Photostory: Noelle

Mom: Hmmm...she's sitting pretty, cuddling a baby doll,
with her FIRST french braid EVER.

What an opportunity!

Noelle: What's that? Did I just hear the camera turn on?
Oh, no no no no....

Shun the camera! Shunnnnnnn!

Oh, no, you do NOT!

I'm outta here!

I'll just cut through here...

Oh, snap.

You're pretty fast for an old lady, Mom.


Hey Andy, I guess I should have told you about the puppy...

hmmm...I think my husband ought to leave me a comment now and then, seeings as I do this for him when he's away @ work...

And finally, I got my first award today! It's a Great Attitude / Gratitude Award and it's in the sidebar - a lemonade stand. Is that for when life gives you lemons? Could be... Anyway, I am very pleased and want to thank C for her consideration. She is also an optimistic woman with a great attitude.

A Very Appropriate Cartoon

Just had to add this, since it's the story of my life lately. Add a couple more screaming kids and another baby, and it's perfect.










reprinted without permission, of course

January Randomness

We're starting off the new year sick again...at least five kids have succumbed and my throat is scratchy. So far it's only been moderate fever and lethargy, sore throat, maybe a bit of coughing... nothing compared to the nightmarish stomach flu that struck last month. Right, Kim?

I have no idea what's up with Natalie here... she slept for 14 hours straight, she's feverish and her eyes look all bruised, poor baby. We can't tell if it's from being sick, or maybe from an unobserved face-plant, or possibly an insect bite. You would think that after 8 kids we might have seen it all by now, but they always manage to come up with something new...















ps - two days later, the redness is subsiding, and it looks like she does have a bug bite under her eye. In January. Go figure. She's still feeling a little tender, though, as evidenced by the following pictures. Conor has been laid out by the fever for two days. He literally spent every "waking" moment on the couch today, dozing for most of them. At one point Natalie crawled up and snuggled down next to him:





















Her thing is to suck her middle fingers on her right hand, while holding her ear with her left. But sometimes, someone else's ear is just the ticket:















Conor was asleep during the whole thing.

















Sometimes it's just the sweetest thing to catch them loving each other.

Theresa is a total pain in the drain when it comes time for portraits. I have many examples of her hiding her face, grumping at the camera, or smiling weakly with a tear-streaked face. She just doesn't do well when you want everybody to say "cheese!" But when she gets a picture concept in her mind, she's ready and willing. To illustrate, I give you her latest composition:



That's Mousie in her clutches. Mousie's been her constant companion since she was 4 months old. Poor Mousie's seen better days, and her head is about to come off. She's been sewn back together so many times, and there's nothing left to sew onto. In fact, today we caught Theresa pulling out some of Mousie's brains. But Mousie is irreplaceable - we know, because we've tried. Sarah affectionately (not) refers to Mousie as The Green Disease.

Tonight Theresa spontaneously came downstairs in fuschia velvet dress and princess mules, with hair groomed. Being that she usually resembles a ragg mopp, I could not pass up the photo op:

not too dignified for whipped cream, though

I have a real lech for baklava and our grocery store almost never has it. Out of desperation, I bought some phyllo dough - I figured, dough, walnuts, honey - how hard can it be? So I watched a couple baklava-making videos on line (no kidding. I love the information age.) and picked a recipe at random. And it turned out that it wasn't too hard, just a little time-consuming. But it turned out beautifully (beginner's luck) and Oh. My. Gosh. is it yummy.


















Here's a shot of the two oldest doing what they do best. When they're not breaking my heart, they're pretty neat to have around. I stole this picture from her Facebook photo album, since though they take two-and-a-half-billion pictures of themselves, they're almost never around for me to capture.






















These are some ornaments I found last Christmas at a mall kiosk. With 8 kids, 10 total in our family, it's hard to find personalized ornaments that can accommodate all of us, so you can imagine how delighted I was to find these! I can't remember where I got them, but I found the same line of ornaments online here.

















Although I have to admit, when you enlarge the picture of the santa hats ornament, the faces look downright creepy...

















we're zombie peas..... join us... joooooiiiiiinnnnn uuuuusssss

that's weird...in person, they're really cute
















OH - and I could not resist putting this one up. If you want to know what it is, I recommend watching The Pirates That Don't Do Anything, the latest from VeggieTales.

Our twins turn 2 today!!

Natalie & Noelle


Watching Veggietales 3 inches from the screen again...
I can't believe it, but Natalie's almost 2 inches taller than Noelle.



Sampling the frosting, which was amazazing. So light and fluffy and easy to spread, and it didn't pick up any crumbs when I was spreading it. That was important because there were crumbly, cut edges on the cake from cutting out the shapes. It tasted exactly like marshmallow fluff. I just couldn't believe how easy it was.
Recipe is here.




A close-up of the cakes.



A shot of the carnage that ensued...


Check out Natalie's face as Brian shows her a birthday card...



It was also a baby doll heaven. They received matching sets of baby dolls three separate times. Good thing they're crazy about babies right now. They also received a play baby stroller for Christmas, so they load up with as many babies as they can manage.



I don't even remember when this video was taken and I don't know where else to stick it, but it's a wonderful glimpse of what the babies are like as they're turning two. They do this kind of thing every day, and I'm so privileged to be a witness to it.

And finally, a photo montage of the twins' first two years. I had so much fun (and spent too much time) making this! I especially love the first song, "Easy Livin," the lyrics for which are below the video. Don't feel like you have to watch the whole thing. It's LONG. I couldn't stop myself - I kept finding 'just one more' picture to include. It's mainly for us and the grandparents, anyway.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Living for you is easy living
It's easy to live when you're in love
And I'm so in love
There is nothing in life but you

I never regret the days I'm giving
They're easy to give when you're in love
I'm happy to do whatever I do for you

For you maybe I'm a fool
But it's fun
People say you rule me with one wave of your hand
Darling, it's grand
They just don't understand

Living for you is easy living
It's easy to live when you're in love
And I'm so in love
There's nothing in life but you

Christmas Highlights

Christmas Eve was spent at Pap & Mam's house, and we didn't get home until 10:30. Of course, everybody was so hopped up on sugar, excitement, and new toys, so bedtime was extra challenging.

We told them it wasn't going to snow on Christmas, but probably rain instead. This is Clare & Theresa pretending to make mud angels. They kind of look like chalk outlines instead...

This is a short video of Noelle playing with a new toy. It has a revving engine sound, so I put it up on the table to put masking tape over the speaker, so it wouldn't drive us quite so crazy. I left it on the table, and I found her there a few minutes later.

Every time I tried to get her upstairs, she'd frantically cry "No! No! No! Pwaying! Pwaying!"

Once everybody was nestled snug in their beds, I got the stockings stuffed. If we hung them on the wood stove, they'd incinerate, and they don't have hanging loops anyway, so we settle for the couch.

Some of us wouldn't be opening our stockings until later in the day, so those stockings were placed safely out of reach.

The peaceful house on Christmas Eve.


Clare was the first one up on Christmas Day...
Yes, she's wearing the same dress as Christmas Eve. She slept in it. In fact, she's been wearing it for the past three days. The girl's got some Christmas spirit.

Let's see what I got...

Didja get anything good?

Ahhh...nothing like a ring pop first thing in the morning.
Somebody found the candy dish, too.

Guess who was up a little too late and a little too early?
Brian & Conor received mad awesome nerf dart guns. This is all I saw of them for most of the day... I can't tell you how many times I was ambushed by the little creeps.

Of course, no holiday would be complete without this treasured family tradition...

Yes, he really DOES chase them around the house with a naked, dead turkey. See? He's not a Big Mean Daddy ALL of the time!