The Invasion

We have scads of these white-lined sphinx caterpillers in our neighborhood. You can see them up our street, all heading down the hill on a mission: to find some earth in which to burrow into and pupate. I'm surprised we've never seen or heard about them before in all the years we've been in Arizona, as apparently they can have some serious population explosions. Can't wait to see the ginormous moths take flight in a few weeks... eeewwww. In the meantime, watch your step.

Swimming 101

Lauren and Cole recently started weekly swimming lessons at the Gold Medal Swim School in Chandler, and really seem to enjoy it.


It actually took Lauren a few lessons to get comfortable in the water, but now she loves it. Her favorite part is going (slightly) under water to retrieve the diving rings, and she is also working on perfecting her float.


Cole seemed to enjoy the water from the start. He's in the Baby & Me class, and loves the 'torpedo pass' (shown here) and knocking over a row of turtle-shaped kickboards one by one.

State of the Art

Lauren did some watercolor painting yesterday. Her resulting artwork was very colorful, and amazingly, all the paints remained as their original colors :)

Baking Withdrawal

It's been so long since I've baked. I made this batch of cranberry white chocolate scones on my birthday, way back in April. May need to whip something up this weekend....

Mr. Clean: Part 2

Vacuuming is another one of Cole's favorite activities. Go figure. I hate to vacuum, so Stew is pretty excited to finally have some help.

Addicted to Words

Stew found this free Scrabble-like app, 'Words with Friends'. It's pretty neat because you can just take your turn whenever you have a spare moment. So far I'm 4 for 4 :)

On Cloud Nine

View of the morning sky on my walk into work today.