Double Happiness

Toddler Art

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #28 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a link and a comment here before 4/27/2007. 

This week's photo challenge is "Toddler Art".  Want to play?  Here are the very simple rules.

Gwen and Maddy made an awesome picture (actually, several!) and didn't make a mess.  Do my kids have remarkable self control? Or was there other magic at work?   

If you've tried Color Wonder, then you know the secret.  I just wish they had this amazing stuff when my teenager was a toddler and drew a huge M on the wall with a yellow permanent marker and proudly announced that it was "McDonalds" (Get it? Golden Arches).

When Michael was three, he drew this "Happy Monster". It's always been one of my favorites!

If your babies are budding artists, share some of their artwork and post your link (and a comment) below. 

Family FotoFun Friday Participants

1. Journey with AnnaClaire 2. Journey to Sarah Lu 3. season star 4. Motherhood and Other Ramblings 5. The Cady Chase 6. Raising Cami Rose 7. Just Keep Swimming 8. k2 9. Twins! 10. Random Thoughts

11. mei mei journal 12. Search and Destroy Twins 13. Chopsticks and Tabolli 14. waiting4news99 15. Allison & Quinn 16. She\'s a-DORI-ble!!! 17. mommy24treasures 18. Christine 19. Our Adoption Trip In China 20. The Princess and the Pea

21. Bang the Drum and Shout 22. Sophie and Sage 23. LadyBug Journals 24. Two "Twin" Terrors 25. Rachel Grace Li 26. roylunsford 27. Our Journey to Gracie 28. Lori 29. 4 3=chaos

Pets

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #27 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a link and a comment here before 4/20/2007.

This week's photo challenge is "pets".   If you don't have a real live pet, a stuffed animal will do. Want to play?  Here are the very simple rules.

If you like super-cute babies, sweet kitty-cats, and/or Tom Jones, you'll LOVE this video.  You might have to click the arrow twice (for some reason, I always do).

That's Gwenny last June.  (What a difference ten months makes, huh!)  And that's Kitty, our Japanese Bobtail.  Originally, Kitty was named Baby but that got pretty confusing when Gwen showed up and claimed that name for herself.  So, kitty became "Kitty".  I think it suits her.

Ten months ago, Kitty had only one little Princess to deal with but now, with two little girls around, Kitty is a little bit less willing to sit still and appreciate frequent sessions of tough lovin' which often include ear and eye exploration and backwards fur petting.  But she's remarkably mellow and she puts up with much more of it that you'd expect a cat to.  (If I can manage to capture two 2 year olds and a cat in one picture, I'll post it.)

As spring teases us with sunny warm invitations to come play in the backyard, our Monkey Girls are always asking to go out.  They can open the sliding door to the backyard but can't seem to find the same enthusiasm to close it once they're out so Kitty is getting frequent tastes of delicious freedom.  She''ll be seven this Thanksgiving and she's spayed so she's not really keen on wandering.  Our 19,000 square foot yard is fully fenced and offers lots of fun sights and sounds and smells but we hope she's not inclined to hop the 6 foot fence and see if the green grass on the other side is tastier (and, therefore, better to vomit onto our pale grey carpet). 

Someday, we hope to get a dog.  Since I'm a big James Herriott fan, I've read a lot about this breed and have come to love the idea of getting a Border Collie.  But there's currently enough poop in my life so I'm not looking to get a dog until there's someone else who's willing to scoop! 

Family FotoFun Friday Participants

1. Motherhood and Other Ramblings 2. Journey with AnnaClaire 3. Random Thoughts 4. She\'s a-DORI-ble!!! 5. Just Keep Swimming 6. Desiree 7. From Here to There, The Ladybug and the Dragonfly 8. Hearts in China 9. Twins! 10. Oohs and Aahs 11. Julie - Nathan\'s Mommy 12. My Cup Runneth Over 13. Rachel Grace Palmer 14. The Boy and the Bulldog 15. Mei Mei and Jie Jie (Search and Destroy)

16. Ladybugs & Dragonflies 17. Loving Gracie... Paperwork Pregnant No More! 18. season star 19. Chopsticks and Tabolli 20. mommy24treasures 21. Mountains and Mountains & Oceans and Oceans 22. Cannon Fishbowl 23. mexican chopsticks 24. Our Three Daughters 25. MississippiZen 26. Lilly\'s Pad 27. The Princess and the Pea 28. 4 3=chaos 29. A Kerrnal Journal 30. Journey to Sarah Lu

31. LadyBug Journals 32. Avery FuMeng 33. The Life and Times of Chloe and Pearl 34. Alyson & Ford 35. Sophie and Sage 36. 2china4ayla 37. Journey to Annalisa 38. Smith Family\'s Adventures 39. twinchatter 40. Our Adoption Trip In China 41. Don & Be 42. Journey to Gianna 43. Rhianne Comes Home

Spring Dresses

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #26 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a link and a comment here before 4/13/2007. 

This week's photo challenge is "Spring Dresses" (Boys wearing their finest Spring attire are also welcome to play along!).  If you don't have your child yet, here's a great excuse to go shopping for something that fits this theme.  Don't forget to post pictures of your loot! 

Want to play?  Here are the very simple rules.

Something tells me we'll see some pretty dresses in Bloggerville this weekend.  I'll update with photos of our girls in their Easter/Spring dresses after Sunday.  Until then, I'll share some of our favorite photos of pretty Spring dresses of days past. The top photo is Gwen in the atrium of the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou.  It was taken just a couple of days after she was placed in our arms.  She was 14.5 months old. The lower left photo is Gwen 7 months later (with much more hair!).  This is one of my favorite photos of her. Finally, in the lower right corner is Maddy on our 2nd day as a family.  This photo was taken in the lobby (near the window overlooking the atrium) of The Majestic Hotel in Nanning, Guangxi, China.  She was 25 months old.

I finally figured out how to post an animation on the blog! First, I created the animation in Animation Shop then I uploaded it to www.flickr.com.  Then I pasted the code to display it here. This is our sweet, happy, Gwen one year ago.

Family FotoFun Friday Participants

1. Allison & Quinn 2. Hiking Through Life with Ian and LiLi 3. Just Keep Swimming 4. Random Thoughts 5. Mei Mei and Jie Jie 6. And They Lived Happily Ever After... 7. Davis Days 8. Raising Cami Rose 9. Journey with AnnaClaire 10. The Princess and the Pea 11. MississippiZen 12. waiting4news99 13. Sophia\'s Journey Continues 14. mommy24treasures

15. Loving Lydia 16. Oohs and Aahs 17. Random Thoughts (Part ii) 18. LadyBug Journals 19. Our Adoption Trip in Chine- Mei Jun Qian- Mia Kennedy Gifford 20. Jeff\'s Place 21. From Here to There, the Ladybug and the Dragonfly 22. Rachel Grace Palmer 23. Shana and Malia 24. Journey to Sarah Lu 25. Chopsticks and Tabolli 26. Mission To Macie 27. Smith Family\'s Adventures 28. Motherhood and Other Ramblings

29. emilee 30. Now We Are Six 31. Kerrnal Journal 32. All the Fishes in the Sea 33. mexican chopsticks 34. Our Journey with Sydney 35. Bobbi Jo 36. twinchatter 37. Hearts in China 38. Temple Gagni 39. Cannon Fishbowl 40. Monica

Easter Bunny

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #25 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a link and a comment here before 4/6/07.

This week's photo challenge is "Easter Bunny".  Want to play?  Here are the very simple rules.

What is it about a grown man in a ridiculous giant bunny suit that makes parents line up and pay money to have their child sit in his lap?  Okay, in M3's case we know it's the free piece of chocolate afterwards but why do the rest of us do it?  Am I really the only person who finds it sorta, well..... creepy?       Here's Maddy.  She saw Mr Bunny sitting there all alone and I teased her by asking if she wanted to go sit on his lap and say hello.   I fully expected that she'd greet that idea with as much shock and horror as my similar constant requests to go say hi to Santa (who occupied that same exact white bench just a few months earlier).  Neither of my kids have ever agreed to get withing 30 feet of Santa but, to my amazement, Maddy said yes about the Easter Bunny!  She sat on his huge hairy leg and the camera guy squeaked and waved some unidentifiable blue stuffed toy and Maddy cracked up laughing!  They took this picture and collected $17 from me and Maddy got two chocolate candy "kisses".  She shared one with Gwen who immediately gobbled hers down and tried to convince Maddy to go sit on that scary thing again and get her some more candy! UPDATE:  On the night before Easter, with just 5 minutes before the end of his final shift, we were amazed to see that there wa no line of nervous children waiting to have their pic taken with our local Mall Bunny.  But we were even more amazed when we asked Gwen if she wanted to go say hi and she agreed! So, here's her first picture with the big furry guy himself!  Heck, maybe we'll get a picture with Santa this year too?

Family FotoFun Friday Participants
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1. Journey with AnnaClaire 2. mei mei journal 3. Raising Cami Rose 4. season star 5. Our Adoption Trip In China- Mei Jun Qian- Mia Kennedy Gifford 6. mexican chopsticks 7. Random Thoughts 8. Our Three Daughters 9. Twins! 10. Sophie and Sage

11. Julie - Nathan\'s Mommy 12. Katie Comes Home 13. On Another Planet 14. Oohs and Aahs 15. To Tess & Back 16. Davis Days 17. Just Keep Swimming 18. Cannon Fishbowl 19. The Kid and I 20. LadyBug Journals

21. Now We Are Six 22. Rachel Grace Palmer 23. The Rees Family 24. The Princess and the Pea 25. Waiting for Sophie 26. Dandelion Days 27. Shana and Malia

Bubbles

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #24 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a link and a comment here before 3/30/07. 

This week's photo challenge is "Bubbles".  Want to play?  Here are the very simple rules.

Sydney and Suzanne's Daddy suggested this week's Foto Challenge and boy was it challenging! Initially, we thought it would be easy -- fun even.  So we got our bucket-o-bubbles and the camera and headed out to our backyard.  We set everything up but before I could even remove the lens cover from the camera, Maddy grabbed the bubble wand and pressed it to her lips and blew a big wet raspberry through it!  Even though I was doing my best to give her instructions, she did this at least a dozen more times with the same results (no bubbles, nasty soapy mouth).  Finally she gave up and passed the wand to Gwen who knew better than to put it on her mouth but still couldn't blow softly enough to produce bubbles.  So she decided it might be more fun to turn the bubble bucket upside down and dump the liquid out instead. We have a little battery operated bubble machine so we switched to that and did manage to get some nice bubbles for the girls to run through.  They loved it! But taking pictures while operating the bubble machine is impossible since both tasks require four hands so our photos were really pathetic.   We had tons of bubbles but they all popped before I could put down the machine and pick up and point the camera.   To get the photos you see in the collage, I had to add some bubbles using a cool effect from my photo editing program.  Click the image to see a larger view.

Family FotoFun Friday Participants

1. Now We Are Six 2. A Mei Mei for Avery 3. Random Thoughts 4. Journey with AnnaClaire 5. Sophie Makes Six 6. season star 7. season star 8. a bicycle built for three 9. Cannon Fishbowl 10. waiting4news99 11. The Princess and the Pea

12. Mei Mei Journal 13. Hiking Through Life with Ian and LiLi 14. Sophie and Sage 15. Wee Sit Family 16. Waala Family Adventures 17. Wo Ai Ni! 18. Motherhood and Other Ramblings 19. mexican chopsticks 20. LadyBug Journals 21. ska-doodle 22. From Here to There, the Ladybug and the Dragonfly

23. Our Three Daughters 24. Twins! 25. Jeff\'s Place 26. nikki 27. Smith Family\'s Adventures 28. Cindy Theriot 29. Are They All Yours? 30. Oohs and Aahs 31. Two "Twin" Terrors