My Little Shutterbug

Caroline has always taken great interest in taking pictures. On her second Christmas, she asked for a camera. Santa Claus brought her a Fisher Price digital camera and that satisfied her... for a time. It was not long before she realized that this contraption was much too amateur for her capabilities and needs, so she graduated to my Fuji FinePix... this was the camera I retired after purchasing my treasured Nikon D40. So the Fuji did the trick for a while. She mastered that and began asking if she could take some pictures with the Nikon. I freaked out because it is a pricey camera and if it's damaged... it is not in the budget to purchase a replacement. She persisted and I finally told her she could snap a few pictures with my supervision. She did a great job and I have actually been very impressed with what she's captured. It's really kind of cool - she has an eye and she is a great "coaxer" - she can capture moments. She shoots maybe once a week or two. Here are two she got today that I thought were very good - I know I couldn't have done any better. Good work, Foop!

"There are no rules for good photographs - there are only good photographs."
~ Ansel Adams

Emily Kate's Four Month Check-In

Hard to believe... but Em is now four months old! She had a doctor's appointment this past Tuesday and here are her stats: she weighs 13 lbs., 7 oz., and is 24 3/4 inches long. That puts her at the 33rd percentile for weight and the 55th for height. It's hard to believe that at birth she was in the 95th percentile for weight! Anyway, Dr. Smith says she looks perfect (but we already knew that) and she's a fine little girl. She's just the smartest, sweetest, most precious baby. I have made good on my promise to provide a "bunny" picture this month. It's so cute to see how she changes!!

"It is not a slight thing when those

so fresh from God love us."

~ Charles Dickens

In the Jungle

Our good friends, Becky and Kevin, generously loaned us their Exersaucer (ours has seen better days) and lately Emily has tolerated sitting in it for short (and when I say short, I mean S-H-O-R-T) periods of time. She's still so little and it's a pretty elaborate contraption. She looks like she's in the middle of the jungle with all of the toys and gadgets encircling her. If you've spent any time at all with Emily, you know that she is a very wide-eyed baby girl - she is always looking around and taking in her surroundings. When we snap pictures it translates into a very shocked and surprised look - it's really cute and kind of funny. These are good examples of her deer-in-the-headlights expression.

"I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart. ~Pope John XXIII

She's Definitely Her Father's Child!

Emily is officially four months old today and I decided to finally let her try some solid foods. Up until this point I have been solely responsible for her nutritional needs :) and she's lately been showing a lot of the signs of being ready to try something a little more substantial. Her first non-liquid meal consisted of Beech Nut Oatmeal with mixed berries. Caroline had her first cereal at a little over three months and also had oatmeal first, so I figured this would be a good route for Em, as well. She loved it! Of course, she only had about three or four small little bites before we stopped, but it was a very successful first feeding. After she ate that and went down for her nap, I pureed some bananas, avocados, and applesauce for her. I froze it in ice cube trays so it will be easy to thaw out in individual portions as we need them. It was really easy to do, and after seeing the price of baby food jars in the store this morning, I was willing to give it a try. We're on a serious budget in this house!!

Caroline was sooooo excited about Emily eating cereal. She has been waiting for this day for quite some time and it was like a dream come true for her to be able to feed her sister!!

"I am not a glutton - I am an explorer of food." ~ Erma Bombeck

They aren't those kind of sprinklers...

I know our sprinkler system is not really the kind you are supposed to run through - but flipping a switch in the garage is so much easier than hooking up the kiddie sprinkler - that water hose gets me every time! Caroline loves to play in the sprinklers and since we were under severe water restrictions the first three summers we lived here, we've never gotten much use out of them, so I am making up for lost time. Here are some sweet pictures of my girl enjoying herself - I can't remember the last time I felt this comfortable in a bathing suit. I hope she's always this happy and carefree!

"You run through that sweet slender sound. It's a wild tendril.
A rainbow of jewel. And remember when you used to run through
every sprinkler on your way home from school."
~ Adrienne Pierce

Caroline Cleans Her Room

So, the other morning I was downstairs taking care of my usual business (i.e., basket of laundry on one hip, baby in arms, cell phone ringing in hand, etc.) when Caroline came into the room and said emphatically, "Mom, you have to see my room." Of course, these words struck fear into my heart... statements like this usually mean chaos or mishap of some sort or another, but I gathered my courage and followed her up to see what had her so excited. She had me stand outside her bedroom door and cover my eyes. Then she guided me into the room and told me I could look. Her room was spotless! She had even "made her bed!" She opened her closet door and the CLOSET was SPOTLESS... I wondered what had happened. Was I sleepwalking? Caroline HATES cleaning up after herself and usually only does it with great dramatic effect and NEVER does it without being asked! When I asked her where all of the mess had gone (thinking she would answer, "I put everything away, Mommy, just like you taught me"), she said, very nonchalantly, "I put it all under the bed." Yep. She sure did. Love that girl.

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing
is like shoveling snow before it stops snowing."
~ Phyllis Diller

Caroline and Brams, Emily and Uncle Chadwick

We are so fortunate to have such a great family to love us and support us through all of life's ups and downs... and here are two of those people - Brams and Uncle Chadwick! Brams is Trav's Grandmother - which makes her the girls' Great-Grandmother... but to everyone she is just "Brams." Brams lives two houses down from the house where Travis grew up, so he got to spend lots of time with her as a little boy. One of my favorite stories is when Brams tells me about going to watch Travis play Little League baseball when he was five and telling him to "hit one to her." Then she would sit way out behind right field and when he would go up to bat, he'd point right to her and then proceed to do exactly what she had asked. Brams taught school for thirty years and encourages me to continue doing my very best in my work when I am ready to give up. She's a true Southern lady and we love her very much. Here's a picture of Caroline and Brams at Chandler's 2nd birthday party. In true Brams fashion, she had just finished lovingly admonishing Caroline for stuffing too much food in her mouth at one time.
On the total opposite end of the family spectrum is our dear Uncle Chadwick! Chad is our brother-in-law and he is married to Trav's big sister, Meg. Chad and I are the "outsiders" and have always seen it as our own personal duty to spice up the Thomas family (they are a very set-in-their-ways bunch!). Chad's a nut and does everything a little crazy, but his heart is huge and he is one of the most fun people to hang around. A little irreverent, a little rough around the edges, but the best brother-in-law and uncle in the world!!! Here's a picture of Uncle Chadwick with a fussy Em - it was naptime!

I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich.
~ Dan Wilcox