Caldwell, Ross and Will spent a great deal of time creating this model of Courasant from the billions of Legos owned by both households. I wish I knew how to photograph these things to do them justice.

Look at Me!

Lyra has long eyelashes (which she, unfortunately, did not inherit from me). No teeth yet though I SWEAR there have to be some on the way. She looks like Will in this picture. 

The President of the United States owes this country an apology

Keith Olbermann has been delivering a series of Special Comments on MSNBC responding to various actions and statements of the Bush administration. This video is one of the best so far. It addresses Bush's response to Colin Powell's criticism of Whitehouse efforts to pass torture enabling legislation. Our country owes a debt to Secretary Powell for his moral leadership. Initially Senator Graham, Senator Warner, and Senator McCain showed similar moral leadership, but they have now put politics ahead of representing right over wrong.

Cookies for Sale!

Today we did a yard sale that included cookies, muffins and a lot of junk from around the house. Cheryl and Todd and Eric and Kevin came and sold stuff with us. The kids sold nearly all their cookies and muffins. I wish I could say we sold all our junk! Lots of it went to charity at the end of it all. But we had a lot of fun and met some neighbors we didn't know before. I am sure we will be doing this again in the spring. 

It Hatched!

Last week, we found a monarch caterpillar in the backyard. We put in in a jam jar and it immediately hung from the lid and created its chrysalis. It hatched yesterday morning. Poor Will stayed home from school because he was sick (yes, already, on the third day of school) but seeing the butterfly hatch made up for it a little bit.

First Day of School

Eva is very proud of her "second grade desk." She has one of the tallest desks in her first grade class. How did they know? 

Such a serious student! 

Happy Birthday!

Look! Mom is 24! So how am I 39? Oh yes, I am supposed to be lying about my age now.... 

Cousins Having Fun

It was fun to see Frank, Cristin, and all the kids for Mom's birthday last week. No one would cooperate for a posed photograph but that's OK. This is more fun and certainly more realistic. 

Podracing

In Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace , one of the great scenes is the pod pace where young Anakin Skywalker wins his freedom. I am not sure if there are any official Lego pod racers, but Will and his friend Charlie were able to go through our extensive Lego parts bin and come up with enough material for three excellent and very realistic pod racers.

Noelle

Noelle has made herself at home in the little cave at the bottom of the cat tree. KC never sleeps in here. Maybe he is too big. I think Noelle's eyes are beautiful. 

Sleeping Beauty Wakes up!

Sometimes it is easier for me to have Lyra nap on the floor instead of trying to get her in the crib. KC likes to nap with her maybe because she is so warm and snuggly. They were so cute sleeping side by side but Lyra woke up as soon as I got my camera out. She didn't want to miss a photo op! 

And She's Off!

Pretty much as soon as I posted on Tuesday, Lyra figured out a proper crawling technique that will get her to wherever she wants to go. This morning, she pretty much crawled the length of the house, with lots of encouragement from Will and Eva. Will calls her the "PT Cruiser." 

It is so difficult to take a picture of all three kids. Will lost another tooth so he is starting to look like a woodland creature and Eva is always putting Lyra right in front of her face. At least we can't see if Eva is hanging her tongue out. Lyra was getting ready for a crawling adventure! She definitely has the hang of it now.

Finally Friends

We didn't realize when we acquired a second cat that we were creating a "Will and Eva" dynamic in our pets.
KC and Noelle play together, fight with each other and follow each other all over the house. They eat each other's food and always want what the other one has. KC and Noelle call each other mean cat names. But when they think we're not looking, we can tell they like each other. Here is KC grooming Noelle.

Like Old Times

Yesterday, we went to Green Spring Gardens Park with Cheryl, Eric and Kevin. This is a beautiful garden where we used to take Will and Eva when they were little. It's our last week before school starts and Eva really wanted to go back here. We hadn't been in a long time.

Unfortunately, as I was looking at these pictures, I realized that my new camera had the @#)$*#) photo quality setting on 640x480 all this time. CURSE WORD! CURSE WORD! (Will and Eva are watching me update this so I must watch my language!) I have so many great pictures that won't work for a photo album now. 

Will is a Monkey

Ever since trying out the climbing wall at Balboa Island in California, Will and Eva have been hooked on climbing. SportRock is an indoor climbing gym nearby and they have "Kids' Night" where the kids can go climb for an hour and a half while the parents get to GO OUT BY THEMSELVES! That is fun for everyone, n'est-ce pas?

Will and Eva climb way way up to heights higher than our two and a half story house. This is one sport that I have absolutely no desire to do.

Daddy's Girl

Lyra loves her Daddy and Daddy is equally smitten. 

Opening Act

One of Will and Eva's favorite things to do is to have "family movie night" each weekend. Eva has taken to rearranging the living room furniture to look like an actual theater. Will likes to provide some sort of opening act, either a one act play (where is the video camera when we need it?) or, in this case, Adventures of Hatasho. Hatasho is a Japanese Samurai warrior who Will created and he is illustrating Hatasho's epic adventures using a diarama he built in a Japanese Samurai camp from this summer.

Perfect Posture

Lyra has the best posture of anyone in the family. She is such a smiley girl most of the time. 

Much Needed Update!

I am behind! Two weeks ago, Lyra figure out how to put herself in a sitting position from lying down. Those of you who've had babies before know that this is HUGE. Now she doesn't lie there and scream because she wants to be sitting up but needs help to get there. She has been on the verge of crawling for several weeks.

Yesterday, she creeped forward two steps! She hasn't totally taken off yet but I expect that will happen any day now. The cats seem to be a big motivator for her to move forward. For some reason, they haven't figured out that it probably isn't a good idea to take a cat nap *right* beside Lyra. She is fascinated by KC's flicking tail. The other night, Bill let her catch KC's tail (eek!)and pull him across the floor. I cannot believe that KC stood for that.

The other new development from a couple of weeks ago is that the tooth fairy visited Eva for the first time AND the second time! In our home, the tooth fairy brings a Sacagawea dollar in exchange for the lost tooth. Eva was SO excited. In fact, she was so excited in anticipation of the tooth fairy's visit that she had Will pull her teeth out for her. They used the old string on the doorknob trick. Made me sick to my stomach and I had to leave the area immediately after helping secure the dental floss lasso onto Eva's tooth. She said it didn't hurt to have it pulled out this way. I'd've put a picture of Eva out here but my camera came to a bad end about three weeks ago and it took awhile to replace it.

Lyra & Mom

This is such a great photo, I am not sure what the right words are to go with it. Lyra had been a happy baby all day, but sitting on the couch watching Star Wars (which she is way too young for) seemed to get her even more fired up.

Ptyalism

Drooling (or "ptyalism") is caused by saliva flowing outside the mouth. Drooling is generally caused by excess production of saliva, inability to retain saliva within the mouth, or problems with swallowing.

Lyra is very cute, but she manages to drool like a basset hound, as evidenced by the droplets running down her chin in this photo.

Yippee!

We spent the afternoon at Jake's house, and Eva finally got up the courage to go off the diving board. Actually, she went from "I'm scared" to "I'll try" to "Can I please go one more time" over the course of two hours with the encouragement of Jake's dad, Ian. Eva's dives looked more like belly flops, but her cannon balls were very good.

Friends(?) at last

Noelle has been with us now for a little more than two weeks. Her first week she hid so well we thought she was a ghost cat. Her second week she appeared occasionally, but evidence of her existence was still best obtained by inspecting her litter box.

In the last three days she has decided to join the family. KC met this first with resistance, and we have had several days of low level cat hostility (generally acted out in the middle of the night in our bedroom).

Now at last things seem to have settled down. I think KC is finally resigned to a cute new cat in the house.

Lounging Lyra

My friend, Trish, took this picture of Lyra at the park yesterday. Lyra is such a happy girl! 

Beautiful Noelle in Her New Home

Noelle was 'hiding" in the attic shower stall. I think this was a cool spot, and protected behind a glass door (that I think the pried open). We are keeping Noelle restricted to the attic, but she is staying somewhat in the open in enjoying some human attention.