Time Out, 10/365

Greg just returned from a 4 day work trip.  As usual, he arrived bearing a little trinket for each of the kids.  Cooper received a little die-cast airplane which has a moving propeller...he adores it!  Yesterday was a day that Stevie and Febi came to spend with us.   Cooper and Stevie are only a year apart; they like the same toys, and they go back and forth between being great sharers and non-sharers.  Stevie was as taken with that little airplane as Cooper was.  Overall, they really did great yesterday, with the one exception when Stevie dared to try and grab the airplane from Cooper, and Cooper in turn thought it fitting to smack Stevie in the head with it!  Cooper has done this a handful of times to Stevie...he's a bit of a ruffian!  He is hands down, the happiest, most laid back child 99% of the time.  There are moments though that I'm thinking to myself, "Who is that kid?".  Like when he wraps his pudgy little arms around his cousin's waist and tries to haul him to the floor.  Maybe we have a football player in the making!

Anyways, I know I'm a mean mom for pulling out the camera for this one.  But I couldn't resist not capturing this face!

These Boots, 9/365

Ana has always been a shoe lover.  Even before she could walk, she would crawl around with the shoes on her hands!  We found a pair of cowboy boots at Wal-Mart last summer that Ana absolutely fell in love with!  She wore them EVERY day, regardless of what else she was wearing (it was August, so a lot of swimsuits with boot looks!).  Then one day, she left them outside by the sandbox, and I didn't realize they were there....we looked and looked inside the house for them for days!  Meanwhile, they were getting rained on outside.  They were absolutely ruined by the time we discovered them, and I had a very sad little girl!  Well, yesterday, Ana's friend Emma (who happens to be daughter to our fabulous neighbors, and sister to very good friends of Ian) passed on a bag of clothes and in it was an identical pair of boots!  Ana is in her glory!  She doesn't even care that her size 10 foot absolutely floats in the size 1 boot.  Emma was over to play yesterday, and she cuddled up with Ana and Cooper in the recliner.  I took the opportunity to snap this picture.  I think it's hilarious to see the two pairs of boots, almost the same size, and one pair on legs half the length!  That's my girl...a slave to fashion!

Shadow Flowers, 8/365

Narcissus have to be some of the happiest flowers on Earth...but they wither away so quickly!  Greg bought me a small pot of them about a week ago, and they are already looking very haggard.  Nonetheless, they are still sitting on the computer desk, behind my laptop.  A little while ago, I was sitting in the computer chair (which happens to be a recliner, weird...I know!) watching Ana do a craft (read, glue stuff to other stuff).  I was a little sad, because we had to miss Ana's dance class today due to an "on the way out the door Cooper Poop Incident" (involved shower spray down, possible clothing loss, hair washing, tub scrubbing...yup, it was that bad.  I was moping, thinking about how I wasn't going to do a picture of Ana in dance class for my picture of the day when suddenly I noticed the bright sunshine streaming through the window causing this shadow on the wall.

I thought it was kinda neat looking.

So it became my picture for the day...

Ever notice the shadows around you?

ROYGBP, 7/365

Yeah, I know....it's supposed to be ROYGBIV.

Well, our crayon selection was a little limited, 

so this is what you get.

Don't tell Ana I was playing with her crayons without her!

Rare Moment, 6/365

They fight...a lot!

But, I will sometimes find them sitting like this.

Watching a movie.

Or reading a book.

And it makes me happy.

This picture is technically pretty awful.  Out of focus, and underexposed.  I literally found them sitting together in the recliner watching a movie and held the camera up over their heads, focused on who knows what, pressed the button and hoped for the best!  However, there is an awful lot about this picture that I like.  Besides the fact that I caught them actually acting like they liked each other, this one (unlike the others I took of them just looking at the tv) clearly shows how Ian consistently wears his clothes; inside out and backwards.  What can I say, it's his unique style!

Party of Four, 5/365

One of Ana's Favorite Past times is setting up dinner parties for her "friends".  This one was thankfully without the usual sneaky trip to the faucet for "tea".

Yes, those are the same pajamas she was wearing in the last photo.  They are new, and the current favorite!

Yes, she has worn them all day...

To the store even...

And probably will, 

barring a pajama catastrophe, 

wear them to bed again tonight!

A Comfy Spot, 4/365

Lately, Ana has taken to falling asleep in the hallway right outside her bedroom.  She's going through an "I'm afraid of my room" phase, and is having a hard time falling asleep.  I don't know if it's the comfort she feels that she can see and hear Ian in the next room better, or she can hear us better downstairs, but this is how we have found her for three nights in a row now.  She then wakes up and crawls into bed with us (that is; me, Greg, and Ian who still joins us as well).  While I don't mind sharing my bed with my kids at all, I'm afraid we are all suffering in sleep quality.  Ian is a BEAR in the morning, Greg and I ache from sleeping in contorted positions trying not to squish our children, and though Ana is perfectly chipper first thing, it is obvious by mid afternoon that she is exhausted.  Life is not so good when Ana is exhausted!  She sure looks cute curled up in this new favorite spot though!