Sunday, September 27, 2009

Growing Gretel

Gretel will be three months old on September 29th and she's growing into a really beautiful baby.
Here's her first ride on Papa's shoulders!


Wearing her John Deere outfit from Nanny Sara!

Sleeping like a baby.....



Playing on her tummy.

We think we'll keep her.




The Beginnings of our Wall!

The Decks have decided to build a dry-stacked stone wall to help terrace our backyard. Casey excavated the whole yard by himself. Here he is with Gretel showing off his hard labor.



Next we chose our stone - a Rustic Falls basalt from Mollala, Oregon. It's both local and beautiful. All 6+ tons of it arrived on a semi truck last Friday and sits in our mowstrip!






Gretel and Pops hanging out on the stone!



Casey couldn't help himself and has already moved one of the pieces of columnar basalt up our front steps. This piece weighs about 600 lbs and he managed it with a process of scooting it on two-by-fours, using another as a lever to push it forward. Frank Lackaff will be proud!




The next step is to get all of the stone into the back yard and to begin building. We'll keep you posted!




Gretel Goes to the Park(ing) Blocks!

Gretel jumped on her first city bus a few weeks ago to go visit GreenWorks' installment of their Park(ing). In case you don't know, a Park(ing) is a temporary park set up in a street parking slot. This year GreenWorks had three consecutive slots, thus the Park(ing) Blocks! It was a beautiful installation and Gretel thoroughly enjoyed herself. Also notice the new Bjorn we inherited from our friends the Wethingtons. Gretel loves being in it and it makes life much much easier for both Mom and Pops. Thank you Brian and Amy!

little g and Big O

Our rad friend Orion McMahon and his awesome lady Michelle came through town recently and Gretel got to introduce herself. As you can see little g and Big O hit it off right away!

Next time we'll get Michelle in the picture too.

Picnics with the Pecks

Our great friends the Tappan-Pecks moved to town this summer and we've been having great fun with them. They live just 9 blocks away from us and so we get to see them often! Picnicking seems to be the theme of our summer. Here are Sid, Oscar, Jenn, Gretel and Casey at a Jackstraw concert out at Kruger Farm back in August. (Wednesday was too busy running through the sprinkler to spend much time with the boring old adults!)


Gretel enjoying the sun in her eyes.


Oscar loves Gretel and gives her his cute little smile as often as he can!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Friend/Nanny/Superwoman Sara!


Our great friend Sara has agreed to be Gretel's nanny! Sara is a woman of many talents and we feel incredibly fortunate to have her positive and calming energy around our daughter on a regular basis. This was Sara's first week of work and she and Gretel immediately struck up a lasting friendship. Here they are enjoying a good laugh together!

Gretel's New Dress

Big thanks to Great Grandma Norma and Great Aunt Sue (collectively known as "The Greats") who recently gave Gretel this pretty new dress. Green is certainly her color!

It's Wedding Season!

Gretel has attended two weddings already this summer. In early August we went to Jim and Sarah's wedding - a truly beautiful event on Bainbridge Island where we unfortunately failed to remember our camera. In late August we were at David and Stacey's wedding in Tacoma where Auntie Sally (The Younger) acted as a bridesmaid. Here's Gretel hanging out on Pappa's shoulder at the reception. As you can see, we all had tons of fun!

Auntie Sally the beautiful bridesmaid getting down with her old friend David the groom!

Gretel also managed to cut a rug with her Mamma!


Happy grandparents Liz and Lar take over the baby watching while their kids/kids-in-law get crazy!