I bought tights.

I have officially crossed a line somewhere ... who would have believed that I would buy tights for my baby girl? But she needed them. And if I could have found the right size, she would have also been the proud owner of little black mary janes. Too bad I couldn't get them in her size. :-)

This is Quinn, on Christmas Eve, after mass. She is fascinated by our Christmas tree - probably because I have 10 or so strings of lights on it. She was lying next to the tree, quietly watching, when paparazzi mommy got the camera out.

The attempt to get a photo of all 3 of them earlier in the night was not so successful. Griffin is impossible to photograph. He looked so cute in his little jacket, too ... Noah, on the other hand, is more than willing to hold Quinn and pose. Gotta love that!



We let the boys open one present tonight ... new Cars jammies. They both liked the gift, which is pretty amazing since it is clothing. Again, not much success in getting a photo of G where you can SEE his jammies, but here are a couple of him playing with his beloved Cars. The best is when Griffin says "a-cow" and "cha-chigga" (noises that McQueen and Chick make in the movie). We also learned that the Cars book from Dave & Connie is NOT a good thing to take to church, because of said noisemaking.



Merry Christmas!

Hello, Baby Quinn.

She is here. Born around 2 am on December 15. 8 pounds 15 ounces, and 20 inches long, with lots of dark hair.

We are officially in love.

Seeing Santa

As everyone knows, only the insane visit Santa at the mall on a weekend. We decided to visit him on a Monday, after my weekly baby check. Great plan, right? Noah would get home from school, the boys would eat lunch, G could sneak in a quick nap before we had to leave for the 1:40 appointment, and then we'd go visit the guy in red.

Except that I screwed up and my doctor appointment was at 1:10. Which meant that G did NOT get a nap. And poor Noah had a nasty cough, so he couldn't go to the well-child room at the clinic like usual. That is where things started falling apart. We planned to leave Griffin in the well-child room, and he seemed perfectly willing to stay there ... until he saw the door close with me on the other side. He started SCREAMING at the top of his lungs, and ran for the door. Noah and I checked in at the clinic desk, then I ran back to the exam area to leave a sample. When I finished, I decided to check on G. I rounded the corner where the receptionists sit, across from the well-child room, and heard them talking about Griffin. Oy. He was still screaming. I had no choice but to rescue him from the well-child room and take him to the appointment.

Fast forward 20 minutes, after the appointment. We loaded back into the van and headed to the mall. Santa was on break, so we shopped for a few last Christmas presents, then got into the line to visit Santa. Noah was prepared. He wants this thing called "The Mega Rig Arctic Adventure Snow Monster Mission" - what a mouthful, eh?




He was thinking ahead and asked me to find it in the toy catalogue so he could SHOW Santa. I did one better ... I printed the image and name off of Amazon.com. So Noah was ready, with his prized toy picture in hand, when it was our turn. But he didn't want to sit on Santa's lap. We had already discussed it. Too bad Santa wasn't in agreement with our discussions. Noah walked up to him and started talking, and Santa grabbed him and pulled him down - poor kid. He didn't want to risk annoying Santa so he just perched there, uncomfortably, as they talked. He showed Santa the picture, and to Santa's credit, he kept the picture "so he'd remember." I'm going to have one happy, happy, happy 6 year old on Christmas morning. :-)

G, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with Santa. He'd sit on the tiny stool somewhat NEAR Santa, but that was it. And he kept trying to make a beeline for the oversized scooter that was a prop for the Santa area. I'd take my eye of him for 2 seconds and I'd hear "RIDE - RIDE - RIDE" and see a little red streak making a break for the scooter. I happened to have a picture of the scooter - my test shot when I was getting my camera ready to shoot.






It was quite an adventure. I should have brought a helper ... I have virtually no photos that turned out. But that is OK. Part of the whole Santa adventure is the chaos, right?

School is almost over for the semester.

YAY! It has been a long semester, even though I only have 2 classes. The first, Combined Media, is something I enjoyed. We did Photoshop and video projects. Video was new to me, but I liked it for the most part. And it inspired me to dig out our old video camera from the basement - totally forgot we had one! Maybe I'll take some video of the kids.

My final project for Combined Media was to create a video. The problem with art school projects is that they can't be "cliche" ... "predictable" ... "obvious" ... or anything like that. Hard to do, especially when your brain is linear and literal like mine is. I decided to do a video about Elmo. Remember when Tickle Me Elmo came out, 10 years ago? Now there is a new version. I decided to make a little 1 minute video about Elmo, shot from his point of view, as people tried to snatch him up when he was new. If you click this link you can download the movie.



If the link is not working, cut and paste this into your browser window and you'll get to the download page: http://www.yousendit.com/download/eG1go8GsQa95TA%3D%3D

Keep in mind, when I showed my teacher yesterday, she thought it was a success. :-) I photographed Elmo against a white background, used Photoshop to remove the background, added some hand-drawn backdrops and other elements, and then combined audio. You don't want to know how long all of that took me. Of course, it might have been a quicker process if I hadn't had a little guy who got really excited and ran to my computer shouting "EL-MO" every time he heard the freaky Elmo giggle. ;-)

My second class, Life Drawing, was not as fun for me. I learned a lot, though, and I guess that is really the whole point. I'm glad it is almost over. I loved the teacher but the projects were hard for me to do. I don't have a photo of the final project for that class. It is a big drawing - 3x4 feet, maybe? - and I used watercolors, paints, and charcoal. I'm just glad the class is almost over.

In other news, baby girl has shown no signs of making an appearance. So my dr let me set the induction date for December 15. The end is near!

I don't have a lot of pictures from Noah's birthday party, and I don't feel comfortable posting them on the internet without asking permission from the other parents, so instead I'll show you these from the last "nice" day we had.

My baby is 6.

I'm not supposed to call him my baby anymore. At least not when we are in public. But since he can't officially read yet, I can get away with it here. :-)

Ever since Griffin was born, I've been amazed at how much older he seems to me. And now with those glasses ... wow. He's a KID, not a little boy.

For those of you that mailed gifts, thank you! He had a blast opening them and has played with everything.

The big birthday party is this Saturday, followed by a Monster Truck Jam for the guys in the Cities.

On another note, Griffin really enjoys ripping open presents. REALLY enjoys it. And then, after the present is unwrapped, he really enjoys shredding the paper. Maybe he is part cat. Christmas will be fun this year! :-)

I've been slacking ...

on posting pictures. Or updating everyone about what is going on in the Lessinger world.

For starters, Baby is getting big and really *kicky*. I've been having regular contractions at night for about 3 or 4 days now, but they always stop. I have a doctor appointment on Monday, so we will see if there is any activity. As of yesterday, I am 36 weeks - 1 week shy of what is considered full term.

Noah has been busy with school and planning his birthday bash. Well, the planning was pretty easy. We are having the party at Space Aliens, and he's invited 5 buddies. The two of us went to town today and got stuff for his goodie bags, as well as ordered his cake. He chose a Cars cake. We also spent a good amount of time looking at toys at Target today. If anyone is still wondering what to get him, I highly advise Transformers. He flipped out in that aisle ... wanted ALL of them. I think Griffin might be selecting a Transformer for a gift in the next few days. :-)

The G-monster has been doing really well. He is such a funny kid. He mimics everything he sees, and especially anything he sees his big brother do. He is at such a fun age right now. Yes, he's as busy as ever, but he's so much fun that we don't really mind. :-)

Bob and Mark and our neighbor Cory got the bathroom sheetrocked last weekend (while Jackie, Jackson, June, Turner, Griffin and I went shopping at the MOA - what a crazy choice that was!) The tape/texture guy is coming to start the final phase of *operation: walls* on Monday. I am so excited I can hardly stand it!

Bob also has an opportunity to teach a few classes at SCSU. I am so excited for him. He has a gift for translating jargon into English, and I think he is really excited. I hope the opportunity works out because he'd be a great teacher.

Here's a picture of the boys playing. There is just something about boys and boxes ...

We love Halloween.

Halloween was C*O*L*D. The plan was to take both boys to a couple of houses, then Bob and G would stay home to pass out candy and Noah and I would finish trick-or-treating.

Yeah.

Good plan.

Unfortunately, Robin screamed bloody murder when big brother and mama tried to walk out the door without him. So along he came, bundled to the max. His costume didn't fit over his coat (Batman's costume actually looked better over all the layers ... go figure!). Robin really wasn't into all the trick-or-treating. We didn't even bring his pumpkin, because Noah already filled one pumpkin at the kindgergarten party. Talk about candy overload! Anyway, both little guys had fun. And carrying my extra 50 pounds of baby-weight plus my 30 pounds of Griffin-weight proved to be quite warming. I can't move my neck today, but I was warm last night. :-)

No good pictures of both kids together ... and only semi-decent pictures of each alone ... but you get the idea. Note that Robin is trying to eat candy with the wrapper still on. Funny kid. Batman has a weird expression. I think he was trying not to smile because "Batman doesn't smile." Ha!

He's cute (even though he doesn't want anyone to look at him).

Was there any doubt that Noah was going to need glasses? Nearly every person in his family wears them. We had the appointment on Saturday morning, and picked up the glasses yesterday. And it wasn't any surprise that choosing the glasses was a monumental job. He's a picky one! They had to be blue, and he wanted "square" lenses rather than round. He's not too happy but I think he'll feel better after his first morning of kindergarten with the glasses. We tried to think of clever thinks to say if anyone teases him today. Noah is hoping that a bunch of kids show up for class with glasses, just like he did.

In other news (for those of you I haven't spoken to), Griffin was in the hospital last week for 2.5 days. He had a nasty head-to-toe rash, a fever, and was just not himself. Poor kid ... they couldn't get an IV into either of his arms and blew out one of his veins, so he spent the whole time with an IV in his foot. He also had an echocardiogram to see if his heart was OK. The doctors initially thought he might have something called Kawasaki's disease (which is treatable) and wanted to determine whether his heart was enlarged. Some of his blood tests showed acute inflammation, causing the suspicion of Kawasaki's. But it was ruled out ... so were the measles and Fifth's Disease. Basically, we have no idea what was wrong. It could have been viral ... bacterial ... a medication reaction to the antibiotic he had on Monday ... a reaction to his flu shot ... or something we haven't even thought of yet. In any event, he is good now and back to his normal busy little self. And I have to add that pull-out beds in hospital rooms are NOT designed with the 7.5 month pregnant in mind. :-)

Hopefully we will have some cute Halloween pictures after tomorrow. Noah has his in-class party (with costumes) and then tomorrow night is trick-or-treating. Happy Halloween!

A picture speaks a thousand words.

No time to go into details. I'm teaching a class at the scrapbook store tomorrow night and have to make sure I'm prepared. But it was a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong weekend for Robin in SoDak. Batman actually had a pretty good time (despite that look on his face). I think the terrible two's are striking early.

Success.

Remember that portfolio review I was talking about? The one that determined whether I get to be a graphic design major? I passed. Yay! Of course, I felt better about it before I picked up my score sheets today and found out that one of my two faculty reviewers rated my drawing skills as below average. I knew that, but seeing it in print was not the best thing for my ego. Here's a picture of my installed gallery. Each applicant got a taped off space to display their work. I'm so glad it is done!




In other news, I made Griffin and Noah these t-shirts yesterday with a new digital kit I'll be selling on October 15 at twopeasinabucket.com. Noah really really liked making his shirt. He designed it - he picked and chose what to put on the iron on transfer. He liked it so much that I picked up another shirt tonight on my way home from class and we are planning to do another one tomorrow. The second version will be long sleeved and he wants flames on the sleeves. :-) Such a good little designer, that one! Griffin's shirt was harder to capture with a photo ... but the words say: I keep mama busy.






It is supposed to snow here tomorrow. Eek. Glad we got Griffin a winter coat yesterday. For the life of me, I cannot remember or find the coat Noah wore where he was Griffin's size. Guess the basement gremlins got it. Or I gave it away in one of my purging binges (although I rarely get rid of little boys clothes, so I doubt that is it).

Robin

Test run, to see if the costume fits. I think he likes it. 'nuff said. :-)

Cute kids.

I've decided my family grows cute kids. You saw the last picture of Noah with the brownie batter. Cute, right? And then I took these of the G-monster last night. October 1 ... beautiful warm weather here ... Bob and Noah worked on the bike riding (which is getting better but we still are not quite there) and Griffin ran around the yard in his shorts and t-shirt.

And then, around 7:30, I get a phone call - I'm an auntie again! Turner James was born a little after 6 pm. I can't wait to go back and see him. Jackie sent me pictures (poor Jackie can't see Turner yet, because she has strep throat.) And she threw in a bonus shot of my other little adorable nephew, Jackson. Jackson the Alligator, to be specific. See what I mean? Cute kids. :-)

In other news, I am half-way through my portfolio review process at school. If you haven't heard me talk about this yet, I have to pass a portfolio review in order to be accepted into the graphic design major. A portfolio review has 2 parts: first, I have to display 12-15 pieces of my artwork in the student gallery (along with the other applicants). My pieces are assessed by the review panel, and if they are satisfactory, I have to go through an interview process. It is sort of a big deal, because you only get 2 chances. If you don't get accepted by the second time, you are out. I have done well in my classes so I'm not overly worried, but it is a bit of work. I'll try to take a picture of my stuff in the gallery ... it is pretty cool to see all my work on the wall. And my best picture is the one that I gave Mom & Dad for Christmas, so Mom's mantel is pretty bare right now. Anyway ... I passed the display part of the review, and tomorrow (Tuesday) is my interview.

We are also making progress on bathroom/laundry room project. And by "we" I mean Bob, of course. Hee hee! I have not been very good about snapping photos, but in my defense it is a huge huge huge mess in there. We still need to use the laundry, and that is where Callisto goes when she's wet or dirty or has to stay out of our way. So there isn't any way to really pick it up. But the shower walls are up ... the electric is done ... the plumbing is 92.6% done (right, Bob) ... and Bob hasn't decided to divorce me because of my constant nagging.

Have a great week!

Noah likes brownie batter.

Can you tell? We made brownies last weekend for the block party. And just like Mom, he thinks the best part is licking the batter bowl. He didn't even mind when I took pictures ... as you can tell by the posing. :-)

The block party was a lot of fun. The weather was horrid - rainy and chilly - but it was definitely fun to hang out with the neighbors. We were commenting on how we all live so close yet can go weeks or months without really seeing each other, especially as the weather gets colder.

Noah, Griffin and I might run to town today in search of the perfect Halloween costume. Noah has it all planned out, and that means we better get busy looking before all the *cool* costumes are gone.

A few layouts ...

The Garden layouts went up last night at twopeasinabucket.com. I thought I'd share them here, too, in case you don't get a chance to see them online over there. I know I've posted some of the pictures here already, but they are so cute you probably wanted to see them twice, right? :-)

I'm excited about Marcy's spa day tomorrow. For those of you that don't know, we girls are going to Fargo tomorrow for an all day spa thing for Marcy's bachelorette party. It is going to be fun and relaxing and best of all, we can just hang out. Totally different than last weekend, when I worked at the Scrapfest at the Mall of America. That was fun too, but a lot of work. Apparently, talking for 8 hours a day teaching people to do make & takes (little scrapbook projects) will cause even ME to lose my voice a bit. :-)

Have a great weekend!

Me & G

I've been able to be home in the mornings lately, so Griffin and I send Noah off to school and then spend a little one-on-one time together. This morning, while I was folding laundry, I put Rent on for him to watch. He crawled up on the couch, covered himself with a pillow, popped the thumb in his mouth, and sat quietly for at least 10 minutes. I love that movie. :-) Then he got down and unfolded all the laundry I'd folded. Oh well.

Just a couple of quick things ...

Noah LOVES school. Here's some quick pics of him getting off the bus after the first morning (today).



And in other big news, he rode his bike in the backyard last night with no training wheels. I did a layout about it so you can see the pics. Yay, Noah! Such a big deal. I had the layout ready to show him this morning when he got up to eat, and he totally relived it again this morning. So proud of him. :-)

Testing ... testing ... testing

I have come to the realization that I stink at sending photos to family members. I have the best intentions. And I have NO shortage of photos of the kids. But the actual follow through of sending the .jpg or snail mail photo is seriously lacking. So I thought I'd try something new: blogging. You can check in here and (hopefully) see what we are all up to over here in the frozen tundra of MN. Well, it's not so frozen right now of course, but school has started and it can't be long now.


So here we go. Picture #1: I finally cut the G-monster's hair, a day after he turned 18 months old. And I screwed up when telling the girl what I wanted, so snip snip snip - there went the curls. He looks older but the hair cut did not improve his listening skills. :-)

Picture #2: Noah is now a kindergartener! We had discovery day today, which is basically an hour of going to the school with your mom and putting away all your school supplies. He also got to decorate his craft apron. It was fun, and he is psyched for tomorrow when school REALLY starts. Mom will be there to see him off, camera in hand. :-)

The rest of the week will go fast. Noah starts school tomorrow. My classes start on Thursday (I'm only taking two this semester, because labor and finals do not mix well). I'll be gone at the Mall of America Scrapfest show this weekend, working at the Autumn Leaves booth. It will be fun to see Leslie and Tracy and everyone. Here are a couple of the layouts I did to hang in the booth. My weekend will be busy ... Bob's will be even busier. Hee hee!