Santa Cruz part 2

Amanda enjoyed playing at the beach.  She could stay there all day if we let her.

Matt and her were making a "track" on the sand.

Santa Cruz part 1

We took a little vacation to Santa Cruz.  The weather was perfect.  We had a fun time, except Cameron was sick during the trip.  Here we are on the merry-go-round.

Cameron's baptism

Earlier this month, Cameron was baptized.  Grandpa and Grams came to witness this joyous occasion.  Cameron, you belong to God and is dearly loved by Him.

Swim class

Amanda started taking swim classes couple of months ago.  It was a group class that exposed young kids to the water and made it fun for them.  Parents participation was required.  So they did  a lot of swim-like activities with songs and rhymes.  Matt enjoyed being in the water with Amanda.  She has grown more accustom to being in the water although she still does not like putting her head in the water.  Last week, she graduated from this class and is now taking a class that teaches her swimming techniques.

Smile

Fast Ballie Ballie?

She made up this game/sport?!?

Pigtails

Amanda usually runs away and screams when we try to comb her hair.  On a rare occasion, she actually agrees to let me braid her hair.

Raising money for Pakistan

As a church, we are praying for and giving money for victims of flood in Pakistan.  Lucy came up with the idea of setting up a lemonade stand.  However, lemons did not appear to be in season.  We had to settle for limes.  Amanda was eager to help.  She man the limeade stand with Lucy in front of our garage and put up a sign with Isaac.  She even made her own sign (lots of scribbles) and was yelling "Lime-monade, fifty cents"!

Here is a link of them at work on the Mission Local blog:
http://missionlocal.org/2010/10/one-limeade-to-go-please/?utm_source=todaysmission&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_campaign=house_tmsidebar

Grams and Grandpa

The grandparents visited Cameron for the first time.

Auntie Vicki

Time to catch up on blogging!  We had a lot of visitors last time.  My dear friend Vicki came for an overnight visit.  I had a great time with Vicki and so did the kids.  Amanda loved playing with Vicki and her smartphone.

Beach Birthday Party

 
A.J. and her friend Christa had a beach birthday party for the both of them and a few of their friends. All of the kids loved digging in the sand and eating cupcakes.
 

Cameron At Home

 

Amanda Jo likes her new little brother. She's still learning how to be gentle, but for the most part she's very good and helpful and cares for Cameron.

Cameron Andrew

Cameron Andrew was born July 30th, weighing 8 lbs. 8 oz. and measuring 20 inches. Here are some shots of our new family.
 
 
 

Jesus Loves Me

She loves to sing!

Lakeport Part 3

Apparently, Ben and her didn't get to swim enough in the pool. They had to do it at the house as well.

Lakeport Part 2

The highlight of the trip was swimming.

Lakeport Part 1

We went to Lakeport again this summer with a couple of other families from church. She actually enjoyed the swing and was on it for a long time. For as long as I could remember, she did not like the swing at all. Her hair got very static when she went down the slide. She thought that was quite funny and did it over and over again.

Dancing

Summer clothes

We bought some new clothes for the summer since the weather here was getting warmer. She enjoyed opening and seeing her new clothes. I guess she is a girly girl after all.

Tilden Park

Earlier this month, we went to Tilden Park as a fun outing for my birthday. Matt and AJ rode the carousel together. AJ loved the carousel after riding it at her friend's birthday party. According to her, this particular carousel was a little too fast for her. We visited the Little Farm at the park as well and saw lots of fun & loud animals. She was fascinated but also scared of the big animals there. She took the picture of Matt with the pig.

Boat Ride

 
We got tickets through the library for a boat ride around the San Francisco Bay. It was too windy and crowded for us to stand on the outside of the boat for most of the ride, but we enjoyed sitting inside. And you can see Amanda Jo enjoying one of her favorite snacks, Pocky.

Soccer Game

 
Here's another picture from the soccer game that is one of my favorites.

Monsters at the Soccer Game

We went to watch our neighbor Lucy's soccer game, and there were some monsters running around that looked a lot like a cute little girl I know.

Photographer

Amanda loves to grab our camera and look at the pictures. She can now take pictures with the camera. Here are her recent attempts, a couple good ones from about one hundred shots.

New Towel

Amanda will be passing on her bath towels to the new baby. We got her a big girl towel instead. It has a funny flower hood that is quite cute.

Sightseeing

We visited Yangmingshan National Park during the blooming season, which was an adventure in itself. We had to ride for a long time on a crowded bus. Then, when we got there, the walk / hike was much longer than we had imagined. But we did enjoy some outdoor time, away from the urban environment. We also walked around Chiang Kai-Shek's former residence in Shilin on another day. It had some unique gardening landscape.

Lantern Festival

One of the coolest things we did in Taiwan was to go to the annual Lantern Festival at the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial in Taipei. "Lanterns" doesn't really describe the displays, as you can see! They were very neat. 
 

Taiwan - food

We are back and have mostly recovered from all the travelling. Food was a big part of our trip. I got to eat a lot of yummy food & snacks in Taiwan. The first picture was from our trip to the night market in Tainan. Amanda tried out duck blood with rice on a stick! She said it was like a lollipop. The second picture was from Din Tai Fung Dumpling House in Taipei (their original location). The dumplings were super yummy.

See ya later!

We are going on vacation. We will be back in a couple of weeks with new posts.

Homemade Forts

Matt made this big fort for A.J. one weekend. She had lots of fun going in and around it. She's starting to understand the idea of "mugging" for the camera when we're taking a video. She'll talk more and tell us what to take the video of.

First Professional Haircut

A while ago, I took Amanda to get a haircut. I was nervous at how she would do with strangers and at a new place. But she didn't seem scared when we arrived at the hair salon. She watched another person getting a haircut. She sat fairly still when the hairdresser cut her hair. She just didn't like getting hair on her face.

Playing Dress Up

We don't have much "dress-up" clothes. But the Ogburn girls do so here is the result of their project runway.

Little Kitchen Helper

Amanda loves to help in the kitchen. But for most tasks, she tends to not be very helpful. But she can snap the ends of asparagus really well. It's the one thing she can really help with in the kitchen, on her own.

Somersaults

Amanda started doing somersaults recently and has gotten pretty good at it. Here is a short clip of it.