It's raining in Phoenix

Selah's updated vocabulary: dada, mom, key, lock, ham, cheese, hush, tea, sheet, up, done, no, yes, got it, pop, light, sock, shoe, walk, kick, cookie, hot, cold, kitty, woof, stuck, uh-oh, doggy, hi, bye-bye, ball

Selah practices her Samurai moves. I made her that shirt, it's a bit shabby, but she likes the bows.

The backyard

Selah's favorite outdoor activity is pushing her old rusty push-cart around, picking up sticks.

We ate our first homegrown vegetable.

This little girl plays cars like a boy. She runs them up and down our heads, soars them through the air like airplanes, and likes to see them fly by on our street outside.

This video was taken a few days before she finally started saying "mom." It's been a running joke between us that she would try to say "mom" but "dada" would come out. She'd point at me and say "dada" and then immediately point at Casson if he were in the room, as if that was what she'd been trying to say.

Casson's been working at the house everyday. He's taped up cracks, mudded, sanded, cleaned and primed the front bedroom. I helped clean the windows. It's taken 15 days so far.

Selah and I met our friends for coffee on Saturday morning. Selah only chipped one plate this time, and spilled only a few drops of coffee on the couch. Doris and Dave were there, tired out from their new jobs, but so caring and sweet. Mike and Robin were there, Robin just back from India where she worked with lepers and gave eye exams to the poor. Dave and Rachel relaxing from long hours at their new jobs/positions. Saturday afternoon we played in the park and met a guy who used to know Josh and Nadine from their time in Israel. Big coincidence. They have two little kids, so Selah made a friend of Abe, who's almost 2. She gave him a hug. Sunday we went to church in our keeping-it-real-every-two-months style. I love creating concepts with hyphens. Church was great. I cried a little, so, you know. Selah loves her friends in the nursery. She helped clean up all the dolls and balls and books. Then we ate .50 hotdogs and hashbrowns, gleaned some ripened grapefruit from our tree of provision on 3rd Ave, and headed home. Monday Josh helped Casson prime, while Selah did circles around the yard, drank tea and warm milk, and hung out with Sara and Josh for dinner. It's Tuesday night now and it's raining like crazy. I'm worn out, need to let my shoulders relax. Enjoy the photos and videos...

Minnesota and Back

The last day of video at our old apartment. Actually we were there for another month, but I lost my camera after recording this video. We've moved into our house, but are going to be unpacking over the next few months, as we finish patching and painting one room at a time. Selah likes the room where we have her sleeping. When we were in Minnesota she started singing to herself in her crib for the first time ever, something that little babies are supposed to do much earlier on as part of speech development. She keeps doing it here in her echoey room, even to the extent that Casson put her down for a nap yesterday and she just sang for an hour and then got up. I think maybe sleeping in that pitch-black closet for a year and a half had a negative, though evidently not permanent effect.

She started saying "no" the day she was 18 months (Dec 20). In Minnesota she experimented with saying "papa, clock" and not surprisingly "cooooold." When we got back to Phoenix, I kid you not, she started saying "hot." It was about 90 degrees warmer. She says hot to refer to food, glade plug-ins, too many clothing layers during a bike ride, and jacket removals.

I tried to add more video and blogger is slow tonight. Sorry grandparents.