Making music . . . and cookies

This afternoon was a bit rainy and gloomy - so it was an excellent excuse to stay inside and bake some cookies.
These are almond butter cookies and they turned out to be pretty tasty, if I do say so myself. Of course I had to taste the goods!













The pictures of the sunflowers are because right now there are fields and fields of sunflowers that are so beautiful! Most are used to make oil but these were growing in a "pick your own" field with a small locked box at the end to pay on your honor. Analise and I had fun tromping through the mud and dirt to select our flowers and cut (more like hack) them down - most of them were taller than me!
And what post would be complete without a shout out to the little lady. Here she's spinning some tunes while I was finishing up the cookies . . .

Turn, turn, turn

just being silly . . .

Chatter

After breakfast this morning Analise went off to "play" while Daniel and I were still sitting at the table. We kept hearing chattering coming from the other room but couldn't figure out who she was "talking" too - finally I went to investigate and it turned out that it was . . . well no one. But she was definitely very excited about it.

Uh oh - could be worse . . .

The little lady leaves a mess wherever she goes . . . but this one could have been much worse+ - right?

At the beach

Last week was so hot that Analise and I went to the beach nearly every day.
Our friend Bethany was able to join us one afternoon and snapped a few pictures of Analise in the sand and eating her snack - cherries.
Cherries are really in season at the moment and you are able to pick them off of wild cherry trees in the woods nearby our house. I can't get over this country!

One Minute

This is a one minute video but it is an example of nearly 100 minutes over the past couple of days.
I just wish I could get in that brain and find out what exactly she's thinking.
She has my wine charms, a small glass dish (that makes a good sound), a small plastic dish and an egg carton. Even now, while I upload the video and work on the writing, she continues to move those little buggers around. Yesterday it was the clothes pins - she threw a fit when I took them away (until she saw that dinner was on the table) . . .
It's just amazing watching their little brains learn something new.

Bastille Day

Technically I shouldn't be celebrating Bastille Day since we are living in Switzerland - not France. But as I sit here with the windows open listening to the light rain patter outside, I can also hear the distant boom of fireworks going off just across the border in France and like a memory of Bastille Days gone by, I'm reminiscing about this day last year . . .


We would have listened to sound checks from the Champ de Mars in our apartment all day while they set up for the huge concert that night.
(Beth Seelinger is that you on the big screen?)


Chatted with Danielle Barbot (the gardienne of our apartment building) and the little Portuguese guy who lived across the street who always said Hi to Grady (I don't actually know his name) - but he was always standing outside on the corner watching people. We looked up our old neighborhood on Google Earth - and sure enough! He's in the picture!






Walked back and forth from our apartment to the park to make sure we had reserved our spot . . .





yep, I've got it under control . . .












Evening is approaching . . .



Finally the big show!












And even better - watching the mass exodus of people from the park and thinking "heh, heh, heh - it's nice to be home!"





Grandma and Dad with Analise . . .

Lil' Sick

I don't have any good pictures this week because Analise has been a bit sick.
Last Monday she had MMR vaccination shots and starting Thursday she had a slight outbreak of measles as a result of the shot. She has little red dots all over her, a fever, runny nose, sore throat, a cough, and gunky eyes.
She's just a mess all over!
Thankfully, we feel that the worst is over and she is on the mend. The fever is gone and the spots are definitely lightening up.
She continues to be her cheerful self and now that she has grasped the idea that she should feed herself she will have it no other way. So with food smeared all over her face, in her hair and caked onto her clothes, nose dripping, eyes watering, and little red dots all over her - lets just say that the combined effect is a face only a mother could love (and even she's questioning that right now!) Hence, there are no pictures to share this week but please keep her in your prayers!
We hope to return to our "regular scheduled programming" soon . . .

Hiking La Dole

Saturday we hiked above the tree line on a mountain called La Dole. During the winter we skiied the back side of the hill (which is actually in France).
Here are a few of the pictures of what we saw .

Spoons up!

When I read about how some moms had a hard time handling the messes of eating I thought they must just be really touchy. After all - we have some spills and wipe ups, but nothing that seems too over the top. Yesterday, however, I think we crossed the threshold of a new era.
She wants to hold the spoon herself.
It used to be that she's hold the spoon in one hand and then try to pick up the food with the free hand but yesterday she actually put the spoon in the food and got (some) to her mouth!
This quickly turned into chaos however and I now understand why the messes of lunchtime might start to get to a person. But I am willing and eager for her to continue trying because I see that at the end it will be really quite convenient for her to feed herself. Not only is spoon feeding time consuming - it might be awkward for her on a first date or something . . .

where's the baby?

So this is kind of part 2 of yesterday's . . . but now she does tricks!

Business Time

Ok, it's not what you think . . . but eating is generally serious business. Notice the lack of "messing around" - that's how you know it's business time.

Dave Matthews

So, for the 4th of July we celebrated by having some friends over for an American BBQ and then going to a Dave Matthew's Band concert in Montreux. He was performing at the jazz festival there and we were able to get tickets.
This was also the first time we left Analise home alone with a babysitter who had to do everything . . . dinner, jammies, put to bed etc. So it was a big deal (for mommy at least). Thanks Julia for doing a great job!
So at the concert we were waiting outside the auditorium for the doors to open when Daniel (my hyper-perceptive husband) thought he heard Dave playing. Sure enough - he noticed a number of people standing around with cameras and found that Dave was just sitting in the middle of the room doing a broadcast for the radio. We ran over to see but caught the tail end of the performance. We were standing at the back of the circle and a guy came over to push us to the side - at first I was ticked, until we realized that it was because Dave would be walking right this way! So we lined up by the tape and got to shake hands as he walked by!
It was a pretty cool experience and made standing for four hours in a crowded, hot concert hall totally worth it!

oh ho ho ho

I thought this smile / laugh was pretty funny - hope you do too.