Word Cloud

This is kind of cool. It's a word cloud from a site called snapshirts.com. It scans your blog and spits out a bunch of words from it. The bigger words are the words used more often. This is what it created from Marylin's blog:

Dancing with the stars

OK so as many of you know, we don't have cable tv up here. Mike and I are not big T.V. watchers so we don't see the point in paying an extra 40(ish) bucks a month for nothing. In any case, when you're in the mood to watch T.V. but you only have 4 channels to choose from you'll watch just about anything. Here is Marylin dancing to "Dancing with the Stars" ... like I said, you'll watch anything when you're desperate. ;-)

Watch Marylin dancing with the stars

Sick Marylin

Poor baby girl woke up with a cold this morning. She's in pretty good spirits, just a bit run down. Let's hope it passes soon ...

Play Date

Marylin got very lucky today when her B/F/F Avery Jane drove all the way up with her mom (Allison) to visit with us. Marylin's new little friend Teresa and her mom Christy dropped by too. It was so cute watching the girls together. I must say - they are all getting a little more aggressive with each other. I saw Marylin attempt to push Avery once, become possessive of her toys a number of times, and hit (albeit gently) Avery once. What's up with that?? Avery showed off all of her new words (the child can talk!) and Teresa entertained us with her energy and big grin. All in all it was a very fun time.

Avery perfecting her game

Avery striking a pose for the camera

Marylin, Avery and Teresa reading books (all at the same time, how wild is that?)

Avery on the horse - ride 'em cowgirl ;)

Marylin on her horse

Marylin and Avery watching Baby Einstein together. Notice Marylin stole Avery's shoes - what is a B/F/F for, eh?

Avery and Marylin cooking together.

Marylin and Avery practicing their hoops :_

A Couple More Videos

I found a couple more videos of Marylin to post. It has only been recent that we've had a video camera on our digital camera so I really don't have too many but here are a couple cuties.

Video Number One - Tiny baby Marylin. Here is Marylin at 3 months old with her Auntie Auty (the one and only time Auty has come up here to visit Marylin, specifically) and Trinity (Marylin's cousin). Click here to see it.

Video Number Two - Marylin playing with Avery during Marylin's first birthday party. Click here to see it.

Marylin Videos

FINALLY! I have managed to figure out how to post videos of Marylin - thank god for Google (and Allison, lol).

Video Number One - Marylin shows us how old she is. Click here to see it.

Video Number Two - Marylin says "Hi" "Hello" "Love You" all while she plays with cheese. Now that is talent. Click here to see it.

Trip to Calabasas

I took Marylin to Calabasas this morning (a town up the way from us) to visit the pond where they have turtles, ducks and koi. She loves it up there. It's nothing fancy but it's fun none the less. It was such a beautiful day I was able to snap a few pictures. I must say, however, that Marylin is not too thrilled to be photographed these days. She's been perfecting a stern little look when she is irritated, actually. I say she is looking more like mom by the day lol

Marylin posing with the iron boy - can you tell she is totally bothered by all the pictures?

This is Marylin's new look - the tongue roll. She does it when she is concentrating on something. Silly girl!

Another (bothered) pose but she is still cute cute cute!

Marylin thought it would be funny to pick up the pebbles in the mud and rub her dirty hands on my jeans - nice!

Our morning ended at the bookstore where Marylin was more interested in big-kid-books than she was in her own age books. Oh well :)

Marylin checking out the water

Marylin playing with the turtle water fountain

Little Sleeper.

I think it is safe to say that Marylin is finally catching on to the sleep thing. She now points to her crib when she is tired (after she points to my bed and I tell her "no"). She then cries as I lay her down but the minute I turn away to leave the room, she stops. What a relief. I thought she would be crying it out for longer than she did, thank god she proved me wrong. She still manages to find a spot in our bed at some point in the night (at what point is random) but we'll keep working on that.

Here is my grandfather Dick - My mom's father. How handsome is he?!

My grandfather and grandmother (Dad's folks) are the couple on the right. My lord my grandmother was a beauty - she looks like a movie star - and grandpa was quite the charmer :)

Here is another picture of my grandfather (Mom's dad) when he was in the air force. Damn, what a looker!

My grandma and grandpa (dad's parents) when they got married ... so young and beautiful.

One more old picture - here is a picture of my grandparents (dad's folks) when they lived in Japan during the war. What a smart looking couple. :)

New Shoes

Well, Marylin has grown out of her cute little classic shoes so it was time to make a trip to Nordstrom to buy her a new pair. I actually tried Payless shoes first as they have some cute shoes there for half the price but once again, Marylin's fat little feet simply won't fit. It kind of sucks because I would like her to have a closet full of cute shoes but when you have to drop 40 bucks per pair of shoes, a closet full of them is not in order. Although, I might try the Vans store down the road as Vans tennis shoes do tend to be wider than normal shoes.

In any case, we settled on some cute little closed toe sandles with little butterflies on them which she can wear with or without socks. The child is now a size 5 2w (double wide) - that would be biger than a size 5 wide or 5 extra wide. Here they are:

Progress??

For the first time in WEEKS Marylin has been napping for longer than 30 minutes. I thought I was going to go crazy if her terrible sleeping continued much longer but today she has actually been sleeping for a whole 2 hours. I heard a peep out of her a couple times at the beginning of her nap but haven't heard a thing for a solid hour and a half. What did I do right?! Perhaps it was running around with Daddy while I was at the eye doctor? Perhaps it is the fact that she is currently sleeping without a blanket on (I tried to put it on her and she kicked it of twice). Who knows! All I know is that I'm liking this 2 hour nap thing! :)

Dad with all of us in Malaysia. Auty, Win, Anique, John and Bug. Later that day i fell into a sewage infested drainage on the beach and cried for most of the afternoon due to being soaked in .. well ... shit!

Dad with his chicks. Auty, Win, Niki and Johnny in Malaysia, July 85

Erinn, Anique, Win and John all on mom and dad's bed somewhere around '84 right before leaving to our private school in Hemet. The cat is Pooky, rest in peace :(

Windy, Auty, Erinn, John and Niki all swimming in Thailand shortly after we left CA.

The five of us singing for dad's company in Hemet during Christmas, '84.