Party on Wayne. Party on Lollypop.

The widdle girl's birthday was quite a day, punctuated by lots o' "happy birthday" singing at unplanned moments all during its hours.  I dare say she got quite a kick out of all of us gathered around her on the couch singing at the tops of our merry voices.  Either that, or she was completely unsure of what to do next.

We took some pictures outside before leaving for church (read: I forced everyone out into the heat and humidity to capture forever the stress of taking pictures on a Sunday morning), but I'm glad I did.  They will be too, eventually.  ha!

Um, have I ever mentioned how much I love these people?  No?
Well, the most wonderful man in the world is surrounded by the most precious little people in the above picture.
That's all.

Especially considering that I was quite awful the rest of the day with the camera.  Truly awful.  I had big intentions during her birthday lunch to get everyone photographed with her.  And I Failed, miserably.  I'm not sure why I was so off my game.  Hmmmm.....   Anyway, thankfully, I took a coupla-few before everyone got there, and my brother got some choice shots of the all important cake extravaganza.

And for anyone who might be cringing at the chocolate cake and pink icing all over the sweet little "cloud baby" dress - worry not!  It all came out.  Didn't even have to bleach it, which quite frankly, I was totally expecting to have to do.  Wait.  You WERE worried about my laundry weren't you?  Of course you were.  I'm glad I could put your mind at ease.  How thoughtful of me.

Soooo, onward we go, with a one year old babygirl in tow.  How glad we are of it!  Now it's on with the school year.  Hopefully, I'll get all bloggy about school this year.  Fingers crossed, eh?

Crazy floating Mommy Head!  Run for your lives!

Twelve Months! Happy Birthday Baby!!!

Happy Birthday to our precious ONE YEAR OLD Lollypop!

WHAT A YEAR!!!  (How's that for Understatement Of The Year?)

Since the moments of our all-night-long labor, you have been blessed with health and strength and you were a blessed answer to a LOT of prayers.  You "belong" to your church, my love.  Oh, how many precious brothers and sisters prayed for you during the days when we were so nervous about you staying on this earth.  And, precious girl, you truly belong to our Lord who we pray you will come to know and love as you continue your journey in this world.

And what have you been up to this past month?  Well, I suppose the news we should share first is that you have begun to walk!  You took your first tentative steps all by your widdle self this past month.  You can now walk unaided for 7-8 steps in a row, and you still giggle when you get finished with them. You haven't quite decided to just forgo all crawling yet.  But, I'm sure that within the next couple of months, we can expect to see you all over the place!

You are eating more and beginning to drink milk.  You have turned around in your car seat (we cheated and turned you around a week early - yay!).  You have cut yet another tooth.  (This makes 8!)  Your golden hair has gotten long enough that it can be pulled back with a little bow (yay!), although the bow has to have hot glue strips on the clip of the bow in order to keep it from sliding out of your hair.

Reaching for Daddy!  She wasn't too interested in her progress picture this time.  Mostly wanted to laugh at people and get down off of the chair.

You are still chattering at all things, still love Custard, still love your siblings.  You will still stop whatever you are doing and crawl-race for the door when you hear Daddy come in at the end of the day.  I have this yellow shirt from the vet that PopPop worked for a while back that has a picture of a dog and a cat on it.  Whenever I wear it, you point to the dog and look at me with a huge grin so that I will say "dog" to you.  Then we do it with the picture of the "cat".  Then we do this little "game" over and over and over.  It's little things like this yellow shirt that I hope I don't forget.  You are so sweet and precious and yummy and squishy and wonderful!

We have a special day planned for you!  Since it's Sunday, we of course will be going to church.  And then we will meet as much of your immediate family that could be in town today for lunch up at the Club.  We all pitched in to make your cupcakes and had a grand time.  Heck, even PopPop got in on the act by holding the icing bag yesterday afternoon so we could make different color flowers.  That's the fun of being the third baby.  You get the privilege of having your big brother and sister be such a big part of things.

Tooter helping to cut out the bee wings out of the modeling chocolate.  He and Poodle took turns and each did half of the wings.

The bees were a big deal around the house this week.  We were all involved in making them out of modeling chocolate.  Your whole cupcake is edible!  (Mommy's been watching too much Cake Boss on TLC).  Homemade chocolate cake, of course, because crumbly dark cupcakes make a much bigger mess for pictures.  :-)

Putting the bees on top of the cuppy cakes!  It was momentous, people.  Truly momentous.

There are so many things in our life for which we are so grateful to God, but our children are top of the list.  We have been given a great gift with you and Poodle and Tooter.  And I hope that I am able to let y'all know just how deeply you are a part of each breath we take.  How every decision we make is done with you three in mind.  How much, how completely, how utterly we love you!  And we'll get your big-one-year-old-girl photos made within the next couple of weeks.

Happy Birthday precious honey bee girl!  We are excited about celebrating YOU today!

Poodle was right!

She said Lollypop would be walking before she turned one.  :-)

Technically, LP started the take-one-step-and-fall-into-arms thing about a week or so ago.  And, truthfully, she seemed to do it for Jmk every single time I wasn't watching.  But, then, a few days ago, she walked a few steps between the two of us.  And, yesterday, I could tell that she was wanting to do it again.  So, when Jmk got home from work, she walked from me to him.  OH, the joy on her face!  She was just as pleased with herself as a little girl could be.

MooMoo and GaGa had picked up the older kids to take them for ice cream yesterday, simply because it seemed like a good day for ice cream.  (The kids were SO excited!)  So, when they brought Poodle and Tooter back to the house, they got to see Lollypop in all her first steps excitement!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Bonanza of Bonuses!

This started with "I'd better get a short video of Lollypop crawling before she's not doing it any more".  Then I grabbed my phone and started filming.

And, yes, I got her crawling in her speedy, effective manner.  But, as luck would have it, we managed to also capture her standing up, applauding herself for her brilliance, and doin' a little dance in celebration of all that fine standing-up'ness.

And we also got forever captured Lollypop's version of the World's Most Annoying Sound.  She makes this awful screamy noise that started as a response to Tooter's playing with her.  He acts like he's some kind of panther or lion or something-or-other and he growls at her....  I dunno exactly what's happening, but it makes the baby laugh, so he does it over and over again.  However, in her attempt to mimic his sound, she has created something a mite hard on the ears.

Sooooo, you might want to turn your speakers down a little bit.  Because between Poodle and Tooter's tickle fest going on in the background and Lollypop's Most Annoying Sound, this is a LOUD video clip!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

School? School. School!

It's that time of year again!


The Walmarts and Targets are buzzing with notebook and pencil sales, the new jeans are hanging out in closets until it cools off enough to wear them.  Kids are still excited and loving the idea of seeing all their friends and new teachers, and there's just a general sense of anticipation and forward-focusing that is happening all over!


We at the Zoo are getting geared up as well.  The books have been ordered and have had a new home cleared out in the bookshelves.  Summer thoughts have begun to turn to what's-to-come.  Lesson plans are coming together and we'll be hunkering down over some wonderful living books in just a couple of weeks as we bid adieu to the Lazy Days of Summer.


WAIT!!!!!  Hold on a minute!!!
Summer's gone???


Alright, who lost the last three months?  You won't get in trouble, just be honest with me so we can fix it.  I swear, I *just* made that list of things that I wanted to get done this summer.  I wasn't fearless in my planning!  I didn't ink in things like Climb Mount Everest or Learn To Cook Like Julia Childs or anything like that!  They were modest things, really.


~~Get caught up with my magazines.  Really.  I'm reading April's Good Housekeeping right now.  Or maybe it's March.  They're talking about things like "don't plant this until you're sure the last frost has occurred in your area".  Huh?  I'm that far behind?


~~Lose 10 lbs.  Really.  There's a wedding coming.  I want to be able to tote my baby around on my hip all night without the extra 10 lbs slowing me down.  How is it that kids know exactly when you've put the baby down and are about to try to sneak 15 minutes on the treadmill in the garage and they come out and start arguing about who is going to use the rower machine first?  I declare, these children want me at my current size.  They NEED me at my current size.  No, I won't tell you what my current size is.  


~~Finish the two books that I started at the beginning of the year.  War and Peace, you ask?  Maybe it was Moby Dick?
No.  The Screwtape Letters and the Charlotte Mason Companion.  This isn't difficult reading people.  Yet...  Here we are.  But, the good news is that I started another book by a college friend.  THAT one gets read a couple of minutes every night while I'm brushing my teeth.  Yeah, I'm just blowin' through that one.


~~Blog at least once a week.  Ha!  I remember writing that one down.  I was attempting to Go Easy On Myself.  What I was thinking when I wrote that down was "oh, I'll blog at least twice a week.  Probably more than that.  And I'll take lots of pictures and learn tons about photography and share some cool stuff with people, and the grandparents are going to be loving all the fun anecdotes about the babies, and yippee for summer time!"  Mm-hmm.  


Now, my sweet husband, who has to read all the way to the end of my posts, is getting irritated because he's pretty sure I'm about to start beating up on myself.  Thus, I should probably focus on the things that I *did* get accomplished this summer.  Ehhh.  But, see, you understand, don't you?  The LIST didn't get accomplished.  I'm such a list girl.  I lurve crossing things off of a to-do list.  So, when The List doesn't get all those nice cross-through lines on it, I don't feel as though I accomplished the right things.  Isn't that weird?  Sort of like Holland?  (Austin Powers reference.  That was for the Hubs).


::dramatic long exhale::  I suppose I should just go finish those last 12 minutes on the treadmill now that I've gotten over being frustrated at the kids.  Baby is still napping, and I doubt seriously that the kids will come back out into the garage after that last tirade.  There's a crazy lady out there who is really sweaty and red-faced and doesn't seem to be responding to exercise endorphins.  Be Afraid!




P.S.  No dice.  :-)  Baby just woke up.

Mental Picture!

There are so many moments in parents' lives that they wish they had their camera/video camera permanently embedded into an arm so that every sweet moment they come across during their day could be captured to be seen over and over.

So many....

Add to that, my ability to recall things is spotty at best.  Maybe I took one too many knocks to the noggin during the ole cheerleading days.  Who knows.  But if I don't write it down, I'm probably not going to recall it.  So, here's a mental picture for myself, and you get to share!

Poodle was sitting on the floor near Lollypop, and they were just behind my desk chair as I was sitting at the desk paying bills.  I just watched Lollypop crawl up into Poodle's lap, wrap her arms around Poodle's neck, lay her head down on Poodle's shoulder, and just sit there motionless for a good 45 seconds.  Poodle rocked her back and forth with a look of calm happiness and fullness of love on her face, as she closed her eyes and nuzzled her nose into Lollypop's neck.  Then, Lollypop wiggled down and crawled over to the nearby garbage can to empty its contents on the floor.  :-)

Sigh.....  CLICK.  Mental Picture.