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We played in the backyard with our new $7 Slip-n-Slide (more accurately described as the "Fall-n-Sit") and the kids had more fun than you'd expect from falling on their butt in ice cold water over and over and over again. Then, just when you thought the good times were over, they drank from the sprinkler for 20 minutes!
Yep, we're party animals here at the T household!
Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #23
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a link and a comment here before 3/23/07.
This week's photo challenge is "Feet". Want to play? Here are the very simple rules.
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Maddy is a size 7 -- a full size smaller than her same-age sister. You can spot her in the collage since her feet are so white! Even though her skin is very pale, her feet were practically black when she was a newborn (click <here> to see). We're really grateful to have those early photos. She was only 4 pounds at birth and we can hardly believe that this is the same child! |
The teeny-tiny toes in this collage belong to the three week old feet of our 18 year old son, Michael.
Most babies are born a size zero but this Little Bigfoot was already a size 3 at birth! I remember when this photo was taken... I held his feet up for the camera because I thought they were so big for a newborn baby! He's always had big feet.... he was a man's size 13 at age 13 and, thankfully, his feet haven't grown since then! I used to love to nibble on his sweet little toes but you'll all be relieved to know that I've not done that in many MANY years!
I've also included the referral photos of Gwendolyn and Madeline. Both sets of photos included pictures of their bare nekkid feet. This is "Red Thready" because the photos were incredibly similar and taken at the same time even though the girls were adopted one year apart.
Gwen and Maddy are two very different children but they have too much in common for it to be mere coincidence. The referral photos are the first thing (click <here> to see them side by side). The poses *could* have been anything but they were almost exactly the same. Then there's the double swirls in their hair. How many true siblings share that? It's very rare but both of our girls have it. Even the unique aspects of their personalities compliment eachother. It's more than you'd expect from a random set of adoptions so, even though I'm not totally into that whole "red thread" thing, I have to admit that there's something going on here.
***This week, Madeline is 2 years 7 months old
... She's 34.25 inches tall and 24.5 pounds.
***This week, Gwendolyn is 2 years 8 months old.
... She's 36.25 inches tall and 31.5 pounds.
Wanna play this week? Let's see those cute feet! (even if they're yours!)
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Maddy and Gwen are big Backyardigan's fans (and the pirate episode is their favorite) so when we saw Uniqua on sale at Target this morning, we had to get her. Actually, we had to get two!
I love this picture of Maddy giving a very hearty "Arrr!"
Here's the words to the song. It's got a very catchy tune and I've been singing it all day!
A Pirate Says "Arrr"
If you want to be a pirate,
Get up on your feet.
You can't be a pirate,
If you're sitting in your seat.
Swing your arms tough,
And stand kind of low,
And make this noise wherever you go.
Arrr! Arrr! Arrr!
A pirate, a pirate, a pirate says "Arrr!"
It might seem strange, just a bit bizarre,
But they know you're a pirate,
When they hear you say "Arrr!"
Arrr! Arrr! Arrr!
A pirate, a pirate, a pirate says "Arrr!"
You wear a spare part, a bandana and a scar,
and they know you're a pirate,
When they hear you say "Arrr!"
The Jolly Roger is the pirate flag,
A skull and some bones on a big black rag.
We'll fly it on our ship, up above the sails,
And we'll search for treasure,
And be tough as nails!
Arrr! Arrr! Arrr!
A pirate, a pirate, a pirate says "Arrr!"
If you think we're noisy, you're right, we are,
'cause they know you're a pirate,
When they hear you say "Arrr!"
I like to "Spring ahead" because I really appreciate the extra hour of daylight in the last half of the day. Especially now that it's getting warmer and we can spend more time outside in the evenings.
Our scientific approach to easing the girls into the new time change this year was to just plunk them into bed at 8:30 and not worry too much about it. Of course, it also helped that we totally wore them out on Saturday by hosting that huge reunion party at our house! So it must not have felt like Mommy and Daddy were putting them to bed an hour early!
We're really lucky to have amazing success with bedtime in our house. I'm sure the crib tents help but it's also beneficial to stick to the schedule and having a ritual really helps too.
Our nighttime ritual consists of changing into PJ's, brushing teeth, and chasing our little happy girls down the hall to their room where Daddy reads them "Ping Ping Panda". Lately, there's been a few goofy little alterations tho:
Last night, Gwen got half way into the PJ part of the ritual when she decided that it might be fun to run back into the playroom in her diaper and "hide" under the trampoline. I watched her scurry under it and she reminded me of a cockroach so, when Daddy arrived 10 seconds later to retrieve her, I was ready with the camera. He lifted up the trampoline and off she ran with Daddy in hot pursuit. Two minutes later, she was zipped into her PJ's and racing toward the nursery where she scaled the side of her crib, flopped over the top rail, and leaped to her feet to close the front flap with a great big Zzzzzzzzip! When I finally caught up, she spied the camera in my hand and posed for a few photos.
Maddy is equally enthusiastic about bedtime but needs some help getting into her crib. She's always less willing than Gwen to pose for photos -- especially when she's tired -- but I managed to snap a few anyway. Maddy's more of a morning-person and we usually hear her talking to herself or singing "Up above the (world so).... high" (eighty times!) on the baby monitor each morning before the alarm goes off. That's usually when I turn down the monitor and drift back off until the alarm wakes us again. Gwenny doesn't have that luxury but still manages to sleep through Maddy's non-stop chatter anyway. If it wasn't for the crib tents, we know we'd all be forced to adopt the early schedule of our littlest Sunshine Girl!
When we went to China in September 2005, our travel group included 38 families! Most of them live in the Los Angeles area but there are a few up here where we live and we thought it would be fun to have a "mid-year" reunion up here. So this was our 18 month reunion party, hosted it at our house, complete with a giant inflatable Blues Clues bouncy-bouncer!
There was too much fun (and pizza and Tsing Tao beer) to keep to just our travel group so we stretched the list of invitees to include some of our other local friends. At some point, all of this becomes less about agencies and travel groups and more about our wonderful community of China adoption families. I feel incredibly blessed to know so many truly amazing people (with darn cute kids!).
It was SO MUCH fun to have a yard full of 1 and 2 year olds! We can't wait to do this again in July when we have a combined birthday party for Gwen and Maddy.
Click here to see LOTS more pictures of today's fun party!
