Mr. Intelligent Dad

Happy Father's Day Mr. Intelligent Dad! It's a privilege to have a dad (and husband) who is committed to his family in every way! Our well-being is always your priority and we are blessed to call you ours!
HUGS and KISSES

Here are a few of our daddy/baby memories...

Mr. Dad kissing Prissy Pants. She was about 2 months old here, and yes, that's her real hair!

 Mr. Dad and me checking out our brand new Z Girl. Our first taste of her "I'll do it when I'm ready" personality was the torturously long 2nd stage of labor (hence the slightly comatose mom)!



Mr. Dad teaching Funny Bones to walk, which we would later wish hadn't happened for a few more months! 



Mr. Dad constructing, Gargantuan Boy destroying (and tasting).



Here are a few desktop backgrounds I made for Mr. Dad for Father's Day!



SHMILY!

The Invisible Z Girl

Today my Z turns 5, it's very bewildering to me.

How did we get from here...

to here, so quickly?

This girl is so much like her mom it's unreal! The ONLY difference between Z and myself as a kid is the eye color. Not kidding. She's a carbon copy in appearance AND personality. I love having a kid that's unmistakably mine!

It's really hard to explain her personality to people who don't know her well. She can be as brave as a lion one minute and as fragile as a butterfly the next. She's either on or off. She's always at one end of the spectrum or the other, there is no in between with Z. At home she's chatty, silly, and makes her opinions known! Out of the house she's all but invisible, most people will only hear a simple yes or no from her in response to a question!

Z came at such a special time for us. We endured two miscarriages in the months before our baby Z "stuck" in there. Which is why naming her came so easy, her name means 'life'. God chose to give her life here with us after giving the other babies life with Him. Other hardships had fallen on Intelligent Man and me at that time as well, and her little life gave us something to smile about again! And she was one smiling baby! She's always been so cuddly. Even to this day she'll curl up in your lap and dish out some hugs and kisses that only she can.


She's been doing "school" since she was 1 year old. As soon as I started Pre-K with PP, Z was determined to be involved and has enjoyed every minute of it! I'll never forget when she turned 2 and I was preparing to teach her colors and shapes. I printed them out and hung them up, she immediately walked over and named each and every color and shape I hung. I was speechless! Again the next year when I hung an alphabet poster for her she came right over and named each letter AND the sound it makes. I did it again this year. I was hesitant to start her in Kindergarten, I didn't want to push her too much (and had just given birth and didn't want to push myself). After a few months of being completely bored and doing 6 pages a day (that was all her) in her Big Book of Kindergarten, I finally decided to officially start K with her at 4 1/2 years old. And man oh man, she's blown me away again, though I don't know why I'm surprised. She took to math and reading like it was second nature! She's also been writing for a good year now too. So glad my little villains are taking after Mr. Intelligent Man!


For some reason Z's birthdays have always been the hardest for me. PP is so mature it's easy to see her physically catching up to her mentality, but when Z reaches whatever age PP left not long ago, it's like a dagger to the heart! Now that she's 5 she's lost all her baby fat, those chubby jowls of hers are gone and she's all skin and bones. She can now wear clothes from the "big girl section" too. *sigh* I'm so looking forward to seeing her grow and watching to see if she stays in such a likeness to me or if she takes off in another direction. Either will be fun to experience. Thank you Lord for my Invisible and Incredible Z Girl!

Dreamy B&W

It's been a while since I've linked up to the L.E.N.S. photo challenge, so here goes. The challenge is Dreamy Black and White. I have gazillions of photos in b&w, it's my favorite look, which is why I wanted to jump back in to the challenge, but I honestly didn't have any certain picture in mind. I browsed my albums and decided to reminisce on The Boy. He just turned 10 months a few days ago and the time has absolutely flown! It'll be his first b-day before I know it! AHH! So here a few of my favorites from his very first photo shoot at home. He was 8 days old.

I'm a Lazy Bum!

You see this adorable, Minnie Mouse themed, Happy Birthday banner? I made that! Yup, complete with Disney font and Minnie Mouse heads. Isn't it cute? I thought so, too... for a while. Funny Bones' 2nd birthday was back in November, 6 1/2 months ago, and I took this banner down from our kitchen wall yesterday. YESTERDAY! After a while I just didn't notice it anymore. I seriously didn't notice it, it just became one with the wall. In the last 6 1/2 months the thought of taking it down crossed my mind maybe 4 times.

I'm a lazy bum.

But it's finally down!

And has been replaced with this one I made for the big girls slumber party tomorrow!

If it weren't for the Boy's 1st b-day coming up in August, this banner would probably last just as long as the other one. But soon it will have to make way for a more macho banner (I'm really looking forward to giving the boy thing a try, it'll be a first for me)!

I do so solemnly swear to try harder at getting these things down in a timely manner and to not be a lazy bum.