A few things...

This is how I get a shower every day:


This type of thing is the reason we call Hannah our silent little comedian:

There was no giggling. Just a rag girl slowly walking silently toward me. Then, when she had heard me laugh, the rag girl walked silently away.

And this is the type of thing Addison does when she sees Hannah's made us laugh:

I wouldn't call her jealous per se, but when Hannah gets a reaction out of us, Addison does her best to do the same. I love this sweet little girl.

So excited!

Soooo, at the beginning of the year I won a year membership to a Photography forum. I was pretty stoked considering the one new year's resolution I made was to improve my photography skills.

On the forum they suggested a 50mm 1.4 or 50mm 1.8 if you're just starting out. I can't afford the 1.4 at the moment (even though I would desperately love to have it), so I found a used 1.8 one of the other forum members was selling and purchased it. It arrived today!!! I am in love with this lens! Here are some pictures I took with it today:


The light in my kitchen was not very good. Normally I have to bump the ISO WAY up....like to maximum. Although I still needed to bump it up a little bit higher than I would ideally like, it was nowhere NEAR maximum, and I think they turned out beautifully. (In low lighting!) When I looked in the viewfinder to see the pics, it took my breath away!

And look how narrow you can get the depth of field (look closely at Hannah's right eye vs her left eye). And the background is so beautifully blurry! I'm seriously in love.


I especially like the blur because you can't see the mess that is my house. :o)


And it makes for a pretty nice portrait.


Ah my silly girl.


And here's one, just for fun


I seriously can't wait to learn to use this lens better and see what it can do!

Some Pictures of the Girls

Well, it's been a while since I posted any pictures of the girls, so here they are:

Addison...posing. She wanted me to get a picture of her sleeping, so I oblidged.




She is seriously such an angel child. I can't believe how helpful she is...and how happy and proud she is to be so helpful. It's so sweet. Today she told me, "Mom, I have two super powers. Helping you, and turning on the TV." LOL! I'll give you one guess what I tell them to do 99% of the time that they need me while I'm nursing the twins. Sigh. It's hard to be a good parent when you have four little ones.

Hannah REFUSES to look at me when I'm taking pictures lately. Instead she looks down and tries to get around me. It makes me sad because I can't get good pictures of her beautiful eyes, but this one was pretty cute.




Hannah is going through the naked stage. She is stripping down completely whenever we put her down to sleep. At night we have to pin up her zipper with a diaper pin so she won't take all her clothes off and wet the bed. Silly girl.

And now for the twins. They're starting to smile. I haven't caught a cute one of Lilly's full smile yet, but I like these pictures of her. Whenever Lilly smiles, the left side of her mouth kind of twitches up into a little half grin just before she flashes you her huge toothless smile. I love it. Hopefully I'll be able to capture that sometime.




This is a cute one of Maya, although it's not as sharp as I'd like.


And here's one I caught of her laughing. Not the best compositionally, but I love how it looks like she's just letting out a big belly laugh. And look at those two dimples!!! SOOOO CUTE!


The twins are starting to babble too. Not a ton, but they've made a few sounds. The other day one of them...I can't remember which (that happens when there's two of them)...made a sound in reaction to something we were doing that almost sounded like a laugh. It's only a matter of time. We're excited!

Les Miserables

So Bart and I are sitting around, watching PBS's 25th anniversary concert of Les Miserables. OH MY GOSH!!! It is absolutely AMAZING! I forgot how increadible this music is. I am getting goosebumps!

And the story! Oh my gosh. If you haven't read the book, you need to. I really think I don't have the writing skills to adequately describe how increadible this story is. If you do not read it, your are missing one of the greatest accomplishments in literary history. Seriously. Your life will be incomplete without it. And you don't even know it! It is absolutely AMAZING. The characters are some of the most amazing, complex, increadible characters. Amazing! And the music. Oh man! And the story. Did I mention the music...or the story?

And in this particular performance , Javert is absolutely increadible. I mean everyone is amazing, but he is just so perfectly cast. He's increadible! It's breathtaking!

Anyway, I have to go and re-read the story now...and perhaps donate to PBS so that I can have the dvd. And then see how many times I can say amazing and increadible.

Goodnight everyone!

Potty Training

Well, Hannah's pretty much potty training herself. She's been sitting on her potty for a while now, and at the end of January (the 27th to be precise) we were even able to put her on it before she was finished pooping.

But, frankly, it was a pain. I had a potty full of poop to clean, and Hannah insists on wiping herself...a NIGHTMARE when you have a shallow kid potty full of poop & she's reaching on there to wipe (I tried to get her to stand up and wipe...right after I tried to convince her to let me wipe her...this one's stubborn).

Fortunately she likes washing her hands. Unfortunately she likes washing her hands a lot...over & over. And she screams and cries when I make her stop. All in all it was too much...especially with babies needing me the whole time. I vowed not to potty train her until the twins were at least 6 months old.

Well Hannah apparently doesn't care what I think. Yesterday she came to me and, pointing to her diaper said, "poopoo" then pointing to the bathroom said "potty!"

"Uh oh," I thought & checked her diaper. Sure enough, empty. I said, "Hannah, just go in your diaper." (in my defense, the babies were crying.) She looked very crossly at me pointed to her diaper & said, "poopoo" then at the bathroom & said "potty!"

"ah fine" I groaned & opened the bathroom door for her.

She was successful, & I spent the next half hour dealing with potty stuff, hoping it was a fluke. But alas, today she once again came to me with the infamous, "poopoo" "potty!". And this time she peed too! It took forever for Addison to pee in the potty. Sigh. If I didn't have two very demanding little ones I'd be thrilled. But things being the way they are, I've decided to get a little seat cover for the toilet. If she insists on potty training herself despite my best efforts, she's going to go in a place where all I have to do to clean up is flush.