Mason and gender

New friends

Lexi started kids day out at a Christian preschool yesterday - she goes every Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. She had a blast her first day! (Nice break for mama too.) One VERY cool thing is that my great friend Brenda is her teacher! Brenda took some pictures and I just love this one ... nothing like a gaggle of little girls!

I haven't forgotten my promise of a Mason video ... he just has NOT cooperated with me recently in that regard!

Birthday girl pics

Lexi's party was Sunday - she was definitely in her element! Christa hung all these pictures from the fireplace ... start to finish Lexi. Made me cry so hard, silly I know, but it seems like we just met her and here she is four years old! This was BEFORE all the presents and sugar - yikes she was wound up! Funny girl! And here she is with her big big piece of cake - we proceeded to polish off most of it in about 15 minutes!!

And this is supposed to be a video of blowing out her candles (and of course the singing) but it's not showing up here - I'll let it ride overnight to see if it finishes "processing."


Fun day, all the way around.

Four years old???

Yesterday was Lexi's birthday - I can hardly believe she's four. It seems like we just met. What incredible joy she has brought into my life, and I know the fun is just beginning! Thanks, my sweet boo-boo, for all the light and laughter you bring my way.

The girls ...

Callie's found her thumb ...


And Papa's teaching Lexi gang signs! :)



Video of Mason's amazing speech improvement coming soon, I promise!

This 'n That

This poor rabbit got the bad end of the deal I think - Mason in his "bull in a china closet" mode definitely stuffed him in there upside down.



Our beloved son, in all his glory, as he appeared coming off the plane Christmas day. At least he got a haircut, right? He said no one even looked twice at him in San Diego ... although I bet some of the folks on the plane kept their distance from his goofy self! The sweater even had shoulder pads ... priceless!



Recently Lexi was in the shower with me and remarked that I had "lots of ankles." I wasn't particularly bloated so I couldn't figure out what she meant. I asked her, and she started pointing at my legs ... "there's one, and there's one, and there's one" - she meant "freckles" not ankles!! So later that day in the car she yelled, "Nini, Papa, look at my freckle!"



Hee hee ... of course it had to be on her middle finger.

Back in the saddle ...

Wow it's been way too long since I've updated! I totally missed Christmas ... but don't worry, my pictures weren't all that good anyway. :(

Here's Callie eating her first meal - she did great! She chowed down from the first spoonful. (Love Christa's stuck-out tongue.)



Mason being ... well, Mason. Love this child! He makes me laugh so much.



And Lexi Lou - she yelled at me "Nini I made an O" - when I went around the corner this is what I found. She definitely did fill in a few blanks for us.

Homegrown talent

Here are some videos we took of Mason singing last night ... he's not much for being on key but he sure works hard! :)

This Old Man ...



Itsy Bitsy Spider ... he gets caught in an "endless loop" of down came the rain ... not so bad this time:



Twinkle Twinkle Little Star ... morphs into Itsy Bitsy Spider and the Little Mermaid song ...



ABC's ... the short version

Oh Lexi!

I'm glad I'm not her mama, just her Nini. The girl is too much for me. The other day she was rolling around on the floor, whining for milk, and Christa said, "No, I'm not getting you any, you're being lazy. Lazy girls don't get milk." Lexi looked at her for a split second, then shot back, "Can they have water?"

Along the same lines ... she and Mason were fighting constantly the other morning, and Mason kept screaming every time she picked on him, and the screaming was making me nuts. So I grabbed Mason and told him to stop screaming, that I was going to spank him next time he screamed. At the same time, Christa grabbed Lexi and said, "I know you're messing with him to make him scream, so the next time he screams, I'm going to spank YOU. You got it?" Lexi said, "Yeah. So if I scream will you spank Mason??" You guessed it, we both had to leave the room to bust up laughing. She's too quick for me.

J was reading her a Dora book awhile back, and in the book Dora was reading a book about Diego. Diego got into trouble, so Dora jumped into the book to help him. Lexi said, "Daddy wait! How can Dora be reading the book and IN the book at the same time?" Christa asked him what his answer was - the best he could do was: "Holy crap Lexi, you're smart!"

Time Warp

Callie ... and Christa. Is it just me? Every time I look at Callie Anne I get transported back in time because she looks EXACTLY like Christa! I thought Lexi looked like Christa, but I never experienced the deja vu with her that I do with Callie.

In other news ... hmmm. I'm still trying to bounce back from being in the hospital, and now have a sinus infection to further complicate things. As a result I have not been able to work out in a month and I am feeling it on many levels!

We decorated the house for Christmas today - it looks and feels nice (even though I resisted, lazy bah-humbug that I am).

We spent Thanksgiving in San Diego with Brandon and had a fabulous time - wish I had some pictures to share but I hardly took any! It was just a relaxing visit - we stayed in an extended stay-type hotel and he stayed with us, and we mostly cooked there. We met lots of his friends, saw the new church building, and visited two ministries he's involved with, Invisible Children and The Purple Palace, an orphanage just across the border in Mexico. Both visits were very poignant for us, and we have come back with a renewed desire to be involved in the lives of hurting children.

On that note, some very happy news - MaryAnn Brown graduated from High School and finished the Job Corp program to be a Pharmacy Technician! We got to attend her graduation Thursday, and anyone who remembers the time she spent with us will know how much I mean it when I say we are so incredibly proud of her. There were many, many obstacles for her to overcome and many "easier" routes for her to choose, at least in the short term. She plans to go on to college to become a pharmacist.


I am grateful that we got to play a small part in her life, and I can't wait to see where she goes from here!

Party time!

Friday night Christa and I took Brenda out on the town for her 40th birthday. WHOOPPEE-DEE-DOOOOOOOO! This involved pedicures, eating a HUGE dinner (with free dessert)...


... several shopping stops, and an unexpected and unplanned trip to Burger King for sodas, which resulted in three yummy free shakes from this super-hot burger king late night worker guy thanks to Brenda's head gear and Christa's big mouth.



I'll leave the rest in the history books where it belongs, but man did we have a good time and laugh a lot. The best fun you can have sober, I'd say!!

Like a dog on a bone ....

This is the hardest puzzle I think I've ever done. All marbles. About 3/4 of the way through it I wanted to just put it all back in the box so bad ... but I made myself finish. Why? So I could put it all back in the box ... which is why I felt I needed to take a picture to memorialize it first.

So yes, I'm stubborn, ridiculously so.

New kitty - again

Our last kitty abandoned us - she took off out the door one day a few months ago and never came back. It's taken me awhile to relent and get another one, but I'm so glad we did!


Greg got the job of naming her, which he hadn't done before yesterday. I called the vet to get an appointment for her shots, and they asked her name, and of course I had to say "Hopefully I'll know when I bring her in on Monday."

I was over seeing the kiddos yesterday and told Lexi we got a new kitty. She immediately asked her name, and I said Papa hadn't decided you. First she said she thought we should name her Callie Anne, but then we decided together (ha) that it might get confusing. Suddenly she said, "I know! We can name her Billie Bob!" Cracked me up so much I had her call Papa and tell him, and guess what, the (girl) kitty's name is now Billie Bob. Hopefully the "ie" on the end of Billie will help? Should I put two b's on the end of Bob? Such a dilemma.

Lex is suddenly interested in learning how to write her letters, so she made had me tell her how to spell the kitty's name so I could bring it home and show it to her. Naturally the kitty was thrilled, so thrilled she climbed right up my leg and bit my arm just for fun. :)

Brief update ...

Today Lexi needed to wear the Spiderman costume ... understandable since she had been the "Little Mermaid" for something like six days in a row. You know where this is going... since she was Spiderman, guess who had to wear the dress today? (I'll give you a hint - it wasn't Callie :) Pick your battles, right?

We're watching Callie Anne tonight - I haven't seen her much lately because I've been sick and WOW has she ever changed! I promise I'll get some current pics up of her really soon.

Halloween fun ... and the aftermath

Here they are in all their Halloween splendor - Mason in a puffed up pre-muscled Spiderman suit, and Lexi as the good witch in the wizard of oz, aka the little mermaid because that's what she insisted she was. :) Mommy even gave her a little makeup to make her more beautiful.


And a close-up of the spiderman suit ... apparently after every house he yelled "thank you - WUDGE!" Which many of you know was Lexi-speak for "I love you" before she could speak very well, and it has stuck in our whole family. Doubt too many of the neighbors caught on but it was still very sweet.


And Callie Anne showing how interested she was in the whole shebang ...


AND, last but not least, Lexi trying a repeat of the makeup Mommy did the night before. Not bad, really!!

How many ankles do you have?

Sunday Lexi told me that she didn't have as many ankles as I do. Confused, I said, "What do you mean? You have two ankles, and I have two ankles." She said "No, you have lots of them." Still confused, I told her to show me. She pointed at multiple places on my legs, saying "There's one, and there's one, and there's one" ... Aha!! Lexi, those are called FRECKLES not ankles.

And if that's not enough, while we were driving later that same day she discovered that she has a freckle on her middle finger just above her fingernail. And she's happy to show it to you whenever you ask. Call me irreverent, but it's pretty darn funny to see a 3-year old giving you the finger!!

My favorite picture

I think this is my favorite picture of the 128 Shannon gave us to choose from ... but there are so many great ones you may be seeing them a few at a time for a long time to come!! :)

Christa and I taught Lexi how to play Uno today - the little stinker caught on right away and when it was her turn if we weren't watching she'd try to go through the deck to get a "skipper" because the skip cards are her favorite. She won the game too, fair and square. What will we do with that child??

The many faces of Mason ...

Can you say mood swings?? From tantrum ...


... to tickled back to happy ...


... to throwing a fit because Mommy gave him the wrong spoon ...


... to happy again (food is in his near future, always a pleasing event for him) ...


... to being a total goofball.


And last but not least, just what you always wanted to see ... Nini turned into a horsey!!

Would you call this flirting?

She's winking ... I think we might be safe from attracting boys for the forseeable future if she keeps it up. I showed her the picture and said, "Is that what you thought you looked like when you wink?" She said, "No, let me twy that again!" So she did.



Better? I think not. Mason pics coming as soon as I can corral him long enough to take some - he's definitely feeling better.

Callie Anne - seven weeks old!

Callie is growing but still seems so small to me! Maybe because the last baby I have to compare her to is Mason, who may have started out almost as big as she is now. Speaking of Mason, the poor guy has been sick all week with hand, foot and mouth disease (no it's not the same as hoof and mouth or whatever the cows or pigs get) - apparently it's a common virus this time of year. The blisters on his hands and feet are better but his mouth is a terrible mess - went back to the doctor today to find that he now has a secondary bacterial infection in his mouth and throat. He has not been eating or sleeping much, and is very unhappy and uncomfortable. So Kari, the promised feature on Mason will have to wait until he feels better.

Here, however, are some recent pictures of Miss Callie Anne - love that smile! She's starting to coo occasionally too - I had forgotten how much work it is for them to muster up an intentional sound at this age. So sweet.