She doesn't like being told "no."

At a bbq this afternoon.....Ran a bit into someone's naptime, if you can't tell. :)

Quinn says some of her Bible Verses

A conversation with Quinn

Love the way she says "mornin" and Mexico. :)

Mooski

Quinn loves her Mooski and we love the way she says it. So cute!

Mommy Quinny

We have started using a "time out" area for refocusing Q when she needs it. We call it the "peace place," because her school uses the Positive Child Guidance strategy and that's the name they use for it. For consistency, we use that at home too, since that was what she was used to. Peace Place is a brown rug on our kitchen floor.

Lately Q has started putting her babies in the Peace Place. She yells "sit down" at them and sometimes even throws them into the Peace Place. I'd like to think we are much calmer when we take her to Peace Place. :) Then she has to come and tell everyone in the house why Blue Baby or Pink Baby is in the Peace Place. Usually it's not listening. We've noticed Blue Baby visits Peace Place the most. He must have a bit of a rebellious streak. ;) By the way, he's named Blue Baby because he wears blue jammies. Only Q is into undressing all her babies lately.

I guess this is a good sign that she's getting the message of what a little break in the Peace Place is all about. It's stinking hilarious to watch her at work, disciplining away!

Friends

Picnic with ducks @ park

Stitches out Monday

Allowed Daddy to take one out but second had to be removed after she was asleep.

Back To School Shopping

Our church does a great outreach activity where we partner with an inner city church. They bring a bus of over 200 kids that attend their summer programs, and our church members adopt one or more kids, take them to dinner, and then take them to Walmart to buy them some school supplies for the year. We got partnered with a great little guy! At first he was acting very mature, since he's going to be a 4th grader this year! He DID NOT want to sit in the playarea at McDonalds, but after we finished our food we went in to say hello to all our friends that were in there, and he ended up climbing with Quinn all over the play equipment. At Walmart he had no clue what size clothes he wore, so that was interesting....When he took his shoes off to try on new ones, Q whipped hers off and stepped right into his old ones. He was so sweet to her and just laughed. He also had fun holding her hand in the store. I just love that our church gives us the opportunity to meet great kids like this and to remind ourselves what God wants us to do with our money....We've never gotten to do it in past years since we've always been out of town the week it's held, but were so blessed by our participation this year! If you go to church with me and you didn't get to participate this year, you HAVE to get it on your calendar next year! I promise you'll have so much fun, and what a great opportunity to serve God and others as a family! Perfect service activity if you have Lil' ones!!

"Hodju, E-O."

Saturday night when all our friends were here we headed out to dinner and a giant thunderstorm opened up on us....We all got soaked, and had to stand under the AC freezing from being wet. Quinn reached out and said "Hodju, E-O" (hold you, Leo), and he was a good sport and indulged her. He also got a big hug Sunday morning during church. She kinda likes E-O!

Couldn't resist a snapshot of this....

The two boys pushing the baby stroller around the mall. :)

Day 1

We've been studying the days of creation in as the theme of our Kitchen School this month. For Day 1 (which we studied for a week...we take it at a slow pace around here!) we had lots of fun playing with flashlights, getting in Mommy's dark closet and turning them on, painting with black and yellow and making an earth diorama to shine the light on. You can hear us singing a couple of the songs, too!

Noodles!

I-ya introduced Q to a new activity she loves--playing with noodles!

"Hodju, Aba!" (hold you, Ava!)

Yea for OKC friends!

Our OKC friends were in town for the weekend!! We had our usual fun of eating and shopping and staying up late. The excitement this year was the giant thunderstorm that turned off our power for several hours....that and the water/wind/rainproof catpuke (believe me, you don't want to know....but I did wash it off today, guys).
Here we are in our customary group shot!

And Heather and I decided we'd have to do a regular shot of Leo holding the babies...kinda like those growth pictures you do by a teddy bear to compare how much the baby has grown....only we use Leo! Thankfully he's a good sport!

We had a great time together, as always. I just wish it weren't so stinkin' far between H-Town and OKC. Booooo. :(

Kitchen School

As many mornings as we can....which is usually 3-4 a week....we do "school" in our kitchen.
Today's agenda?
1) Sing Jesus Loves Me with sign language.
2) Work with some dried noodles and various containers.
3) Paint with green paint.
4) Count Mama's lemons and limes.
5) Play with straws and sticking them in different-sized containers.
6) Nature walk--found an alive locust that we held, found dried seed pods that we picked the seeds out of, drew with sticks in the gravel, collected nice sticks and rocks, drank from the green drinking fountain, watched ants building their mounds in the dirt, and looked at the "nasty abu" sitting in the ditch.

It was a great day at K.S. (kitchen school)!

My phone rings more for her than it does for me......

Her First Haircut!

Mimi set up an appointment for Quinn's first haircut...of course at the salon all us girls in the family go to! And yep, Q had an audience! Mimi picked us up and took us there, and then Mike and I-ya met us. Mike was the paparazzi who documented the whole event for us! I didn't know Mike was going to come, and when Q asked me if he'd be there (after I told her I-ya was coming), I said no. So the second picture below is Q peeking around me and excitedly noticing Mike was, in fact, there!

The haircut. Amine set her up in a booster. That was fine. Then he wrapped the black cape around her. It held her arms down and totally freaked her out. I suggested removing it, but Amine was very firm that we couldn't get hair all over her, so she screamed through all 2 minutes of the cut. Mimi, I-ya and I all tried to console her, but it wasn't happening.

Mama had to pick her up for a few final touches, then some "bubbles abu" made all her tears vanish. That and half a dozen Dum-dums.

She looks so cute with her little haircut!

Fashionista

Q is into adding and removing clothes at her own whim now. I walked into the playroom to find this--no shoes, no shirt, but a very good choice in headwear! So she may not be allowed into most eating establishments in her current attire, but doesn't she look so cute????

Her battle scars....

If you want to see them in their gruesome glory, feel free to click on each photo for a large version.

Stitches

Quinn lost a fight with Mimi's coffee table yesterday. When I came to pick her up and saw it, I was wondering if her split lip was bad enough to need stitches. I called Matt to meet me at the house (he was on his way home from work), called Aunt Karen to see if she thought the dr's would stitch it. I had forgotten our neighbor across the street is a pediatrician, so as we were pulling into our driveway, he was rounding the corner of our street. I walked over with my baby, bloody and only wearing a diaper, but luckily he took a look and recommended stitches and was very helpful. I definitely did not want to drag her into the dr's if she did not require stitches, but both Karen and the neighbor said take her.....I remembered our peditrician's office had an urgent care office open late, so we headed there. We only had to wait about 20 minutes to get called in from the waiting room, and then another 30ish waiting for the doctor. He wanted to finish up all his other patients so he could take his time on Q.

Here we are playing with Mommy's phone, trying to keep Q occupied as she begs, "Get down, please get down" in the surgery room. Of course she wouldn't let me snap a shot of her lip and kept sticking her tongue over it. Moosky gave Q lots of cuddles and kept her comfortable. :) Matt was smart to think about grabbing him as we went out the door. I didn't even bring any books or anything so our wait got a little boring.
(click for fullsize)
They had to strap her down to the papoose-board. She got two shots of lidocane in the lip. Ouch, that was probably the worst part. I couldn't even look--Matt helped hold her. I love that the doctor didn't use the head strap, but had the nurse (who was super sweet) hold her head. After they deadened her lip the doctor started stitching. The problem was Q was screaming bloody murder, so it was hard for him to get the stitches in because she was moving so much. She was crying, "Hold you, Momma, hold you." and then "All done, please, All done." in the most pathetic little voice. The doctor got two stitches in and got her cleaned up and we headed out. We stopped at Quizno's for some dinner, and as I was sitting down with her at the table I looked at her face. No stitches. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. We had to get back in the car, and that was such a frustrating moment for me. I knew we'd have to go through all of that again.

We got back to the office...the receptionist looked at us like we were crazy when we told her the stitches were gone. She got the nurse and eventually the doctor. Dr. Pope said in 25 years he had never done the same set of stitches twice. Q had apparently bitten them out. That's our Quinny, setting records wherever she can....oh my. Dr. Pope was very patient about our repeat visit and told Q she had just earned herself plastic stitches (as opposed to the dissolvable ones he gave her first). Back on the papoose board, more stitches. This time I took some pictures since I knew we'd want to show her later.

She kept calling Dr. Pope "Man" and even when we left she said, "Man helping," and told him thank you. Matt and I both commented on how much we loved being able to get the stitches done at the clinic as opposed to having to do the ER thing. And we really loved the doctor--think he may be our new pedi if he doesn't run when he sees Q again!

It was funny because the doctor told Matt he had watched the stitching twice, so he had to do the next set, and I knew that was exactly what Matt was thinking...if she pulled them out again in the middle of the night, Daddy knew he'd have to take over. He'd just have to pretend that little lip was an eyeball!

Q woke up several times in the night, mostly to ask for "abu." Every time we got her out of the papoose-board she was drenched in sweat, and she screamed like crazy, so I am sure she really was thirsty! We tried her in her room at first, but when I went to bed she was sitting in the middle of her floor crying, so of course that broke my heart and we moved her into our room on a pallet on the floor so we could hear if she woke up.

She is doing well today and leaving the stitches alone so far......

Some Quinn-isms:

We are starting to see a sweet side of our little girl. A few mornings ago I was getting my shoes out of my closet and bumped my knee. Q came over and patted it and said, "Sorry Mommy, be careful, Mommy!" with the sweetest, most concerned little voice.

On Friday I took her to the pool. As we were swimming around she put her finger up to my eyelid and said, "Uhhhh-ohhhhh, Mommy. Dirt on eye." She proceeded to try to gently rub it away. It was mascara.

And yesterday she was painting with blue paint....later that day she pointed to my ear and said, "Paint on ear, Mommy." She comes up with all sorts of stuff, so I didn't believe her. When Matt got home he asked why I had blue paint on my ear.

Yesterday the trash can in the kitchen was about to overflow. Q went and found Matt and said, "Daddy, trash too FULLLLLLL!"

She is really loving to help people do things. Today she was helping a little baby get her sippy cup each time she dropped it. She looked over at me and said, "Took, (Look), Mama, helping Mattie!"

This morning when she got up she came into my bathroom where I was brushing my teeth. She made a beeline for my makeup bag, grabbed the lipgloss, opened it and removed the little brush like an expert, popped it into her mouth and announced, "Mimi's lipgloss."

Matt has been working on insulating the attic a little bit each evening when he has time. We have a continual smattering of tiny pieces of insulation, screws, and other paraphernalia under the attic door. Every time Q walks by she says, "Daddy's mess. Clean up, Daddy!"

She has two flashlights she likes to play with. Big surprise--the batteries in one died, I am sure because it got left on all day and night. I told Quinn it wasn't working so we were going to leave it on the shelf. She said, "Daddy fix it," and nodded her head very firmly. She's sure her daddy can fix anything!

Today we were at the pool with friends. Q was already in the water on the shallow end and I was talking to my friend. She wanted me to get in with her, but I was trying to finish my conversation and ignoring her interrupting temporarily. Finally she starts yelling, "C'MERE, DAICIA!!!" and pats her hip like she's calling the dog.

Tonight in the car she called Matt "Daddy Matt."

Anniversary Weekend

Matt and I have a yearly tradition of taking a short trip somewhere in Texas for our anniversary. This year we kept talking about places we might go.....but never really getting too excited about any of the destinations. Finally we realized we were roadtripped out for a little while. Matt suggested a weekend downtown and it was the perfect solution. We'd stayed at this Bed and Breakfast before, the anniversary when I was really pregnant with Quinn. That year we just spent all our time laying around in our room, enjoying the cold air conditioning and cable tv, both of which we didn't have at home. This year we were more adventuresome. Friday night we found a little Italian restaurant with a great patio for dinner in Rice Village, spent a couple hours browsing at Central Market (and even closed down the place, unbeknownst to us...).....Saturday we enjoyed the breakfast (biscuits and gravy--my fave!!....Matt broke the waffle maker and got in trouble from the old lady working there...) then we hit some of our favorite Houston spots that we don't get to visit much--Wabash Feed Store (I tried to talk Matt into buying me the pea hen that was on sale. No go.), IKEA, MicroCenter, Fry's, Prince's Burgers, La Madeline, and a laaaaate movie. It was just far enough away from home to feel like an adventure, but still good and relaxing without too much driving.

And we also do a yearly photo next to the number of years we've been married. Last time we stayed at Sara's in the Heights we took our picture by Fifth St., so this year we decided to find 7th!