The Swarrell Life

Today my Dad and Sue came over for the afternoon. It had been over a month since they had seen their granddaughter, so it was a good thing for everyone. Trinity seems to be going through an "I want mommy" phase, so exposure to more people is a good thing in my book. It was a gorgeous Sunday, so we went for a walk and had a great time! Here's Trinity and Opa exploring winter grass. Not as soft as summer grass. Not as green either. Oma and Trinity. Trinity's favorite accessory is a cellular phone. Trouble? You betcha! After my folks had left, we took Trinity to the park to swing and go down the slide. It was a bright day, so we took her a baseball cap. Yeah, she left it on for about 2 minutes. But it was a darn cute 2 minutes! Swing? Yeah, not so much. Slide? Now we're talking! She had a great time talking to the other kids and sliding down the big blue slide. No, no action shots, I was too busy catching the kid with both hands. She loved it! After that we went and ...

Last Wednesday my mom and Harry came down for a few days. It had been a couple of months since they had visited, so it was good to see them and for Trinity to have some good Grandma and Grandpa time. My mom loves taking care of Trinity and she's really good at it. Some people are wired for babies and my mom is one of them. The truth is that I am using this second baby as leverage to get her to move down to Baker. Selfish? Yes. Nobody does bath time like Grandma! Okay, I know that we saw Trinity in the glasses before, but this shows the context a little bit better. Everyone was cracking up, even Trinity. It was a really precious moment. My mom seems to spend a lot of time thinking about things that Trinity needs. I know she spends more time on that topic than I do. Here is her newest: a wagon! She absolutely loves it. She just sits there and looks around. She doesn't even try to get out or move around too much. That in and of itself is a miracle! She has now been on several walk...

So the other night Autumn went and played Bunco with a bunch of other gals. They go to one person’s house and have a light dinner and have a grand night of cards. I’ll confess that I don’t even know what Bunco is. I know it means I have Trinity for the evening and that’s about it. This is the second time that the group has gathered, and it seems it will continue. The first time, while the wives were away playing, a few of us dads got together for a little daddy daycare. The kids have a great time too, so we decided that it would be a good idea to do it again. So that’s what we did. I picked up my friend Kal and his daughter Ava, who is 2 months younger than Trinity. It is great having neighbors who have a child the same age as ours. I keep telling them that our second child is going to need a playmate too, but so far I haven’t got a response. We went over to another friend’s house, who has two little girls who are three and five. Eleanor and Sidney are pretty adorable, and it was gene...

So, Trinity's grandparents came to town for a couple of days...It's good to have them here to visit with Trinity. My mom has been going through withdrawal, so they loaded up the Subaru and made the long trek to Baker City. Trinity thinks it's great because she gets to wear grandpa's reading glasses. She thought it was the funniest thing in the world, she even left them on for a minute or two! Me, I think this qualifies as the random cuteness of the day: I stumbled across the next picture when I was pulling pictures off the camera. Both of these pictures were taken when the memory card was not in the camera, so they were both in the internal memory of the camera. This one brought back some memories that are hard to think about sometime. This was taken in the hospital, after Trinity has been taken off of the ventilator, but before she could see. On one hand it is a nice contrast because she sure has come a long way since the day this picture was taken. We weren't sure...

So, here's a blurry picture of a fuzzy image of our new addition. We refer to this little bugger as Kumquat. If you don't know what that is, go here . Meanwhile, enjoy this: Also, for all you Trinity junkies out there, here she is in her Valentine's Day outfit that her grandma gave her: She does enjoy her books!

So we have a busy daughter...did anyone really expect anything else? Ha! Trinity has this toy lion that has wheels so she can push it around like a shopping cart. In a little while, we'll drop the handle, which becomes a seat, so she can ride it like a buckin' bronco. You go girl! The other day she was crawling around, when she grabbed her music table, stood up and started to push it around like her lion. Who needs wheels? This next video was shot after she was doing something really cute. If I had a penny for every time I could say that, I'd have quite a few pennies. I wouldn't be rich or anything, but my pocket would have quite the jingle going on. BEFORE this, she had her plastic keys in one had, a ball or something in the other hand and she was crawling after this other ball to pick it up with her mouth. Needless to say, she was having a hard time picking it up, so she really ended up chasing the ball all over the living and dining room. You can't say she's ...