Camera Shy

Have you ever noticed that the second you try to capture a child doing something on video, they immediately quit doing it?

Here’s a video of Liyah smiling, but the smiles on here are just a shadow of the ones I was getting just minutes before.

I know the following video is basically the same as the first, but I can't resist giving you insight into our daily life. You'll hear Xandra in the background screaming and you'll also see that I ignore her and continue to film the unsmiling baby. Classic, really. Nobody cooperates.

Hi

Theia's using a new word! Last week one morning when I went in to get Theia out of bed, she said, “Hi.” For the first time. What a great treat first thing in the morning!

How BIG is she?

We just took Theia for her 15 month appointment last week. She is measuring in the 90-95% for height and weight. Her actual measurements were:

Height: 32”
Weight: 26 lbs.

Other highlights from the visit included Theia showing off her new found walking skills for the doctor, Xandra’s pee-pee dolly getting checked to make sure she was healthy, and, of course, two shots to the leg.

Fort Smith Arkansas Regional Airport Bathrooms

Quite possibly the nicest bathrooms I’ve ever seen. Definitely beats Ryan & Laura’s palace bathroom (sorry guys!). They even won some award recently for having amazing bathrooms. Did you know people gave out awards for top notch bathrooms? Evdiently they do. I had no idea.

Other interesting facts about our time in this airport:

The flights were so small and so few that the suitcases at baggage claim only made it halfway around the conveyor belt before the belt shut off. It may have lasted a whole 30 seconds start to finish.

The entire airport was outfitted with winged back chairs for seating. There was no other seating in the airport.

The person who checked our bags at the ticketing counter was the same person who later scanned our tickets and let us on the jetway.

All Tuckered Out

Razorback Grandmas

In addition to our fun wedding weekend, we got a very special visit from two grandmas. Grandma DeShon and Terri (Tami’s (my sister-in-law) mom) drove down to Arkansas to visit us and help care for the girls for the weekend.

They helped in so many ways: watching the girls, offering support when Xandra got her finger stuck in the door of the elevator, providing yummy snacks for the whole family, hanging out with Joe & Trisha, carting kids to and from rehearsals and receptions, and facilitating fun adventures to Arby’s and Wal-Mart.

We had a GREAT time seeing them and SOOOOO appreciated all of the help!

Razorbacks

We just returned from Arkansas and I've got Razorbacks on my mind. They kind of remind me of porcupines with their bumpy backs. I think they must somehow be related, although my husband assures me they are not. Maybe a Razorback is what happens when porcupines turn mean.

The reason for our trip to Arkansas and my thoughts on Razorbacks? Our friends, Jeffrey and Keri, got married last weekend in Fayetteville, and we travelled to celebrate the day with them. Joe was a groomsman and Xandra was the flower girl. It was a VERY fun weekend.

Flower girl Xandra did a fantastic job. She walked down the aisle, albeit VERY slowly and VERY crookedly. She was just following orders, as we did instruct her to walk slowly and stay close to the ringbearer. This set of instructions resulted in Xandra walking so close to the Ringbearer that she was touching him. He apparently did not care for this, and spent his time walking into the left set of pews as they advanced down the aisle. Try as we did to correct the crooked walk, we could not. We told her to stay close and walk slow, and that’s what she did. In fact, the music stopped when the two kids were just halfway up the aisle, causing a giant pause in the processional. Very cute, very funny, and pretty much expected. Of all the possible outcomes where you pair two young, very dressed up children who do not know each other, ask them to walk down an aisle at a specific time in a specific way, with hundreds of eyes looking on, all during an hour when they should be napping, I'll take slow, crooked walking.

Pictures after the wedding were a little dicey, as she was a few hours past her nap, having been dressed up for hours, and having just sat through a wedding ceremony that was about 30 minutes longer than her attention span. She did sit through them, but I’m pretty confident there isn’t a smiling picture of her in the lot. I would also question whether there would be a smiling picture of her even if she had been happy because she’s started making this weird face everytime you ask her to smile. She looks more like she’s frowning or squinting her eyes than she is smiling.

Bride Keri & Aliyah

Theia, Erin Morrow, Trisha, Keri, Allison Crane, and Liyah

You'll notice that Xandra is absent from the reception pictures. By the time we got to the reception, she'd had enough wedding for one day. She was too grumpy and too tired to participate in any of the festivities.

Beauty School

Question: What's most likely happening when it suddenly becomes very quiet in your home and your two year old and one year old are missing from the room?

Answer: They are in the hall closet painting eyebrows with nail polish.

Easter 2009

Liyah supervising the egg coloring from her 'Easter Basket'

We just celebrated our first Easter with three girls. We had a great day celebrating with Eric & Karen Howden (new friends from church), Chee Kin & Nina (also new friends from church), and Tim & Jennifer Shuman (old friends from law school). We had a wonderful day celebrating, eating, and we even snuck a game of Carcasonne in with Tim & Jennifer before the night was up.

We were so busy enjoying our guests that we neglected to feed Theia dinner. A small oversight which caused her to be exceedingly grumpy all evening (we just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her!). Just as we were sending her off to bed I realized she had never eaten. We fed her then and can you believe she was happy as a lark afterward?

The girls all got Easter Baskets, which we ended up opening up many days later because Easter day was too crazy. It's good they are too little to know. We’ll have to correct this behavior in subsequent years…or maybe we’ll just make that our tradition. Celebrate with Easter baskets a week after Easter…hmmm…maybe not.

Joe & the girls read an Easter book

Hugs & Kisses

For a long time Theia has been giving hugs. A Theia hug can occur just after nap when you're getting her from the crib or when she notices you as she's headed across the room to get another toy. She lays her head on your lap or shoulder and says, “ahhhh” in a very sweet voice.

Just last week she started doing something else sweet: giving kisses. As I was holding Aliyah on my lap one afternoon, she made her way over for what I thought was a hug (she often gives Liyah hugs while I'm holding her), but this time she made the kissing sound with the click of her tongue and leaned over and gave a kiss instead of a hug. Two separate parts, the sound and then the action. She's been making the kissing sound with her tongue for quite awhile when we kiss her, but the giving of kisses is brand new. Wish we had a video of it to post; it's precious.

And she’s off…

Our 'long' wait is finally over! Theia is officially walking!!! She started taking steps about 3 ½ weeks ago, but on Easter Sunday (April 12) she just popped up in the kitchen while I was cooking dinner and started toddling around the kitchen. It’s so fun to see her walking. It sure does make her seem older!

Mickey Mouse Club

Just thought these pictures were fun.

Playful Theia

This video is classic Theia. She just loves to wrestle arround. Pretty nice handiwork with the puppet, too.

Early Adolesence

I’m pretty sure some days we have a thirteen year old living in our home. I must hear the phrases, “I don’t want to...” or “I don’t like…” twenty-five times a day. Here’s a sampling of a VERY common conversation in our home. You can change the items being discussed, but the outcome will still be the same.

Mommy: “Xandra, do you want the pink bowl or blue bowl?”

Xandra: “Pink bowl.”

Mommy proceeds to make her food in the pink bowl.

Xandra: (sees the food in the pink bowl, and exclaims in frustration) “But I don’t WANT the pink bowl.”

I suppose it is simply our sinful nature to be dissatisfied with the very thing we wanted five minutes or seconds ago. Is this God's way of preparing us for puberty 11 years early?

Some of Xandra’s other favorite words that sometimes cause trouble in our home are, “Why?”, “Sister stop touching me”, “Sister stop yelling (in her best yelling voice), “Sister, no bite me”, and “No, sister, no.”