March 15, 2015 ~ Shamrock On!

Shamrock on!

Today Teagan ran her first road race.  It was a fun run, nothing super serious or competitive. I don’t think there were official times at all.  My sister and dad ran with her.  She paced dad and  Renee stayed with them, just in case.  Teagan ran almost all of the two-something mile course – shorter than most of the walks/rides we did over the summer.   She stopped a bit when someone gave her a flat and she needed to put her shoe back on.  And a second time, on the big downhill at the end  she got a stitch in her side, so walked a bit.  But she did run across the finish line.

My sister said she was a bit overwhelmed with how many people were in the race.  She’s not often in a big crowd like that.  Just after the start, she asked to turn back just because the cold make her need to use the bathroom.  Maybe it was a bit of nerves… Still, with the “false start” and two slow/stops she finished with a time of around 32 minutes or so.  Not too shabby.  Especially for a first race.  For a five-year-old.

On the drive home, after a lovely lunch of corned beef and Irish Soda bread, she spent the ride home taking pictures with her leappad of all the trucks that went by.  She liked the patterns on the cabs.

This kid is a hoot.  I’m so proud of her for doing the run.

UPDATE:  I totally forgot to mention how she would giggle each time she succeeded in getting a picture of the truck cab, asking me if I saw it or not.  Each time she mistimed the shutter, she would be “aw shucks, missed it,” she didn’t get frustrated, but would get ready to take the next picture. She only stopped once it was way too dark for a picture, well past the point where any older person would have stopped trying.  She was so into her project, it was totally adorable. There must be at least 50 blurry pictures on her Leappad of truck cabs.  I should try to look at them tomorrow :D

August 1, 2012 ~ Sunflowers

Yesterday as we arrived home, we all went to look at the sunflowers.  They’ve gotten so big, they’re almost up to Teagan’s shoulders!  Teagan was quite excited, clapping and jumping around when she saw how big they were.   I took a little time to show her the bud, the proto-flower, explaining that it would get bigger and turn yellow over the next weeks.

Ashlin enjoyed the walk to the side of the house, even with the hill, and tried several times to escape.  She could have cared less about the sunflowers, they really didn’t excite her, even though they were taller than she was.  Then again, just about everything is taller than she is.  She would not stand still, her mind still on escape it seemed, while I tried to take a picture of the two of them in front of the sunflowers. I seem to be able to get a shot of one of the two of them looking good, the other looking goofy, or blurred. I can get great shots of just one of them, but never both at the same time. Oh well.

Maybe I’ll get a good shot with the new lens.  It was fun playing with it Sunday.  I even went out today to take pictures of the garden.  Yes, more pictures of the garden.  I’ll try to pull them off tonight, before I fall asleep, but it’ll probably be tomorrow.

Related articles

• July 26, 2012 (lisasff.wordpress.com)
• June 15, 2012 ~ Sunflowers (lisasff.wordpress.com)
• July 29, 2012 (lisasff.wordpress.com)

March 22, 2012

Kitchen Sink

I started doing an Instagram photo a day challenge.  I don’t know why I decided to start a monthly photo challenge three-quarters of the way through the month, but I have.  I’m not even sure how long I’ll do this, but right now, it’s kinda fun.  I’ll eventually get them linked in somewhere.

Instagram is kinda fun.  Not sure if I like all the filters and effects, but the black and white filter is becoming my favorite.

Today’s challenge prompt was “kitchen sink.”  There’s a dragon (or monster!) in the sink!  Oh! No!

Yesterday’s challenge was “delicious.”  I knew what picture I was going to take as soon as I saw the challenge prompt.

http://followgram.me/lisa_sff/152314124575795703_27001881

Tomorrow will be “moon.”  I have at least one picture in my photo archives that I can use, if nothing else comes to mind.

And there’s the baby…  I’m off.

March 14, 2012

Don’t tell Teagan that Ashlin makes calls on her cell phone, using her minutes!

June 21, 2011

That was then…  this is now:

Make Babies 09-19-09

Make Babies 06-18-11

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So, the angle is a bit off, and they are in different chairs, and they’re different ages. Teagan is four months while Ashlin is only 2.5.  Let’s see if there’s another picture…

Red Flowers 08-04-09

Red Flowers 06-10-11

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Ok…. In this one, Teagan is about three months and Ashlin is 2.5, with a very unfortunate hair loss pattern.

So, they do seem to fit their nicknames “salt and pepper”

April 14, 2011

When talking to a friend, I mentioned how Ashlin resembled Teagan.  Well, except for the skin tone.  So, as she had only met Teagan at three months, she asked if  I could post pictures of the two girls at about the same age.   So, I tried to take a few pictures of Ashlin using the same angles as pictures we had for Teagan.  All the pictures of both are in sets on flickr:

Teagan’s first month pictures

Ashlin’s first month pictures

First set – 1 day old:

Teagan: 1 day old

Ashlin: Birth day

Second set – a few hours old:

Teagan: A few hours old

Ashlin: A few hours old - ignore the bruises

Third Set – One week old, give or take:

Teagan: Sleeping at 5 days

Ashlin: Sleeping at 9 days

So, not exactly the same, but, as I said I can totally see the resemblance.

Stu’s mom has nicknamed them Salt and Pepper.  LOL!

April 3, 2011

Yay!  I have pictures.  Thanks Stu!

Some coming home shots:

And two from today.  Teagan decided she wanted Ashlin’s hat:

And Stu caught an arty shot:

January 27, 2011

Too much snow

Yeah, there’s just too much snow now.  We got another 18.5 inches since last night.  It did look lovely at 5:30am, what I could see out the window over the snowline.  I think our second floor windows are half buried with the snow.  We need to shovel the roof.

Anyway, I cut the picture off, so you can’t see the swing buried in the snow.  There’s just too much of it.

Way too much snow

Oh, you can see it in this one.  Teagan can’t even play in it, not really.  There’s just too much.  She can’t walk.  You barely see the walk. <sigh>

So, we officially have had the snowiest month on record.  Since they started keeping records. On top of the largest snowfall in 24 hours, snowiest January on record.  We’re not done yet.  I’m not sure if I want to break any more records.  Other than warmest February…

Stu ended up shoveling about half of the driveway before the plow could come and plow us out.  They showed up at 4pm.  (They also didn’t charge this time).  One hour after the town plowed our street.  It seems that the town plow – a big huge monster truck – got stuck just around the corner from our house.  For three hours.

Snow-covered Picnic table

Because I can’t think what more to say, today…  I’ll leave you with a great list of movies that deal with snow…  Gotta love Mamapop.com for compiling this.

• 6. Storm of the Century
• 5. Ravenous
• 4. The Thing
• 3. Die Hard 2
• 2. Groundhog Day
• 1. The Shining

I think I need to watch Ravenous.

PS.  The electric is working properly, as is the kitchen sink.  The dishwasher, however, has decided it doesn’t want to work any more.  <sigh>

January 2, 2011

Oh! It feels so weird typing in 2011 for the date… I haven’t had to write it yet, so I’ll have it happen all over again. This is the hardest thing (usually) about starting a new year…

Anyway, we had a good new year’s eve – went up to Wendy’s house, as usual, when weather permits. She does a good spread and always makes us feel at home. This time, we got to see all the work and the extension they did on their house… I’m jealous. LOVE all the improvements, but most especially their master bath floor. They did a riverstone that feels absolutely wonderful on your feet… I wonder how long I need to wait to do work on our house? Though, we’ll probably start with the kitchen.

So, yeah, lovely time. I do like doing a more “low-key” sort of celebration now… and this year was by necessity a bit more low-key. And although it’s “low-key” it’s still an affair – dress up, good china and crystal. We had a great dinner, (yum!) then opened presents. Teagan stayed up until around 10:30, offering everyone tea and hugging her new Brobee doll, listened to a story with the other kids, and fell asleep almost immediately. We played Apples to Apples while waiting for it to be time for the ball to drop. Toasted and kissed, then called to wish everyone who wasn’t there a happy new year. I made sure Stu had at least two glasses of champagne. It does make him a bit giggly. Fun! We then played a bit more and hung around just chatting. I’m amazed that I was able to stay up as late as I did.

It was a lazy sort of morning, once others woke up – Teagan decided that she was done sleeping at 7am. Ouch. Steve, Wendy’s hubby, is a fantastic baker… banana bread, pecan bunt cake, along with good coffee. Yum. A good breakfast.

After just chilling out for the rest of the morning, and some of the afternoon, Teagan decided she was finally ready for a nap so we took off. She slept most of the drive home, which was nice.

We haven’t turned her car seat around yet, and she didn’t protest too much for this trip, though, to be fair, she did sleep at least half of each direction. We’ll see how it goes this week.

Anyway, although we still chilled today, most of the vacation laundry is done, as well as a bit of house straightening/cleaning. Mail is sorted and junk mail is gone, leaving just the medical and utility bills to deal with. Kitchen and surfaces (mostly!) are cleaned off… The house is slowly getting back under control, which is a good feeling.

I’ve also pulled all the pictures off the camera, but only went through the New Year’s Eve pictures – Lala was very eager to see Teagan in her party dress. I’ll go through the vacation pics and get them up as quickly as possible, then hit the videos. (I didn’t take any videos on New Year’s, though I should have. Oh well).

November 16, 2010

 So, everything went well at the big ultrasound today.  Baby was active, but generally behaving well.  Cooperating.  I was a bit anxious about today, as there’ve been some complications – bad NT scan combined with a bad screening, a CVS that almost didn’t happen, possibility of needing to wait for an Amnio.  Because of the NT scan results we’re at an elevated risk for congenetial heart issues.  I was anxious.

I didn’t need to be.  Everything was great at the scan today.  Four working chambers of the heart, everything seems to be working well, and we shouldn’t have a surprise when we go back for the echo.  Two hemispheres of the brain, a well-formed cerebellum, good umbilical blood flow, apprently well functioning kidneys.  The only “complication” from today is partial placenta previa, which they will be keeping track of, but they expect to resolve soon enough.

 So, all in all, good news today!  On with the pics!  The one above is the baby lounging, feet up.  Moving on to the profile:

 General sort of full-body shot with a creepy eye:

And the “potty shot.”  The tech caught a hand on the knee and one behind the butt…  baby is facing to the left of the screen.  Any guesses??