testing, testing, is this thing on?

I finally took the time to figure out why my editing toolbar doesn't have a video icon. So this is my practice attempt at uploading video. This clip is almost 2 years old, but it was the first short one that came to mind.


Uh, if this works, it took almost half an hour to upload 30 seconds of video. So, I won't be posting the 6 minutes that I took of Whitney and Stuart singing primary songs. :(

Happy #2 Stuart!

I can't believe a year has passed already since the last time I did this for my sweet little guy. We had a few friends and family over on Memorial Day to help us celebrate Stuey's birthday. Good weather, good company, good food! It doesn't get any better than this.

(Such a dorky ice cream face. I love it!)

He sang Happy Birthday to himself for about 45 minutes in bed before he fell asleep.

sigh.... :)

getting ready for bed

Stuart is getting to that super duper fun stage when it takes him an hour to fall asleep at nap time and then he sleeps for 3 hours, wakes up horrifyingly whiny and clingy, and doesn't want to go to bed till 9:00pm. No part of that works for me. So, we've been forgoing nap time all together. Sometimes he makes it till bedtime, sometimes he doesn't:

He looks like a homicide victim.

"mmmmm..."

That is the face of a girl LOVING her ice cream cone.

You'd think after 3 1/2 years, I'd remember to give dessert before bath time. 

easter

We had the most beautiful Easter day I think I've ever seen. It was 80 degrees, sunny with a light breeze, and Lubbock smelled like blossoms and grass instead of dust.

Here are the sleepy-haired, sleepy-faced babies discovering that the Easter bunny had come in the night. 

Here is my pouty-faced princess in her "polka dot princess dress." Ironically, she has 2 dresses that could legitimately be called princess dresses; I would not consider this one of them. But she feels like a princess in it and you can't argue with that. 

I just love this one...

And here is Rocket Man. His legs would shrivel up and wither away if this were really rocket powered. It is his primary mode of ambulation--which fortunately requires some movement of his legs.

my babies

Yes, OK? I cried. It was one of my proudest mom moments yet. My baby drew her first person-- unsolicited and unprompted by anyone--complete with arms, legs, eyes and a mouth. I couldn't get to the camera fast enough. She'd already scribbled across it. 

Life is her canvas. Seriously, you can't set bounds on creativity like this. Silly bounds, ya know, like oh, ah, wear clothes, and only paint on paper.

I love spring and I LOVE these smiling babies in their doggy backpacks running and laughing in the sunshine together.

the newest member

At way too long last, here's the newest member of the family. For all your auto shipping needs, under no circumstances do business with Nationwide Auto Shipping.
We ordered her through a friend of a friend with a dealer's license. It took 6 weeks of sifting through vehicles and making bids to finally win one, and then it took another 3 weeks to threaten our shipping company into delivering it. The description said it was beige but, in fact, it is as silver as the day is long. We love it. The kids love it. We're finally members of the family car club. It feels good.

dog days of winter

Our 4th not-so-miraculous-anymore snow storm settled over Lubbock this morning, covering everything in 2 inches of white, slushy yuck.  So, we prepared to hunker down for the day.  By 8 a.m. Stuey was requesting his 3rd dvd and I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the day without putting a boot through the TV screen.  But thanks to the inspired example of a good friend, I decided to give the morning a theme to mix things up a bit. We dubbed today "the dog day of winter."
Behold...

We colored dog pictures with markers--a special treat at our house (even the washables manage to stain things.) (And speaking of inspired--by a true stroke of genius I thought to purchase a couple 200 ft. rolls of Christmas wrapping paper when it was on sale for $1 at Walmart. We use it ALL the time. Next year I'm buying 4 rolls.)

We ate our snacks and drank our water from dog bowls. We also read every story book in the house that included a dog character and then practiced panting and barking and wagging our tails.

Here is Stuey's tail. I did take a picture of Whitney's tail but won't be including it here. By the time I got around to taking pictures of the tails Whitney had pulled out her braids and taken all her clothes off. I feel like including a picture of that would be admitting defeat. But her hair WAS braided and she WAS wearing clothes for a couple hours today, and Goonies never say die.