Who Wore it Better? Battle of the Green Dress

When finding these photos I realized that Alison is exactly twice as old as Riley when the photos were taken. It's the same dress but totally different ages!

Ri is wearing the dressin honor of Father's day, 2009 and Ali doned the exact outfit to look sharp for dinner on her grandma's birthday.

I think it could use ironing about now, that ruffle is looking a bit too....ruffled.

Celebrating Grandma's big day

A wonderful birthday dinner with our family, the three little girls, my parents and my uncles. We had great food and cake and Ali gave her grandma some sincere kisses for the special occasion!

What a pain

B'dah doesn't get this whole thing women do, where they suffer through really uncomfortable things in the name of beauty.

We realized that posing for a photo on a bale of straw meant a REALLY poky seating surface. Poor little baby-bdah-butt. Ouch!

Early Fall Candids

Some more of the great photos taken by my dad.

In most cases, I had no idea he was photographing this until I borrowed the camera. Behold: Riley swimming in a sea of corn kernels, Ri and Hannah posing with a variety of pumpkins, Ri and her dad climbing a straw pyramid and all the girls together on my mama's birthday.

Country Pumpkin

Mitt went country. The lucky girl got to explore the corn fields with her grandpa as her personal photographer!

We visited the pumpkin patch and corn maze in Dixon as part of a celebration for "gammas" birthday. It was hot but charming and picturesque. Oh, and it was nicely empty, since we went on a Monday.

...Oh yeah, and there just happened to be a giant pumpkin with glasses, which was, um - COOL, cause Riley also had glasses!

Cry Baby

I set you down but didn't realize you were hungry. Sorry B'dah, I just wanted a photo, because you look so cute.

B'dah's-eye-view

Sun glasses, large sidewalks, towering trees and tasty leaves. I spent a few minutes seeing the sights of our neighborhood on Ali's level.

(No, I didn't taste the early fall leaves, myself, but I hear they were good, a little bland but nicely crunchy).

This is How It's Done

What a great photographer's helper! I wanted a photo of both girls wearing their hats (to send to the great-grandma who made them) and our baby did not want to coorperate. She was taking off the hat and crawling offset.

Luckily, Riley tracked her down and put the hat back back on the baby.

Shining, Happy Toddler

She just swells with pride whenever she gets a hold of a pair of shoes that aren't hers. I was photographing baby sis when I hear a loud "clomping", sure enough it was Riley, beaming with my black shoes.

Here she is showing B'dah her shoes and then pointing at the shoes while I take a picture. Pointing, you know, cause otherwise you may not realize just how awesome the shoes are to the overall photo.

Hey guys, these shoes are awesome. Epic, in fact.

Ten Years - A Note for My Girls

There are a lot of days I can remember vividly: swimming in Africa when I was tiny, the first day of first grade, celebrating Mother's day in 1995 and, of course, the day, exactly ten years ago, today.

For me the story of September 11, 2001, is also the story of how I should have been spending the day New York but ended up hanging out at my parents house, with your dad.

I had packed a bag with everything I'd need to spend a year in Spain and I was going to spend the year with my friend going to a college near Valencia. We had our plane tickets, passports, visas, packed bags and plane tickets to JFK airport for September 10th. On September 9th, we found out that our flight had been canceled and our tickets were sold to us through a fraudulent website (back in the early days of internet where many more things went wrong, one day I will tell you about all the ebay stuff I purchased that just never showed up either). Somehow either the flight didn't exist or our tickets weren't legitimate for a real flight, but we had to get new tickets right away so we could make it for the beginning of the (college) school year. We drove to CSUS and got new, student tickets (no internet tickets this time) and we returned to wait until our new flight, which left San Francisco, early on September 12th.

We spent Sept. 11, 2001 at my parents house (me, Shell & dad), and did what everyone else was doing - watching the tv, in disbelief and horror. We missed our flight the next day since all planes were grounded. We didn't make it on the next few flights either, those were all canceled as well. I ended up staying, finishing my two degrees in 4 years and forgoing a a third degree. Staying also meant I could pursue a relationship with the guy I loved.

Time has gone so quickly and so fast, and doesn't slow down now that we're chasing both of you around. It's a funny thing how life works, doesn't work and works out strangely all at the same time. Maybe one day we'll have a conversation about what really happened on that day and what it meant, and hopefully by the time we have the conversation there will be some progress and I'll be able to explain it more eloquently than I can right now.

Afternoon Tea with H.M. R~Elizabeth

I was granted a wonderful, afternoon tea with Her Majesty, the Mitt. We sipped a custom peach-rooibos-rose "tea", dined on zucchini cookies and sauteed peaches.

I compiled some pointers on current etiquette, should you have the opportunity for such a momentous occasion. These tips will help ease your formal-tea-jitters:

1. Wearing a "facinator" keeps tea entertaining when no one is bothered to make conversation. If your tea-companion won't make conversation, be glad she has a doodad in her hair for you to look at.

2. Despite your misgivings, let me assure you, the casual t-shirt is OK, as afternoon-tea-apparel.

3. Sugar is the height of sophistication for tea. To keep current with the fashion and to be polite, add sugar (or let your hostess add sugar) until it stops dissolving in your tea. A heaping pile in the bottom of your cup assures a comfortable ratio.

4. However tempted you may be to get clumped sugar off the serving spoon, be sure you never, ever use your finger or dip the serving spoon into another guest's tea cup. (oh, the horrors!)

Ten-Month Twins

Friday night fun, last Friday night, with the little ones together.

Both the "B'dahs" are crawling, standing, getting into everything and sporting similar wavy hair, blue eyes and some teeny teeth. (Current score: Hannah 1.5, B'dah 3.5 teeth).

I think the only thing that can make the girls cuter, is to see the two of them together

It's Bid-ahhh, your friendly lawn ornament

Ever since we learned that Ali's Aunt Gail pronounces her ridiculous nickname with just a bit more flair, we can't help but use it when she's being just a bit more Bi-Dahrling.

I don't know how I managed to do it, but she looks so peaceful in these photos and she looks like she's a baby that is much-less on-the-go.

How could one be too stressed when looking at such a cute little nugget?



















Thanks to Whitny and Gail for the adorable outfit that was gifted to Riley. Gorgeous detailing, befitting of the Bidahhh!

Now this is more like it

I had high aspirations for our evening photos and these fell short a bit, but these are still so precious.
Brief moments of sweetness from my, otherwise, very tired girlies.

Happy September everyone!