The Archives

Well, as you can see from the last post, I (Andy) am in L.A. right now, and really missing my family. So since I have the laptop, I am going through some photos and thought I would post a couple from the archives. I don't think these have ever been on the blog, but either way they are really cute. We are so blessed to have these wonderful kids - and they are really blessed to have such an amazing mom. I am blessed by both! Miss you guys!

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Tomorrow, we are heading out of town. Andy, to the fabulous...

Los Angeles! And...

Las Vegas! Cary and the kids are heading to (drumroll, please)....

Conway, Arkansas!

Andy is going to a work convention in Las Vegas, then to LA to visit our friends Mark and Kara. I didn't feel physically or emotionally prepared to fly alone with our children to join them in LA, so I'm going to stay with my family for a week. Obviously, Conway's a bit less sexy than Andy's trip, but I'm really excited. Our trips to Arkansas over the weekend are never long enough. I'm going to stuff myself full of my mom's amazing cooking, Maggie's cookies, Stobys, and enjoy being home. I will try to take lots of pictures, but Andy's the one who is good at that, so we'll see what I end up with:)

I feel like I'm creeping out of the fog that I have been in for a while. Spending all of my time since the summer of 2007 being pregnant, breastfeeding, not sleeping through the night, having newborns, having a toddler will put you in quite the fog. It's a funny thing, because I know that for the rest of my life, I will look back at these last few years and LONG for them back...when Winnie would let me rock her to sleep, when I got these unbelievable kisses from Rush, when Winnie wanted to hold my hand, when Winnie would jabber and count and run around in circles, and when Rush would look at her and smile so big, when Andy and I would laugh hysterically at the hilarious things are babies do. But right now, it tough. But good tough. I'm so happy and think I have the best babies in the universe and really don't take for granted any time that I have with them. I'm not one to wish time away...I want it to stand still!

Anyways, I'm going to try and move this into a more "family" blog in terms of our whole family. I never post anything about me or Andy. I'm going to start. If you are only here for cute pictures of my kids, you can just scroll past all of the other stuff! I was just telling one of my friends that I like to always have a baby with me, because I can hide behind them...no one notices my bed head, no makeup, or lack of interesting things to say if I have a cute kid in tow! So my new blog direction is me, stepping out from behind my kids. We are all four (sorry, Puddy, FIVE) pretty cool.

You Never Know...

This, right now, is my most treasured possession (sidenote: I got out at the district spelling bee when I was in the 3rd grade because I misspelled the word "possession." It hurt really bad...I spelled it "pocession") Back to the original topic. This piece of art is my most treasured possession. Like this is what I would save from our burning house after the kids and Puddy were out. Winnie does an AMAZING and THOUGHTFUL job coloring. I taped this paper onto our glass coffee table and she worked on the color part for a couple of days. On the 3rd day, I taped it on our balcony door and gave her these animal stickers. I love how she grouped the animals together with their "friends" as she called them. You might need to click on the photo to enlarge it for the full effect of the stacking and placement:) She definitely had a plan. But, you never know. She could be an amazing artist someday, and I'll be able to pull this out and look at how far she's come. Or, her talents may not progress much past this piece, and I will still love to look at it. I think I'm going to frame it. Winnie is getting really good at identifying colors (and counting objects to 16, but I don't want to brag) and I love watching her pick out the crayon, call it by name, and choose where she wants to mark on the paper with it. My little artist!

All hat, no cattle

This is from the archives - we did some re-sorting of the photo collection this weekend in an effort to get back to blogging, and found this shot that shows Winnie on her buddy Al's horsey (and also makes our house look really cool in my opinion). She was in love with riding this thing in the Fall, and would probably have fought Al to keep it at our house.
Sorry for the delay in the posts, we are getting back on track! Also, special thanks to Mark and Andrew (yes, the Phalanges reunite digitally) for helping me redo the look of the blog...

Dream Team

Just a fun shot from this weekend, when everybody got up and into bed for a few minutes before the day got started.

This all you've got, winter? Bring it!

I think we are all suffering from feeling trapped by the cold, so I thought we could push back on Old Man Winter a bit with this shot of Winnie dressed for the elements. We got all ready to head to the City Museum for some Daddy-Daughter time, only to get there and find that it was closed! I keep forgetting that stuff is only open until 5pm - I've taken the family to the zoo multiple times only to find it wasn't open. Here is Rush, taken at a different time, but also looking ready for the cold.

Huh, what?

I've started trying to make up for the large gap in photo volume between Winnie and Rush. Of course, when Winnie was a baby everything she did seemed so unreal and worthy of a photo. So a little learning curve on what memories are worth preserving explains part of the lower photo count. And being overwhelmed explains part, too. But our little man deserves some good shots of his early months so that his "first year" dvd will be on par with W's.
I really like this shot, because I feel like it is taken a moment before he understands that he is caught on tape eating a giraffe.

This one captures his little grin, his ability to sit on his hip and look around, and his terrible ability to match shirt and pants when choosing lounge-wear.


Last but not least, one showing off his quiet nature - and his two razor-sharp chompers!