Burying Natalie

While dad was out playing football in the surf with Colby and Kelly (our gracious host) Mom and Cara buried Natalie in the sand. It was the funniest thing to see this little head poking up out of the sand. She loved it and didn't want to get out. Needless to say it was a chore to get all the sand off of her before going home. Even then, there was a bathtub full of sand that night.

Balboa Beach with the Gaultneys

Everyone must think we spend all our time bumming at the beach, but this is not so. It's just that we ar so boring that the only cool pictures are when we do venture out to the beach. Besides, we don't have a beach so close in Utah so it's all very new and exciting. We went to Balboa peninsula yesterday as an invition from the Gaultneys, a family form our previous ward in Utah. Mary was Cara's YW leader and I had been (when he was ten) Colby's Webelos leader. A great family altogether. They had come down to Newport Beach to visit friends and they all invited us to come up and spend the day at the beach. So spend we did. It was a beautiful day and we had fun together. I think Natalie had the most fun crawling through the sand on her belly. Mom and Dad got sunburned but Natalie seemed to escape unscathed.

Speaking of High Fashion

So we were doing whatever it is that we do in the living room and out comes Natalie from her room all dressed up. After we picked ourselves off the floor from laughing we managed to take some pictures. She has learned to say ," I'm cute huh?" I love the upside down glasses the best. (I left the Elmo in the picture for her cousin Madeline to enjoy)

The things Natalie does

Sooo, here is Natalie being a Ninja turtle. I don't know where she got this (but I'm sure you have a pretty good idea) The headband was a souvenir Uncle Joe brought back from Japan last year and Dad was wearing it around the house going "Hi-yaa!" so or course Natalie wanted to do it too. So we had a little Karate Kid going around the house Saturday going "Hi-yaaa!" in a cute little girl voice. She even does a karate chop with her hands. She later added the strawberry glasses and wanted her Ninja Turtle Slippers on. I wish they made these slippers in adult sizes...

CHEESE!

HI-YAHH!

The Irvine Musem of art

One of our favorite things to do is go the art museums and see all the great art. Orange county has some good ones, and Michael's favorite may be the Irvine Museum right now. "The Irvine Museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of California art of the Impressionist Period (1890 - 1930). The Irvine Museum embraces a principal role in the education and furtherance of this beautiful and important regional variant of American Impressionism that has come to be associated with California and its remarkable landscape." We went there on wednesday as part of our little field trip. We stopped here and went to the Church Distribution Center and tried to find the elusive DI. We never found DI though (Michael cried all the way home) Here are a couple of photos from the museum of William Wendt's work. Absolutely wonderful. Gotta love those California Impressionists.

Newport Beach Temple

We took a field trip this last Wednesday up to Irvine to see the Irvine Museum. We took the scenic route and went by the Newport Beach Temple. It is a very beautiful temple (aren't they all?) though it wasn't white. We learned that they had problems and opposition in building the temple and had to make it a sort of pinkish granite instead of a whiter color. It's still nice looking though. We walked around the temple and took the obligatory fountain photo.

Our little nugget

So we got our first ultrasound this last week. It moved around for us and we even got to hear the heartbeat. Never ceases to amaze us at this tiny little miracle. Look, you can already tell it has Dad's head...

Laguna Niguel 1st ward beach party

Yesterday we had our ward beach party at Salt Creek Beach . It was a blast. We had hot dogs up the wazoo and sand building contest and swimming in the ocean. It was pretty busy. Natalie wanted to go out with dad into the waves and they got crashed on by a HUGE wave. Scared Natalie a bit, but after she cried a minute went back to playing in the sand as if nothing happened. So when are you guys coming to visit?

Salt Creek Beach Sunset

It's never as nice in the photo as in real life. I tried to get the camera out to capture the red orb of a sun as it slipped away. Too late. We went to the beach for FHE. We love living here!!

Eating Corn

One of the few joys of this life is watching a two-year-old eat corn off the cob. If she could she'd eat right through the cob.

What the World?!!

(posted by michael)

So I hesitate to do this here but I am going to get up my soapbox and rant for a minute. (grunting and sweating as I clamber to the top of the soapbox) Well we enjoy going to the library here and find new books for Natalie to read. We let her go find her own books and we'll take them home and read them. Well we borrowed this book (pictured below) without even reading the title and when we sat down for reading time later that day realized what the title said; "King and King" Hmmm, you may already assume what it was about. It was about a prince who wasn't interested in the princesses that his mother set him up with. then one day a princess came a-courtin' and brought her brother with her and it was love at first sight. (with the brother that is) Well, it went on to have a twisted happily ever after. Anyways, not only was the content disturbing to me but also the way the book was illustrated. I know there are badly illustrated books out there and I didn't want to accuse this one, but it seems to be the one that broke the camels back so to speak. I'm tired of seeing this kind of work out there that pretends to be art. It was very much not fun to look at. (something to the effect of retinas being seared) Now I don't want to criticize too much. It's never productive to simply put things down just for the sake of putting things down. But I know many of us have kids of our own and want the very best for them. Part of that is supporting people who do good things and create beautiful works. I'm not trying to get into a discussion about what is "art" and what isn't. I'm simply saying that we should seek out the good and avoid that which is not. I am including in this post links to artists that illustrate children's books that I think (my own personal opinion now) are well done (story wise and illustration wise). The art maybe traditional or it may be a little different, but I think they are wonderful. I hope that you read books with your children, and even sit down with a good book yourselves now and then. Now, I'm getting off this danged box and going for a walk.

THE LIST!
(In no way is this comprehensive, and you should go out and find ones you like for yourself as well. Most of these illustrators/authors don't have their own website but work with books publishers. But most links give a brief intro to the illustrator/author and a list of their books. Enjoy!)
Chris Van Allsburg
Mark and Carol Buehner (pronounced Beener)
Mark Teague
Leo and Diane Dillon
Richard Hull
Toot and Puddle (Holly Hobbie)
PJ Lynch
Shawna Tenney
Lane Smith
Jon Scieszka
Dr. Seuss

If you want specific book titles to checkout, please email us as we are a wealth of information.

If only they stayed little

*Sigh* If only our children stayed small and never grew up. We got a toddler bed for free from a friend here in the ward. Natalie loves to play on it and sleep in it. These are the pictures of her taking her first nap in the bed. She's funny though because we haven't taken her crib down, so she likes to alternate between the two beds. We'll have to take her crib down though soon. We were afraid she'd roll out of bed with any sides on it but has done just fine. (Notice the pillows at the side of her bed; dad worries too much)

Swimming Pools

So it seems as if we are in a perpetual vacation here. It's beautiful everyday and it's always nice to have the beach so close. We've been going swimming a lot lately, though Mary and Natalie go more than Michael (who has to work sadly). The sisters in the ward that have small children get together and go swimming every week. Natalie loves to go with mom and swim around. She has discovered the joy of floating in a tube and loves to just float around.

Our silly girl

It seems that the more Natalie learns the sillier she becomes. Mom was fixing Natalie's hair one morning, putting her hair into braids. Well she finished one side and Natalie told her that she only wanted one side braided and the other in a pony tail. So that's the way it remained for most of the day. I'm sure people looked at her and thought how lazy her parents are for not even doing both sides of her hair.
Since learning we are expecting we ask Natalie whether she wants a boy or girl baby and she almost always says boy. When we ask her a good boy name she says (very matter-of-factly) ,"The Blue-one." Uhhh, sure. Sometimes it's "The Blue-one" and other days it's "The Green-one". Maybe she knows something we don't.....