What's Your Name?

Geof to Rella: "What's your name?"

Rella: "I big guuurl.  I 2 on my buh-day."

Glutton

I don't think Alex will be hungry tonight.  Today he stole ate:

- Poor Rella's corndog (now that's a funny sight - a miniature rat poodle carrying a corndog in his teeth)

- Poor Rella's banana

- Poor Rella's hamburger steak (which she actually refused to eat and he salvaged from the garbage)

- Poor Laura's popcorn.

I'm thinking Alex is going to quickly become Rella's best friend.  I am not looking forward to cleaning up during our walks tomorrow...

We got him clipped today, so instead of our white fluffy teddy bear we now have a rather large rat with a poof on the end of his tail.  It's really awful, but we love him anyway. :) No pictures, but maybe tomorrow.  Seriously, just imagine the rat with the poof and  you've got it.

Oh, and this is humorous.  We bought this nice fluffy sheepskin looking little crate liner for Alex's crate, and when we got him we commented on how it was the same as his coat.  After the first day he started dragging it out of his crate and playing with it.  He does not like to sleep on it.  Tonight he started playing differently with the liner.  I'll be tactful and say that Alex is now married to his crate liner. :o  

Finally getting around to post, doggonit!

So I've been swamped lately, all by my own doing, so I haven't had much time to post/scrapbook/cook/clean house/bathe children/do laundry/read/make play dough/color with glitter crayons/swim/sleep ...

The last week has been filled with dance rehearsals, my 10th wedding anniversary, an out of town wedding for which I was assigned to be the photographer, a dance recital for which I was assigned to be back stage mom to 10 4-year-olds for about 4 hours, a few last minute kindergarden assignments which involved making a diorama about Mrs. Nelson, preparations for SSA, a few photo sessions to finish up work on, and our new dog, who I hear running around upstairs with his long sharp nails on our hardwood floors. sigh. I love him, but I think I'm nuts.

A few random things I wanted to post.

1. I am no longer doing the Project 365 photo journaling project. I'd need about 365 hours in the day to keep on top of it. I suspect I would have stopped running/taking kick boxing a while back, too, had I undertaken such disciplines at the beginning of the year. But I don't think I can be accused of not taking enough pictures each year, anyway. :)

2. Turns out I am pretty darn good at managing a dog. I only say that because I am a self-proclaimed "go with the flow" kind of girl. No schedules, no lists, no super strict discipline (thank you, God, for good-natured children!). But with Alex I am no-nonsense. And I am shocked. I keep thinking, "who is this girl?" He seems to know that I am the one in charge, and so far he A) sits at our feet when we're on the sofa, B) does not cross the invisible "do not cross" line before the kitchen island, C) does not go on the second floor or in the basement, D) sits while I put his harness/leash on, D) has quickly become manageable on the leash (he was not leashed before). I've got the great Victoria Stilwell dog training commands down pat (which is mainly short bursts of "ah-ah" to get his attention). I am a big fan of the show It's Me or the Dog.

3. I think it's funny that Fancy has become a HUGE fan of "I Love Lucy." We've found the reruns on the Hallmark Channel and have started enjoying them together. She then reports on them to Hi-Hat when he gets home from school. "Lucy is always getting into so much trouble with her dad [Ricky]. She buys too many hats."

4. Hi-Hat finished kindergarden today. As much as I've complained about the lack of opportunity for me to be involved in his classroom, I'm very impressed with his teacher and all he has learned this year. It's like she's imposed a classical curriculum on top of the county curriculum. I was delighted to open his last-day-of-school backpack and find an entire summer curriculum waiting for us! He came home with a wonderful hard-bound reading anthology (the kind I remember when I was a kid), a set of watercolors and watercolor paper for making summer paintings, a social studies workbook, a book of math sheets, a cookbook, and a booklet of ideas for summer learning.

On to some pictures.

Fancy doing the ever-popular "shovel" hop step as a Busy Busy Bee.

ok. little girls do not need makeup. but the are SO cute with it on! Just wanted to smooch those red lips!

watching and waiting for her new dog . . . he's here!

hmmm - not quite sure he looks very natural with the dog. And a note on his coloring. He's a white toy poodle, but he's in the process of turning apricot. So it looks like he sat in a puddle of mess. He did not. Well, maybe he did, but that's not why he looks this way. He's getting the full treatment at the doggie spa tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be able to see his face!

meet the dog - Alex aka Henry aka Alex.

ONE DAY THIS CHILD WILL GIVE ME PAYBACK FOR THIS PHOTO
(but I really had to post it)

Rella really wants to be potty trained. I'm not there yet. I need at least a week with the dog. She has started removing all her clothes by herself, after which she "goes potty" by standing naked in the bathroom and flushing toilet paper. She does it on her own, even if I'm off somewhere else in the house. So I often find her this way. The dog just made it priceless when I found them looking at a book together yesterday afternoon.

I do intend to do a post some day about my brother's wedding this weekend. It was wonderful! But. it. will. take. me. all. summer. to. go. through. all. the. 1000s. of. photos.  You can see what I've proofed so far here.  For now, I'll just post one of my favorites of my sweet handsome brother hugging his brand new wife.

Cookout Gone WILD

WARNING!!!! If you do not like things that might be classified as creepy-crawly, you might want to forego reading this post. And by creepy-crawly I mean things with lots of legs, bushy tails, or start with "sn" and end in "akes."

[this space left blank for the faint at heart who don't want to risk seeing the pictures, which really aren't that yucky anyway]

This weekend was Fancy's end of the year cookout with her preschool class. This has been such a great group of kids, and most of them have been together in preschool since they were 2 years old! What fun to watch them grow. I'm about to break out into song here - "Let them be little..." Good thing you can't hear me sing. Anyway, the cookout. I'm not posting pictures of the kids. The kids were kids - same old same old. Monkey bars, slides, hot dogs, sand, bubbles, etc. However, I encountered some rather interesting wild life at this event. First, Fancy found this:

I have no idea what it is, but it must be some sort of -pede with all those legs. It was about 3 inches long. I'm hoping that since I pointed it out to her and told her she could pick it up it is not a dangerous creature. Who knows. Really, what was I thinking? But if you can get past all the legs, see his little head? I think he's kinda cute!

Next we went for a walk down to the water. I spotted something flashing in the water. Oh, it's a fish! Wait, something doesn't look right. How is it swimming along the surface like that? Oh, it's more than a fish. It's a poor little fish caught in the mouth of a water moccasin heading right toward the shore 5 feet from where we are standing. Look kids! Let's watch. Let's move closer. Accompanying smart mommy with some sense decides we need to get out of there so as not to upset said snake. But I want pictures! Again, what was I thinking? This one is not so cute, but at least I got my picture (and can I just say that we were on a small bridge near these rocks, and according to Bill Cosby, snakes can't climb stairs - it's a scientific fact, says Theo - so certainly they can't climb small bridges!).

Dinner and dessert. Uneventful. Lots of yummy leftover dessert to take home. We're cleaning up and notice a squirrel hanging around. He jumps on the table and starts eating some crumbs. Cute!

Wait! What do you think you're doing Mr. Squirrel?

And that was the end of our cake! (he sent it flying across the picnic shelter floor and even the squirrel was too scared by the clatter to enjoy it.)

And because this is my blog, I will, after all, post one picture of the kids. I think she qualifies since her hair seems a little wild. :)

Adoption in the Works!

Yep - we're adopting!  His name is Alex, and he is 10 months old with curly hair and big brown eyes.  He also has 4 legs, a wet nose and dog breath. :)  We met him tonight and it was love at first sight!  After a fun meet and greet with this little toy poodle (albeit somewhat strange since it was in a Sears parking lot in Durham!), we headed straight over to the giant pet supply chain and came home with a trunk load of supplies.  We're waiting anxiously for Monday when we will head back to said parking lot to pick her up and bring her home (a dance recital and out of town wedding this weekend mean having to wait a few days).  Fancy is tha-rilled with the dog - kind of the same reaction we saw with Hi-Hat's new drum set.  She's the creature lover in the family and the main reason for getting the dog.  But I'm not kidding myself that she'll take sole responsibility for her pet.  She is only 4-almost-5.  Hi-Hat had no allergic reactions after handling the dog - we kept him allergy med free all day to test this - and he seems pretty happy with it, too.  Even little Rella, who is timid with animals, giggled and squealed and rubbed the dog.  More pictures to come after Monday.  I ga-ron-tee it.

 

look at them - they are going to be best friends!  He looks like he belongs to her already!

Living Water

I may be posting a lot of pictures this week.  Fancy's end of year class cookout was Sunday, several outings are planned for the week, Fancy's recital dress rehearsal, oh, and I'm playing wedding photographer this weekend...  Sometimes I feel like I spend WAY too much time with mr. mac, culling and editing photos.  It distracts me from a lot.  My prayer this spring has been that I find time to stay in the Word.  So. Hard. For. Me.  Too many distractions.  So I am grateful when God uses some of the images I capture to draw me back to His Word.  There's got to be some kind of ministry in this!  I'm praying about that, too.   So are you thirsty?  My girls found this trickling pump this morning, but Christ has something even better!

2 Cute 2 Bea 4 Gotten

August 2008 & June 1, 2009

(I think the only part of her that has grown is her hair!)

Little Rella is 2 today! I decided last minute to take her out for a little birthday photo session. We went to my favorite stomping ground (but don't stomp the flowers, please), and she put up with me for about an hour.

It's a bit bewildering to think that she's already 2! We tend to baby her, trying to keep her little as long as we can, but I suppose she does act like a 2-year-old these days. Here's what I love about this little thing ~

- she's a goof. She likes to tease and tries to make jokes, anything to get a laugh.

- she's still missing 4 very prominent teeth, so she still looks like a baby to me!

- she is very articulate.

- she loves loves loves her big brother. she likes to play cars with him.

- her current favorite saying is "i do it by myself."

- she can throw a tantrum with the best of them, but only if she knows you're looking.

- she loves loves loves her guys - a dozen or so animals and blankies that must be accounted for each night. she talks to them in her bed.

- she loves to accessorize. she often wears goggles around town, and she has been know to run errands with a pink baseball glove on her head ("ma pink hat").

- she has a very strong southern accent for some words. my favorite is when she says "ma ha-owse" (my house).

- she loves pizza, buh-shyes (french fries), hot dogs, and icees. she says, " i eat dem in ma ma-owf" [my mouth].

- she doesn't complain when I put her in a dress.

- she loves shoes. we have been spotted at wal mart with her wearing giant fuzzy duck slippers. nice.

- she likes to shop for clothes. she fingers them and says "oh, dat cute!"
- she is a pink and purple kind of gal.

- she has named herself "big girl." Is your name Rella? "no, I big girl." How old are you" "I big girl."
- when you tell her something exciting (like, " look out the window. there's a chick-fil-a!"), she makes a startled/excited face, forming a little O with her mouth and gasps. again, anything for a reaction.
- she is chick-fil-a's biggest fan.

- she loves jelly beans.
- she likes lions, zebras and ostriches. she pretends to be a lion eating the ostrich in her "big cats of the african plains" pop-up book.
- she loves maisy. I have become quite good at drawing maisy, charlie and "a-woo-wa."
- she totally runs like a girl - flapping arms and everything.

- her hair just keeps getting blonder and curlier.

- she wants to go to school. mostly so she can go inside with ms. jennifer and eat snack.

- she wants to wear "un-a-pess" [underpants]. over her diaper.

- she always decides whether I park in the driveway or the garage.

- she wants to buckle her own carseat straps.
- she will pretty much only eat breakfast using her Cars spoon.
- she talks nonstop and says everything that's on her mind. there's a lot on her mind.

When I was pregnant with her, I prayed for a round-faced, roly-poly little girl with red curls. I'd say 3 out of 4 is not too bad! She is so full of personality, and I can't imagine our family without her. Happy birthday to my sweet little baby girl!