Remembering

William Thomas Carr. Born Billy Franklin Anderson in Johnson City, TN on October 23, 1971. Died September 10, 1998 in Virginia Beach, VA. Despite a rough start, the last few years of his life were filled with love and happiness. There should have been so much more to this story, and so many more people to remember it.

Loud and Proud

OBaby loves, loves, loves being a cheerleader. And, she is good at it. She is always the loud one. Surprised? Not really. YBaby loves it, too. Who says you have to be 5 to cheer?

The Tooth Fairy's Been Busy

Teeth

No teeth.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!!!!!!!!!!!!

We hope you have a great day. We're glad we got to see you dance at the state fair. We had a terrific day. See -

Tweaked

Yeah, that is OBaby's new word. Last night we were talking about "movie magic" (how they make things that didn't really happen look like they happened). She said, "Oh, yeah, they took a picture of him jumping, then tweaked it a little to make it look like he jumped over the whole pool." Um, yeah, they did, but how did she know tweaked?

"I just thought it seemed like the right word."


All I can say is that I sincerely hope her first grade teacher is up for the challenge.

What 4 Years Old Looks Like

New TB Testing Keeping Kids, not TB, out of the US

The USCIS (Immigration) and the Center for Disease Control have enacted new regulation for the testing of TB in immigrant populations. While the desire to protect US citizens from being exposed to TB is certainly a need, there has been an unintended consequence to the new regulation. Children legally adopted by US citizens are being denied their visas. One of these children is the newly adopted daughter of my coworker who is in Ethiopia right now, trying to figure out how to bring his child home. She does NOT have TB, but she must be tested, and the test results take at least 6 weeks. She had been legally adopted before her parents were told she would need to be tested. So now, they are the legal parents of a child who cannot enter the US. They are with her now, and naturally do not want to have to leave her, but at the same time, they will eventually have to return to the US because they have to work and they have a 2 year old son (also from Ethiopia) waiting at home.

All medical evidence indicates that children AT LEAST up to age 7 are NOT contagious, EVEN if they have active TB AND after 2-4 weeks of treatment NO ONE is contagious. The new regulations do not apply to citizen children who live abroad, even if they live in TB epidemic areas. Also there are no rules to prevent someone with active TB from entering the US on a tourist visa. Please consider signing the petition below. It only takes a couple of minutes and while it may not affect you personally, it is affecting my friend and his family.- Please feel free to forward this on- the more people who voice their concerns the more likely to get a solution that protects both the child and the country.

Build Families, Not Barriers Petition

My Girls

2-4-6-8

Who do we think's really great? OBABY! The cheerleader. She is going to try cheering for Pop Warner football this year. Of course, she knows nothing about football and really doesn't care to learn, but she loves the idea of being a cheerleader. And why not? She gets to wear a really cute uniform and have treats at every practice. We'll see what happens when she has to actually practice and be there for the games. Oh, God. That means I have to be there for the games. Football games. Played outside. By little boys. In northern Indiana. Ug. Mommy is sooooo not going to love this. But hey, she does look cute in the uniform!

Where's My Sister?

That's all I'm hearing right now. OBaby is visiting with Grandma and Grandpa for 4 more days, and YBaby is missing her like crazy. (Ok, so Mommy misses her like crazy, too. but YBaby keeps asking, "Where's my sister?") We are ready for her to come home, and I don't think we are going to want her to go away again for a long, long time!

We miss you, O!!!!!!!!!!

More Art By OBaby

The Artist Known as OBaby

Word to the Wise

If you have a spare iron, don't ever store it on the top shelf of a closet. And if you do, make sure the cord is securely wrapped around it so that no one can accidently pull the iron off the shelf and onto one's head. And if that happens, don't ask a 6 year old to look at the injury and tell you what she sees.

"Your hair is all bloody and there is a hole in your head."

I'm just sayin'.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!!!

Have a happy birthday, Grandpa, from your best girls!

See you Saturday!!!

Pomp and Sweetie Face

Tomorrow is OBaby's last day of kindergarten. These pictures were taken at her combination Mothers Day/Graduation ceremony. Yes, she is the shortest kid in the class, and yes, she is the cutest one (sorry Aunt Donna Cake)!

Spring School Pictures

Cause apparently we didn't spend enough $$ on fall school pictures, so they offered us:

My American Girls

Yesterday the girls and I took a trip to Chicago to visit the American Girl Place. It is something of a cross between a doll store and a doll museum. Olivia loved getting to look at all of the historical dolls in their different period clothes with their different accessories. She liked Depression-era Kit with her junior reporter accessories, and WWII-era Molly with the really cool (and expensive!) camping gear. But, her favorite doll turned out to be Julie from the 1970’s. I think she really liked the fact that Julie’s “historical” period happens to be the same time that Mommy was a school girl! Ack – I’m historical!

Ying was more interested in “driving” the stroller around the store than looking at all of the cool dolls – until we hit the “Bitty Baby” section. There she quickly fell in love with the little blue-eyed blond baby who she has named “Essa”(pronounced E-sa, yeah, I don’t know). While most little girls seem to love being able to pick out a doll who looks just like them from the AG line of semi-ethnic looking dolls, both my little Asian beauties went for the blonde dolls. As OBaby so wisely told me, “The baby doesn’t have to look like the Mommy.” Um, no, she doesn’t, does she, baby?

Overall we had a great day, although OBaby could have done without the mile long hike back to the train station. She really was a trooper, never mentioning how tire she was or how bad her feet hurt until we were back at the station. It really was too much for her at the end of a long day, but I’m really proud that she didn’t whine or complain while we were walking. She just kept plugging along – even helping Mommy push the stroller (since either of the HUGE red AG shopping bags weighed too much for her to carry). I promised her I’ll never make her do that again! We could have grabbed a cab! Jeesh, we were in the city. They do have cabs there. Ah, next time I’ll know better.

Tomorrow's American Idols

Ying may well be one of the world’s greatest 3-year-old lip-syncers. It helps that she has a great teacher. Check them out.

Bye Bye Baby Mullet

I finally worked up the nerve to get rid of Ying's baby mullet. It was hard to have her hair cut off, since she'd come to me with so little of it. However, her hair wasn't very pretty. It had grown into a full-blown mullet, and I just couldn't take it any longer. So, after bribing her by allowing her to wear her minnie mouse dress (a previously never-worn Halloween costume), I took YBaby in for the haircut of her life. It was one of my better parenting decisions this week. She looks amazing. Beautiful. Like a princess. See for yourselves:

The new Ying hair cut

Way Back Wednesday

Any idea what year this was?

OBaby's First Christmas Program - Really Bad Video

You can just sort of see the top of O's head (she has a bow in her hair) on the far right, second row. But if you listen to the end, you'll hear Ying-a-Bing demanding her Jie Jie!

OBaby's First Christmas Program

Last Weekend at Wal-mart . . .

they were taking free pictures with Santa. Obviously not the best photographers or the best background (notice the fold line!), but hey, the kids are cute.

Breakfast with Santa

The girls had breakfast with Santa on Saturday. Since only 8 kids were there this year, they got to spend a lot of quality time with Santa. (Poor Santa!) Here are a few highlights from the morning.

Happy Holidays!