Abe and Lindsay's wedding

Abe and Lindsay had a beautiful cremony that brought the crowd to tears on several occasions. The girls and Nick were in the wedding party. The pictures don't do it justice.

Hawaii

So we had a great time in Hawaii. The kids did awesome on the plane, and slept pretty well there. There were several snorkeling and boogie board trips. We took full advantage of just hanging out in the sun. With so many helping hands around it was a little disorienting when we got home, but we're back in the normal routine. It was fun to watch Kiah warm up to everyone and Moira had a blast soliciting stories from everyone.

Way Back in April

Sherrod, Andy and the boys stayed overnight with us in April and I have finally uploaded some pictures. Moira tried desperatly to keep the twins orderly and civilized. By the end she was starting to lighten up a little . . . getting dirty can be fun too.

Busy as Bees

We're madly trying to get organized for our big trip to Hawaii. I was out front giving everything a once over and this bee was hanging around the whole time. He was just loaded with pollen so 30 pictures later I got one that was pretty cool. Oh the joys of digital photography. I'm sure I'll have loads of pictures from Hawaii upon our return.

Suki and I competed for the first time in freestyle disc and we didn't get last place! I'll try to put up the video at some point in time.

Hopefully we don't have to many issues on the flight over with the kids. Fingers crossed and we'll see everyone soon.

Busy in the backyard

Well we came up with this plan for a faux tropical garden around the gazebo. It's really shady and stays fairly wet there. We found some really great shade loving plants and even braved a few hardy fushias. The plants include : hosta, fern, day lily, calla lily, violets, columbine, bleeding heart, and oxalis. We're really looking forward to spending time outside in august when we can enjoy the fruits of our labor.

We had a good time at flower world and came home with more than we needed. In addition to being one of the largest plant nurseries I've ever been to, they also have an assortment of animals for the kids to look at: sheep, goats, peacocks, and fancy chickens and ducks. Moira really enjoyed the animals so we'll have to head out to the zoo before too long.

Gabe and Cynthia Tie the Knot

Gabe and Cynthia are officially married! Despite some wind, it was a beautiful ceremony on the beach. The love these two share is inspiring and it was great to share in this experience with them.

Kiah Turns One

We had a great day on sunday with a parade of family members and fun. Luckily the camera was around to capture a rare moment of sisterly love and cuteness.

Of course there were presents, which Kiah chose to open in a dainty fashion. Moira fond this alltogether much to slow and was quite eager to "help" Kiah.

The cake was a big hit and after a few tentative licks Kiah dove right in. The last year has been a bit of a wild ride. It's really fun to watch the girls work out their relationship and to watch Kiah go from baby to kid. They are both such wonderful little people and full of the joy and wonder of the world. I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

Baby Steps

I've read about half of a new book called Don't Shoot the Dog. It is written by the founder of clicker training and a strong proponent of training by positive reinforcement. This book is not written specifically for dog training, and in fact the majority of the examples deal with humans and the ways in which we either consciously or sub-consciously reinforce behavior in our own lives.

The author proposes that we reinforce the good rather than the bad, ie. rather than cursing our own mistakes we praise our own accomplishments. So this got me thinking about parenthood and how in my own life I often feel unfulfilled as a stay at home mom. I think the problem for me and many other moms is that the pay off or the reinforcement just isn't there. Your little sweeties are never going to look you in the eye and say good job mom I'm giving you a raise. My job, unlike most others has nothing in place to make me feel like I've really accomplished something. So my goal over the next few weeks is to take some time to think about all of the things I have gotten done in a day, rather than all of the things I couldn't get done.

Kiah is also working on some baby steps of her own. She can reliably walk about three steps and occasionally initiates some wobbly walking on her own. It's a real delight to see the pride in her face when she walks all by herself. She's at the age where she's figured out that she can indeed communicate with us and I can just see her gears turning as she tries to make sense of it all. Her favorite thing right now is to hand stuff to people, and if you are ignoring her attempts to share she will actually grab your hand, flip it over, and shove said item into it.

Moira is finally starting to outgrow the constant tantrums, and is learning some coping techniques to help calm down when they do happen. She is also starting to enjoy hanging out with Kiah and often asks if her and Kiah can go play in her room. I'm am more amazed every day at Moira and how much she has grown as a person in the last year.

All in all life is good. I started on a new medication for my arthritis and it's working better than expected. The down side is that it lowers your immune capacity. Moira is currently sick so I will soon be experiencing how difficult it is to fight off a cold while on this treatment. My arthritis had progressed to the point that I was considering a cane or walker to help me in the first half of the day and within a week of the medication I can literally run down the stairs, something I could not have done for over a year. I actually just sat down and cried the first time I walked down the stairs like a normal person, one foot in front of the other. You don't take the time to appreciate what you have until it's gone so here's to spring and a new attitude on life!

Moira the photographer

Juju got a new point and shoot camera. Moira is really in to taking pictures, she has some interesting subject matter.

It's been a while . . .

My mom took this picture of Moira recently and I just think Moira looks beautiful. She's going to break some hearts one day.

Here's Kiah having fun!

Here's Kiah not having fun :(

Has anyone seen Kiah?

We've had a busy weekend despite my being ill. Moira went to a friends birthday party and then had a sleep over with Juju and Paul. Nick finished prepping the bathroom walls for painting and put on the first coat of primer. We put new dirt into all of our patio flower pots and then planted around 75 annuals. We've decided to go with a pretend tropical garden around the gazebo. The back doesn't get much light so we have 7 hanging baskets stuffed with fuchsia starts and will plant some hardy fuchsias, ferns, and hostas in the beds below. Then for some color we got a tray of impatiens and have planted day lilies.

We were graced with sunshine and warm weather and it felt great to pull up my sleeves and enjoy spring. Both the kids came out and did a great job of helping and getting filthy. I can't wait to sit back and enjoy it all in the summer.

Moira Turns 3

Today we celebrated Moira's third birthday!! We put up all of the decorations after she went to bed and it was really fun to bring her down in the morning to see the surprise. She was pretty excited that she was going to have a birthday party.

Dad helping put on her birthday princess dress

Playing with baby Henry



Kiah chillin' with Grandpa Mel

Kiah and Nick's acrobatic sideshow

Trains, trains, trains . . .

The kids table

The much anticipated cake

"I like cake"

Moira convincing Grandpa Mel and Grandma Heidi to read her ALL of her new books.

Saturday Shenanigins

Kiah enjoying some pasta and sauce

The guys TILING the shower!! It has been almost a year since the initiation of this project and now that the shower surround is tiled the end is in site. Since the bathroom shares a wall with Kiah's room it's impossible to work on at night and often we're just to busy on the weekends. Hopefully a few more weekends of lousy weather will help spur us to finish this project up. The guys really did an amazing job and all of the help was greatly appreciated.

Moira and Kiah ham it up while trying on their dresses for Abe and Lindsay's wedding.

Just what's going on in there?

There was a fair amount of chatter coming from Moira's room while she was supposed to be napping. After peeking in on her I couldn't resist snapping a photo before I hucked her back in bed. Apparently she decided to modify her outfit for the day donning fuzzy leopard pants and a snazzy hula belt. She's also sporting a giant fat lip that she got tripping over the threshold at the Dr's office this morning. At least we were already there! She managd to bruise the roots and gums of both her front teeth and the Dr said it's very likely that her front two teeth will now turn grey :( Oh well at least they fall out!

Gardening is fun!

I've been taking advantage of the nice weather to work in the garden. The ground was dry enough today for Kiah to crawl around and enjoy getting dirty with the rest of us. It was really nice to see all of the plants coming back and it re-assures me that summer isn't too far off.

Things have been busy around here and the kids are growing fast. Just ask Moira and she'll tell you all about how she's going to be three soon!

Suki

Suki and I will compete in freestyle for the first time this year and we've been working on a routine. We're still novices, but I'm really proud of how much Suki has learned in the last couple of months.

Cool frisbee dogs

The japanese freestyle teams combine ninja skills and frisbee dogs . . .

Christmas

Well for the first time EVER my entire family was together at Christmas. It was the best gift you could hope for and everyone had a really lovely time. My grandmother came from South Africa and my sister and her husband and baby Logan made it from Kentucky despite the numerous weather delays.

It was really neat to see my sister and her husband in their new role as parents. My little nephew was a real cutie and I look forward to the kids having some adventures together as they grow up.

Oh Baby

I have slept . . . for the first time since Kiah's birth I slept eight hours. What a wonderful thing a nights sleep is. We've been trying to convince Kiah that aside from mom there are all sorts of ways to get food. She had shown little interest in baby food, hated rice cereal, and wold promptly shut her mouth if she saw any signs of a bottle or sippy cup. So we decided that if I was just gone for long enough that she would eventually give in. Well after 48hrs we gave in. Kiah got her way and her mommy. We did accomplish a few things. Kiah decided that if her mom wasn't there to snuggle with then there wasn't any point to waking up three times a night and now sleeps about 10 hours a night. We also discovered she just didn't like baby food. So I've created some recipes that out little gourmet enjoys. Butternut squash with apples, sweet onion, and a little garlic and cinnamon is her favorite.

It's really amazing how much can happen in two days. Kiah can FINALLY sit up. She started crawling and decided there wasn't much point in knowing how to sit still. In addition to figuring out how to sit while I was gone she is now clapping, which is really cute, and on top of all that she got some teeth while I was gone. All in all it was a good thing for me to take a break, I really had fun spending some time with Mora and Kiah and dad had some good bonding time as well.

Christmas Pictures

Well now that everyone should have their christmas cards here's the rest of the girls chrismas pics.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

The only thing that likes snow more than kids is dogs. I had a lot of fun taking pics of the dogs charging around at the neighborhood park.