Sad Amy

Here's a video from this morning.  Amy has a fever, and was having a hard morning.  Saddest baby ever.

Lucky little girl

Amy's bedtime routine is pretty fun. After dinner, her Daddy draws her a nice warm bath where they scrape off all the peas and oatmeal and leftover mud from the long day of playing. 

Sometimes, he adds bubbles, or empty bottles to dunk and pour out. Last night, he dyed the water bright blue. It was pretty awesome. 

She splashes and plays and he reads his book.

Everyone should have such a fun bath

When the water cools off and everybody is done with bathtime, he dresses her in some snuggly PJs and then it's time for reading books and some last minute snuggles before bed. Sometimes, snuggles turn into tickles...

 Which turn into monster tickle fights! 

It's one of the best parts of our day. Rob gets to spend some really special time with Amy, and I get 45 minutes all by myself. Alone. I do a lot of nothing during bathtime. When the books and the cuddles and the tickles are done, I take the warm, sleepy, powder-scented baby to her room to tuck her in.
It's a long routine, and it makes it impossible to go out in the evenings, but I think the three of us all love it so much.
p.s. While I'm tucking in Amy, Rob does the dinner dishes. Is he great or what?

Daddy dresses me like I'm in Jazzercise

Ladies, have you been eating a few too many Cheerios lately? Getting nervous about the holidays?

Have people begun commenting on your "diaper butt"?

Ok! Stand up straight. Stretch. Stretch. Warm it up, girls.

Whew! Left kick! One and Two! and Three! Four! Two more sets...

 Floor moves! Arms now. Right. right right right. breathe, ladies! right right right!

Left left left. Aaaaaaaaand extend that leg. Feel the Buuuuuuuuuurn! 

Bring it to the center. Rest and breathe.

You'll feel much better, I promise. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Filler

We're pretty busy over here in Jones land this week and we haven't been taking so many pictures or having so many adventures in the last few days. Here's a picture of Amy to pass the time.

Other than being busy, it's been pretty nice around here lately. The weather has gotten much cooler (ahhhhh, now people can stand to be around me again and I'm not actively looking on Bismarck ND's Craigslist for a better place to live). There has been a little tea in the mornings, some sweaters while we water the garden, a little soup. Yay for soup!

In the mornings it's especially nice. The light isn't so harsh in our window anymore and the sun comes up a little later. Today it was absolutely perfect. Amy woke up at 6, but we convinced her to snuggle in between us in our room where she fell asleep in a little baby pile. Sometimes she seems to be smaller when she sleeps and this morning she was tiny. So, Amy was snuggled in between us, Orbit was on my shoulder above Amy's head, Georgie was lying on Rob's head, and everyone was snoring. We call it the "raft" when we are all in the same bed like that. Like, if the water suddenly rose and filled our house (go along with me here) we would all be together on one awesome cozy raft. Except the fish. The fish can fend for themselves. I'm sure the cats are only with us because we keep our house cold at night, but we'll take what we can get.

Baby Work

Amy and I go outside every morning, almost first thing.  Sometime days, the coffee has to come first.  We often sit in the garden, but whether we are inside or outside, one of Amy's favorite things to do in the morning is her baby work.  She starts on a task of her own making, like moving all the granola bars from their box to a bowl, or putting all her books on the couch one at a time.  It amazes me how diligent and patient she is, when she is doing her work.  By the time I started taking this video, she was on her third job -- she had filled her bucket once, then carried dirt in her spoon to the table and made individual piles with it.  As the video starts, she is moving her bucket to start a new job.

Amy and the Smoker

Hi all.  Rob here.  So this morning, Amy decided to load the smoker with not one but BOTH of my toothbrushes. But she was very methodical about it: 

She likes to spend a bit of the morning doing her baby work.  This often involves taking all the granola bars out of the box and putting them in a bowl, or removing all the mud from the mud pit and putting it on Papa's shoes. I am trying to get better at uploading videos and pics, so maybe I'll be posting on the blog more . . . no promises, though, since my pictures are in general much worse than Lizzie's.   

As a bonus, here's Amy and George with Aunt Courtney, singing some of an old Muppet standard:

Snow Day

It was chilly enough yesterday that we got some snow in the mountains. Our AWESOME friends went up there and got a whole bunch of snow and brought it back for Amy in the back of their truck. She loved it of course. This is how Tucson babies learn about snowballs.

Thank you so much Tory. That was the coolest surprise ever.

All Souls Procession 2011

Last night was Tucson's annual All Souls Procession. We walked from our house to the parade route with Amy, Joe, and Dana. The parade went all the way down 4th Avenue to downtown, then across the river to the finale. It was pretty cold, but we bundled up our little skeleton in her spooky stroller of doom, and everybody had a good time. We met some friends along the way, but mostly we just enjoyed being a part of the crowd. I don't have very many pictures of the actual procession because 1. I was having too much fun, and 2. I haven't figured out how to take decent action shots in the dark.

There must be a thousand shots of Amy out there though. About halfway through the parade, she begged to get out of the stroller, and she walked with us, holding our hands. She LOVED it. It was like walking down the street with a Kardashian. She waved at the people and smiled for their cameras. She danced to the drumline and clapped her hands when people pointed at her. She even learned how to "raise the roof" pumping her little hands in the air when the music got loud. She walked almost a half a mile all on her own, cameras flashing the whole way.

She fell asleep at the finale, so we came home, put her to bed, and had a nice little fire with our company. They left way too early this morning, but I think everybody had a great time. 

Rob likes eyeliner

Family portrait. the little skeleton is gorging herself on the cheezits we brought for good behavior.

Yeah, we're your neighbors. Be afraid!

This is the only shot I have of our little celebrity walking in the parade. Seriously, she is a ham. 

The walk back home. So strange to walk in the middle of the street. An hour before this there were thousands of people in the street. 

Boo!

Pomegranate harvest

 We have a pomegranate tree in our back yard that has been giving us really beautiful fruit this season. It's been so nice, the tree is right outside the baby's window. A few months ago, there were tiny blossoms on the branch that touches her window. Then the leaves all turned bright yellow and made a golden glow through her whole room. Now, the tree is covered in heavy red fruit and bright green leaves. Some of the fruit is so ripe it has split and all the little seeds are showing. It attracts a lot of birds which is good for us, and I'm sure it's good for the tree. 

We've never really done anything with our pomegranates before, but when Joe and Dana saw them they were really excited. We harvested everything that was ripe and ate a whole bunch. What we couldn't eat, we opened up and got all the sweet seeds out of. They were so pretty. Some are kind of pale, but they're still very sweet and they make a really cool color with the bright red ones. 

We got several quarts of seeds (like a large popcorn bowl full) and now we're thinking of what to do with them. I think we'll juice them, then we can make pomegranate martinis, pomegranate margaritas, or pomegranate jelly (not going to happen).  We'll also throw them on our salads since the lettuce bed is doing so well now. It's grown enough that I think we could probably eat salad every night now and not hurt the plants. Yum. 

There's something so cool about eating food out of your own yard, isn't there? It's more than just eating free food, it feels like an accomplishment. It feels homey. It tastes delicious.

Company is coming!

We have two very special visitors coming this weekend. 

We just can't wait for Joe and Dana to get here tonight. Amy and I spent a little time getting ready for their visit. She wore the awesome baby-sized apron that Ashley made her for the occasion. 

She loves it!

Aaaaaaaaand....cinnamon chips have arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rachel gave me two whole bags. I opened one just to, um, taste them. You know, to make sure they taste as good as last year. 'Cause what if they didn't? I could be baking with second rate cinnamon chips, right? Rest assured they are delicious. Rachel to the rescue.
Also, hi Zoe!!! We miss you.

Finger Painting!

Guess who went to the toy store today and got some new art supplies...

Amy did. Amy and her friends spent the afternoon exploring color theory. Like, does red taste good? Is green plus blue squishier than yellow plus blue?

This is a portrait of her dear mother

"Zombie hands" Jones. Baby want brains. BRAINS!!!!

Inside the studio.