Espresso for the One-Year-Old

As I finished doing some cleaning in the kitchen tonight, Adriana sat at my feet playing. Not thinking, I forget to lock the cabinet and knelt down to scrub something off the floor. When I turned around, I found my daughter munching on the coffee grounds that I had just thrown in the trash can. Lovely- a caffeinated one-year-old whose bedtime was just a half hour away!

My Little Redhead

Livin' Like Kings

At a free clothing swap that our church put on, I picked up a couple of dress-up clothes for my kids. The boys decided that the outfits were "king outfits" so, of course, we had to make crowns.

Crowns complete. Ready to rule.

Food Glorious Food!

This past Sunday, Adriana went to the nursery (which at our church starts at a year old) for only the second time. Besides commenting on what a sweet disposition she has, the nursery workers told me something similar to what I've been told with each of my babies. "Wow," the helper remarked, "she ate a LOT of Cheerios." Yep, that's my child.
However, I have never met any kid as in love with food as my Elijah. He is my little shadow when I'm in the kitchen. He lives for the next meal. He relishes every bite.


I might as well embrace his love for food...and then photograph it.

Portraits

I enjoy taking my own portraits of my kids. You could call it a hobby, a money saver, or just an excuse to need a nice camera. After over 300 shots of trial and error, here are the photographs that made the finals for my sweet girl's first year portraits.

Our Ana is getting to be more of a toddler every day even though she's still holding out on us with the walking thing. She keeps adding more and more words to her vocabulary and will tell us where her eyes, nose, and mouth are. Monkeys are now one of her favorite animals; and whenever she sees a picture of one she says, "Ooh-ooh. Aah-aah." She also loves going places. When anyone leaves the house without her, she starts crying, "Ana!" as if to remind us that we should be taking her along.

Cheese!

During the past two days, I've been working on taking Adriana's official first year photographs. I'll share some with you in a future post; but for now, here's my girly cheesing it up during her photo shoots!

Begrudgingly Tagged

I hate chain letters. I despise every form of them. But what about "blog tagging"? Have you ever heard of it? It's not quite as bad as a chain letter; you don't have send a post card and 8 stamped envelopes filled with copies of an already poorly copied letter. But I'm still not sure how I feel about a game of blog tag. As I read on my friend's blog that I was tagged, I just started laughing and telling my tagger, who of course could not hear me, "You're so much trouble!" This girl is a sweet friend that I've known since I was a day old. So how can I refuse her?

The Rules:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules. (**if you're a non-blogger, you can email them!)
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

The facts:
1. I've swallowed 12 elephants. No, I'm not making it up. When I was a baby, my mom had 12 tiny, decorative wooden elephants. One day she noticed they were gone; then she watched them one by one march out into my diaper.
2. I've fallen out of a moving car. I was trying to buckle my seatbelt when my door gave way. Thankfully the car was only going about 10 miles an hour. It was a surreal feeling.
3. As a child, I danced all around the house. As an adult, I dance when no one is looking.
4. I can't stand rats (maybe I was traumatized as a child by the scene in Lady and the Tramp). I can't even look at a picture of a real rat. If I found a rat in my house, I'd move out. I did, however, make it through a viewing of Ratatouille with my boys; but only because it was animation. I left the movie theatre announcing, "I STILL don't like rats!"
5. I have a condition I like to call "Housework A.D.D." I love a clean house but have hard time focusing on systematically cleaning just one room. When cleaning, I bounce from one room to another until everything is done.
6. I enjoy dressing my daughter more than I enjoy dressing myself.
7. My middle name means "Grace"- a fact my hubby finds hilarious since he thinks I'm the most clumsy person he knows.
8. I've watch Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe kiss over a hundred time. As a little girl, I would rewind the final scene in the movie Anne of Avonlea over and over and over.

That's probably more than you wanted to know about me; so my apologies to my readers. Now of course I have to tag some people (or I'll have bad luck and a 4-year plague of frogs and crickets..blah..blah..blah). So I'm tagging: Heather, Julie, and Baseeret. It's not eight people, but it's three friends that will forgive me. Don't be displeased, ladies; I promise I'll never send you a chain letter.

Welcome Home

After being in Costa Rice for a 9 week college program, my brother Josiah flew back yesterday. We've heard stories of bungee jumping, getting lost in the middle of nowhere, and quickly swimming away from a jelly fish and are just happy to have him home. We celebrate Uncle Josiah's homecoming with family picnic and some pool fun.

Pridefully Photogenic

I enjoy photography. As a photographer, I'm a novice but a learning novice. Motherhood brings out some degree of photography in anyone. And, of course like any mother, my favorite subject for my photographs is my children. My kids have each learned of Mom's love of the camera; Adriana knew how to pose before she knew how to crawl. Elijah can give you the cheesiest smile you've ever seen. But Isaiah is the most confident in front of the camera. The other day he approached my sister, Hannah (the other person who's obsessed with taking pictures of my children).
"You should come get a picture of me with this ball," he told her.
Then he took her into the back yard and posed.

So there you go- the exciting photo of my son and his ball. And I have no idea where he learned to ham it up like that...

Papa's Birthday

Anyone who knows the Helms family very well, knows that birthdays are like a holiday for us. The tradition in our family is that the birthday boy or girl chooses the entire day's menu, the type of cake, and the activities for the day. To this day, and continuing on with the grandkids, the tradition has remained.
Today was Papa's birthday:

My dad chose his usual fun-filled birthday agenda: starting the day off with family devotions and then lots and lots of family games. My boys had so much fun being included in a bunch of the games. They also enjoyed a wheelbarrow ride from Daddy...

...and some hitting practice.

Adriana had her 67th flower photo shoot.

And the day ended brightly with some sparkler action.

Cake Pan Mileage

Just before Isaiah's first birthday, I bought a Winnie-the-Pooh cake pan. With it I had my first cake decorating experience. I decided to get my money's worth out of the cake pan; and in the name of "tradition", I've used it for each first birthday.
This past usage, Pooh got a make-over and wore a pink shirt.

In the end, all that really matters is that photo op of cake smeared all over your one-year-old's face.

When Grammy Was My Age

We had a weekend full of fun as my mom turned 50. (I'm sure she'll be thrilled that I just announced her age on my blog.) One of the activities was a party we threw for her. At the party, we showed videos that my dad had put together. The videos featured each of my brothers and sisters and my two boys talking about what was going on in the world when Mom was our age. I thought I'd share the videos of my boys since I personally think that they are just too cute!

Michigan

Last weekend we flew to Michigan and were able to enjoy a family birthday party for Adriana and a baby shower for my sister-in-law (in September my kids first official cousin will be arriving).
Playing horseshoes with Grandma:

Uncle Eric, Ana Essie, and Aunt Autumn:

Yeah for birthday cake!:

Enjoying her very first Momma-approved piece of cake:

Gifts:

Bouncing around:

On the trampoline and trying to bounce like her brothers:

Playing with some of Daddy's cousins:

At Autumn's baby shower:


Adriana and her Great Grandma: