First Smiles

"Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing." ~Mother Theresa

Two Months Old!

Here's Daniel's two month shot with his bear. The best part about this month has been his first smiles. He's smiling and cooing so much now. I love it! His eyes are still really blue, so I'm gonna call it a done deal. His hair, however, is starting to really have a reddish cast. I've always wanted a strawberry blonde, but didn't figure I'd have one. We'll see if the red sticks. Daniel's still waking up at least once during the night. Hopefully, sleeping through the night will be the big thing to report with his three-month picture.

Mind Over Matter

Erin loves her weekly tumbling class(!), but has yet to grasp some of the most basic stunts. Don't try to tell her that, though, because in her mind, she's giving Mary Lou a run for her money. Last week, she asked me to take a picture of her doing her "cawtwheels" in the living room. I have to say, looking at this picture, she doesn't look that far off, but in real life, she was doing some strange contortion that no one could possibly recognize as a cartwheel (although it may pass as a "cawtwheel"). Anyway, the funny thing was that when she finished, she would look at the pictures I took, and then give me this confused look. "No," she'd say, "that's not what I did. Get a picture of me doing my cawtwheel!" This went on for some time until I was able to distract with a new game. The reality of the pictures didn't seem to squelch her enthusiasm at all, so maybe someday she will be able to do the stunt I was supposed to be taking a picture of!

I Guess He Can Stay

For our first child the nursery and crib were set up and ready to go months in advance of the blessed arrival...We've slacked off some since then. We did have this graciously donated crib set up (in the corner of Joe's room) before Daniel was born, but I had yet to buy the bedding. Well, I found a cute bumper and crib skirt set on eBay, and decided, yeah, maybe we'll need that. So Daniel now has his own bed, with sheets and everything. I guess he's officially in the family.

By the way, this wasn't a moment too soon. This is how Daniel was sleeping in his cradle.

Happy Birthday, Baboo!

My mom, aka "Baboo", celebrated her sixty-first birthday last month. We had the traditional apple pie. It looked a little prettier than last year's but tasted awful! A word to the wise: Even if your little apple variety chart says that Gala apples are "excellent" for pies, don't do it! Shoulda' used Macintosh.

My Boys

The Nap

A full week of all day Kindergarten, and this is how Ellie spends her Saturday afternoons. She's really doing great with school. No complaints, and she comes home chattering about every little thing that happened. The only way we know she's tired is the raw emotion, usually in the form of tears, when something goes wrong. Little things, like dropping a cracker on the floor, have caused moaning and wailing enough to make me think she'd broken her arm! And the thing is, in my sleep-deprived state, I totally understand.

Sing, Sweet Nightingale

Some things are just so much more fun when you're a kid! I guess at this age, it's easier to imagine that you really are Cinderella.

Vintage

Sometimes "vintage" is a good word... Our computer crashed last month (first time ever!), and we had to take it to an Apple store where I had an appointment with one of their "geniuses" to see if he could get us back up and going. As soon as he saw our computer he told us that it was "vintage", and I thought, "cool". Then I learned that "vintage" is just a nice way of saying "if your hard drive is gone, we can't replace it". Thankfully, our genius came through for us and was able to repair our hard drive without losing any of our stuff (most of which wasn't backed up). He told me I should thank my lucky stars...I don't believe in lucky stars...It was the hand of God. He also told me to run, not walk, and buy an external hard drive, so that when this seven-year-old dinosaur crashes for good, all our "stuff" will be safe and sound.

My technological education comes in spurts, probably because I have no interest in "pushing the envelope". If it does what I want it to do, great. If it's not broke, I ain't fixin' it. Then it does break, and I have to get a bunch of new stuff in my head, just to make things work again. Fortunately, I found a very knowledgeable and helpful guy at Best Buy (Can you believe it?!) and he got me all set up with my new external hard drive. I just feel so up-to-the-minute. Please don't burst my bubble.