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Photostory Friday: One big push for mom, one huge leap for Nana!

I love this picture! This is my mama.

Three months ago the youngest of my parents 10 grandchildren was born. It was the first time she got to be in the room with one of us during delivery. My sister had asked my mom ahead of time if she would like to be in the room for it. When it got to be time to go in mama was feeling a little apprehensive and wondering if she would make it through the whole delivery without chickening out. This look tells the whole story. She appeared back in the waiting room after my sweet nieces birth and exclaimed "I did it!"

Yeah mama!! You did it!!


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Photostory Friday: If A Photo Could Talk...

Oh, look here, this photo does talk!

We have a short school time Bella, Buddy and I most mornings. Just working on learning letters and how to count. I got Buddy on tape counting... with a little help from Bella. Not too bad for a two year old! But I may be bias!

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Kiss and Tell

Apprehensive girl decides it is safe enough to get picture taken with Shamu... as long as mommy is doing it too.




After that girl walks away with elated joy and renewed confidence after having come so close to Shama and surviving. Girl now thinks she is near invincible and can do just about anything, including kiss Shama, and asks if she can go back, stand in line (again, for the third time, since girl completely chickened out the first time) and this time kiss Shamu. Mother knows girl will ask incessantly until mission is accomplished (mother wonders why her own parents think that it is so funny that girl has same tendencies as mother, i.e. asking questions incessantly and somehow feel rewarded for said mother now having to live with the tortures she put her own parents through). Mother and daughter wait in line. Girl walks with self-assurance towards Shamu...







Girl loses all feelings of self-assurance halfway to Shamu and returns to mother.



Mother explains that this is the last chance for any interaction with Shamu. After a moment of deep contemplation girl returns to Shamu plops a quick peck on his cheek and quite nearly floats away from renewed confidence and a heart full of love for Shamu.



Girl then spends the next 4 days talking incessantly about her brush with fame.

Mother is overjoyed with girls excitement and new found self-confidence!

Photo Story Friday and the Dancing Queen

A couple of years ago, it seems like a lifetime ago, my husband and I worked at a group home where we were house parents to 3 (and at one point 4) fabulous teenagers. Among those kids was Paul. Man I miss Paul! Paul loved our kids. At the time there was just Bella and Buddy. Paul also loved to dance. The combination of dancing with one of the kids seemed to be among his very favorite things to do.







I love these photos of him with Bella. Not half as much as Bella loved being treated like the queen of the house with 3 doting older "siblings".

**Paul was adopted this spring... at 18 years old! That almost never happens.

And Then I Died From Embarrassment

For those of you who have not done the whole myspace thing let me give you a little m.s. 101. When you are online on myspace if you look in the right hand column of your page you can see the profile picture of any of your myspace friends that are also online at that time. Under your friend's profile picture are the words 'online' and under that is a link to click on to send that friend a message.

While on myspace the other day I saw that my good friend April was online. I owed her a message and so I clicked on 'send a message' and sent April a silly little note that started off with a friendly "Hey Bebe!"

The next day I received an email letting me know I had a myspace message from Brandon, April's husband. I thought that was strange because Brandon never emails me. Then thought maybe April had just been online under Brandon's account and emailed me. So I checked. What I found was a very polite reply to my flirtatious message that I had sent to BRANDON - NOT TO APRIL! It seems that when I had been online the day before I saw an adorable picture of Jeep, April and Brandon's son. A photo of Jeep happens to be April's profile picture and so I had not even looked at the name. I saw a picture of Jeep and thought, "Cool, April's online," and shot her the note. As it turns out Brandon also uses a picture of Jeep as his profile picture and he was the one online, the one I had sent the message to. You know girls, a 'Hey Bebe' between women is a silly innocent thing. Directed at a women's husband, it may be received as you hitting on husband. Brandon was very sweet to reply with a quick note but I am sure he was wondering why in the world his wife's crazy friend was so boldly flirting with him. I emailed April back right away.

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"Your husband might... might, think I have the hots for him. I am bright red and going to go crawl into a hole and die now. I'll miss you, it's been nice knowing you."

I will now be checking, rechecking, and then checking again to see if I am emailing the right person before using such words as Bebe, darling, hot stuff, etc...

Photo Story Friday and Trouble With A Capital Tee(Tee)

There are those moments, every mother experiences them, when the house gets very quiet and you pause, take a deep breathe and think "Ah, this is wonderful, peace!" And then suddenly, panic. "Peace? Why is there peace and quiet in my house? Why is nobody yelling? Surely somebody has been wronged, slapped, or tortured in some way!" Then comes that sinking feeling. If all is quiet in my home then something must be terribly wrong." You hesitate, if only for a moment. "How bad can it be?" You wonder guiltily. "Should I really go check and risk ruining the serenity?" But alas you search out the situation and every great, great once in awhile you discover that this peace really is just a rare, precious moment.

Like the day last year when I found Bella and Buddy sitting quietly side by side reading. I snuck a picture and then tip toed off. When all was still quiet sometime later I decided to go have one more look at my adorable kids. I just love to see them getting along. And that they were doing something to improve their minds was just a wonderful bonus. However, this time I did not find them lost in a wonderful imaginary world. Instead I found this...




Now we do live in Texas, it is hot, and sometimes the children get very sweaty. They get sweaty even when they are just sitting around, not really being particularly active... this was not one of those times. Bella was in the process of potty training gone bad, and this 'moisture' soaking my children's heads was due to the puddle they were playing in. I do love the look it gave Bella's hair.

Look at those waves. If only I could bottle and sell tee-tee. O.K. maybe not.

And what was Hoss doing while all this was going on? What every sweet little newborn does.



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