Hairmoans

You know that thick, lovely hair that is achieved during pregnancy? Well, about three months later, it all falls out. Well, not all, but enough that you can make a pretty good sized hair ball by the end of a shower or find your way out of a thick, wooded area by following the trail of hair back out. Then, just when you are beginning to adjust to your new, thinner-haired look, a hair-raising situation arises. Literally. The hair that just fell out in droves, now grows back. A nice new layer of short baby hairs that stick straight up in a postpartum halo dash any and all hopes of good hair days in the months to come. When I was little, my sister brought home a paper doll she'd make with a fro-of-sorts that she named Delightsocket. I am that doll.

And speaking of dolls, check out these two rolling around together this morning. She rocks the baby hair much better than I!

Which One of These Doesn't Belong?

While eating lunch with Lawson, he was happily chattering away. Soon he was doing a show-and-tell of the items near us that he could name. Eventually, he got to what was on his plate.

Pizza!!!!

Cheese!!!!

POOP!!!!! (said with arm thrusting up as high as possible and topped with a pointed finger)


Two of these items go together, one of them doesn't belong. Can you tell which one?

Perspective

This picture was only taken two months ago, but it already feels like an old picture. They've changed so much since then. Especially Miss Num Num! It's strange how children make time feel different. A photo of myself taken two months ago would be considered recent, but this photo is already outdated. It puts things into perspective for me.


I woke up a few mornings ago with a strong sensation that moments are fleeting. This time spent at my mom's house is half over already and the holidays will be but a memory sooner than I'd like. This time next year we will have been in Texas up to eight months already! That blows my mind. I know I sound like a broken record going on and on constantly about how quickly time is going, but it never ceases to amaze me. I also find myself being reminded, in so many ways, to slow down and enjoy the kids while they are little. To enjoy this time of staying with my mom, even with Dustin away. To enjoy the process. It isn't a race to the finish or to the next step. This is life and it doesn't slow down and wait for you. Days happen, events happen. If I am not prepared to take it all in, then I miss out. And it isn't just me that misses out. The kids miss out, as well, if I'm too caught up in my mind to enjoy their little triumphs each day.

The quote I put below the picture is so fitting for them. They adore each other. They like to play and snuggle and laugh together. They even like to cry together. Lawson wants to go "nigh nigh" as soon as he wakes up in the morning just so he can hang out under the covers with Num Num. They are each others' world. But, I am also their world. Especially when Dustin is away. And that truly puts it into perspective. We may not be home as a whole family, but we are family and because we are together, we are home.

And I Quote

If I Had a Crystal Ball...

...I'd throw it away! Trying to peek into the future only leads to sleepless nights. Being that I was awake until after 3am last night dreaming about the future, I'm an expert on this, so trust me. The excitement of what is to come when Dustin gets back as we prepare to move to Texas left my mind spinning and my eyes wide open staring into the darkness that I hoped would be my crystal ball. That whole idea of being in the moment is a big one for me. When I exist only for what is happening around me, not only do I live happier, but I sleep happier, too. "Like a baby", they would say. After I had kids, I wondered what in the world the person that thought up that phrase was smoking. Babies wake up constantly! But now I know what it means. Babies are in the now, they are not mulling over the latest happenings and over analyzing what is to come. They are laying in their fluffy bed with their eyes closed peacefully and sleeping. Until they wake up 5 minutes later... but that is in the future and not of concern to them as they fall into sleep.

No, I don't need a crystal ball. I need to remember that the future holds more wonderful memories for further on down the road and now is the time to make them. So, I'm off to enjoy being cooped up in the house and experience some beautiful memories for later.

Ready to Fly the Croup

It's a farm full of yuck-germs around here this week. It started out with a very unwelcome swine and is ending with a barrel of antsy monkeys trying to fly the croup! Lawson got sick all at once on Monday night and by Tuesday was in urgent care, having not had a drop to drink in nearly 24 hours and a fever of 103.3. They didn't test him and didn't seem worried but said that he had the swine flu and should take an anti-viral. So, home again, home again, jiggity jig, with Rx in hand we went. He had a cocktail of the anti-viral, Motrin, gelsemium semp. 30 and oscillococcinum and seemed to get better almost immediately. Tuesday was spent running around playing and coughing and saying "no!" as much as always. The pig seemed to be on it's way off the farm and we were glad!

Eight o'clock rolled around and he went to sleep seeming almost back to normal. Well, two hours later, I found a very different boy in his bed. A barking seal had joined us at the farm and Lawson was not pleased. I didn't like the sound of his cough and wasn't about to risk letting him go all night for this to develop into pneumonia or bronchitis. Off we went to the E.R. to have him checked out. By the time we arrived, his cough was markedly better and had me feeling a little on the silly side for having brought him in. I stuck to my guns though and in we marched. Lawson rode in his stroller and Naomi hung out in my favorite baby carrier, the Balboa Baby. The nurses were laughing that I had babies everywhere, that some people accessorize with jewelry and I accessorized with babies. This had us all laughing, which was nice since Lawson was feeling more than a little uneasy with his "dinosaur mask" on to keep from spreading his germs. The nurse checked him out and thought he sounded fine, then the respiratory specialist checked him over and said the same thing. Then, a seasoned and sassy doctor walked in to give him the once-over before they sent us home. Lawson started crying the second he came in because he knew he was about to be prodded and poked again. Well, the doctor heard him inhale once and said, "he has croup." Which made me feel a little less like an overbearing worry-wart of a mom for bringing him into the E.R. Apparently, the cold and damp air outside on the way to the hospital was a therapy of sorts. The gave him some meds to take down the swelling in his esophagus and we were on our way with a much happier boy.

So, we're not sure if he ever had the swine flu or not now. He may have been misdiagnosed in the first place, or he could have had it and it turned into croup. I'm kind of hoping we got swine flu out of the way and have immunity now! This is starting to sound a bit like Survivor: Sick Farm. Luckily, the barking seal and pig have been voted off the farm and hopefully won't be coming back for the rest of us (though my mom may very well have stolen that barking seal off the farm for herself.) In the mean time, I'm going a little stir-crazy and wish I could fly the croup for a while! Until then, we've got elephant trains and walking lady bugs to keep us company as the rest of the sanitized toys hide out until the coast is clear! And when it is, I'm jumping on that train to chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo my way off the farm to start in on some Holiday shopping!!!

Poodini

Heard from down the hall:


Lawson, did you poo poo? Should you tell Mama that you need a new diaper?

Yeah, poo poo.

Kim!

...yes, I know.

No, you don't. It's coming out the bottom of his pant leg.

Um, what?


So, off I went to meet Lawson and Mima at the bathtub to take over this sure-to-be-stinky clean-up job. I started to pull his pants down and realized there was no diaper covering his buns. I patted down his legs and realized his diaper had gone completely missing and he had poop down in between his toes. Yuck. Actually, double yuck. So, where the heck was this diaper and how nasty was this going to get?! Thanks to the high powered shower head, I was able to power wash the poo right out from between his cheeks and his toes then scrub away all residual residue. Not that you care, but I was pretty thrilled not to scrub that off by hand.

I soon I found myself behind his little behind going on a diaper hunt, hoping he'd lead me to it's hiding place. We searched in the front coat closet, all the drawers and even under the pillows on the couch. No diaper. It was a major Poodini. It certainly isn't laying around with steaming poo smell or we'd have surely discovered it! It made me SO glad we've not had to deal with diapers being torn off and rubbed around all over the place. That would be a very...poopy... situation. For now, it's only elusive, dissapearing, Poodini diapers!

Sunishine in a Vase

During lunch today, a rogue vehicle turned into my drive and left me guessing what the deal was. What day is it? Am I expecting anyone or anything? The more I wondered, the more curious I was. Finally, the driver got out of her car and got something out of her backseat. I was holding my breath, wondering what it could be. She turned around and it was flowers! My sweet, thoughtful husband sent me a gorgeous vase full of beautiful flowers just. because. JUST BECAUSE! I feel like the luckiest girl in the world right now. Not because I got flowers, but because he was thoughtful enough to have a sweet thought about me on the other side of the world, and send it to me in a vase for me to smile at every time I see it. That is happiness. Thank you, Dustin. I love you, too.

In Your Frog?

For those of you with a blog, you probably know what BlogFrog is. If you don't, you should check it out by clicking on the blogfrog widget in the right column of my page. This widget shows you who has visited your blog (to some degree). So, yesterday, I was checking out blogs and noticed that a certain person had just visited my blog. So I said to my mom:

Oh! So and so just checked out my blog!

Really? How can you tell?

Because they showed up in my BlogFrog.

In Your Blog Frog? What the heck is that?

It's a widget that shows you when other people with blog frog or blogger check your page.

ummm.... oh. (pause, then said seriously) How do you get your blog in the frog???

.....


It was at that point that I realized that until you are pretty deep into blogging, you don't realize how ridiculous it all sounds until it is said aloud to you by someone uninvolved in blogging.

Such as the time I was at my sisters and was, as always, checking out blogs. It was an ordinary day in the blog community and I scrolled down my page to find a handful of new posts to read. Well, soon enough, I reached the bottom of my blog lists and got to the BlogFrog widget. It should be noted, that in blogging, there are blogs and then there are BLOGS. The big blogs that millions of people love, such as MckMama's blog, My Charming Kids or Pioneer Woman. That's when I saw that MckMama had checked my blog at the same time as I'd been checking hers. I had a mild sense of being in the presence of a celebrity. Okay, major. I was ecstatic! My sister stared at me as I got way too excited, repeating, "oh, my gosh! MckMama just checked my blog! MckMama!" To her, I'm sure it sounded like insane babble, not knowing who the heck MckMama was and why I'd want someone, let alone, be excited over some person called MckMama checking in on my blog. I'm not proud to admit it, but I was seriously stoked that she saw my blog! Which, I know, screams "dork". As does being in a position where you find yourself explaining widgets and being asked how you put your blog in the frog, which I still don't know how to explain. I'll be that dork, though, because as silly as it all sounds sometimes, blogging is all sorts of cool and totally puts the frog in my blog. Or the blog in the frog...

My Heart in My Hands

Fort Hood

Unspeakable. What happened at Fort Hood today is unspeakable. A soldier shooting up his very own army's base is like someone shooting their own family. It is sick and wrong and disturbing on every level. He robbed families of their loved ones, who've made it to Iraq and back only to be killed be one of their own. He also robbed military families the comfort of feeling safe in their on base housing and going about their business while on post. Someone's daddy went off to work today and didn't return home because some loser turned on himself, his comrades and his country.

This country has been divided by war. Should we have gone? Should we have moved on and let a it go? I don't have the answers, but I do know that our troops did not need to have any more people discouraged from supporting them. I'm saddened and horrified and my heart goes out to the families of those who were killed, those who were wounded and those who witnessed this horrible act. If you pray, send one out for them. If you don't pray, keep them in your thoughts. That could have been Dustin that didn't come home from work and the thought makes me want to say some pretty mean things about that man. I hope he has to sit in a cell in a military prison for the rest of his life.

Bright and Buddhaful

So Fresh and So Clean

Is there anything more fresh and clean than a just-bathed baby? Soft, squishy, smiley and due to spit up at any moment. But, at least for two seconds, that little head smells as sweet as, well, a freshly bathed baby!

Out of All the Pumpkins in the Patch, He Chose a Rock

I'm barely able to comprehend that November has arrived already! But, Halloween has come and gone and all that's left are some pumpkins by the front door. Before I can fully move on to November, I've got to give a proper finish to October.

The day before Halloween, we found ourselves in the midst of a gorgeous, warm fall day and headed down the road to the pumpkin patch for a hayride. Lawson would have been happy to sit in the tractor by the parking lot all day long, but we finally made it to the hay ride that left us out in the country aside a sea of orange. We walked all around the pumpkins, but Lawson had his eye on other things. He snatched up a pumpkin-shaped rock, which Lawson calls a "gee-ock," and it was clear that there would not be any pumpkins coming home with us that day. He even had a little whirlwind romance when he found himself in the middle of the patch with a cute little girl who offered to help him with his gee-ock. They soon realized that not only did they have eyes for each other, but their boots did, too. They admired the eyes on their respective frog and bee boots and giggled with each other until the tractor started up to take us out of the pumpkin patch. I caught them making eyes a few more times as they passed each other around the farm, though. I'm going to have my hands full with this little Casanova!


















Halloween day rolled around and the fear of swine flu kept us home. I'm normally not a germ-a-phobe, but with Naomi still being so young, I'm avoiding the flu like the plague. Visions of snot-nosed children digging through bowls of candy only to eventually be eaten by a soon-to-be sick little kid swam through my mind all morning. So, that night, I dressed Lawson in a bear costume, walked him out the garage, around to the front door and he had a ball ringing the doorbell and trick-or-treating at mima's house over and over! He also thought it was great fun have the doorbell ring and see all sorts of kids show up to get their pillowcases filled!











And so our October ended with a fluffy little bear running gleefully around the house, sucking on his loot (two dum-dums) and yelling "ALOOWEEN!!!" It also come rolling to a close as Naomi figured out that she can get from point A to point B by rolling over and over and over. The look of glory in her face when she realized she got to where she wanted to be all by herself was pretty awesome. Luckily, I don't have to roll around on the floor to get where I want to be. I'm there already.

CLICKIN' MOMS GIVEAWAY WINNER!!!

Thank you to all of you who participated in the Clickin' Moms membership giveaway!!! The lucky winner, drawn at random by my mom (who had no idea why she was picking a number) is Melissa! Congratulations!!! Melissa, you should be getting an e-mail from Clickin' Moms to start you off with your free year subscription! For the rest of you, I really encourage you to sign up with them! Even if it's just for a month to start with, you could pay for it with the change in your couch and see a drastic improvement in your photos! Although, a word of warning, you will not want to stop your subscription once you start!!! Thanks to everyone who entered! Hopefully I can do another giveaway soon! It was so much fun to see your photos!

Snow Princess

Once upon a time....

There lived a tiny little girl, with so many blank pages in her story and such a gleam in her eye that it was clear that hers would be a fairy tale. And though her story had yet to be written, she knew that the possibilities were endless and that it would end with "happily ever after."

We're on the Spin Cycle

My life in a washing machine? Right now, we're stuck on spin cycle.

It all began last Tuesday, when I woke up and crept out of bed to leave my two little dreamers asleep in their beds so I could get myself ready for the day! One step, two step, squish, squish, SLOSH!!! Bleary-eyed and mildly disoriented, I recounted the thorough cleaning of my carpets the day before. I had borrowed a carpet cleaning machine from my dear friend, Lindsay, and spent a couple of hours getting my carpets sparkly clean. I remembered them being a little damp before going to bed, but with the dehumidifier running in my room, surely they'd be dry. And that didn't explain why I was standing in a puddle in my bedroom. "HI!!!" shouted Lawson from his crib. Two pairs of smiling eyes greeted me and snapped me into reality. I looked down, water above my toes. Hmmm. Slosh, slosh, splash. I opened the door to see that this puddle in the carpet of my room was really just the lake to the hallway's river. A lazy river, but a river just the same. And the mouth from which this river was fed, was the mighty Throne Ocean. AKA: my toilet.

A little geography and background on the Throne Ocean before I go any further. It is known to gurgle and bubble without explanation, is a bit tricky to flush at times and prefers to run continuously if not manually shot off. Well, this turned out to be a really bad combination.

Upon discovering the steady waterfall cascading down the side of the toilet, I shut the water off immediately then stood in the middle of the river (hallway) staring at the lakes to the south and the east of me. We'll call them Lake Used to be My Bedroom and Lake Living Room. There was a third and yet undiscovered Lake Unfortunately Messy Closet, but luckily I didn't have to think about that lake yet.

So, here's the scenario for me at that point: our wood floors had been finished just three days prior, which meant that everything we owned (minus the kitchen items) were all crammed into our small downstairs and small garage. I had two small children with multiple immediate needs, such as fresh diapers and food, and I was standing in a river fed by my toilet, overlooking carpet lakes. By the way, standing in water first thing in the morning only adds to your need to pee, which you can not do when the toilet would only spew it into the river flowing into your bedroom. Not cool. Oh, yeah, and it was just me at home to deal with this thanks to Dustin having left the week before. Just call me Captain Kim. I would have made a much better Skipper. Truly!

So, at that point, I did the only thing any confident, seasoned captain would do. I called my mom. About five minutes into explaining my disbelief and inability to figure out what to do, I realized that calling my mother, who lives in an entirely separate state, was not actually helpful. So, I called the Commanding Officer of our squadron's wife, Maureen, who was literally the North Star guiding this captain to dry land. She was on her way over (as soon as she could organize what to do with her four kids. Yes, four kids and she's on her way over immediately. Amazing.) While I waited, I called insurance to, thankfully, find out that we were covered with our home-owners insurance and began throwing every towel in sight into the river then into the spin cycle over and over.

Before I knew it, Maureen arrived and spent the next 12 hours helping me care for the kids and carrying all of our stuff either upstairs to our newly finished floors that I was scared to death of scratching or into our garage, which is now the stuff that nightmares are made of. Tell me that is not incredible! Words can not even convey how thankful I was and am that she came to my rescue!

Halfway through the day, we discovered Lake Under the Stair Storage and I almost lost it staring at my giant wet Pottery Barn Box full of my not-yet-used Christmas Decorations. There were cuss words muttered and tears held back. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. I made it through un-medicated 32 hour labor only cussing once (It was mid-contraction and I believe it went something like, "Back Labor Sucks! Piece of $h!t!") but mess with my Pottery Barn Decorations and I truly took on the role of a sailor. It was at that point, I also realized that I was in too far over my head and only had Maureen for the day. There would be more days on this journey and I needed help.

Enter my saviors. My mother and father-in-law. The dam burst when I got on the phone with my mother-in-law, Brenda. I actually only got the words, "I need help!" out of my mouth before bursting into tears that left me unable to talk for a minute or so and surely left her imagination running wild as to what was wrong! And bless their souls, they were on the road within an hour with an arrival time of 1am. Yes, one in the morning. By then, we'd cleared out all but the big pieces of furniture from downstairs. The terribly heavy and awkward king size memory foam mattress was a group effort! My friend Lindsay brought us pizza after a LONG first day at a new job then helped carry the giant mattress and box springs and frame up the stairs. That's a good friend, if you ask me! The clean-up crew was still hard at work getting the drying out process started when Jim and Brenda got in and finally at 2:30 am, we waved goodbye to the clean-up crew and sprinted toward our pillows.

So, in the annoying words of Alanis Morrisette, Thank you spin cycle. Thank you C.O.'s wife. Thank you. Thank you in-laws!!! Thank you insurance. Thank you happy kids! Thank you, my awesome friends!!!

It was a long week trying to get organized to come down to Oregon, but we made it. It's been wet down here, but it's much more fun getting wet during a morning walk/run with a good friend than when you step out of bed in the morning. And I'm having a much better time spinning out wet clothes from a walk than wet towels from the Hallway River.

GIVEAWAY!!!! C'MON PEOPLE!!!

Okay, so you may remember a few posts back that I'm having a GIVEAWAY of a free years' subscription to ClickinMoms.com!!! Well, so far only two people have entered. It's free stuff, so I'm like, hmmmm..... apparently I've made it too hard to enter (or I'm the only one that would get excited by a giveaway and would want to win this). So let's do this: Leave me a comment on the original post and you're entered. The end. Oh, and did I mention it's free stuff??? And just in case you were wondering, you DON'T have to be a mom to love this sight at all! Okay, I'll leave you alone now.

Free stuff.... I'm just sayin'!


free.

The Cutest Pumpkin of All

The days leading up to Dustin leaving were nuts, to say the least! There was flooring to be laid, tons of tools and furniture to move off the wood floor so it could be sanded and finished, odds and ends to tie up around the house, trips to Home Depot, packing and preparing for his detachment, and finally, trying to squeeze in a little family time. Well, we squeezed it in, barely, on Saturday night before sunset. On the way home from Home Depot, we passed the pumpkin patch and decided to go. We hurried home to get in warmer clothes and then raced back to play for a while before the sun went down. We parked, I put Naomi in the sling, then Dustin says, "um, where did you put his shoes?". Um, yeah. "Can't say that I put them anywhere." We soon realized that our tag-team effort to hurry out of the house left each of us thinking the other would put his shoes on. Luckily, it's only 5 minutes to our house. Dustin left with Lawson to get some shoes and I got 15 minutes to snap a couple of pictures with Naomi before they arrived. She fell asleep the rest of the time and it ended up being a really good time for Dustin and I with Lawson (and his shoes). We had the corn maze all to ourselves and ran around in circles, getting lost a few times, only to finally emerge and make a beeline for the pumpkins to claim our own while we could still see! Lawson hopped into the wheelbarrow and we headed down the middle of the pumpkin patch. Not five minutes later, we had a wheelbarrow full of cute pumpkins and some great memories! I'm quite sure I already had with the two cutest pumpkins, though....

My, What Big Eyes You Have

The better to melt you with, mommy!!!

And melt me, she does! One look at me with those big blue eyes and I turn to mush. And if those eyes fill up with tears, you may as well wipe me up off the floor cause I'm done for. The girl has me by the strings and she already knows how to pull them. And, I just may be a wolf in mom's clothing, cause sometimes I just want to eat her up!

GIVEAWAY

I love photography. Love. it. I've only fallen deeper in love as I learn more about it. One of the best resources I have found for honing my skills and expanding my knowledge is Clickin Moms. For just a few dollars a month, both wannabe and professional photographers use this forum-based sight to share critiques, tutorials, deals, free goodies and so much more. I can't say enough about how great this sight is! So, I'm really excited to be giving away a FULL YEAR'S SUBSCRIPTION (a $50 value) to Clickin Moms! Woohoo!!!

Here's how you enter: Go back to your blog or your facebook page and post your favorite photo that you have taken. Explain what it is about the photo that makes your heart sing and link back to this giveaway post. Then come back here and leave me a link to your photo as a comment! That's it! The only fine print is you cannot already be a member of Clickin Moms. Entries will be accepted until October 31st and the winner, drawn at random, will be announced on Nov 1st. Good luck!

Excited

The theme at I Heart Faces this week is "Excited". There are a few moments where I remember being so excited I thought I was going to blast off to the moon. This was one of them. The day of my wedding was kind of an out of body experience as I floated happily through the day. The moment this picture was taken, however, the veil had just gone on and I was snapped back into my body. I was getting married. To the man of my dreams. Today. This was the first day of the rest of my life. It got real. It got exciting. And maybe a little shocking as well. This was that moment of excitement. I can remember that feeling so well when I see this picture. Pure happiness!

HARVEST

HARVEST by Kimberly Laird.

It's like Christmas in the fall around here! Our wood floors are officially laid down in the entire upstairs and tools are headed back down to the garage so the floors can be finished! Dustin did an amazing job on the floor! I'm so proud of him. It's almost like we have a new house now. One that we will get to enjoy for six months or less, but it looks a heck of a lot better than it did when we bought it two and a half years ago! I'll post before, during and after photos when the floors have the finish on them.

We also have pumpkins on our front porch from our trip to the pumpkin patch yesterday (more to come on that, later), which is so much fun!!! And to add to the fall decor around here, I made the picture above to frame from a photo I snapped in the corn maze. I'm digging this harvest season so far!!!

Comforts

There is a crispness to the air as I wake up each morning to find myself deeper into the fall season. Halloween is around the corner and leaves are beginning to crunch beneath little feet shoved inside colorful boots. I love this time of year as the coats rotate back into the closet and smoke starts billowing out of chimneys. Something about this season draws me to life's "comforts". Crackling fires, warm cups of coffee in my favorite mug, roasts in the crock pot, and snuggling under a blanket together on the couch. This fall will bring all sorts of changes around our home. We'll be moving back upstairs to enjoy our newly finished wood floors that Dustin has been working so hard on, for one. But that leads me to number two, which is that by "we" I mean Lawson, Naomi and I. Dustin leaves on Tuesday for his final detachment with VQ-2. It's always hard to say goodbye and this is no exception. We'll have to enjoy the finished floors and playing in leaves and drinking coffee under a blanket to the tune of a crackling fire all by ourselves. Seasons bring change and so does being in the Navy. Luckily, this is our last detachment this tour and the next few years will be sans detachments!

So, while I'm not looking forward to the "big bye bye", as we explain it to Lawson, I am looking forward to all the fun this fall has in store for the kids and I. And I'm looking forward to the end of our final detachment! No more goodbyes sounds pretty good!!!

Family Photos

Back when Lawson was a mere two months old, we had some family pictures taken before Dustin went out on Deployment. A few hundred dollars later, we had a couple of good pictures. I was horrified figuring the cost of getting pictures done as often as I would want. A few bazillion dollars later, I should have documented the kids pretty well! That figure, combined with loving to take pictures, is what lit the fire under me to figure out how to do them myself. A good camera and some self-schooling is a heck of a lot cheaper and way more fun than dressing the kids up, marching them to a studio and crossing my fingers and toes we get a good one! Well, I figured out how to get pictures of the kids, but a family picture was a little more complicated. Without a costly remote, it's near impossible to take a picture of the whole group. The 10 second time just doesn't cut it when shooting in manual. Enter my great friend Lindsay. She did me a giant favor by tagging along with us down to the beach on a blustery evening to click the camera for me! She posed as me in as I set up the shot on the camera end of things, then we switched and she tried to click at just the right moment so it wouldn't look like Lawson was growling like a dinosaur or jumping out of the picture! He was, in fact, doing both. He also had CRAZY hair due to the wind and Naomi is looking like Kenny from South Park with her hood. It was a little colder than I'd anticipated. We ended up with a few good shots though and I am so happy to have them before Dustin leaves again and Naomi is mobile, too. How we're ever going to get a family picture with both of them acting up and trying to escape is beyond me! Thank you so much, Lindsay!

My two favorite boys!

And one of my main man, for good measure!

Fifteen Pounds of Teething Baby

I picked Naomi up a few mornings ago to find that a chubby, nearly-sitting giant version of the baby I'd put to bed the night before had been put in her place! Take a look at the picture below and I'm sure you won't be too shocked to hear that Naomi is a portly 15lbs already! I've got my very own Thanksgiving turkey sized baby! The baby-wearing is getting slightly less frequent as each pound she puts on is making my urgency for getting a massage reach new levels. My back is pretty much cussing at me when I get out of bed each morning, so I'm thinking it needs a bit of an attitude adjustment, via a really good rub-down! That's beside the point, though... the point is, Naomi is getting huge. See below:



Besides getting large, she's also getting teeth already! A few lucky hotel-dwellers got to hear the two hour beginnings of her teething at 11pm one night last week as I waited for Dustin to return from the dining out that I did not attend due to having a toddler on my hip and a baby on my boob. (Note to self: it is near impossible to get a toddler to sleep on a blow-up mattress in a hotel room. It's also pretty hellish, if not a little comical, to be awake at midnight with a grumpy toddler and a screaming baby serenading the nearby rooms. Hope no one was trying for a romantic getaway. Nothing "screams" romance like a loud, unhappy baby! ) So, there are two bottom teeth waiting to poke through her tender baby gums. No longer will this toothless grin greet me when she wakes up...



This is how Naomi spends much of her days, lately. Munching on what ever she can get in her mouth. Usually a few fingers, her sleeve or a combo of the two.



Moral of the story is that Naomi is the drooble queen as she awaits her first two teeth. As always, she eats incessantly and is therefore reaching giant proportions. I am fine with both and will allow her to grow her teeth and continue her frequent feedings under one condition. No biting! Naomi, please don't be a biter. Please??? Oh, and as for the sitting up part... here she is with her boppy as a support, plotting her impending adventures getting into all sorts of trouble with her brother.

He's Got It

"I got it!" Those three words are like the chorus to life's song around our house. We've moved on from the track "mine" and now have "I got it!" on repeat at top volume. While Lawson is quite sure that he's got it, be it climbing the stairs on his own or picking up a toy when he's been asked, I'm not always as sure. He could be attempting to drink out of a glass with 99% of it dribbling down his front and he'd still be sure that he's got it! My confidence is shaken a bit more easily. I am convinced that I don't have it when just the smallest thing goes awry. I'm taking a clue from this little guy, though, cause I think he's on the right "track" - even if the song is getting a bit overplayed. Overall, I've got it. And Lawson certainly does, too!

Holding mommy's hand up the hill is a thing of the past...

...cause my little monkey has "got it!"

Blue

This photo has been framed atop a bookshelf in my living room for coming on two years now. It's one of my favorite pictures of Lawson. The look on his face speaks volumes about his personality. It's my entry for this weeks' "Blue Challenge" over at I Heart Faces.

Crawling Towards Crawling

Kimberly Laird September 2009

Naomi is working hard at learning to crawl the last few days. Notice that chubby little knee getting in position? She actually manages to pivot herself in a circle and scoot forward a bit. It won't be too long and she'll be mobile! Look out Lawson, it's payback time!

Lindsay's Photos

Yesterday, a wonderful afternoon was spent photographing my dear friend, Lindsay. I was ridiculously giddy all day long and was still hyper and excited at midnight trying to fall asleep. It was just too much fun! We turned my daylight basement into a mini studio, searched the yard for perfect light and ate burritos along the bay while waiting for the "golden light" when the sun slips below the skyline. There is magic in a sunset. It was a fantastic day and I thought I'd share a few of my favorites.

Static

I took this photo after my baby shower in May. Mr. Lawson was dancing around the living room with a big bunch of balloons, creating a really nice flow of static through his hair! I snapped a few dozen pictures, but the lighting was so low that my low shutter speed gave me a bunch of really blurry pictures. I know there is some noise in the photo, but the look on his face and the fact that this moment was even captured mutes the noise for me! So, my entry for this weeks' I Heart Faces "Completely Candid" photo challenge is Static.

Golden Slippers

Naomi is getting bigger, older and wiser. She's packed on a few pounds and as such, has advanced into a whole new wardrobe of 3-6 month clothes. It became clear to me that the time had come to start introducing some basic principals of fashion. I always say, "it's the little things that count" so we started with accessories! Naomi May wore shoes for the first time! She stared down at her feet, a bit confused, and then sighed with delight and stared and stared some more. The love affair between the girl and her shoes has begun! Her first pair of shoes are a pair of yellow mary janes by See Kai Run's baby line, Smaller, which are luscious, soft and adorable. We paired it with a purple bamboo dress by Kicky Pants, which is also as soft as butter and just as yummy. It was quite the statement and she pulled it off well! She couldn't have been any more pleased with her shoes. She actually cried when I took them off. She is ALL girl.

The shoes.


Giving them a good once-over

Liking what she sees

Officially in love.

She also seems to like her dress... at least she likes to grab at it and suck on the hemline.

In other news, my baby girl is apparently now Lawson's Num Num. Yesterday morning Lawson claimed her as his with a, "Num Num. MIIIIIINE!!!!" He then asked very politely if he could "pwease hode" her. She now spends the first part of the morning waking up in her brothers arms on the big, comfy chair. It's the sweetest thing to watch him hold on to her as they both smile with their puffy sleep faces and he gives her kisses.

No better place to start the day than in each other's arms.

The Seed of His Anger

Dustin calls this one, "The Seed of My Anger"

Lawson, I love that as we go for our daily walks you can barely contain yourself from jumping out of the stroller and picking every wish flower we pass. "Oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh!!!!", you say. "Pweeeese???" And as I hand you yet another wish flower, you smile like it's the first one you've ever seen and blow your wish into the wind with a squeal of delight! Your daddy says that you can make as many wishes as you want, as long as they aren't in our front yard. I say, make as many wishes as you will, wherever you want, Little Man! And if your wish pops up as a little dandelion in our grass, well that's just another pretty flower for you to bring me with that sweet smile of yours and a chance at more wishes to come! And if by chance, dad wins the war on the weeds and we don't have any more wish flowers for you to blow, the house at the corner has more wish flowers than you could blow in a lifetime, so I'm sure they wouldn't miss a few.

I call this one, "Spreading Dad's Anger"

p.s. Neighbor with the horrible, overgrown yard, if you are reading this, I think you should know that you are being nominated for desperate landscapes. I'm pretty sure when blackberries are growing up around your house and locking you in, it's a sign you should get out and man handle them! And who knows, maybe under all those wish flowers, there are a few blades of grass waiting to have their 15 mintes?!

The Spirit of Giving

Last year during the holiday season, I found myself searching for ideas of gifts to give some people. I wasn't finding things that just begged to be wrapped up with their name on it or that I really wanted to give to them. I don't even remember what I ended up giving to them because I was giving out of obligation and not because I genuinely had found something I thought they would enjoy or would better their lives. It left me feeling a little drained and questioning what the spirit of giving at Christmastime is really all about. There was also a video floating around about the amount of money spent each year on presents and how much clean water it could buy for people in desperate need of it. Here we are blowing money on gifts we don't need, spending countless hours shopping for and wrapping gifts for each other when we don't really need more stuff and there are people who don't have shoes for their feet, a roof over their head or clean water to drink. Something is wrong here. I told Dustin after Christmas last year that I really wanted to donate to charity this year instead of giving gifts. He wasn't thrilled by the idea, to be honest, and so I didn't push it. Then I got this wonderful phone call from my sister-in-law Denae. She had the exact same idea and had already run it by her sister and mom and everyone was onboard for the most part!

I can't even tell you how excited I am for Christmas to come this year and have fewer gifts to open! For every present I am NOT opening, someone else is getting something that they desperately needed! How amazing is that! That is the true spirit of giving. Gifting to those who need it feels so much better than gifting to those who do not just because you are "supposed to". Not that I don't enjoy buying for people I love, but this is the gift that keeps giving. I think that Lawson and Naomi will receive some really great lessons from observing this form of gifting and we will all walk away with less clutter in our houses and hearts. Just another example of "less is more".

And Then Her Buns Screamed Out to Me...

....Take my picture!!!! Let me explain. Lawson's naptimes are always a great opportunity for Miss Naomi and I to spend a little time together without her ears getting twisted, eyes getting poked or hands getting tugged on. Yesterday, our alone time found her in a particularly calm, happy mood and as I went to put a fresh diaper, it happened! Her buns screamed out to me, "take my picture"! Okay, so her buns didn't really scream. That would actually be very strange and kind of gross. But they were so "stinkin" cute that I just had to snap a few pictures! Unfortunately, the camera is my crack and I just can't get enough, so a few pictures led to a few hundred pictures... seriously. At some point during our little photo session, Lawson woke up to find his Num Num in her birthday suit and couldn't resist jumping up on the chair with her to be in a few pictures. He also wanted a bite of her hand. You'll see what I mean as you scroll down...

Rockin' the birthday suit! A mighty cute one, if you ask me!

This one has been titled "DROOBLE" by Dustin. It should be known that he does NOT like drooble. At all. Not even pictures of drooble, like this one.

Jeepers! Creepers! Where'd you get those peepers!?

Her hand must taste really good

Seriously! Those buns!!!

Always have to throw in a little shot of the toes!

They kind of look related....

I can't really blame him for wanting to eat her... Sometimes I want to take a nibble myself!

I can't decide if I like this one. Does she look asleep or dead?

She's finally getting big enough they can roll around a little together.

So, what began as an opportunity to snap a few pictures of Naomi's buns turned into a full blown photo session. Oh, well! They had a lot of fun rolling around on the chair together. It somewhat made up for the boredom they experienced earlier on in the morning as I busted out my can of Whoop A$$ on the garage! It's finally a little organized. And I always feel better when things are organized. But that's not what this post is about, so I'll leave it at that and wrap this one up. Perhaps with a pretty bow?

self: Lame. Wrap this one up with a pretty bow? How bout slap a big "L" on your forehead!? Geeze!

Now What?

Pensive I Heart Faces, Kimberly Laird 2009

This week, over at I Heart Faces, the challenge is "contemplative photograph". I've been hanging onto this one for a while and never could figure out what to do with it. But, I think it fits the "contemplative" bill perfectly and it has become my entry for this week!

Seasons of Change

April 2009 Kimberly Laird

I'm missing spring a little bit now that we're heading into fall. I want flowers and rain and the prospect of an entire summer with a new baby back. This spring, spending my last few months with Lawson as an only child and looking forward to Naomi's arrival was wonderful. I spent day after day feeling her kick and watching Lawson grow into what would soon become a big brother. It makes my chest ache thinking about it. I went to sleep each night reminding myself to slow down and enjoy life in it's current state because each day seemed to have gone by quicker than the last. It's only sped up faster and somehow we have reached the end of summer and the end of Naomi's newborn phase. She sat up without me holding her today and that made me sit up and take notice that she was no longer that fresh little baby with the frog legs and tight fists. And that made me long for time to slow down. She no longer wears her tiny little newborn diapers, she rolls over, she "talks' to me all the time and takes naps on her own just like her brother. I also put away a big box of clothes Lawson has grown out of and realized that he's nearly three feet tall. I don't put a big cuff in his jeans like I did just a few weeks ago and new words are coming out of his mouth all the time. He looks like a little kid and just yesterday he was my baby!

Seasons are changing, the kids are growing and time isn't slowing down for anything. And although it all happens gradually, sometimes it slaps me in the face and grips my heart with the realization of what has already passed while I was busy with life.