Did my girl have a lobotomy?

'cause I swear she's a completely different girl since we moved.

Maybe this needs some background information. You see, Girly-Lou is a wimp. That's not the nicest thing to say about your stinkin cute daughter, but it's also the truth. The first thing she was ever terrified of- bubbles. Now, granted, she was only 10 months old, but still, what kid is scared of blowing bubbles. She has a very hard time with perseverance, and in all honestly, most days would make a perfect queen. To be able to sit there and have every whim granted by servants so she never had to lift a finger - yah, she's all over that.

Other things she has been scared/terrified of:
the vacuum
sand
dogs
birds
cats
skunks (not that she's ever actually seen a real one)
failure
new shoes
anyone with a beard
any stranger
any family member she hasn't seen in more than 2 days
anything that can move on its own, especially if it has 4 or more legs, including on occasion, crawling babies.

You can see some of these are normal things. But others (new shoes anyone?), not so much.

Which would be why I was totally shocked when this happened:

That would be my scared-of-babies daughter holding a hermit crab. She was in heaven. No fear whatsoever. Let him crawl all over her and just sat there with that satisfied smile on her face. Buddy was fascinated, but was not going to touch that thing with a 10 foot pole.

And then last night, when I thought they were asleep, she comes downstairs holding something between two fingers. "Mom, this was in my hair." Me, thinking it was a rock or a leaf or something said, "what is it". "Um, I don't know", as she shoves it in my face. It was totally a bug. Some flattish brown kind the size of my fingernail that I've never seen before. And the legs were still moving. No fear at all, just calmly showing me this bug that was sleeping with her.

Maybe I can grow a spider smasher yet.

Imagination: a play

Scene: two kiddos, playing in the bathroom, after examining their sucker coloured tongues in the mirror.

Boy, pointing with his blue sucker: Wha! Wha! Wha! Mommy, it hurt me!

Girl, pointing back with her red one: Baby! hang on, you can make it!

Boy: Momma! Buddy hurt me. He bite me.

Girl: It will be ok. Mommy is here.

Boy: Ahh! My head fell off!

Girl: Then die! Just go die now. Go put the stick in the garbage, and that's how you die.

Boy: Oh, Ok. ahh! I die now. I go die.

Yes, my kids have discovered imaginative play. I don't ever remember making my suckers into Mommy and Baby characters. And I really don't know if at 4 I would have thought that if my baby sucker was now headless, it must be dead. At least Buddy is willing to go along with it.

Day 10

Whew. Finally caught up. I love that I actually sort of have a clue how to make my pictures cool now. Photoshop is so much more annoying to use than my usual program, but it also has a lot more possibilities.

Girly-Lou actually took this picture. Pretty good, huh!

Day 9

9 was edge burn. I'm not too sure I like it on this photo. I think I still need to play with it a bit.


And yes, this is my cute family. This was a year and a half ago, the day of Girly-Lou's 3rd birthday. So now you have an actual picture of me. (although I really hate my nose in this shot. It doesn't usually look quite that . . .big. Does it?)

# 7 and 8

Lesson 7 was just a review. 8 was adding text. This one made me laugh:

Day 6

This one was doing a vintage "through the viewfinder" look. It was kind of fun to combine some techniques.

Catching up

I'm totally behind in my photo class. So if I can swing it, you might get 5 days of pictures here.

Day 5 was textures

Here's my finished:

And here's the one I like better. The frame totally was weird with this one.

I really hate locks

Can I just say, I really love my house? It’s old, but has been (mostly) updated very nicely. The basement is gorgeous, nice landscaping, decent layout,. . .I really do like it.
I really love the new vinyl windows. They don’t leak, slide easy, and have these tabs so you can’t break into the house.

Of course, being locked out isn’t the best way to figure that part out. It’s also not the best time to find out that your side door has a different key than your front door.

We had such an adventure today. Finally found a park WITH playground equipment (tried two on Tuesday that didn’t!), got lost trying to buy more yarn (did you notice the new afghan picture?), and finally arrived back home, all three of us tired and hungry and cranky.

We don’t park in the garage yet. The previous owners used it as their personal smoking room. So we always go in the front door. The only problem is our beautiful rock solid storm door - complete with lock that my kids love to play with. Unbeknownst to me, Buddy had locked the storm door. And of course there is no key to that door. So I walked around the back of the house, through the garage to the side door. Where I discovered that wonderful other key tidbit. So now here I am, with 16 skeins of yarn in my arms, two hungry tired kids, and no way to get into the house.

So I got to play cat burglar. I did remember the tab thing with the windows. But I also remembered that there was one that stuck closed. I made the kids sit down (I really didn’t want to chase them out of the street at this point), and went hacking through our “jungle of plants”.

I was very lucky. It was surprisingly easy to open that window. Too easy, really. I think I better start locking it. I hoisted in Girly-Lou and Buddy, and got them to unlock the front door. (4 year olds are not the best and understanding which knob to turn to unlock doors. Describing it to her through the door took a very, VERY long time)

So now I think I might take that stupid lock off the stupid storm door. I don’t see an occasion in the next million years that I will actually wish I had it, and that way I know for sure my kids will stop turning it. My other option would be constant time outs, and I just don’t have the energy for that one.

Awe. Just Awe

How does it happen so fast? Everyone talks about it, but there is nothing like experiencing it. Just a few moments ago:

huge yawns in Daddy's arms.
And now:

Ready to cut his own birthday pizza (Come on, I'm not THAT lax of a parent. But he does love to "help" cook, and sitting there holding the cutter was making him happy.)

On Sunday, Buddy turned 3. My baby boy is 3! He also has recently finished another growth spurt, so suddenly this adult proportioned childling is running all over my house. So in honor of my the memories of my no longer baby, I now turn really mushy and doting parentish. (if you'd rather stop reading now, I won't blame you).

Buddy: what a cuddly baby you were. Snuggling with you in the crook of my neck was one of my favorite things ever. While the colic was not much fun, we found a solution to that without too much stress (for anyone still reading, really, it worked wonders!).

I remember telling people at 2 months that we were done with burp clothes. That's because we'd moved on to dish towels. The amount of stuff that came out of you was awe inspiring. And yet, through it all, you were so happy, content to just be alive.

When I found out I was having a boy in July, I planned on just starting you in school a year late. I want my kids to be ready for school instead of pushing them. And then you turned 18 months old and actually started talking. The ideas coming from your mouth made it clear your brain had been very active for a long time. I really don't want to brag about how smart you are, so let's just say that I think you might still be bored even if we start you on time!

My favorite words: upse di down (upside down), Nilk (milk), thnmile, thnow, thmoke, thnack (smile, snow, smoke, snack, s is also a nasal), Bwwwwwue, bawwwwwooon (buzz lips on l), ellemon (11), inside outside (inside out), elem (the letter L). I think your blue is everyone's favorite word. The most amazing part to me is how fast you can say it.

I love your smiles. I love your giggles. I love your ability to crumple your entire body in despair when I tell you you can't have something. Your crazy energy, your beautiful dimple, your tendency to hide all throughout nursery.

Just one thing: stop growing already! My little man, you need to stay a child longer. I'm not ready to give you up yet! Too bad you couldn't stop even if you wanted to. So instead I'll just look back at the hundreds of pictures we've taken, and remember all the wonderful times with my Buddy Boy.

My Boys

We've had an awesome weekend. The 4th was fantastic (even if it did rain all morning and my kids are still asking if we can go to the parade yet), and Buddy's birthday on Sunday was a blast. Loosing 1/2 the pictures from that night . . . not so great. Fortunately Hubby is obsessed with the video camera, so I'm hoping I can swipe some stills off that.

I'm taking this free photo editing class over at Jessica Sprague. This was our first assignment.

I really like the shot and the frame. After much trial and error, I changed the colors of the word art. Not perfect, but better than black!

Oh, and for some strange reason, the missing 1/2 of Buddy's birthday pictures: suddenly appeared on my computer today. Hooray! So many cute shots!

'cause I really, REALLY thought it was funny

Can I just say I love being in a house? There is SOOOOOOOOO much more space. My kiddos are playing more and fighting less. Putting stuff away has been fairly painless since there is so much room to stick stuff. And we have a fenced in yard where they can run like crazy.

I also really, REALLY love being so close to Happy Mom. Speaking of which . . . .

We live so close we go to the same ward for church. Sunday her youngest daughter asked me 3 times if we were coming over for dinner. Finally, Happy Mom asked too (I sure wasn't coming over without her asking!) It was perfect. So delicious. I felt a bit guilty and wished I had a dessert or something to bring to help out. But being only 36 hours after we officially moved in, that sure wasn't going to happen! And Happy Mom had a beautiful homemade french moose pie in the freezer anyway. It was placed on the counter just as we showed up so it could be at perfect temp. for after dinner.

As dinner wound down, Happy Mom went over to put the final touches on the pie: mounds and mounds of Cool Whip. She said it didn't need a whole package, but she wanted to use up the container. It was beautiful. This cloud like confection, peaked to perfection.

Perfect that is until she dropped it on the floor.

Yup. The entire pie. Cool whip flew across the room as if a pie eating contest had commenced. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard. The look of utter disgust on Happy Mom's face just made me laugh harder. I've never seen a pie smashed like that in real life. It was priceless.

And yes - we did still eat it. We scrapped off the top layers of crust, moose, and cool whip in to some semblance of order. A perfect way to end the day.