The latest addition to our family...

We are thrilled! We love it!

Still more ballet

A video!

Bat update

The little bat seems to have flown off.

Holy live bats, Batman!

One night, Nick was outside with the girls and he saw a bat fly by. The next night at the same time, he was outside and he saw it fly by again... I guess same bat time, same bat channel is appropriate, eh?


This morning, Nick found this little one in our garage. We're hoping s/he is okay. S/he was moving around and looking for a place to rest. When I tried to take the second picture s/he showed her teeth. We don't know if s/he is the same one that whizzed by those two nights.

Holy suburbs, Batman, we have bats!

Why is she smiling?

Here's Judi at work... She's at [large private] university in a technology room. She's with three people who are friends/colleagues and they are recording the second podcast they've done together. She's got her powerbook right there. The video camera too. Of course she's smiling!

In ten years...

Can't you just see them in the bathroom getting ready for something in ten years?

Home Improvement

Nick installed two whole-house fans on Sunday. We don't have a/c. We don't really need it here. Just for a frame of reference, it was 77 degrees outside at 4:20 pm on a late-July afternoon. At 11:54 pm the same evening it is 61 degrees outside. It only gets really hot here about 15-20 days a year. Even when it gets hot during the day, it usually cools off to below 70 at night. It doesn't seem necessary to have a/c. It seems like it would be a little "un-green" of us to have it.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Nick in the attic, the fan, and duct. Please ignore the mess by the fan and duct. The pictures were taken in the attic storage area. That area is supposed to be messy!

The whole-house fan (theoretically) exchanges all the air in the house with cooler outside air in a very short amount of time. (Maybe 1/2 hour? I can't remember. I'll have to check with my technical advisor about that.) (I checked with the technical advisor and he said each fan is supposed to 1500 cubic feet of air per minute.) At the end of the day, it will make the house cool off a lot faster. So far, it is nice to have. Last night, I was actually cold with the window open. Yay!



















































But wait, there's more...

The pictures below show where the fans are in the attic (they just blow the air up in the attic and then it gets forced outside through the attic vents). This helps cool the attic too.

You can see a picture of one of the vents for the fan. Nick installed it up there... probably 15 feet off the ground inside of the house. I am very thankful I wasn't home to watch him balance precariously on a ladder and cut the wall. The second vent is installed in a very dimly lit corner of our room and didn't photograph well.



























































Yay Nick! We'll return to our regularly scheduled blog of little girl photos tomorrow!

I forgot

In the last entry, I forgot to point out that Kira is wearing a pair of Natalie's old pjs. Kira is so excited that she can wear Natalie's old jammies! (I hope she always feels this way about hand-me-downs!) She can remember Natalie wearing them so it's really cool. She knows she is growing up. The pajamas are a bit big, but not too bad.

Kissing Kira

The other night, as Kira was getting ready for bed, she was making kissy-faces in the mirror. Here she is. She was very willing to ham it up for me!

Dinosaurs....Roar!

Natalie is very interested in dinosaurs. They are currently her favorite things! I just found this online.... http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf45940204.tip.html

I forsee some cardboard and scissors in our near future.

The Natagirl!

Natalie is a very busy girl and hard to get to sit / stand still for a photo... Here she is.... Just a little over a month until kindergarten. She looks ready, doesn't she?

Quote of the day

"I'm a good pirate.... 'cause I have a pirate hat!"

Kira K. age 3 years 2 months


And then she ran off when I tried to take her picture in her pirate hat... And then she got mad at me when I got a picture of her. But she's so cute! And look at the book she's holding... It's true!

I think it's (mostly) okay

The other night, I spilled water and it got on and in our camera. For a few days the camera didn't act properly when it was turned on... It would turn on but a message would appear on the LCD screen that said, "Turn Power Off/On." I thought the camera was a goner. Did I mention it had water dripping out of it? Not a good sign.

Today, I tried it turning it on again and it seemed okay. Here are a couple of pictures I took when the camera started working again. Tia's playing with her school bus. Like the shoes? What about the outfit? Hee! I'm sure when she's a teenager she'll delete this blog entry. I will just have to keep the password a secret.

Tia's Gymnastics

Tia loves gymnastics! She's been taking the Mommy and me class since March.

Here are bunches of her doing her class in June. Look at her form.

Sisters

Natalie and Kira are really enjoying each other right now. Last night, Kira was so sad because Natalie couldn't sleep with her in her bed. (We don't like them to sleep in the same bed during the week because they stay up too late talking.) Here are a couple of pictures showing them watching a video together. It was a "scary" video (not really, but they were hamming it up). I love watching them enjoy being together. They are taking swim lessons together and often they walk into the pool holding hands.

Fuzzy photos from Fourth Fireworks

I probably should have put the camera in night mode, eh?

Look at all the blondes and the blond there!

In the first photo, Natalie is pointing because she's pretending that she's watching the fireworks show. We took the the photos before the show started.... Silly girl!

07-07-07

We went to a fun party this weekend at Larry and Patti's house. We usually do few parties / dinners with Larry, Patti, Mark, Viki, (their kids Eli and Adi), and Christine and Robert. Larry and Patti planned this party but didn't realize it was 07/07/07... When they realized the date, the fun began... (Nick realized the date right away.)

The party started 7 hour and 7 minutes after 0700 hours (Nick helped with that 7 connection too). We were all supposed to think about the significance of the number 7 before the party...

Kira, Tia and Natalie each drew pictures of 7's and took them to the party. (I forgot to take pictures of their art...) Patti and Larry had 7 door prizes for each person as they came in the party... However, despite the emphasis on 7, the girls forgot all about the number 7 when they saw the pools (link to seven pictures of the little girls and one of Nick)...

Thanks for a great day Larry and Patti! We got home from the party right around 7 pm. (Oh, and when we went to the party, my camera had space for 77 pictures at 7 megapixels. I didn't even try to get it in that state. The number 7 is powerful!)

More Ballet

Kira did great in ballet and tap today! She danced the whole class. Look at her!










I had to take the pictures through the observation window with the flash off, so that's why they are so dark and a little blury.

As Buffy would say, Linky goodness.

Some more pictures from our trip are here.

Thank goodness for the cheese puffs!

We took the Natalie, Kira and Tia to see the fireworks display tonight. We left the house about 8:40 and got to the park around 8:50. We got a good parking place... Note to self for next year, don't go any later--it starts to get crowded.

The show started around 9:30. The girls loved it! Kira said the fireworks were "awesome!" (I recorded some of the conversation and what was said and I'll try to edit the audio and post it, but not tonight.)

About half-way through the show, Natalie declared she was starving! She wanted to have snacks while watching the fireworks. I said we'd bring some next year. She kept complaining. I finally remembered I had cheese puffs in the car. When we got back to the car, the little girls ate 3/4s of the bag really quickly. If we hadn't have had those puffs, the ride home would have been unpleasant!


Recap of the day:
Lazy morning
Swimming with friends
Lunch (out) with friends
Playing at our house with friends
Naptime
Dinner
Baths
Fireworks
Bed for tired girls

Happy 4th of July!

Fountain Fun.

We wore our crocs. We played. We got wet. We love the fountains at the City Community Center.




Here's a link to even more pictures of the Saturday Fountain visit at our web site.