Will he use his powers for good or evil?

So the other night, I took a bath. When I take a bath, I lock our bedroom door to ensure that my bath doesn't turn into a big 'ol party. I was happily reading a mindless fluff book, and was tuning out the background noise.

In case you were wondering, this is background noise sounds like ~ Banging on the door w/ little voices calling out "Mom? Are you in there? Why are you in there by yourself? What are you doing? Are you taking a bath? Huh Mom? Are you taking a bath? I wanna take a bath? How come you're in the bathtub? Why can't I be in the bath? I'm taking of my clothes! I'm naked!...." You get the picture.

Anyway, my bath the other night was pretty mellow... not much door knocking or little voices. I got out of the tub and got my jammies on, when all of a sudden I heard the door open, and little feet came running in... Huh.

"Hey... did Daddy open the door?" I asked Serayah.
"Nope... it was open"
Cam was just grinning... not good.
I check out Cam, and he's got one of Serayah's hair clips in his hand.
"Hey Cam... what's up with the hairclip?"

I get another grin. Then he turns around, and goes to the outside of the door, sticks in the clip, and proceeds to lock the door from the outside. Then grins again.

Given, these locks aren't hard to turn... they've got a "key hole", which you can put a fingernail into and turn to unlock the door... but, cripes! He's only 2! I'm not ready for this yet! I want to take baths all by myself sometimes! Is this too much to ask????

Well, Serayah and I went back downstairs. Art asked where Cam was, and I told him that he was upstairs, practicing popping locks (which he was).

Yeesh.

How time flies!

My friend, MaryAnne posted a blog with pictures of her girls when they were babies. It made me want to do the same....

Ouch!

Well... apparently, Serayah has delusions of having superpowers. I'm not exactly sure what she was thinking, but she decided it would be a good idea to leap over a stack of pillows by jumping off the arm of the couch. I was not in the room at the time (bad mommy), but I heard the thud and subsequent wailing. Honestly, Serayah's pretty tough, so when she starts crying like that I knew something was horribly wrong. I ran into see what happened, and she was sobbing... holding her beloved Princess Glasses (which were broken clean in two at the bridge). I was afraid that she had gotten seriously hurt. Nope... although I know that rug-burn/thunk had to hurt, the real problem was the broken glasses. After I had assured her that I wasn't mad that her glasses were broken, and that we'd be able to replace them (thank you for the automatic 2 year warranties that come with kids glasses at our opthamologist's office), the tears stopped, and she wanted to try again. Obviously, I put a big 'ol kibosh on that (we'd just discussed jumping on the couch the night before), so she was bummed. Other than that, all was well with the world. She told me "I'm not gonna smile, 'cause I want grandpa to think I'm sad 'cause I broke my glasses". Okey dokey. Here's here non-smiling picture, which I took the next day.

Here she comes... Serayah the Diva!

Well, yesterday I cut Cam's hair. It was, once again, a traumatic experience. He just sat shaking all over, then had to be put in the shower when it was all over. He hates the shower. He screamed and shook the entire time. I have no idea what that's all about, but whatever.

Anyway, I cut it really short and wanted to take a picture. I brought out the camera, then out of nowhere, Serayah comes running over and wants in the action. I started to take their pictures by the front door in front of a blank wall, but Serayah wanted to sit on the stairs. Usually, I get a loud "CHEEEEEEEEESE!" from both of them, but last night Serayah was in fine form. I asked her to put her head down just a bit (to try and avoid flash-glare on her glasses), and she started posing like a contestant on America's Next Top Model. It was hysterical... She would give me serious looks, look at me from over her shoulder, give me 1/2 smiles, lay down on the stairs... you name it. It was like a mini photo session! We had so much fun...

I won't bombard you with many of the pictures from our "shoot", but here are a few I liked a lot, as well as a shot of Cam's new haircut and a shot of them together as well.... Enjoy!

Sleep with one (or two) eyes open... with your dinosaur, of course

A couple things about this post...

When you first start dating someone, all is bliss. You're so head-over-heels, that every little thing that they do is charming. You don't notice (or care) that they feel the need to get a new glass with every one of their 9 glasses of milk a day. You think the fact that they can't sit still while on the phone (if they actually answer it) and must do speed circuits around the house while talking is cute.

Then later... when the hearts fade a bit out of your eyes... things start to bug you a bit. Then they drive you nuts. Then you get married. Then 13 years go by. OK... by the time you're married for a while, the things either still drive you nuts (my grandparents were married for 50+ years and my grandpa's pseudo-whistling in the car would still produce teeth-grinding, lip-pursing stares out of the window by grandma. I'm pretty sure he knew, but he just kept on whistlin'... I swear that occasionally I'd see him slip her a glance, then grin... but he might have just been happy to see her there... might have). Anyway, you either let the quirks bug you, or you get over it.

One of the things that Art did at the beginning was fall asleep with his eyes open. The first few times he did it, it really creeped me out. Now, I don't even notice... and actually, he doesn't really do it anymore anyway. Anyway, he still has some quirks that get to me (see pacing/milk-cups at top of page), but others I've gotten over (the inability to swallow fluids without getting a big mouthful then taking 4 rather loud gulps to get it all down... no one else ever seems to notice it, but it took me a good 7 or 8 years to get past that one).

Well, I guess some quirks are passed down. Both of our kids must pace circuits while on the phone, and Cam sleeps with his eyes open. Whatever.

Cam must also have "Tromp the Dinosaur" to get to sleep. Tromp doesn't have to go anywhere with us (unless its an overnight trip), and can stay home and guard his bed, but when bedtime comes, Tromp is clamped into his arm, and Tromp's poor little head or tail goes in Cam's mouth. Fortunately, Tromp is machine washable (thank you, Ty corporation). We have 3 Tromps in rotation to facilitate washing. I know that Tromp is looking kinda gross, but after 2 years, that's pretty much what they look like right out of the dryer.

Here are a couple of pictures I took of Cam yesterday afternoon while he was napping on the couch.

Random pictures

Well, I don't have anything really interesting to post. It's been really cold here lately, and the other day we woke up to a serious frost. Here's a picture of a tree in our neighborhood. Also, a couple pictures of the kids. The one of them together was taken while they were curled up together on the couch watching WALL-E. Enjoy!

Snow fun

Well, we've still got the snow that came before Christmas... It doesn't get above freezing much here. We got another 1/2 inch or so last night, but nothing to get excited about.

The kids were getting a bit house-bound, so this afternoon we bundled them up and let them run around in the yard. Here are some pictures from their adventures. Oh, and the one of Cam licking the snow cracked me up! The picture below was after he realized that his face was getting really cold from the face plants. That kid really does make me laugh.