Five months old and luvin it.....

Colleen and I have been pretty busy lately so the postings have been a bit sparse. That does not mean that our little girl has stopped doing adorable and amazing things .... it just means that her old man has been a bit tired.

Sequoia continues to bring an interesting twist and interpretation to all of our activities and we have a hard time not simply sitting there watching her. We joke that she is probably going to attend Clown College on a full scholarship.

Her ability to find amazement in every new little discovery has been an eye opening lesson for me. I just about die laughing every time she gets into one of her laughing modes - lately peek-a-boo with Colleen has been the funniest thing going.

Sequoia will let out a series of belly laughs every time mommy magically reappears from behind her hands. She also loves when I play my guitar with her or get my bongo drum out - but especially the guitar. She squeals with excitement and wants to touch it and sing along. I have not once been let down by my number one (possibly only) fan. Her favorite chord appears to be a basic G.

Speaking of her singing, which she hopefully has inherited from Colleen, Sequoia has been reveling in exploring her voice. To the untrained ear it often sounds as if she is having a fit(which makes me think she may have gotten my voice), but she is just working her way through some very animated and often loud conversations with whatever turtle or bear happens to be in her grasp at the time.

We are both hoping that she learns to walk prior to her eating her own feet off. I guess it is a combination of factors ranging from teething to the old "because I can" but for whatever reason, Sequoia loves to gnaw on her feet - sometimes managing to get both in her mouth at once. That is a trait that I think she got from me, although being flexible has nothing to do with how my foot usually ends up in my mouth....

Anyway, just in case she is successful in her quest to chew her feet to two little nubs, I thought we should document how cute her feet are now ...

Sort of darling aren't they?

The farmer's daughter...?

Some days just sort of have a habit of defining a moment in a way that you could not orchestrate any better even if you had the time to try.
Today was one of those days that just reminded us of how fun it can be living away from the hustle and bustle of the modern world...

The farm theme started early today as colleen and Sequoia came out to the wood-shop to show me their most recent invention - the Mr Green Jeans Baby Carrier.

Now don't laugh - this system really works equally well around the house as it does down at the barn.

After lunch we headed down the road to the Gloucester County Fair. Sequoia had seen that there would be a free petting zoo and convinced Colleen that we should spend some family time together with farm animals.

For those of you that do not know it - Colleen has a dream of owning a petting zoo one day. I am not kidding. The mere fact that we do not already own half a dozen llamas and goats is a testament to the fact that I have at least a little influence on the decisions we make as a couple.

I'm not delusional, however, and readily admit to myself that once Sequoia can say "Daddy can I have a pony?" I'm pretty well done for. So I am always keeping my eye out for that old abandoned farm to fix up.

As you can see my girls are like a cross between pied piper and Dr Doolittle ... maybe even throw Noah in there as I am pretty certain they will want two of everything. At least with the Noah analogy I might also get a boat out of the deal.

After spending a few hours petting the animals (I am exaggerating) Sequoia began to realize that we would need some muscle to manage all of the feed and chores if she was going to take all of these animals home. Taking a look at me she realized that between her being 4 months old and her dad being 40 years old, we had better start looking at some mechanical muscle if we had any hope of pulling this off without making Colleen do all of the work.

So our next stop was the John Deere stand. As you know, Colleen and I are trying to raise Sequoia to be as green as possible, so why not a Deere?

Sequoia certainly approved of the choice. She was laughing and smiling and holding on to the wheel with a death grip.

I actually had to pry her little fingers off of it when it was time to climb down.

Maybe one day we'll have a reason to own one of these...if only to see that smile again.

To round out the day we even drove around the tri-county area shopping for an old farm house to buy. We did not find that magical abandoned farm house with our name on it, but who knows - maybe we drove by our future home today and did not even know it. That is part of the fun of this part of the adventure.

We did end up down by the Rappahannock River in Urbanna at the end of our day and enjoyed the cool breeze blowing off of the water. That is a great way to round out any day.

The Joy of Cooking....

Have I mentioned what a happy little girl our Sequoia is? Well it is worth repeating since we feel pretty lucky to share our days with such a joyous soul.

Tonight the excitement revolved around the discovery of sweet potatoes. Oh what a wonderful thing that orange mush is. Mommy is the best orange mush maker in the world...

Eventually Colleen and I will figure out how to get more of it in to her mouth, but oh the excitement of just trying to get it near the mouth.

She obviously loved the new flavor and was all chuckles, smiles and giggles about the process. Of course she does not realize that all the belly laughs, arm flinging and excited wiggles make our job harder and increases the likelihood of an after dinner bath.

Tonight it was definitely a bath night....

Oh, but it was worth it.

It's all her fault, really....

This weekend we were visited by the person directly responsible for all of this ... or at least Colleen and I like to blame her for it.

It was seven years ago - July 4th 2001 that I was out in Oregon visiting Keni when she introduced me to her coworker Colleen. She took us on a hike at Cape Perpetua and nothing was ever the same again after that.

Well Keni happened to be in DC for a conference and drove down to spend the weekend with us so that she could meet Sequoia.

It was a lot of fun seeing her again - especially since this will be the first year in a very long time that Colleen and I will not get out to the West coast to visit our friends out there.
We miss all of you guys and will get out there soon to introduce our little girl to her namesakes.

Olympic Messy Painting Day....

Friday was the Peninsula Mommies Olympic Messy Painting Day. Grand vistas of craft paper were rolled out in the grass as hoards of aspiring young artists demonstrated their different techniques. There was a strong showing from the Post Modernism school as well as the occasional tip of the hat to Picasso and various Warhol moments.

We decided that Sequoia was far more inclined to look at the assortment of paints and application devices as a buffet, so we enrolled her as a roving art critic for the event.
As with most things, she was really good at that.

She spent most of the day hanging out with her little clique of March babies and Baby class babies. Here she is lounging with Elayne who is a few days older than Sequoia, but they treat each other as equals. This was actually one of the first times that Sequoia became fascinated with OKT ....other kids toys.

An AARP card carrying member of the clique is Brooklyn. She was in our Baby Class and is two months older than Sequoia and already sporting two new teeth (on the bottom). She thinks she is pretty special ... and she is.

Being a mom is pretty competitive stuff and the mommies in the group are always trying to trick out their kids. Here our friend Kristi is coming home from the market with a bag of new baby parts to jazz up her little March baby, Elizabeth.

As a bit of a footnote, I have recently been accused of only posting pictures of Sequoia that tend to make you believe she does not know what a crying baby looks like. As you can see in this picture of Sequoia and Nikki, Sequoia is closely acquainted with babies who cry. See - her world is not all smiles and butterfly's....

Front porch kind of day....

Today was a bit of a lazy Sunday ... mostly because Sequoia kept me up until around 3:30 this morning with one of her very rare bad nights. She was in a little discomfort that simply had to work its way through her system so we kept each other company until we both fell asleep on the couch. Of course the dogs decided they needed to go out at 5:30 and then Sequoia was ready for breakfast at 7:30 ... so there was not a lot of sleeping done last night.

Today we were all tired from the previous night's schedule so most grand plans for the day dissolved into quiet walks in the woods and relaxing in the shade of the front porch. She appears to have inherited my classic lean to the right while relaxing in a chair.

It gave me a chance to catch up with my parents as Sequoia and I placed a call to grandmom and granddad Newberg. Sequoia was relaxing in her Bumbo seat and really enjoying the morning including watching a little skink that was going about its morning rounds in the flower bed in front of her.

It was fun hanging out with Sequoia and Colleen this morning. The pace of life is very different with a kid around - not necessarily better or worse by definition. I guess it is more what you make of it than anything else. It is exhausting and demanding. Challenging and frustrating. It forces you to redefine who you are and what you do and when you do it.

But each of those challenges are part of what makes the experience so rewarding. I don't know how we will make out in the long run, but so far the experience has been exhilerating. It forces you to constantly raise the bar. It also allows you to rediscover parts of the world and parts of yourselves that time and experience have overshadowed. While we are busy helping Sequoia prepare for her future, she is reminding us how to enjoy the moment.

With all of that responsibility on her shoulders it is not surprising that she likes to relax in her robe and fuzzy slippers after a soothing bath at the end of a long day.

A taste of the Tarheel state....

Sequoia and Colleen went down to the Tarheel State to visit with Sequoia's grandparents, aunts, uncle and cousins for a week.

Sequoia has always enjoyed her travels and apparently her visit to the Estuarium in Washington, NC was no different.

She had the opportunity to try out her new boat - the SS Rubber Ducky - in the pool at the plantation. OK, the plantation is really just a very nice community where her grandparents live, but it does come complete with a wonderful pool and docks and parks etc...

Sequoia's joy at owning her own boat is quite obviously something she got from her daddy. Evidently it also makes a great lounging toy on the deck.

Sequoia also got to meet her Aunt Julie and Uncle Mike (Colleen's brother) for the first time. From what I hear, Sequoia was quite fond of her aunt Julie ... not to leave uncle Mike out - she liked him ok as well.

The theme of the week was definitely the Doyle-Murphy girls. It is neat that they are able to get together as often as they do since they are spread across three states and three time zones. This is largely made possible by Kathleen's willingness to take the time and effort required to fly east from Colorado to spend time with her family. That's pretty groovy in my book.




Sequoia's cousins have been enjoying trips down to Pop-pop's and Mamasita's house for years and a highlight has always been crabbing from the pier.

Sequoia had a lot of fun with an almost endless stream of entertainment and enrichment coming at her full speed all day long (including her first sighting of bubbles) ... her mommy was pretty well worn out since the normal rhythm of life was all but destroyed. Sequoia adapted slightly better to the new schedule, but I can attest to how tired both of my girls were when they finally got home.

It's always nice to get some good family portraits before loading up in the car to head home.

So with kisses from Mamasita it was time to say goodby until the next visit.