A Little Catching Up

Have I mentioned recently that I love my kids? They are so cute and so wonderful. A lot has been happening in their little lives recently. This post will be mainly for me, so I don't forget.

Snapper is not the world's most graceful or coordinated child. I think her large head and ginormous feet prevent her from excelling in dance and most sports. Seriously, she's a capital L standing there, with a melon for a head! Hee hee! I have often wondered what activities she would enjoy and have a chance to be good at. This summer we found the answer. When we enrolled Snapper in our community pool's swim team, we realized for the first time that swimming comes naturally to her. She's a fish...clumsy on land but brilliant in the water. FINALLY we found something that she absolutely loves and has natural ability for. Last week we took the plunge and Snapper tried out for the year-round, competitive swim team in our town. She made the team, and started swimming with the beginning level group on Tuesday! I'm excited to watch her grow in her ability, and gain some discipline and endurance.

On the way to swim team practice yesterday, I got a call from the opthamologist informing me that Snapper's glasses were in! The doctor put a rush on them, and we got them only one day after ordering them! After swimming, we went down to pick up the glasses. I caught myself holding my breath as Snapper put on the glasses for the first time. Her eyes about popped out of her head, and she started giggling. She just sat there and giggled for a good 3 minutes, until the tears were rolling down her cheeks! Once she gained control of herself, she said, "I NEVER want to take these glasses off EVER! I will wear them forever!" On the way home from school today, she told me how she never knew how beautiful the clouds were. She has never noticed that trees had individual leaves! And she was able to read the board at school, and see the pictures in the book her teacher read, all while sitting at her desk! This is one thankful mommy!

Pepper has become completely obssessed with Spiderman. Oops, pardon me, it's "Piderman." It definitely would not have been my first choice to show Spiderman to my 3-year-old, but Matt watched it with him when I was in California in August. And now Pepper lives and breathes Spiderman. Last week I caught him spraying Shout all over the kitchen with a fierce look on his face. When I asked him what he was doing he replied, "I'm throwing my webs!" They are very clean webs.

Today I went up to the office to take Matt to lunch. When I pulled into the parking lot, I called him to let him know we had arrived. When I hung up, Pepper said, "Who was that, Mommy?" I said, "It was your Daddy." He said, "No it wasn't my Daddy! It was your sweetheart!"

CUTE!

My birthmom visited us from Arizona last week. We had a wonderful week together. Her Christmas gift to her family is going to be family pictures of all of us together. We had planned on doing a photo shoot at one of the parks in town, but it rained all week. We ended up going down to church and using the portable puppet stage as a backdrop. Nice black curtains! I made a collage of all the favorite pictures for Nana to take home with her, and I also printed 8x10's of the family photo for the Christmas gifts. I have found Walmart to be the best quality photo lab around, and the prices are great. I uploaded the pics to Walmart's website and placed my order. A few hours later, I got a call from the general manager. He was refusing to print the pictures because they were professional studio portraits! Ha ha ha! I was so tickled! Seriously, it made my day! I explained that I was the photographer. He asked me for proof. I told him I could bring down the memory card with the whole session on it. When I arrived at the store, he met me there, and made me look him in the eye and tell him I was really the photographer. Then I had to sign a copyright release! So without further ado, here are my "professional studio portraits!" Ha ha ha!