Drawing

Jasmine was very excited to see dot-to-dots in her magazine yesterday. She did much better than last time she tried, when she just colored (or, rather, scribbled) the whole thing. I coached her, saying "then go from 3 to 4" but didn't do anything other than that.
She needs a little coaching on the concept of "draw a straight line," I guess:

Can you guess what the finished picture is? She couldn't:

New Eyes

I mentioned a few weeks ago how we're reading The Jesus Storybook Bible as a family, after we read our Bible. The girls love it, and we really do too. Tonight we read three stories, ending with a paraphrase of the Lord's prayer. I thought I'd share it because it really does show what Jesus intended with it: to strip all the formality from prayer and just love Him.

Hello Daddy!
We want to know you.
And be close to you.
Please show us how.
Make everything in the world right again.
And in our hearts, too.
Do what is best--just like you do in heaven.
And please do it down here, too.
Please give us everything we need today.
Forgive us for doing wrong, for hurting you.
Forgive us just as we forgive other people
when they hurt us.
Rescue us! We need you.
We don't want to keep running away
and hiding from you.
Keep us safe from our enemies.
You're strong, God.
You can do whatever you want.
You are in charge.
Now and forever and for always!
We think you're great!
Amen!
Yes we do!

A First!

No, not Hudson this time.
Yesterday, I did a photo shoot for people I'm not related to! Julie was a clarinet buddy in high school, but we kinda lost touch since then. But thanks to Facebook, we reconnected, and she asked if I'd do pictures of her family.
I have to say: doing whole-family shots is a TON more stressful for me than getting one or two people in a picture. There's a lot more planning on my part. Which is why I don't take any of our whole crew, either! (I have a tripod and remote, so I have the capability to do it for my family) But since I took 600 pictures, I did get a bunch that I'm pleased with.
Here are a few of my favorites.





They were fantastic to work with, it was SO good to see Julie again, and I loved meeting her wonderful family :) Thanks, guys!

Celebratory Ice Cream

When Jasmine got her cast off (1 1/2 weeks ago now), we told her that when she walked across the room, we would celebrate by going out to ice cream.
Last night she took her first steps, and today she's taken off. She's climbing up and down the ladder to her bunk bed. She played outside briefly. And she is so proud of herself.
She's taking very small steps, which means it doesn't take long before she gets very tired. I remember that feeling very well from when I was re-learning to walk in 5th grade. She has another physical therapy appointment tomorrow morning, so he can help give us ideas of how to help that along. Obviously she's getting it, though!
So tonight after dinner, we went to Friendly's for ice cream.
Hudson fell asleep in my arms before we'd even ordered, and didn't wake up until I had to run Bekah to the bathroom. The girls got "vol-cone-o" sundaes, the replacement for the conehead sundaes, I guess. You get to put the toppings on yourself (or have your daddy do it if you're still on the young side).


And then we all enjoyed:

Unfortunately it puts me back a bit in the fitting-into-my-jeans goal I've given myself, but since we haven't had any sweets around the house (or gone out for any) in 2 or 3 weeks, I figure I can likely splurge!

Mini-Me

Jasmine is my mini-me. Mom has said a couple times over the past few months that she thought it was a 4-year old Charlene walking around the corner, instead of my daughter. And I'm realizing more and more how much she acts like me, too. She has a few things that are more like Josh (like her incredible sense of direction and remembering of details) but she thinks and acts so much like I used to, it's almost scary.

So what better to do with it than scrapbook about it?!


And I was thinking the other day about what each of the kids has taught me about life. Even though they're still young, it's pretty obvious that they've each added a dimension to my life that wasn't there before they were born.

Coffee

Unfortunately, the mornings are getting colder, now that it's September. Soon we'll start drinking hot coffee in the mornings. But at the moment, we can still enjoy our iced coffee:

(look closely!)

Humility

So I just added the option for people to give "reactions" to my blog posts. See if you can guess which of those reactions were my creation, versus Blogger's standards ;)

On his knees!

Hudson has decided it's fun to get up on his hands and knees and rock. So crawling isn't too far away now.

This week's challenge is feet, so I posted these pictures:





At this point, the nail polish one is the only one to get votes (but is currently in the lead on votes, so I'll take it!) :)
(oh, and it's fake nail polish. She doesn't do her own real painting, especially not on beige carpet!)

The Mist on the Moors

Yesterday was our 6-year anniversary. It was lovely. Not perfect, but lovely. We dropped the girls off at my family's house, and my sweet, wonderful sister Amy watched them while we went (with Hudson) to Mario's Via Abruzzi.
Hudson has officially outgrown his welcome in our restaurant dinner-dates, so we will now start doing take-out on Wednesdays. Both Wednesday and last night, we ended up with me standing, holding him while Josh ate, and then Josh taking him outside while I finished eating on my own.
The waitress felt terrible, so she gave us a small bottle of champagne to have when we got home.
It was a delicious, lovely dinner, in spite of Hudson's contribution.
On the way home, we saw something very unusual: small "clouds" of mist on the flat patches of ground. I'm sure Dad (my meteorogolist-at-heart) could explain that it's something about the difference in temperature between the ground and the air, but we just thought it was too cool to pass up. So even though it meant Hudson cried the last half hour of the trip home, I'm glad we stopped so I could get a couple pictures:
And for my photography-minded friends, I have to brag for a second: I actually took this picture in Manual mode! I've been reading tons of tutorials and am working on growing more in my ability to understand the camera...I was so excited!

My Girls

I've made a couple layouts this week!
This one is a collection of things Bekah's said over the past month or so, that I recorded on Twitter (thus the "tweet" title). She is SO funny!

I love this picture! That's all I need to say!

Jasmine's cast came off Tuesday morning. She's not putting any weight on it yet, and not bending it on purpose (though she's okay with it bending when she's sitting in a chair). She starts physical therapy tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully it will help her do what she needs to so she can start using it. I remember it taking me a LONG time before i could walk again after my cast came off from my broken ankle in 5th grade, so I don't want to push her too far, but I don't want to baby it too long, either. So I'm glad we'll go to someone who knows what they're doing in this field!

Guess what he's doing now?

I have to put him up like this, but he stays for a long time! :) He's on Jasmine's timetable at this point, which would put him at 7 1/2 months for his first steps. Watch out world, here comes Hudson!