Sunday Snapshot ~ Nyah Pei Pei

Now that my computer is fixed I really need to do some catching up around here!

I am going to start by joining in on the Sunday Snapshot fun hosted by Stefanie.  I have been following her since just before I traveled to bring Brynn home, so a little less than 4 years!  Click on the picture above to visit her blog and see the other Sunday Snapshot participants.

Nyah is first since I have the most pictures of her from the month... the rest get home from school and are off to play but I will be chasing them down in the next few weeks!

Nyah will be three in March. Meanwhile, she has embraced all that two entails, fully!

She is stubborn, strong-willed, demanding, emotional, and determined.

She is also giggly, energetic, social, helpful, and funny!

She doesn't hide her feelings.  They are evident.  All the time!  She loves Dora, showers, looking at the pictures I take but not necessarily being in them, collecting things (her own and other people's), and trying to be big.

She would eat noodles and drink "apple juice" (anything but milk or water) at every meal, and in-between meals, if she had her way.

She bounces like Tigger when she runs and talks to us for minutes at a time and thinks we understand everything she says  (We get about 60%.  I'd say others get about 25% and have to rely more on visual clues).  If she is tattling she does that all without stopping to breathe. She is spunky!

She likes to pick out what she wears.  She has a very unique sense of fashion... sometimes a crown, sometimes three pony tails, sometimes her brown shoes with the ladybugs even if brown matches nothing. Sometimes all three at the same time.

Lately she has been getting out of her bed in the middle of the night, dragging her blankets and pillow with her, to sleep on the kitchen floor. We don't know why and she can't tell us.  Maybe looking for more "apple juice" or noodles...

She is a charmer and can work her magic on everyone!  :-)

Like I mentioned in a previous entry, I am forcing myself to shoot my pictures all in manual this month; that means I adjust the settings myself.  And no flash.  My pictures have been very dark so I have been playing around with some different "looks" to salvage some of my pictures even though that is not really my favorite thing to do.  Hopefully we can head outside soon... we have a foot of fresh snow outside which now makes the cold worth it!

Crazy Times!

Wow, things here have just been CRAZY!    I started back to work the first week of January. I am working 3 days a week at the middle school as a technology resource teacher.  A job I have never had before.  Starting mid-year. With five children to get out the door by 7:50 and to meet again starting at 3pm. At times I think I have lost my mind. It has been hard but I am happy to say that after 3 weeks I am starting to feel a little less like a fish out of water.  In the past few days, at least at work, I have had more fun than stress.  At home?  Well, things aren't settling in quite as quickly.

Anyway, throw in 2 cracked teeth, a filling that needed fixing, 5 children in 9 activities, 3 kids dental appointments, 1 kid doctor appointment, taxes to prepare for our business, and helping coach an OM team.

Then, last week, my computer caught some evil virus/worm.  All my pictures.  All my bookmarks. All the things I should have been backing up regularly but had slacked on.  UGH!  I just got it back today but it had to be wiped clean.  I have missed it but now I am afraid to turn it on because I know it won't be the same and while a clean slate is nice in many situations, I'm not feeling it here. It has obviously put a damper on my blogging and my photography because I have had no where to put the pictures I have taken so they are all on my camera.  Tomorrow, hopefully.

Speaking of photography, I am trying to spend some time really learning my camera so while I have taken pictures this month, they are really not what I would call great.  I am trying to shoot in "manual" which basically means I adjust all the settings myself.  It has been hard because I am inside a lot with the cold weather and at basketball games and my pictures are dark.  So while my photography blog gathers dust until I get a great picture, I have started yet another new blog.  I am trying to take a picture a day for the entire year. I am behind posting but so far I have kept up, though some days I have slim pickings for the blog.

I think it is time I do some updates on the kids.  That is my plan for the end of the week. No promises though!

Wordless Wednesday

Brynn's Wish...

After four doctors appointments in three years and 1 four-month period of patching her "good" eye, Brynn finally got her wish ~ glasses!  She has been so disappointed the other times when she left without getting them. Even the doctor telling her that she would get them when she was 8 or 9 offered her no comfort.

She looks so cute in them and has worn them without a single complaint since she got them on Saturday.  She was so excited to wear them today, her first day back to school, so she could show her teacher.  She is supposed to wear them all the time since her vision in her right eye isn't so great seeing distances.  Her left eye needs only minimal help.

Unfortunately, the doctor told us that Brynn's right eye is "breaking the rules" and has regressed since the patching in the fall of 2008 so we are back to patching again, two hours a day, seven days a week, until March, when we will likely have to do it just a few times a week for maintenance.  She is not excited about the patching thing at all, even though the patches come in all sorts of colors and designs.

One pair of her glasses has pink frames and one pair has blue. She prefers the pink so the blue pair is the spare.  Just in case. My original thought was that she would likely leave her glasses somewhere and forget where, like she does with many of her toys, though for now, she doesn't even remember to take her glasses off for bed!

Welcome 2010!

Happy New Year!  Though I really feel I can't move on until I finish up the details of the final week of 2009!



I know there are a lot of pictures but I couldn't eliminate any even though some are fuzzy but some of my favorites are also below and a little bigger.

My parents hosted Christmas Eve dinner... including lobster!

Price still liked it, even after watching them go from crawling in a box to edible on the plate.
 

Nyah didn't like the looks of them so she never got past that!

Christmas morning at our house was again chaotic but fun. It was fun to watch Brynn open her presents because she got so excited over each and every gift. I would say her favorite is a Hannah M*ntana camera because we have reloaded it with batteries many times since. She also got lots of horse figures to play with and she is really enjoying those.



All three boys received video games but Price and Caleb have totally enjoyed Keva Planks... they have played with them for hours!

Brynn and Caleb each got a magic set too and it was fun to watch them work together on some tricks.  Price got these magnetic balls called Bucky Balls and they actually are pretty cool.

All three boys got basketballs and Evan got three footballs and was quite pleased with them all!   He also got a keep-away game that talks to the players which should be fun once the weather outside cooperates.

Nyah has enjoyed "playing" with everyone's stuff though no one is allowed to go near her new Dora scooter! Evan enjoyed helping Nyah understand the whole present process though she liked to take her time and he likes to move a little faster. (Evan clearly needed pajamas for Christmas! He typically sleeps shirtless but I told him to put one on since I would be taking pictures and I think he picked the smallest one in the drawer.)

We spend some of Christmas Day back at my parents visiting and then ate dinner at Doug's sister's house.  It was a wonderful holiday!

Earlier this week we spend a few days at the beach but it was so cold and windy we only looked at it from our hotel windows.  The kids got to swim though and they enjoyed that and we went to the local children's museum which kept them busy for a while.
 


New Year's Even we ate dinner with other neighborhood families and then we hung out at home.

I can't really say that 2009 was a great year for me personally however I do know that it would have been far worse if I wasn't surrounded by wonderful family and friends!  I'm looking forward to 2010 and hope it is full of happiness and blessings for each and every one of you!  Basketball & cheerleading start tomorrow and one of Brynn's wishes for the past two years will finally happen... though I am not sure she will be as pleased as she thinks she will be... stay tuned!