{ the day juwels skydived from the stork }

  I can just see her now: holding her cloth diaper overhead like a parachute, naked as a jay bird, and pushing off the wing of the stork. "YeeeEEEeeeeeeeeEEeee !!!"

  The cartoon stork probably swallowed his adam's apple when she kicked free. "MayDay ... MayDay .. come in control ... we've got a jumper just over the forest in Massachusetts !!" 

  "This is control. What's the name on that baby?"

  "Julia."

  "Oh ... that one... Yeah, she'll be fine. Come on back."

  It's my babies birthday today, June 16th. I was already three years into this world on the west coast on this very special day when my little firecracker-of-a-wife exploded into existence on the east coast. What a blessing to us all !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  So far, all she's gotten for her birthday is 28 spankings (from you know who) but later today we're headed off to her favorite raw food restaurant in Santa Monica and then farther north to the springs. We're about dry on fresh H2o right now, so we'll hike the water fall to the cold spring, do some bottling and then spend the rest of the day melting into hot pools by candle light - you guessed it, beeswax - : )

 We'll bring the camera along and see if we can't just snap a few pics of the day and add them in later, but for now, here's some pictures of my beautiful baybee when she was just knee high to a grasshopper : )

The Gerber Baby ain't got nothing on my little Buddha Baby : ) 

... and people say Juwels was a TomBoy ...she LOVED playing with her dolls ... in the mud ... and then .. running them over with her Tonka truck ; )

Juwels calls this one her "Mad Artist" photo. I died laughing the first time I saw it. "What were you so worked up about?" I asked. She said that it was something like "Don't take the picture! I'm not DONE yet !!!" ha ha ha .. some things never change. From the look of those brush strokes, she had a lot to say ...

... but she's intense on both sides of the coin, like the warm an fluffy side : ) 

One of her childhood regrets: she never got a horse. I'll get her that horse some day : ) 

 
...but she did run some serious horse power ... here she is at 5 years old driving a 400 pound meat slicer around their 3 acre lawn. This wasn't just a " Daddy, I wanna try" occasion, she was the grounds keeper and mowed the property weekly. Ha! No wonder she didn't shy away from the tile saw or steel grinder when we were building our ark.

  love love LOVE LOVE you baybee : ) Happy birthday !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!