My baby is 1!!!

Our sweet baby girl recently celebrated her first birthday. I can't believe a whole year has passed already.

One of the things I love most about being a parent is watching their little personalities develop. They have such distinct personalities from their moment of conception and it's fun to see early characteristics become what defines them as they age.

This particular child has one very prominent trait that is making her famous all around town. Somehow, she is able to channel Houdini in all his greatness. I should check out my ancestory to see if he's a distant cousin.

This girl is an escape artist. She has learned how to open baby gates to chase any one of us up the stairs. She learned to unlock the cupboards to get to their interesting contents. She is out the dog door or on top of cabinets. She can shimmy up trash cans to get on top of counter tops. I continue to find her in her sister's top bunk. It is only by the grace of God I'm able to keep her in a grocery cart. If you open a door, she is through it before you even realize she's there. She is silent, stealthy and FAST. I have never in my life seen skills like these. Even her caretakes at the gym told me without any prompting or info from me - "She is our little escape artist. We have a really hard time keeping her where she is supposed to be."

I'm so excited to see how this trait develops over the years. I imagine her as a talented problem solver. Time will tell.

Poster

Micah is the head of the pro-life projects for the Knights of Columbus. As a result, he was asked to join a couple of others in creating a bigger and more active pro-life group in the church as a whole. They're working on sorts of stuff from prayer groups in front of Planned Parenthood, to pamphlets to promoting a mass for life.

Anyway, he and the girls made this poster yesterday. The girls had fun putting their painted hands all over it. I just thought it was cute and wanted to share.

Jonah smells like tuna

My #2 has been cracking me up with this all day today.

"Jonah was swallowed by a whale and it smelled like tuna in there. I don't want to be swallowed by a whale because I don't want to smell like tuna."

This statement has been repeated countless times today, so I think she means it. Before he left, Micah reminded her that an good way to avoid smelling like tuna would be to obey God.

Boy, the fun just never ends around here.

My Spirited Child

#2 had her Christmas concert tonight at her preschool. If this doesn't sum her up, I'm not sure what does.

The Nutcracker

This past weekend, I took #1 on a special date to see Ballet Arizona's The Nutcracker.

She loves ballet and has been begging me for as long as I can remember to go see a real one in person. Having performed in 15 or so Nutcrackers myself, I've been more than a little burnt out on it. It's not even my favorite ballet of all time - given the choice between the Nutcracker and any other, I'd probably choose the other. However, my own personal feelings aside, I cannot deny The Nutcracker is an all time children's favorite.

It was a surprise. I had her put on a brand new dress and took her out to lunch downtown. Not surprisingly, the area was swarming with little girls in beautiful dresses with their mothers and grandmothers. It was killing her not to know what was going on. I finally told her while we were walking up to Symphony Hall. Have you ever seen a 5 1/2 year old have a mini stroke? I have.

Overall, I was pleased with the production. The set and costumes were stunning and the choreography and dancers were fantastic. #1 had too many favorite parts to decide, but some stand outs were the battle with the Rat King and his minions (phenomenally done with amazing costumes), Mother Ginger (of course) and anything involving a beautiful tutu.

Of course, there were all sorts of souvenirs available in the lobby. She chose a lovely music playing nutcracker to commemorate the event.

We had a great time. While I try to set aside some one-on-one time for each girl during the day at home, I rarely have the opportunity to devote an entire afternoon toward the pleasure of one. It was definitely wonderful memory for me.

Photography Workshop

Today, I had the privilege of spending the entire day in a photography workshop with Val Westover and Stephanie Adriana. First, I’d like to thank Groupon because I would not have dreamed of paying full price for the workshop. Groupon made it extremely affordable and motivated me to go for it. Second, I have to thank my wonderful husband for taking the day off work to manage our three children while I spent the day engrossed in my own personal hobby. He’s the best!

The first half of the day was spent in a hotel conference room learning all about how to take photograph – mostly technical stuff with a few pointers on composition. The second half of the day was spent on hotel grounds practicing everything we learned. The teachers would give an“assignment” and we’d scatter and practice. They were available for questions and interacting with other students helped as well.

I really tried to spend my time getting the technical stuff down while I had access to the teachers. The artistic part will come with confidence and practice…I hope. Mostly, I'm just incredibly proud that I took all of these photos with manual settings.

I’m thrilled I had the opportunity to do this and am very satisfied the entire workshop.

Just a test…feel free to ignore…

This is totally a test of my new Windows Live Writer application (new computer!)