Garage Sittin'

We had a little gathering on Saturday - the weather was amazing!


The boys sittin' and eatin' and drinkin' in the front of the garage - yup that is Grace dog lounging on Joe.


As you can see we ended up sittin' in the driveway more than in the garage. Do you like the big blue tarped half finished sailboat lawn ornament? Or maybe the cracked red tub-like sailboat resting on the side of the garage? It's a free gene thing, don't ask...

Well it's about time!

Here are a couple of shots from last week... Now that Blogger has decided to play nice.

We had 70s day at school last Friday and Heather and I decided that the anti-establishment alternative life style of punk rock needed to be represented. So yes that is me with my hair in a lovely faux-hawk, sprayed up black and red.

Althea and her faux-hawk on Saturday - yes, she had a bath during our redneck garage sittin' party. Can you see her cute little tooth?

Blogger is not my friend

So Blogger and I are in a fight.
That's right.
A fight.
For four days now I have tried to upload photos to the site.
Four days.
Nope.
Not working.
Blogger experienced a "problem".
Sad Chris.
Very very sad.
Maybe when Blogger wants to come out and play nice I will load some more photos.
Until then, I am taking my toys and going home.
Pfffftttttt...

She is a ham bone

"Oh, you mean don't touch this dog bowl? But it is so much fun to dump the water and then bang the metal bowl."


"HeeHee! Beep! Beep! Baby on the move! Here I come!"


"What? Should I not sit in my toy box? Or is it the Easter bonnet that is bothering you? Perhaps the walrus?"


"Love my toy box. Love my toy box. Love my toy box. Love my toy box."

Bath Time

Bath time is fun time.



Getting clean...


J'ai shampooing.


Dang cute.


I love shampoo! WhooHoo!

Bath Time II

Bath time is fun time...



Wheeeeee!


The rinse cycle.


Just plain cute.

Ain't she cute?

So it has been awile since we posted photos...


Hangin' out in the living room. She is really getting quite a bit of hair now, and looking less and less like a little tiny baby.


One of her favorite things to do is crawl to the bak door and check out Cooper. It is getting really hard to keep up with the doggie/baby drool marks on the glass.


"Well, I was going to read a book, then I thought maybe the hand puppet would be fun and now well I just don't know. What do you think?"


Happy to be outside at Sunday River. Po'ed because I wouldn't let her snowboard with Randy.

Entering stage right

Tooth number 2 arrived yesterday afternoon.

Althea went to school with me in the morning, she was still feeling under the weather and I needed to make some sub plans... I know it is crazy to drive to school to make sub plans but my students are too important to me to leave them with some seriously winged plans. Althea acted as though nothing was wrong and smiled, cooed, laughed and played with various teachers and students while she was there. One very sweet child mistakenly called her by the wrong name - I know he was trying but Althea had to sing him the "My Name is Althea" song, well the clean version of it anyways - and that alone made the drive to school worth it (even if my sub didn't follow any of my plans that I made).

Oh and I almost forgot!

She said her first word - well words really.

She has been saying "oh oh" for a couple of weeks now - and she says it at the appropriate times, like right before she drops her teething biscuit on the floor for Cooper to snack on, or before she drops a random toy. I find this hilarious - because we don't play the "watch the silly adult pick the toy up off the floor over and over again" game. But clearly this is a sign that she understands language as a way to communicate.

Anyways this weekend while playing the "Where's Althea" game - a modified version of peek-a-boo in which the response is "There she is!" - Miss Althea decided to play along, with language. In response to the question "Where's Althea? Where did she go?" she said, "There she is!" Not kidding. So of course like any good social scientist we repeated the experiment and had the same results. I am stunned. Sue (our social worker from MAPS) had predicted that Althea would speak before walking - but even Sue did not see a full sentence coming at 10 months. I know that parents can get a little worked up over these things, and I am definitely worked up about this but can you blame me? At this rate - the sentence, the tooth I expect that she will be walking/running very soon - heaven help us.

Bring on the teeth

Well Althea has cut her first tooth and it has been a painful experience for all of us. She ran a fever (normal), she fussed (normal), she cried (normal), and she only wanted to snuggle with her teddy bear and Cooper dog (also normal). The tooth is too dang cute. We have taken some sage advice and used a baby friendly herbal mixture to sooth the gums - works immediately BTW - and have been rubbing the gum around the tooth in some hope that it will help to work the tooth up through the gum line quicker. When she stops looking so sad and pathetic - she can't understand what in the world is happening to her - we will post some photos of the new tooth, bet you're excited about that!