The REAL Tinkerbell

What a wonderful surprise Nana had for Carolyn last night after dinner!! I'm bummed that my pictures look so grainy on Blogger- they look a lot better if you blow them up.

It was a really real Tinkerbell costume she found! It came complete with two sets of wings, Tinkerbell hair, a crown, and SHOES! What do you think Carolyn is going to be for Halloween? :)

Carolyn was SO thrilled!

I haven't seen her so happy since the day we went to SEE Tinkerbell. Ever since then she's really been so IN to fairies and Tinkerbell. She says that her fairy name is "Bella Irving" and she is alternately a "light fairy" and a "water fairy" and when I ask her what she does, she says she makes rainbows with her hands, like "this" and then shows me. She's so cute! :)

I just love this face! It is the face of someone who looks in the mirror and genuinely LIKES what she sees! I'm pretty sure I've only looked at myself once like this in recent memory, and that was on my wedding day. I just LOVE the simple delight in her face as she surveys her image and finds that it is, indeed, good.

Girls in Green

Yesterday I dressed the girls in coordinating outfits (it's unseasonably cool right now so I had to get their fall stuff out!) and got so excited about it we had to have another impromptu, jellybean-bribed photo shoot. Aren't they just so beautiful?!

Carolyn loves holding baby sister- and baby sister is now strong enough to hold her own a bit and so mommy feels more comfortable with big sister's holding. :) Nora, she's not sure what to think. :)

This picture would have been cooler if the foot was in focus but the girls were not. Didn't work out that way, but I still like Nora's expression as she's lunging for Carolyn's foot.

Girls being silly. :)

Big sister being sweet.

Never did quite get a smile from both...

And now we're done, Mom. We're both done. We're sisters and we stick together, and we're both done with pictures!

Adventure with Tractors and Solid Food

More evidence that Carolyn is becoming more and more brave- tonight she let Daddy drive her around on the tractor- and she actually appeared to have a good time! :)

Nora, on the other hand, is not nearly as adventurous when it comes to her recent introductions to the world of solid foods. She is very suspicious of anything we bring near her mouth.

You see, there was this bad experience with Peaches.

Really, Mom, do you have any idea how horrible this is?

Please, Mom, NO more peaches! And DEFINITELY no more flashing light in my face (side note: ever since I had photography lessons and started to be able to take decent pictures without a flash, these flashed-out pictures seem just WAY too bright).

Nora has now tried oatmeal cereal, peas, peaches, and green beans. So far the green beans have met with the greatest success. She still spits nearly everything out that we put in, but at least she doesn't make awful faces when we give her the beans. I guess it's just too good to be true that two such picky parents would have two children who eat well- Carolyn will eat pretty much anything; we were due for a kid that would have a palate more like Mommy's (or Daddy's). :) So onward we go, we keep trying with the solids and eventually she'll accept them- but I think it might be a longer road this time!

Clearing the Camera

Here are some pictures I cleared off my camera yesterday...

Oh yes, there's nothing like the lure of the forbidden remote to inspire movement! :) Nora's rolling all over the room now and can pretty much get to whatever she wants- she's even starting to scoot by pushing in with her toes and launching forward. It's fun to watch her begin to explore her environment! :)

She's sitting up quite well now, though she can't get there by herself and hasn't figured out how to get down again when she's tired in any other way but falling. She likes being able to see the world from a sitting position.

Last week I made another rookie mistake and took both kids to the grocery store together- I had Nora sit in the front of the cart, and since I didn't think I had that much to get, I let Carolyn bring along her toy shopping cart because I thought she'd have fun pushing it around. It WOULD have worked out okay if there hadn't been an urgent bathroom request halfway through the excursion, necessitating a venture all the way across the store to find the bathroom; by the time we were done with that, we had only 3 more things to get but they were all the way on the other side of the store, and Carolyn was tired of pushing and Nora was tired of sitting up (I had to prop her up with cereal boxes in the cart!)- and I was regretting the whole thing! By the time we finally finished paying for our groceries, I very much wished a hole would open in the floor and swallow me and my screaming children up. I looked very harried pushing both carts out the door with a squalling, hungry infant, and my pants falling down past my shirt line because they are just a touch too big now. Thankfully, a very nice woman offered to help me push the toy cart so that I could get everyone to the car, and we survived. But I won't try two new things at the store at the same time again. And maybe, I'll just start shopping at midnight so I don't have to bring ANYONE with me!

Later that day Auntie Laura came over and hung out with us for awhile. I experimented with some of the new techniques my friend Elizabeth showed me- I used a flash outside to bring the people in my picture into great definition against the bright background. I think I used a little too much flash, but it basically worked, and for some reason I just like the touseled look Nora has in this picture.

I've been a bit disappointed in Carolyn's reaction to the wonderful bike we got her for her birthday- she doesn't like to ride it because it is still difficult for her to coordinate the pedaling and steering and she needs to feel in control of her speed, which she doesn't yet. But she does love the helmet. :)

And isn't she just growing into her sweet little face? She looks like such a little girl here. Toddler time is receding further into the distance, and somewhere in this face, I can see a glimpse of the beautiful young woman she will become one day.

And WHERE did she get these eyes? Not from either Brad or me- must be a special genetic heirloom because both our eyes are brown and hers are decidedly not. They are a fascinating shade of green/gray/blue with some little golden flecks mixed in. They're the kind of eyes that remind me of the ocean, and if she would look at me for long enough, I'd just lose myself in trying to figure them out.

We've been working hard since the tragic loss of the pipes to learn to go to sleep without throwing a fit. There have been some rough bedtimes lately. But I think there's starting to be some light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, a month later, she doesn't ask for the pipes every time anymore... and she is starting to fall asleep at least more quickly at naptimes. On days she sleeps well, she is rewarded by getting to play the Counting Game with M&Ms. We separate the pack into colors, she turns them all over so that the "m" is showing on top, and together we count how many of each color we have, and as she eats them one by one, we count how many are left. It's math and bribery all at the same time. :)

And Nora's diet is expanding too. She's tried bananas, peas, and peaches so far. Doesn't seem to think much of any of them. I could tell from day one she'd be our more difficult eater! Carolyn is just too easy to be allowed from two such picky parents... we were bound to have one like us! But we'll keep trying and hopefully she'll eventually accept some different tastes...

Basement Progress

We are in the middle of our basement finishing project. The toughest part for me was getting the whole thing cleaned out and stuff organized into the storage areas... now it's just fun to watch all the people coming and going and making this dream come true for us. It's a bit stretching to watch pretty much all our savings go into this, but it means that we will be able to live in this house for a few more years while we wait for the housing market to rebound a little. We're getting about 1000 new square feet of living space- it's going to feel like a whole new house!! Right now we're about 2 weeks into the project- they have all the framing done, and last week we got electrical and heating and cooling in.

Here's the bathroom downstairs with a tub and shower. :) For those of you who've been to our house before, the bathroom will be right at the end of the stairs, just before you turn right and walk into the living space.

Here's the main living area. You can see the bedroom down at the end, underneath where our kitchen is. Brad's parents are giving us a 6-person table and chairs which we'll put in the area that kind of outpouches over by the bedroom. On hot summer days we can cook upstairs and eat down here where it's cool. And it will be a great place to play games with friends.

Here's a closer view of the bedroom. It's not huge, but it's big enough for a queen bed. I'm hoping to have the downstairs function as a guest suite so we can have company pretty much anytime. It will be so nice to have a nice private place to provide for guests. And if we aren't using the space all the time for other things, there's at least a chance that this small area of the house might stay neat and clean for longer than five minutes. We'll see.

Over on the other end of the big rec room, they've got us all set up for the big plasma screen TV we hope to get some day (maybe some distant day...)- it's all wired for cable and AT&T U-Verse service (which we recently got!) and ready for mounting the "dream TV" on the wall.

Over to the left as you're looking at the TV space is my little "craft room." Pretty much a big closet, but I'm going to have a long table, a sewing table for my sewing machine, and some shelves for all my craft stuff in here. It will be a nice, cozy place to work on my bows or whatever else I decide to get into. I've never thought of myself as a particularly creative person until recently when I realized I pretty much always have to have some sort of project going- if it's not bows, it's tutus or quilting or whatever... I guess I need an outlet.

We had some fun with the under-stair area. On the right side of this picture is a small walk-in game closet where we can store our ever-growing game collection (in these years of young children and babysitters and everything it takes to get out of the house one of our favorite things to do is have people over to play games!) On the left side of the picture is a small door leading to Carolyn's favorite part of the basement- her "House." It's really just the unusable part of the under-stair closet that we're finishing off to give her and Nora a little hideout. I think they'll really enjoy having a little space of their own.

And finally, probably my favorite part of the basement. This is my huge, walk-in pantry!! Plenty of room for all the stuff I buy at Costco (aka the Land of Wonders) and stuff I like to buy on sale. Tom, our builder, is going to build custom shelves all in there. :)

So, it's coming right along. They said in about 4 or 5 more weeks we should be all done! We picked out carpet and tile for the bathroom and pantry yesterday. The paint colors will be the same neutral tones we have upstairs and the carpet is going to be a light olive-ish green. It's very soft and cushy on your feet. :) This week we are supposed to be getting insulation and drywall.

Ready for Breakfast

Welcome!

Today we extend a warm welcome to the newest member of our family. Baby Mac welcomes Big Mac! :) We've been saving up for awhile now for a new desktop, and it arrived yesterday! I think maybe I didn't know how big a 24 inch screen is! I was shocked at how big he is. But I already love him. He sucked over all the information from Baby Mac just as easy as could be (once we figured it out) and now he's running great! We've officially switched over to the Dark Side... we're becoming "Mac People"- but at least we both grew up on PCs and can now interface with both. :)

Experimenting

Yesterday I did something I've been hoping to be able to do for a long time. I took a photography lesson! A friend of mine from church does in-home camera teaching and I learned a ton! I played around with it yesterday a little bit, learning how to take some pictures inside without the flash. I like how the more natural light makes the picture look. I've always been afraid to snap without it inside because I never managed to get pictures that didn't look blurry. But Elizabeth helped me learn more about the different features of the camera that would enable me to optimize things and I'm excited to keep trying.

We went to the park last night and I took the camera along. Still have lots of learning to do, but I'm enjoying trying some new things.

I'm especially interested in learning how to make pictures focus on the subject and let the background be blurry like this. I got some great tips.

Still, it's a good thing this camera is insured because grabby little cereal-coated hands are always a liability in this house! :)

Once in a Lifetime

We had an amazing opportunity the other night. Dan Bylsma, a good friend of the family, just happened to make it big in the NHL. He became the head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team and led them to a Stanley Cup victory this year. He brought the Cup back to his home town of Grand Haven, Michigan this week, and we were invited to a private party to see Danny and the Cup.

It was a case of poor planning on my part. I didn't really anticipate an actual LINE to see the Cup (HA! What was I thinking?) so I brought NOTHING for my incredibly overtired 3-year-old to do! SUCH a rookie mistake. We were hard pressed to keep her entertained (especially after we got desperate and let her drink a Shirley Temple...)... but we somehow found a way.

And it was worth it! How cool was that to be right there with something most people will never see so close in their lifetime.

Nora even got to pose INSIDE the Stanley Cup

Every hockey player's dream: hoisting the Stanley Cup! It was a very surreal moment; I couldn't believe they actually let Brad do that!

Unloading

I've been taking a lot of pictures lately because these girls are just so darn cute, but this week flew by so fast I didn't get a chance to upload! So now I'll unload a whole bunch of pics; enjoy them! :)

I'm not the most skilled photographer but every once in awhile I somehow stumble on a really great picture. I love this shot of Carolyn because it's so natural! Sometimes I look at this beautiful little girl and wonder how in the world something so precious and beautiful came from my genes! I've never felt like I had a fraction of the natural beauty this girl has without even being aware of it.

Nana got the girls coordinating Montana Moose shirts when she was in Montana earlier this summer. So cute together- Carolyn's really into sticking her tongue out in pictures...

Nana got a shirt too! And so did Emily and Jake, but they're too far away to be in the picture...

I love to see the girls growing together. Carolyn enjoys "reading" to her little sister and especially likes helping Nora find the "touchable" parts of this book. She really is the perfect sweet big sister (most of the time).

Summertime (especially at Nana's house!) means FRESH CORN! It's so sweet and good this year; the golden, crisp, buttery taste of fresh Michigan corn is one of those memories I should store up for the barren, frozen winter days when I wonder why in the world I live in Michigan.

Nora's working on some teeth, so I let her gnaw on the corncob.

She was pretty excited about it. :)

Wow, Mom, this sure is good! :)