"Dental-Flossing"

Toby says, "I'm dental-flossing like Mama." I don't usually use a WHOLE roll each time, but, other than that, he's got the general idea.

My Other Car is a Stroller

I've been going to the grocery store with Toby in the stroller lately.

It's 5 miles round trip, and I average 20 lbs in the backpack on the trip back. It feels really heavy and slows me down considerably. To think, I used to carry three times that around with me everywhere every day!

I've lost over 60 pounds now.

The bottom portion of the stroller carries a lot of stuff too, as demonstrated below:

Although, it's usually filled with sunscreen, wipes, sand toys etc. Not usually little boys.

Our Weekend in Visalia, Fresno, and Sacramento

We drove down to Visalia Friday night to see Oliver's brother play guitar.

That's right, "Blues, Brews, and BBQ", with Alastair Greene.

Toby was initially intimidated by the noise, but once he realized that he could run around, and dance and yell as loud as he wanted, and no one really seemed to mind, he was totally sold on the blues rock concert idea!

We spent the night in Exeter, where my mother-in-law and one of my sisters-in-law live, and we had breakfast with the in-laws Saturday morning.

One of Oliver's sisters lives back east, and so she wasn't there this weekend, his dad, and his step-mom also weren't there, but other than that, there were a lot of in-laws who came out for the occasion, which made it pretty special - more so than most holidays - so I made them let me take their picture. The photographic evidence below, shows how pleased they were with this idea. Many of them had been up very late the night before and hadn't had their coffee yet, but, being the good sports that they are, they humored my request anyway.

From left to right we have: Oliver's brother Alastair, his sister, Alexandra, brother, Nikolas, mother, Louise, and my personal favorite, my sweetie, my husband, Oliver.

Toby was playing hide-and-seek under the table during my picture taking, but I still got a picture of him anyway.

Then we drove to Fresno for my friend Sabrina's new yarn studio open house.

Her business, Anzula Yarn, is thriving and expanding, and I am insanely proud, and privileged to get to see it transform from a small operation, formerly based out of the kitchen and back yard of her home, into a studio, and then into a larger studio, with increased staff, to meet the demand of the much larger, wider distribution of her fabulous line of yarns. Way to go Sabrina!

The yarn drying on racks outside, the mural on the side of the building, it was all pretty awesome.

My friend Dee, who I taught how to knit when we lived in Fresno, met us there.

Sabrina, of Anzula Yarn, me, and Dee.

Then we came back to Sacramento. Oliver met with his D&D group last night, and, this morning, I had my first Sunday group run with the 1/2 marathon training group that I've joined.

It was a busy weekend, but it was fun.

Squirreling around at the park before ducking over to the canal to watch the ducks

Mayhem and Foolishness

I had a crack in my windshield repaired this week, and while I was writing out the check to the guy that came to the house to fix it, Toby did this to his room:

It actually looks a lot worse than it is. It's just spilled legos and train tracks, and he knocked the rocking chair ottoman over. It took all of 5 minutes to clean up. Of course, it took Toby all of 30 seconds to do. ;o)

Big Boy Bed

We converted Toby's crib into a toddler bed this week, after he started climbing in and out of the crib himself. This is what it looks like now:

Happy Birthday Shout out to my sister-in-law, Laurie! My Dad's Visit, & Pictures of me for my brother.

Today's my sister-in-law, Laurie's birthday. Happy Birthday Laurie!!!!!

My dad's been working one day a month in Sacramento. He drives up on Sunday and spends the night in a northern suburb of Sacramento, we have dinner, or hang out together at the house, he works the following Monday, and drives back to Santa Barbara. It's been really cool. This last visit he tells me, he doesn't read the blog, but my brother does and tells him that there aren't enough pictures of me, and could we do something about that please? So, James, this post is also for you.

Toby had just gotten up from a nap, and then sort of fell asleep again at the table. He wasn't really up for taking pictures today, but here they are anyway: