Gardens and Crawling

Colten with two of his little girl friends, Isla and Nala, at our garden exchange

Ahhh. It's Sunday afternoon, and I just finished cleaning up from our latest garden exchange today. If you don't already know it, I started a garden exchange here in Carpinteria...it's really nothing very orginal; I copied the format of the exchanges happening in Santa Barbara. Basically, people come to our house, bring stuff from their gardens, and take stuff that other people have brought. It's been really fun meeting people in our community and getting inspired to grow things. I just made a sparkling mint lemonade from the lemons in our backyard and some mint that someone brought. Yum.

Colten is sitting on the floor here in the dining room as I type. He's playing with a green sharpie pen that he's banging on the floor and hitting against the legs of the dining room chairs. He is FINALLY crawling. And pulling himself up to stand! I'm really liking the crawling...today he followed me all over the house while I was vaccuming - no more crying when I walk out of the room. He does, however, cry EVERY single time I attempt to change his diaper. Like he's being tortured. I don't know what's up with that, but everyone comes out ok in the end. He's really into food right now. He'll eat anything, and he actually begs if someone is eating near him. Then when he gets a bite, he makes a loud "Mmmmm." He's got all four of his upper teeth in now, along with his bottom two. We went through a rough patch there while those top ones were coming through; Colten and I took some midnight strolls through the neighborhood to get through some of the tougher nights. But all's well now. Colten is now standing next to me happily chewing on some string cheese.

Colten started saying "papa" just a week or two ago - and it made Tim tear up. Now that he's more mobile, I've noticed that he's not so into the words. He sort of says "bird" (more like "brrr") and "cat" ("a-ta") and "dog" ("da"). He's been saying "mama" for a while now. Every day is so fun with him. He's super goofy, and it's so fun to see his little personality developing.

In a couple of weeks we're taking our first big road trip all together -- going to visit our friend Becky and her husband Chris in Wyoming. Yay! We can't wait. Tim's been working on our little camper, making sure the door locks and fixing the big hole in the side (yeah, it's super old). I don't know what got into Tim this weekend, but he's suddenly turned into mister handy man. He even got up early yesterday and cleaned the living room. What?! I'll take it!

Hmmm...I think I smell poo. More soon.