The Fever

My Little Tee-Tiny has started throwing out some smiles and I couldn't be more happy about it. I do find it slightly aggravating though that I am with her ALL day, changing her poop diapers, feeding her on a nice, tidy schedule, cuddling her for no reason other than I like the way her little baby body feels in my arms, and did I mention changing her poop diapers? Anyway, and I can talk to her for 10 minutes straight with nothing but this expression:

Then her daddy walks in the door from work and gets the full mouth grin. What's up with that? I've finally found something that works 99.987% of the time to get a great grin out of this baby girl and really has nothing to do with me at all. She's got the fever.......
The Beiber Fever.

It all started after we watched the E Entertainment channel special "Justin Beiber: In My World". It was riveting. What got her hooked though? His "Baby, Baby, Baby" song. Don't act like a thirty-something and pretend you're all, "Who is Justin Beiber?" He's only like the biggest tween phenomenon giving the JoBros a run for their moola.

So, you want a smile and a lot of cooing? Sing a little "Baby, Baby, Baby, OHhhhh" and this is a small sample of the reward:

Yep. My baby girl gots the fever. Looks like Bobby and I will start our 2010 Tour of Concerts with Lanie in her Baby Bjorn rockin' it out with Beiber. That wouldn't be weird. at all.

Extravaganza Celebration Jubilee!

Freedom Celebration Day rolled around again and I LOVED having Tee-Tiny here to celebrate with us! I got our usual patriotic t's at the Tarjay but there was nada for the little one. Luckily, her favorite mocha friend had saved hers and we were able to make use of it! Here's the best we could do for a sibling shot......and as in many of my pictures, someone has gum in their mouth. I've created a gum addiction that runs deeply into this family.

Bobby had worked for nearly a year collecting explosives for his arsenal. The night before the 4th Rhett said, "When I wake up will it be the forf ub July?"..... I responded "yes." Rhett, with fist pump, "Yessssssss. I can't wait to blow up somethin'!"


I had a little fun myself this year pulling out some head gear that I had purchased years ago for a photo op for the day the child we brought home via international adoption became a US citizen. However, being that our babe was born in the good ol' US of A, I whipped them out as celebratory head garb. One of us loved it. One of us didn't. You decide.
A definite small people crowd pleaser is always the little firecrackers Bobby gets. This year it was tanks vs. fire engines vs. helicopters.

Everyone was surprised when the fire engine ended up being the winner.
All eyes were on the street......well, almost all eyes. Some little little people were inside and didn't partake in this set of festivities.
Mostly boys. With a few gals thrown in for good measure.
My fav picture of the entire night is this one. Sista's from a different Mista: Mmmmmm. Couldn't you just eat this up??
The kiddos had a great time running out in the yard and playing a quick pick up game of wiffle ball.
And, as every year, there is always a picture that someone, unbeknownst to you, sneaks into and you don't realize it until the pictures are downloaded. This time it was Ashley stealing my thunder......
usually it's Jon. In the women's picture.
Our night sky was lit up like downtown Nashville. Minus the river front. And the music. And a couple thousand people.

We had a blast eating steaks (and chicken for us white-meaters) and laughing with our friends. We are praising the Lord for another year down without third-degree burns or missing appendages :) And, for the love of all that is good, and right and true, remember how much you love celebrating freedom come November. That's all I'm going to say about that because this here blog doesn't do deep :)

Happy 4th of July, folks!

Important Words

So many things about having a daughter make me smile. This particular conversation (albeit pretty much one-sided) is definitely one thing that made me smile and Bobby sigh all at the same time.

Me: "Lanie, can you say 'MaMa'? 'MaaaMaaa'?"

Elaina: nothing.

Me: "Well, how about 'Dada'? Can you say 'DaaaaDaaaa'?"

Elaina: nada.
Me: "Okay. Let's practice the most important word of all: Shoes. Can you say 'shoes'??"

Elaina: "Ooooooo. Oooooooo."

I'm not even kidding! This is the first indication that Bobby is in real trouble with this gal. So, in my "nature vs. nurture" questioning........check one for nurture. This baby girl is showing definite signs of being ALL mine!

Desperate Measures

Even though we live in a pretty close quartered neighborhood, we've been blessed with a really large back yard. I find that many times I'm standing on our back deck yelling my head off at the boys with little to no chance of them ever responding. Now, mind you, some of that may be selective hearing. However, since my children are near perfect obeyers and listeners (humph....), I will chose to believe that it is the breeze carrying my sweet voice to places unwanted. So, in my desperation to keep the kids out of the tiny creek water with their good shoes, and to get Bobby to retreat from his golfing green for dinner in a timely fashion, I broke down and bought:

A megaphone.

Now that baseball has concluded we are once again going to have time to spend out in the back yard chasing rabbits and scoping out the area in the trees that the boys are convinced would be a great spot for Grandpa to construct the perfect secret clubhouse. I'm sure this new purchase is going to cut down on the time I spend overworking my vocal chords. In fact, not only does it work when the boys are far away, I've also found that it's not too shabby in close range either. Looks like mom's voice won't be ignored around these parts any longer!

Room: Completed!

Just shortly after Elaina arrived home I was able to finish her room. I had a stranger on Etsy paint her a little ditty to go behind her crib. It turned out really cute and really cut down on all the bare wall. After much fiasco, I also got all of her furniture in and assembled. I won't go in to how I ordered her furniture in JANUARY before I even knew she was coming (living expectantly :) ) with the assurance that it would be here in March....only to be first of April.....end of April....probably will be here at the end of JUNE! WHAT???? Apparently they had to actually hunt and kill the trees to whittle. Anyhoo, I hard nosed and got some different furniture available just in time for Little Tee-Tiny.

Here is a picture of her little painting. Don't let the color fool you. There is no red in it. It's actually dark pink in real life......darker than I would have liked but definitely not red.
The shelf above the dresser was made by my dad and has been in every baby room I've had. I had to re-stain it to match her furniture but it's keeping up with it's legacy and holding a very precious handmade blanket with pink ribbon and crocheted frillies!
I also found that I can tie a pretty mean bow and I'm quite adept with the hot glue gun. Craftiness is NOT my specialty but I wanted a little somethin' somethin' to hold all of her 'properly proportionate to head' bows. If you peek in the mirror you can see the sheet turned shower curtain I crafted as well (idea from the ever crafty Misty!). Who knew that having a girl would bring out this artsy side in me??Okay. I went too far. I don't think "artsy" and me can be in the same sentence with a serious face.
The best thing about Tee-Tiny's bed is that just this week she's actually been sleeping in it! After 6 weeks of only sleeping in her car seat she's finally made the transition!
Even better is that she seems to like it! I caught a little grin on her sweet little face and had my camera handy to capture it. Imagine that. Me and my camera poking around this baby. Mmmmm. I'm in love. Again.

Shiner

Unlike Sammy Sosa, baseball has not been berry, berry good to Cade. Not only did the ball make contact with his bat several times during the game (which is a great thing), it made unfortunate contact with his cheek as well. Boo. In a failed attempt to catch a pop fly he ended up with quite the shiner.

Day 1 wasn't too horrible. The picture doesn't do the seam marks on the cheek justice.

I was so thankful that he was wearing his Kareem Abdul Jabaar sports glasses because it could have been much worse I fear. I give them their props. They are indeed shatterproof as advertised.

Day 2 brought in some nice color.
When day 3 rolled in he was wearing the black eye like it was old hat. It was no longer painful as demonstrated by slapping himself on the cheek and saying, "See. Doesn't even hurt." Thank you for the visual. I could have just taken him at his word.
I'm proud of my boy for two reasons: First, he didn't come out of the game even though he was really hurting. He stuck it out and finished. And second, he has remained truthful about his eye mishap even though Bobby and I encouraged him with several good stories involving ninja's, bad guy robbers, and the like. "That would be lying." Ahhh, yes. But WAY more interesting. I'm sure this won't be the last black eye around this house. If these boys don't perfect their toilet aim there are going to be several more this very summer!

Parenting 101

If you're my facebook friend you've already seen this picture. If you're not, I thought you deserved to see it as well. I also wanted to have it included in my end of the year book.

I've decided that the most effective way to parent four children is:

The Swaddle

It works for children of all ages. I swaddle the children between the hours of 8 and 4:30 so that when Bobby gets home the house can look decent and the laundry is folded. It also gives me time to update this here blog and check my peeps out on facebook. I may not have skills to amount to anything in the corporate world but I AM a Master Swaddler and I wear the badge with pride. Well, if there were a badge I'd wear it with pride.........