Double Happiness

Family Foto Fun Friday

Just a little reminder that FFFF has moved to http://lovinglydia.typepad.com.  Enjoy!

Giddy Up! (Wild Wild West!)

(click on photo to see larger image) Our local Mc Donalds was doing a fund raiser by offering photos of the kids on a pony.  Our kids were highly enthusiastic about sitting on the horsey and the proceeds went to Ronald McDonald Charities -- so we were "in"! After a light snack of Chicken Mc Nuggets and apple juice, we stood in line for our photo and this was the result.  Introducing Gwenny - the Grumpy Cowgirl and Maddy the Contemplative Cowgirl! Neither child cried but neither was super thrilled about wearing this silly attire while sitting atop an overheaded pony named "Snowy".  In fact, I'm almost certain that my girls were as excited about being there as Snowy was (which isn't saying much!)  But everyone was cute as can be so it was blog-worthy.  And here ya go!

Family FotoFun Friday Participants

1. sophieandsage.blogspot.com 2. catching butterflies 3. Cannon Fishbowl 4. Teague Adventures 5. Raising Cami Rose 6. 4 3=chaos 7. Just Keep Swimming

8. Chopsticks & Tabouli 9. Journey to Sarah Lu 10. Wo Ai Ni! 11. Mountains and Mountains & Oceans and Oceans 12. mexican chopsticks 13. The Happy Momma 14. The Princess and the Pea

15. Motherhood and Other Ramblings 16. The Ghelerter Twins 17. Journey with AnnaClaire 18. Diana\'s Twins 19. Allie\'s World 20. twinchatter

Love

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #35 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a link and a comment here before 6/22/07. 

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

I got the idea for this week's FFFF from M3 over on the Salsa in China blog.  She wrote about how her twin cuties (Rose and Marie) totally "heart" one another and that made me think about Sisterly Love in our house.  Thanks, MMM!

My girls really do love one another even if they don't always show it.  But here they are showing it!

Family FotoFun Friday Participants

1. amy heymann 2. Our Adoption Trip in China-Mei Jun Qian-Mia Kennedy Gifford 3. Just Another Family 4. Just Keep Swimming 5. Elena Manubens 6. Cannon Fishbowl 7. JourneytoAnnalisa 8. Sophia\'s Journey Continues 9. My Chinese Dream 10. The Princess and the Pea 11. LadyBug Journals 12. Table for 5 13. Journey with AnnaClaire 14. Zoe\'s Place

15. [email protected] 16. G.B.J. Lambooij 17. Journey to Miah 18. Life & Times of Chloe & Pearl 19. Raising Cami Rose 20. Search and Destroy Twins 21. Chopsticks and Tabouli 22. Oohs and Aahs 23. Ally 24. season star 25. Nobody said there\'d be days 26. Rachel Grace Li 27. MississippiZen 28. Life with Emilia

29. Eliza\'s Story 30. mexican chopsticks 31. Mountains and Mountains & Oceans and Oceans 32. She\'s a-DORI-ble!!! 33. Journey to Sarah Lu 34. Our Maddenclan 35. christina 36. Angela Bean 37. Diana\'s Twins 38. Gogoz Place 39. with six you get eggroll 40. The Ghelerter Twins 41. MakandJack

Messy!

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #34 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a link and a comment here before 6/15/07. 

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

All kids are messy but Gwen and Maddy are incredible mess makers. If the naturally occurring toddler mess isn't intense enough, they'll invent more of it -- just for fun! For example, today, I gave my little monkey girls a slice of cheese. I figured they'd be enthuastic about this snack choice since they always open their toasted cheese sandwiches like Oreo cookies and nibble the cheese out. I thought I'd just save them the trouble. The result: They squeezed it between their fingers like play dough! Did they managed to swallow any of it? Nope. On any given day, you can probably find at least one mauled toast slice (that's been stripped of all its cheesy goodness) in some stage of petrification under a car seat. Every few days, I use a whisk broom to sweep out all of the crumbs onto our driveway (or a random parking lot) and I'm starting to notice that flocks of birds are following my van like sharks follow fishing boats that toss chum behind them as they return to dock with their daily catch. I'm probably interfering with migration patterns. We ate "mackie cheese" for lunch a few days ago and I actually had to carry their table into the kitchen and hose it off over the sink! But nothing is more abusive than the way they eat chocolate.  Just look at all that yummy stuff they wasted by smearing it all over their face!  (Okay, I'm guilty too but I was only one year old and I'm sure I've never wasted even an ounce of chocolate in any form since then!) Even washing up is messy in our house since there's soap to squirt and water to splash and shirts to soak and towels to toss on the floor.  And that's WITH my supervision!  We keep a baby gate across the bathroom door to prevent them from attempting to "clean up" on their own. Family FotoFun Friday Participants 1. The Princess and the Pea 2. Catching Butterflies 3. Raising Cami Rose 4. Journey to Sarah Lu 5. Journey with AnnaClaire 6. The Monkey King 7. MississippiZen 8. Just Another Family 9. Motherhood and Other Ramblings 10. season star 11. mexican chopsticks 12. Daily Grind 13. Chopsticks & Tabouli 14. mommy24treasures 15. Just Keep Swimming 16. Life with Dallas 17. Life with Emilia 18. Our Adoption Trip in China- Mei Jun Qian-Mia Kennedy Gifford 19. Katie\'s Antics 20. Journey to Miah 21. Allie\'s World 22. with six you get eggroll 23. Diana\'s Twins 24. Krista Dolan 25. Rachel Grace Li 26. Zoe\'s Place

Baby Strollers

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #33 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a link and a comment here before 6/8/07.

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

Of all of our baby related purchases, I think our strollers have given us the most bang for the buck.  There's not a day that goes by that we don't use the stroller.  Some days, it's hauled in and out of our trunk three or four times!  Since we use the stroller so much, it stands to reason that some of our most memorable photos include strollers.  When I was preparing this week's FFFF, I dug through the archives and had at least a dozen photos to post but I limited myself to just these three (one of each of our strollers). The top photo is a sleeping Gwen in our Graco Metrolite stroller.  It was taken in China at the Six Banyon Tree Temple in Guangzhou.  It was my birthday and it was our 6th day with our new daughter.  My birthday hadn't been a cause for celebration for many years.  First of all, it's 9/11.  Next, I'm over 40.  And as lousy luck would have it, I'd spent the prior two birthdays dealing with pregnancy losses (one of them was on my birthday).  So, this birthday in China with Gwen and Andrew was simply beautiful. Yes, we took a stroller to China.  We also took a baby carrier and both items saw LOTS of use.  It was wicked-hot and as much as Gwenny loved Mommy to hold her, she seemed to greatly appreciate being less hot and sweaty in her stroller when we were outside.   The stroller was cheap so it was easy to buy it for the trip to China and replace it if it didn't survive the trip.  But it survived and performed better than strollers 5 times the price.  There wasn't a reason to replace it until we got Maddy. In anticipation of Maddy's arrival.  We test drove every tandem/double stroller on the market and ended up with the one that met almost all of our needs (lightweight, large basket underneath, parent drink holders, no 'third' wheel in the center, easy to push with one hand, etc).  As luck would have it, it also ended up being the cheapest double stroller (other than umbrella strollers).  In the middle picture, you see Maddy and Gwen on Maddy's adoption day in our Graco DuoRider stroller.  This was her 2nd day with us and the first smile we captured on film.    Nine months later, we're still using this stroller every day and it's going strong. Finally, here's our new jog stroller - a BabyTrend Expedition.  It's much easier to push on the streets and sidewalk and the kids love it.  There's even a built in speaker for you to plug your mp3 player/iPod into for the kiddies.  We got this one at Babies-R-Us (cheap) and our only regret is that the front wheel doesn't swivel.

Family FotoFun Friday Participants

1. The Princess and the Pea 2. Just Another Family 3. With 6 You Get Eggroll 4. season star 5. Cannon Fishbowl 6. mexican chopsticks 7. Life with Emilia 8. Search and Destroy Twins 9. Our Three Daughters 10. And Miles To Go... 11. Chopsticks & Tabouli

12. Journey to Sarah Lu 13. the monkey king 14. Sophia\'s Journey Continues 15. Just Keep Swimming 16. The Ghelerter Twins 17. Motherhood and Other Ramblings 18. Journey with AnnaClaire 19. Raising Cami Rose 20. Now We Are Six 21. Twochinasistersandabrother 22. Zoe\'s Place

23. Loving Gracie - Paperwork Pregnant No More! 24. From Here to There, the Ladybug and the Dragonfly 25. From Here to the There, the Ladybug and the Dragonfly 26. Our Maddenclan 27. Amy W 28. Our Adoption Trip In China-Qian Mei Jun- Mia Kennedy Gifford 29. She\'s a-DORI-ble!!! 30. Twinchatter