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!

Christmas Time! (Part 3 of 3)

Here are a couple of shots from Christmas morning at the loft. We woke up kind of late (the kids don't know to be excited and get up early yet). Peeking out of the kids stockings were some toys, and they really seemed to like them. There was some funny confusion when Winnie thought that her new toothbrush was for her new doll.

Rush got a bear with a teether, a toothbrush, and a Bass Pro shirt and hat.

Here is Winnie hugging her Abby Cadabby doll, which she loves from watching Sesame Street. Photo was taken with MY Christmas present, a new portrait lens for my camera.


What a great Christmas we had at all our many stops! Sorry for the late posts, Cary has been sick and I have no idea how to manage these kids and the rest of life like she does (and makes it look easy).

Christmas Time! (Part 2 of 3)

We continued the tradition of Christmas in Conway the weekend before the 25th so that all the siblings and their kids on Cary's side of the family could celebrate together. Unfortunately I wasn't my usual "take 1,000 photos" self, so I don't have as many shots as I would like. We had a great time, including movie night for the boys, Scene-it Twilight edition for the girls, time with the kids at the Jump Zone, and of course - presents!

Here is Winnie in her new pink wool cap with her jingle bells:


And Rush watching with his Mom (notice how cool and grown up he appears, but alas: he can't really sit up yet)


Thanks to the Deans and the Lays for a great weekend of fun. Too bad 95% of the family ended up puking from a stomach virus, though.