Yet another reason Seattle rocks

Nothing too exciting happening around here lately, just normal life stuff. I turned in my lease car on Saturday *sniff sniff* so now we are back down to two. (Yes, DH is driving the new car and I'm driving his old car. But it's one of my favorite things so I don't really mind.) I have been struggling to get a second opinion on some tooth pain, and I'm gearing up to leave a bad review for our current dentist on every single rating site I can find online. DH is in the process of shopping around for some insurance, and as I am the lucky one who is home during the day, I had a lovely chat with three different, but equally enthusiastic, insurance salesmen. I experienced a minor heart attack when a bird flew into my front window and knocked itself unconscious. (Fortunately it eventually recovered and flew away.) When I was at the grocery store picking up a few things, the clerk gave me an obvious once over and then asked if I had any food stamps to use. I introduced a new breakfast to Bean -- waffles -- which he proceeded to eat, one bite approximately every 4 minutes. It took 7 hours for him to finish. (Okay, not really. But we are still easing into this real food thing.)

Wow, that all sounded really negative! But actually the past few days haven't been bad. My mom found cute decorations and supplies for Bean's first birthday party. And I have our first confirmed guests, Bean's former babysitter and her daughter and nephew. I discovered chocolate eclair flavored coffee creamer, which is so good it doesn't even matter that I use the store brand decaf instant coffee with it. And today we met DH for lunch and then Bean and I hit the mall. I finished a gift I was compiling for a preggo friend of ours. High five!

Speaking of good things, by now you've probably picked up on the fact that I absolutely love Seattle. It's super duper awesome. And I'm not the only one who thinks so! It seems that every time I read an article about the "best cities for this" and the "top cities for that," Seattle is somewhere on the list. Healthiest residents. Best recreation. Most literate. Breastfeeding friendly. Most caffeinated. Dog friendly. Most wired. Most desirable. Sure, it is also one of the cloudiest and most liberal cities, but hey, no place is perfect. (I kid. Some of my best friends are liberals!) Anyway, what I am most grateful for this week is the King County Library System. Fah-bu-lous. I was able to request my book online, receive an email that it arrived at my local branch, go over to the hold shelf to retrieve it myself, and use the self-checkout. So I didn't have to actually face another human being during the entire process of obtaining a book called A Hunger Like No Other. It's like using Amazon.com, but it's free! Back at our St. Louis library branch, I would have to ask a librarian to get the book for me from the hold shelf, which was behind their desk. Although I give them credit, they never batted an eye when I checked out books like So You Think You Have Multiple Personalities for school research. (Yes, it totally was for school research! Come on now.)

And the pics...

Bean cruises the furniture while Evey enjoys a well-earned snooze.


He loves to practice standing on his own, he's up to 3 seconds now.

Playing outside with Daddy and Evey.

He plays "smacka smacka" with the leaves. (It's easier if you take one glove off first.)


The leaves inside are fun, too!

Life is tough when you are cutting your top two teeth.

The pooch patiently waits her turn.