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!