Sean and Carter have a new game that they've been playing lately. Carter tries to pick Sean up, and then they both fall over. She makes the silliest grunts and groans as she tries to lift him up, and then they both end up in a pile on the floor.
I tried a new project over the long weekend - paper-cut portraits. It's basically just cut and layered paper. I had seen a tutorial on a great blog I read called DudeCraft. So I tried it with a couple of my favorite photos of the kids. I think they came out pretty good - I may try some more. I've been looking for a creative outlet that I can do at night on the weekends after Lori goes to bed. Something to get me away from the computer, but that doesn't make a lot of noise. I don't know how long this will stay interesting for me, but so far I find it very relaxing and enjoyable.
Sean drew this a couple of days ago - it's him, next to the house. The house is complete with windows, chimney, and a front door (with a doorknob and deadbolt). So cute.
It's tough to get a genuine smile out of Carter lately, once you point a camera at her. All she wants to do is make silly faces. Here's one that Lori took a couple of weeks ago, when we had the family over for the toy warehouse sale up the street.
|
I timed this, our 500th post on the blog, to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the day Lori and I met - November 20th, 1989. I had just moved to town, and was starting over in a new school. We started as a pair of geeky, gawky teenagers, and are now eight years married and proud parents of two sweet, beautiful* children.
We have dated off and on since we were thirteen - as you can see in the photo from our high school yearbook, we were voted class sweethearts. Lori says that the first time she noticed me was in 7th grade English class, shortly after I had moved to Epping. I was doodling, seemingly not paying any attention, and the teacher called on me hoping to catch me unprepared. But I answered without hesitation, and Lori claims she was smitten. Eleven years later we were married. She's a very patient girl. Lori has been by my side in everything I've ever done. Before we moved to Texas, she was my constant hiking companion. She always complained on the long climbs, but her bubbling joy and enthusiasm once we reached the top was worth dragging her up there. We're both looking forward to the kids getting big enough for us to pick the hobby back up in a more serious way. When I got offered a job in Texas, she was completely supportive of the prospect - and never once made me feel guilty about asking her to move 2000 miles from where she grew up. Living away from everyone really made us realize how well we fit together, because we had no one else to rely on - and it only made our relationship stronger. Over time, or little family of two grew. First their was Paige. We adopted her from a shelter out by the San Antonio airport, and it was love at first sight. Then Sadie joined us, and enriched our lives that much more. Until the kids came, the dogs slept in the bed with us, and it made our house feel less like a building and more like a home. And then one day we heard that Tracy was pregnant. That's when we said to ourselves "what are we waiting for?" We had been putting off having children, waiting until we were "ready". But the truth is that you are never really "ready" to be a parent for the first time. And when Sean came, it was everything that we hoped and feared that it would be. People tell you that having kids changes everything, but what they don't say is that it changes everything for the better. A year and a half later, we were finally starting to get into a normal routine and our life was settling down again. So we said, "let's have another!" As the ancient Chinese proverb says - "may you live in interesting times". And nothing breaks up the monotony in a household like an infant. As the kids have grown, our lives have just been more and more fun, interesting, and challenging. It's just so amazing to me that the whole arc of my life started twenty years ago, in a small classroom in a small town, from the shy, sidelong glances shared by a geeky little boy and a sweet, pretty girl. * for the sake of this post, please ignore anything negative I've ever posted here about the children and assume that they are lovely, cooperative little angels. |
|
||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
"Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."
- Douglas Adams
I just now fixed a bug in our software at work that has been on my to-do list for a long time. I've dipped into debugging it a few times in the past, and each time I had to leave it unfixed to struggle my way back out of that code while I still could, before I could fall hopelessly behind schedule. But today, I defeated the beast. :)
