Maya, 18 months.

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On Saturday our friends the Gaisfords brought the boys over to do some portraits. The boys are super cute so it made my job super easy! Jeff and Sara, I hope you enjoy!

Click on the image to check out the slideshow!

Click here to see Maya ho ho ho’ing!

Steph tells me that lately Maya loves to sit on Zach’s bed and just sit there and play in the blankets. Since she liked it so much, we decided to put up the toddler bed tonight to see what she thought.

We got everything set up and when she realized that this was her very own bed, she was super excited and climbed right in to check it out. She loved sitting on it, standing on it, getting down from it, climbing up onto it and laying her head on it. So far, so good!

Of course getting her to go to sleep on it and stay in it is another story. To our surprise, Steph rocked her to sleep and laid her down in her new bed. She opened her eyes, then shut them again and has been out like a light ever since.

I snapped this shot of her asleep just a bit ago. What a sweetie!

Our little Maya girl is officially walking around as she pleases. Maya has been standing up on her own for a while now and has a very controlled standup and sit down. We knew that once she discovered she could just take a few steps, it would be all over. Saturday it finally all clicked!

She still crawls a lot faster than she walks but I’m sure that won’t last for long. It took her one year and six days to start walking.

I got to hang out with the Mangums one morning to do some family portraits. Check out the slideshow here!

You can click on the little grid icon in the lower right hand corner of the player to see each image in a gallery.

I’ll have all of the images burned onto a disc for you on Saturday. See you soon!

Here is a slideshow from Mark and Amie’s wedding on August 9. Please click either of the links below to view the show. Mark and Amie, I should have all of your images ready next week, thanks for your patience!

View the Slideshow

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Zach and I were having some before bedtime board game playing tonight. First we played Strawberry Shortcake. Yes, I know . . . there weren’t even any girls in the same room and you chose that game. If you are embarrassed about playing Strawberry Shortcake when you are older you can blame your mom for that

Anyway, after that we played Ants in your Pants (This game where you flick little plastic ants into a pair o’ pants shaped bucket). Zach started doing really well, flicking several ants into the bucket in a row. This was the conversation that followed:

Zach: WOAH!!!! Did you see that?!? I’m flabbergasted!

Me: (laughing) Awesome! By the way, what does flabbergasted mean?

Zach: It’s like when you are so strong that when you pull a pancake off the floor it makes a crack!

Me: Ahh, yep, totally.

A few minutes later he used the word flabbergasted again and I had to find out if he would say the same thing . . .

Me: What does flabbergasted mean again?

Zach: You know, when your son or girl does something that you can’t even believe, THAT’S flabbergasted.

Me: Of course

It wasn’t all beaches and swimming pools on our trip to California.  The temperature barely dipped below 100 degrees and the trees in Grammy and Grandpa’s backyard thought it was Fall in California already.  The huge trees are great for shade in the backyard in the summer but come autumn, that means a lot of raking for Grandpa.  Fortunately he had lots of helpers this week

You can see a few more photos here.

We are enjoying a few days here in California and of course have to spend some time at the beach.  The last time we were here we took Maya and let her experience the sand for the first time.  As you can see from this photo, she wasn’t quite sure what to think about the sand.

I’m pretty sure that ever since we left the beach that day she has been thinking about how she wished she put it into her mouth when she had a chance.

This photo sums it up our trip … “No!  Maya!  Yucky!!!”  She couldn’t stop putting it in her mouth.  Seriously, I don’t know what they put in that sand in Laguna Beach but it is soft on your feet and apparently tastes delicious.