1: Breakfast on Snail Mountain with friends.

2: Annalie and I made cinnamon-swirl bread the other day. We had some for a snack this morning.

3: I walked past Annalie’s room and saw her curled up on the chair, looking at a book. I love the look on her face, like she’s just read something particularly interesting.

4: She was in the middle of putting her sandals on when I asked her to go stand on the beach so I could take a picture. She didn’t bother to put the other one on.

5: Stained glass? Or melted gummi bears? My mom sent Annalie a little care package which included a bag of Target-brand gummi bears (With Real Fruit Juice!). Apparently, they couldn’t take the summer heat.

6: My coffee and Annalie’s juice in the train dining car this morning. (Resusable coffee-cup sleeve from Anna’s Etsy shop, Life is Good…At the Beach)

I’m taking photos life’s small moments this month for my photoset 30 tiny moments hath September and for the 30 tiny moments group on Flickr.

Anna, your bowl is waiting in my Etsy shop for you! I would like to assure you that despite the way it looks in the pictures, it’s actually more of an orangey-coral color on the outside. It’s definitely not pink.

Also, the black paint that accidentally got swiped onto the edge? It’s about 99% gone. There is a teeny bit left, just enough so you can look at it and know that Brenda felt compelled to leave her mark on your bowl.

When I went to pick up Anna’s bowl and the other things we painted last weekend, I painted another plate! The Over-Thinker liked Rhi’s plate so much, she requested I paint her a similar one in fall colors. Troy had some errands to run this afternoon on base, so he took Annalie with him. It was my first time painting by myself since we moved here, so I got an iced latte from Starbucks and settled in for a relaxing afternoon.

The only sort-of bad thing about it was that I didn’t have all the colors I wanted. So far I am fairly pleased with Paint & Fire, which is saying something because I really loved Paint ‘N Pottery in Maryland. The major complaint I have so far is that there are only about one-third as many colors of paint here. When I was thinking about what autumn colors to use on this plate, I was picturing about 20 different shades at Paint ‘N Pottery. I know where they would be located on the shelves, I even know some of their names. But at Paint & Fire, my choices were much more limited. So I, uh, mixed up some custom paints. I really really hope they turn out okay!

When I got home from the studio Troy was getting dressed for a Navy function. There was a dining-out, which meant he had to wear one of his formal dinner dress uniforms. That doesn’t happen very often, so of course he had to spend the last couple of days tracking down all the pieces of the uniform (cummerbund, mini-medals, the right shoes, etc.) which were scattered between two closets with the shoes being in a random box. Once he was all put together, he looked quite dashing. But before I could tell him so, Annalie spoke up.

“Daddy!” she said. “You look just like a ship’s first mate!”

After Troy had left, Annalie asked if we could go up to Snail Mountain. I said sure, why not? When we got there, for some reason Annalie made a beeline for the side of the stadium that we never walk on and asked what was back there. I said, “I don’t know. Let’s go find out!”

We found a trail that led around to a bunch of big rocks. It was like a beginning climber’s dream, because the rocks were mostly flat and piled on top of one another in such a way that it was easy to step from rock to rock. I would tell you that I was extremely careful and helped Annalie each step of the way, but I can’t tell you that because I could barely keep up with her! She did have to stop at one point and wait for me to lift her onto the next rock because it was too high for her to climb up. Once we reached the rocks at the top, we were only a few feet away from the low stone wall at the top that encircles the area around the cross.

I wish we could have stayed and climbed around some more, but we had to get home so Annalie could go to bed. She had a full day with no nap, and tomorrow we’re getting up early for a train-riding adventure! When did our lives get so busy?

Good thing we like it this way. Busy days make happy people around here. As long as we get an occasional day to sit around and watch TV and make cookies and read in our pajamas, we’re good.

Those of you who have kids, or who have spent a lot of time around kids, know that they tend to be messy eaters. It’s true there are kids who are naturally fastidious, but I think they’re pretty rare. Most kids don’t mind a bit if they walk around all day with peanut butter smeared on their face or jelly in their hair.

Brenda and I walked with our girls after dinner to a new self-serve frozen-yogurt shop. You can pick your flavor of soft-serve yogurt (I got oatmeal cookie, which was delicious) and then there is a little toppings bar where you choose what you want and add it to your bowl. You pay by the ounce, which is brilliant.

Annalie got a little strawberry-kiwi, a little chocolate, and a little vanilla frozen yogurt. Then she added chocolate chips, mini M&M’s, rainbow sprinkles, Sno-Caps, gummi bears, peanuts, and chocolate syrup. I’m probably forgetting something. I’ll admit that my concoction was only a little less weird. Brenda and Bug loaded up with similar sundaes and we headed outside to a nearby bench to eat them.

Annalie isn’t the neatest eater in the world, but she does a pretty good job of keeping her clothes clean most of the time. Bug, however…well, she’s only two and a half, and she does not mind being a bit messy. Brenda, knowing she isn’t careful when she eats, put a bib on her tonight before she started eating her frozen yogurt.

We all sat on the bench eating our treats, Brenda and I chatting away about how funny it is that some kids are just naturally neat and some are just plain slobs when it comes to eating. There was a youngish (late teens/early 20s) couple sitting at the outside counter across the sidewalk from us eating their yogurt, and they kept shooting glances at Bug. Occasionally one of them would say something to the other like, “Wow, kids are messy,” or “That kid needs help.” We were keeping an eye on both kids and although Bug had chocolate all over her face, we didn’t notice anything seriously amiss. We assumed they were just like we were once—before we had kids—and were adding to their mental lists of Things My Kids Will Never Do. You know, that list that gets shredded pretty much the second you are alone with your newborn infant?

It wasn’t till we got up to throw containers away and wipe the stickiness off hands and faces that we realized that as Bug had been eating, drops of melted chocoalte yogurt were sliding down her oilcloth bib, pooling at the bottom edge, and then dripping off into her lap. When she got up she had a big chocolate spot on the front of her dress, and another on the back of her dress where it had soaked through as we were sitting there. Not to mention the chocolate all over her face. Oh well. It was going to be bathtime as soon as we got home anyway.