Art By Delia & the Imagination of a Toddler

Delia has always amazed Jake and I, but that may very well be because she is our daughter and we are a little biased. However, there are some things that she does that I think other people might find a little advanced for her age. For example her new found ability to draw. Let me just remind you all now that she is only 2.5 years old. At what point do children start drawing like this? I think it's early, but I could be wrong.

She'll be sitting there doodling, see something amongst her scribbles and then say (for example)

"Look Mommy, I draw a whale!"

Then she became a little more controlled with her movements and started to actually produce images that she wanted. For example:

A Person
A Smiling Person

A Happy Face

And most recently:

A Car (it's upside down)

Now, I don't know about you but this is pretty darn good for a 2.5 year old. She has yet to decide on which hand she will use and mostly sticks with her left. It is so interested seeing how they change and become more of themselves. It really makes me wonder what she will do when she grows up. What gifts God has blessed her with and where He will take her.

Her imagination has really taken off in the past few months. Lately she has been running from imaginary monsters and the other day in the grocery store she said, "There's a bunny in that lady's cart." To which I responded, "What?" She repeated herself and I asked, "There's a bunny in that lady's cart?" She happily said, "Yes!" I looked around a little and didn't see a bunny anywhere (much to my disappointment). Plenty of ladies and carts, but no bunnies. I love her imagination! It's quite amusing to say the least.

Stay tuned, as I'm sure there will be plenty of funny stories to share with an imagination like hers.

Happy (late) Easter!

We celebrated Easter with family over the weekend. On Saturday we (the three of us and all of my family) had Easter dinner at Jake's parents house. We all had a great time enjoying each other's company. Then on Easter Sunday my mom, I mean the Easter Bunny hid some eggs for Delia to find. She was super excited.

Here are a few pictures from our Easter weekend...taken with my new camera!!! I've been dreaming about getting a digital SLR for quite some time and my dream has finally come true. (thanks jake!!)

Justus and Delia hanging out on the

porch at Grampa and Grammy Talley's

(he really likes her!)

I think she feels the same way about him.

One of my handsome nephews (i have 5 others!)

The only way to hunt for eggs...

basket, purse and doll!

The proper way to hunt for eggs.

10 Weeks To Go!!

I have hit the 30 week mark and am very excited to say that I only have 10 weeks to go. 10 weeks does not sound like a long time at all. So I am happy that we've gotten to this point and I look forward to every Monday when I can say an even smaller number. I just hope we are all ready for this little one to arrive. In some ways I'm scared and in other ways I can't wait. I'll probably post more about this later.

In other fun news....
A good friend of mine just moved to the Sacramento area from San Luis Obispo. She has an adorable little girl who is 18 months old and she is also a photographer!! Jake and I have only had pictures taken "professionally" a total of three times since we've been married. The first time was our wedding, the second time was a few months ago for Christmas and the third was just this past Friday when Kelli came over to our house. It was a lot of fun and I'm really glad to have these pictures of my pregnant belly and our little family of three soon to be four. I sadly didn't get any professional picture taken when I was pregnant with Delia. I actually hardly have any. I encourage any of you who are pregnant to at least take your own pictures. Oh and of course there are some extremely cute ones of Delia...but I'm a little biased.

Click here to view some of the pictures on her blog:
KelliJanePhotographyBlog
and here is a link to her website:
http://www.kellijanephoto.com/

Thanks Kelli for the beautiful pictures. I can't wait to see the other ones!

Happy 90th Birthday Great-Grandpa Talley

A few weeks ago we went to Jake's parents house in Willows to celebrate Great Grandpa Talley's 90th birthday. It was really great to see them as it had been about two years since we had seen them last. We had four generations present and we all had a lot of fun visiting and talking about the good ol' days. Jake's brother Chris, his wife Trisha and their son Seth were able to come. As well as Jake's other brother Jon. Jake's uncle Don was there and obviously Jake's parents, Lee and Sheryl. And of course Great Grandpa and Grandma Talley. All we were missing was Aunt Marge and Jake's sister Cori and her clan in Michigan. (We missed you guys and look forward to next year!)

Here are some pictures of our time together:

Chris, Seth and Grandpa reading a book

Chris, Jon and Seth

Birthday Dinner

4 Generations

Lee, Chris, Great Grandpa, and Seth 4 Generations

Lee, Jake, Great Grandpa and Delia