..

I got to spend some good quality time with her this weekend. I took her out in the backyard this morning, and it was one of those moments where the weather is absolutely perfect. Not hot, not cold, in the shade, and just chillin' with my daughter. I'm hoping for a lot more of those moments. I started showing her all the different plants in the backyard, and started to really appreciate how much we get to teach her about the world over the next 18+ years. So there is some good stuff that comes with this parenthood thing.

My first mother's day

Well I don't have any pictures this time, but I did have my first mother's day yesterday. Jay bought me beautiful roses and also chocolates from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory - which I may have commented before is my favorite chocolates because Jay actually picks out the ones he knows I like and they put them in a box - much better than the "you never know what you're going to get" boxes from See's candy.

It's really weird being called "mom" and having a daughter. It's taking a lot of getting used to this whole motherhood thing. I know it's partially after-pregnancy hormones, but the range of emotions is pretty overwhelming. Everything from the most intense love to utter frustration take their turns wreaking havoc on my heart and mind. I have no idea if things will ever feel normal again or what normal will even be like anymore. But of course I'm very glad to have turned this huge corner in my life with Jay and I just have to keep praying that God grant us grace and wisdom in this journey of parenthood.