Ouch, my heart!

Sweet, sweet, Cooper was gentlemanly enough to hang out with Azalea for a little while at the park today even though she was cranky, tired, and too little to run around with the other kids.

I have more pictures of our trip to the park today to be blogged about later!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLY!

Dear Willy,
I hope you have a wonderful 1st birthday. I have found that having a whole party planned around your entire year of existing is somehow even better than the fact that the world has already been revolving around you since the moment you came into existence.


If it looks like I am cranky in these photos it is because:
1. I am kind of sick.
2. I am not at your birthday party.
3. My mom just pointed out that even if I LIVED IN SAN DIEGO I wouldn't be able to come to your party...because of #1


Anyway, I love you and I think you are a great cousin. I don't even mind that you have more hair than me. I can't wait to hang out with you in this "Bay Area" place that our parents keep talking about. Also, my parent told me to tell you that your gift is in the mail.

Love, Your favorite cousin,

Azalea

Green Mountain

Now that we have such a sweet baby backpack, we've been going on quite a few family hikes. These pictures are from our hike to the TOP of Green Mountain a few weeks ago. The view from the top was beautiful.

Zayley seems pretty happy as a passenger. Sometimes she gets bored and fussy, but that is usually when the hike has taken us a couple of hours. And by that point, we're all a little fussy.

She is also really in to pointing right now so whoever is carrying her usually spends the entire hike with an authoritative baby finger pointing forward in his/her peripheral vision.

Man. Ain't that perty.

I know all of these pictures make it look like Nate did the majority of the carrying; but, I'll have you know that so far our system is as follows: one parent carries up, the other carries down. Then, we trade for the next hike. So there. Also, of course we ALWAYS bring Izzy. If we didn't, I'm pretty sure we would reek of hike the way a cheating spouse reeks of perfume and she would divorce us.

Here's to more family hikes. I'm thinking Memorial Day.

More MORE More?

Cousins Can Be SO ANNOYING!

All By Herself

Yesterday I noticed that the house was very quiet.

I asked Nate to check on Azalea to make sure that she wasn't dumping all of our DVD's into the toilet or something equally fun and exciting. Nate walked in to Z's room to find this:

Sometime when we weren't looking, she learned to climb into her rocking chair all by herself!

As you can see she was quite proud of herself. She especially enjoyed looking at herself in the mirror and rocking.

I was lucky enough to catch it on video. This is also when we learned that she could get down by herself too. Who knows how long she's been doing this!

Z climbing into rocking chair. from Miranda Walker on Vimeo.

And in case you were wondering...she picked out her outfit all by herself too.

Rachel is a Nurse!

Our dear friend Rachel graduated from the Regis Nursing Program on May 1. For her graduation party she asked if I would be interested in helping her make cupcakes and plan decorations. I was deeply flattered and immediately suggested we try these hi-hat cupcakes that I had been dying to make. They were a beautiful success!

Rachel snapped this lovely picture while we were making the cupcakes the day before the event. The topping is meringue that you pipe on and then DIP UPSIDE DOWN into MELTED CHOCOLATE to coat the outside. Nerve-wracking I tell ya.


Rachel wanted to use spring colors for the decorations so we covered the cupcakes in yellow and white melting chocolate and topped them with what else but more yellow and white! (sprinkles...three different kinds)


And of course, our most avid of cupcake eaters declared them: DELICIOUS.

Congratulations Rachel! We're all proud of you.