What Was I Thinking?

This morning, Nina and I were looking at one of her books, and part of the book came up where the kids go to school. She said something about wanting to go to school, so I asked her if she would like to go to school today. She was still in her jammies at the time, so I really didn't think beyond the fact that maybe it would get her dressed more quickly, however I had no idea she was going to take me so seriously. She let me get her dressed and do her hair without a fuss, then she got her backpack out of her closet, put blankie in the backpack, and said she was ready to "get on bus". Since I was still in the spirit of pretend, I asked her if she wanted her lunchbox also, and, of course, she said yes. Once I started to realize she was taking me seriously, I tried to say things like "you'll have to be away from Mommy and Daddy all day, are you sure you want to go?" and she kept saying she wanted to go to school and get on the bus. So, out the door she went... It just so happened that while we were outside, a school bus drove by (great!), and she said, "Oh, no Mommy, the bus!!" Now I'm trying to think how I can get out of this since she really thinks she's going to school for the day. I thought I had the perfect plan. Being that it's summer, I'll drive over to the neighborhood elementary school, and when we get there, we'll see that no one is there, the doors are locked, etc. and then we'll just have to say, "oh well, school is closed today" and I'm off the hook. So, we get in the car and drive the two minutes down the street to the school. As soon as we come down the hill to the school, I know I'm in trouble. There are busses, kids, cars, and teachers everywhere! I had no idea that our elementary school was hosting summer school!
Nina is in the back yelling, "busses, kids, school" and I'm thinking, how am I going to get out of this now! My next thought is, surely once I get her out of the car and don't go down the sidewalk to school with her, she won't want to go and it will all be over with. Not a chance! We get out of the car (I park on the side of the school b/c I'm so embarrassed to actually be there with a two year old who is holding her lunchbox, her fake money, and wearing her backpack), and I give the old excuse of "mommy can't go with you, I'll miss you, I won't see you all day..." and she doesn't even give me a second look - she's down the sidewalk off to join the rest of the kids going to school. In case you're wondering how it all ended, I had to get her back in the car, and she cried all the way home. I guess we'll just have to wait three more years for school to start!
Although you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at her here, Lyla is sick for the first time. She's handeling it well, and she really isn't too bad, but she's got a slight fever and lots of congestion. Even when sick, she's still easy going and tries to smile as much as she can!

It's a Family Tradition

...and I'm not speaking of Hank Williams Jr.'s type of family tradition. The role of the "picture taker" in our family started with my grandfather who we call PB. Seen here in this picture, PB was never far from his camera. In fact, we have few pictures with PB actually in the picture. He was always the one taking the pictures of everyone else.

To say PB is eccentric would be putting it mildly. Here is a shot of just one corner of his basement, and there really is no real way to describe the rest of his house unless you visit there yourself. He has travelled all over the world, and in his travels, he has filled his home with things from all the places he's been, and if you ask him what one of the thousands of things are and where it's from, at 83, he can tell you every detail. Another thing that makes PB unique, is that he is the best photographer I've ever known. He's also the smartest person I know, so maybe those two things go hand in hand. His favorite subject to photograph is nature, and he's taken beautiful pictures from all over the world. I've told him that he needs to give his thousands of pictures to National Geographic so they can make a book, but he's not interested in that.
PB always says that pictures have a way of allowing your memory to remember things it would otherwise forget, and I think that's true. When I look back at the hundreds of pictures that I have of our family that PB took I am able to remember so much about those years. We could always count on getting our picture taken when PB was around. We could also always count on viewing slideshows of his hundreds of pictures whenever we were gathered at my great grandmother's house. PB used to put his pictures on slides, and he would put on a slideshow for everyone - like it or not. During those years, most of the time we didn't like it. PB used to take very close up pictures (portrait style) of everyone in the family at every occasion, and then our faces would be larger than life on the screen for everyone to see. As we would moan and groan about what an awful picture it was, his simple response would be, "The camera doesn't lie." Not much of a consolation.

While we didn't always enjoy having our picture taken (evidenced in this photo of Shen and I), I have to say I'm glad we did. So, I'm going to carry on the family tradition and keep taking pictures of our family. They may not always be the greatest, and the girls might get annoyed with me someday, but I hope they look back and are able to remember some wonderful things about their life and childhood, just like I'm able to.

Lyla

Lyla turned four months old today, and she is quite the funny little baby. She is still very laid back and easy going, but she is not the easiest to hold onto at times. She is very squirmy, and getting a diaper on her is like trying to dress a worm. She loves holding onto her feet while rolling from side to side, and she's getting quite determined to work to get a toy that is a little out of her reach. She loves to sit, so she's getting some time in the Bumbo now. It's hard to believe that four months has already gone by. We think on a regular basis about how thankful we are for such an easy keeper this time around. She still doesn't have very much hair, but we think she might keep her blue eyes. We're really enjoying our two girls!!!!!

Nina

Our girl is definitely one who loves a good outfit. From the start, she has always loved shoes, and on this particular morning, she went in our coat closet, dug out my pink snow boots, and wanted to wear them with her pink hat and jammies...quite a look!
She also loves getting dressed up and looking pretty.

The earrings are clip-ons that she got from my sister as part of a princess outfit. It surprises me that she wants to wear them since clip-ons definitely aren't the most comfortable, but I guess she's already got the attitude of suffering for the sake of fashion!

4th of July

Our 4th of July was pretty low key but still lots of fun. Mark did his signature pork BBQ on the smoker, and Mike and Megan came over to hang out, eat, and watch our awesome fireworks display! It was a beautiful day and fun to be outside, relaxing, and hanging with good friends.
We live next door to one of the Loudoun County police dept. officers, so we made sure to keep things legal. As you can see, they have all the makings for a huge display! haa haa!

Flompa the Frog

Well, the new camera is due to arrive tomorrow, and the new monitor is due to arrive in 2 or 3 days, but I figured out that Mark's laptop has a photo program, so I'm able to post a few things before all of our replacements arrive. Last week, I took Nina and Lyla to see Flompa the frog. We met Shenley, Emme, Ryleigh, and my mom there, but Nina wasn't in the best mood and quickly faded with excitement for Flompa. Things rebounded quickly when we all went to lunch and got the girls some ice cream. Lyla, as usual, was a trooper!

Technical Difficulties Continue

So, this time we've got more technical issues than we care to deal with at the moment. Our replacement for the replacement camera is getting sent back as well. The bad of that situation is that I'm now waiting until 7/9 for my next camera to arrive, but the good of that is that the camera arriving is the camera of my dreams! We took the plunge and went for the good stuff, so this camera will definitely be worth the wait!!! Our other difficulty is that our monitor died on our desktop computer on Monday afternoon. I'm doing this post from Mark's work computer. Unfortunately, our desktop is the only computer with the software for loading our pictures, so until we get this next problem fixed, our posts will be postponed. I'll keep taking pictures with my other camera and when we get our computer problems fixed, I'll catch up on the posts (and emails too!).

Clemyjontri Park

The park has a weird name, but it is a very very cool place to go with kids. It's a 2-acre rubberized playground filled with tons of things kids love to play on. Today, we went there with Jill and Jonathan and some of their friends and had a great time! Also, during the weekdays, the carousel rides are free. So, you can ride as much as you want! I think we rode about 8 or 9 times!

Nina was cracking us up making faces in the distorted mirrors.

Oh, the Fun "Wi've" Had!

Being without my camera is really frustrating at times. On Friday evening, we went over to our friends, Jill and Mark's, house to play their Wi. It was SO much fun. It was our first time playing, and it definitely provided some funny moments. The other fun thing we've done so far this weekend was go to our community's Freedom Festival. I thought I would be crafty and use our old Handicam to take photos with, but it's been so long since I've used it that I had it on the wrong fuction the whole time I was taking pictures. I ended up with a very long video of still shots with crowd noise in the background - definitely not worth posting. I did get one picture though. Nina was part of the kid parade that started off the festival. All the kids decorated their bikes, wagons, cars, strollers, etc. in American themed colors and balloons and rode behind the fire engines leading the way to the festival location. It was so cute! This picture was taken as we were waiting to start the parade. The festival was a great time. Nina got to go on the kid rides, there were bands playing, and a great fireworks display at the end. Today we're heading downtown to see DC United take on the LA Galaxy. It's been a fun weekend!

Camera Troubles Again

Well, we waited and waited for the new camera to arrive, and after a few days of using it, I noticed one of the focus functions wasn't working properly. After spending some time on the phone with tech. support, the camera was determined to be malfunctioning (I could have told them that and saved a lot of time), so a replacement is on the way. Since I was missing a lot while not being able to picture post for awhile the last time, I'm going to try to use my old camera (that fell off the counter) until I get my new one. We got it to stay turned on, but it's functions definitely aren't working properly. I'll see how it goes and hopefully get some pictures up again while waiting for the replacement camera to arrive.

Quite a Party!

Nina had a great time at Emme's 4th birthday party yesterday. The party was at a very cool place that is a build-a-bear/ice cream shop/party location all in one. Nina was so excited for the party that she couldn't even take a nap that day, but she had a great time, and the party was tons of fun.

Here is the birthday girl!

The party room...
This is the area where you pick out your animal to stuff, the outfit, etc.
Emme got to pick out all the ice cream toppings for her party guests.
Then each kid got to pick an animal to get stuffed as well as an outfit for the animal. Nina picked this purple bear with a purple ballerina dress.

All the kids were quite well mannered while eating pizza and ice cream.
Obviously, Nina loves ice cream.
Things got silly for a little while, but all the kids held it together pretty well.
At the end, they were all given a birth certificate for their animal with their picture on it. Here is Nina looking at hers.It was definitely a great party!

Baby Talk and Boyfriends

Most of my friends who have kids around Nina's age have boys. Since gender doesn't really seem to be a factor in play right now, it's great fun to have friends who we enjoy hanging out with, and whose kids are friends with our kids. Actually, it makes me realize that we (the adults) aren't kids anymore, but that's a whole other post! Anyway, this week was great fun because one of my good friends from high school, Becky, came for a visit from Florida, so we met up at her sister's house to get all the kids together and catch up. Her sister's house had some fun toys and a playground that Nina and Jonathan had a lot of fun playing with.

Here is the start of their rock band...

Jill and I love seeing our oldest kids having so much fun together. Our two younger ones are only two weeks apart, so we bet Kate and Lyla will be good buddies also!

Lyla's baby talk video didn't want to load...I'll try back later.