Stupid wind.

Here's what I'm watching today.

Can't do much about it, except wait for the eventual crash.

Stupid wind.

My Max is a Sleestack.

I loved "Land of the Lost" as a kid. I think I might have even rolled my preteen self out of bed to watch it on Saturday mornings (you know, when we only had 3 channels and cartoons were a BIG DEAL.)

But I didn't know I'd give birth to a sleestack. If you don't know what a sleestack is, educate yourself here.

Caveat: Ignore the funky camera work. Maddox was on my lap, and I was trying to video him with the Flip ... with limited success. The hubs pointed out that my computer has a camera - one that would have been pointed directly at us, as we were sitting in front of it. Doh.

Psssst ... come over here!

Hey, everyone (all 4 of you that read this blog). :-)

I've been busy busy busy. I did a photo party in SoDak over the weekend, and now I have oodles of adorable photos to proof and get into galleries.

If you want to see them, come check out my photo biz blog: jenlessingerphotography.com/blog

See you there - hee hee!

4 months already!

The twins are 4 months old. Crazy, isn't it?

Of course, when you look at it from the perspective that I haven't had more than 3 consecutive hours of sleep since then, it seems like an eternity. HA!

But in honor of their grand old age, here are a couple of photos. :-)

Holden ...



Maddox ...



And just for fun, the dynamic (older) duo.



Have a great week!

Don't want to leave out my other willing victims ...

er, I mean models.

I give you Miss Quinn, in her "I'm a supah-star" pose (actually, she's holding a car behind her head). I've been organizing and making my backdrops portable, and testing out some of the new ones.



And here is Mr. Griffin. He ASKED me to take his picture. I'm sure it was because he watched me take some shots of the twins and then Quinn, but still. He ASKED me to take his picture!!





So besides the photos, and the normal feeding/wiping off faces/picking up random toys that is part of a typical day, I also took the 4 little ones to town today to run a few errands. They were SOOOOOOOOOOOOO good. Amazing, incredibly, "this-can't-possibly-be-happening-in-real-life-I-must-be-dreaming" good. It was awesome. I must have told them 20 times on the drive home that I was so happy with their behavior and that they had been fantastic. I love days like this.

And I cleaned the bathroom. I'll chalk today up as a success. :-)

Here's one parting photo - the twins in color. I don't think the red is really this obnoxious in real life, but maybe it is. Ha!



(Those are the sweaters I made them for Easter. Actually, I made them as little spring jackets, but if the weather from today is any indication, we are skipping spring this year and going straight from winter to summer.)

Not talking ...

but it sure looks like it could happen soon, doesn't it? These two have discovered each other in the last week or two. They both respond really well to people talking to them, and so when they see each other, one smiles ... then the other ... then again ... you get the picture. It must be like looking in a mirror, I guess.

Dance of the Easter plum fairy ...

or something like that. She was dancing and this is what Daddy caught on video.




NOTE: No children were harmed in the filming of this video. She does this daily. Seriously. And usually when she springs back up, she says, "I OK!" She doesn't need bubbles to have the most spectacular crashes.

a few Sunday photos

from today. It was beautiful here, and the kids were all dressed up because Griffin's preschool performed some songs at church.

All of them ... I'll give it a 6 out of 10. :-) And hey - no one is crying. Maybe that should be my measurement of success. No tears + over half of the kids looking at me? Ha!



Quinn in her dress ... another 6. But still a cute shot, right?



And this one. 10 out of 10. Look at this boy. He gelled his hair for church, and he looks SO grownup. And handsome. And adorable. And you get the picture. That's my big boy. :-)



Have a great week!

Eight.

That's how old Noah is, and that is how many cousins are in the family. Eight kids, eight and under. One eight-year old, and 7 that are four or younger.

Group photos? Not an easy gig. But this is by FAR the most successful attempt we've ever had, including the attempts made before the last 3 babies came.

Even more astounding is that we did this on Sunday night after most of them had consumed mass quantities of chocolate and sugar.

So without further ado, I present THE PHOTO. Hold your applause until the end of the show. :-)



Hope you had as wonderful an Easter as the Lessinger clan did!

Easter 2009 (mostly in pictures)

We spent Easter in SoDak this year. On Saturday night, we had Jackson's 3rd birthday party + egg dying in Grandpa Terry's shop. Talk about craziness and chaos!

First, Quinn thought you had to peel the eggs before you could do anything. She looked so confused as she peeled away and everyone else was dunking eggs into dye.




She figured it out, and then decided to dye a dozen eggs yellow. She didn't want any other colors - just the yellow. Then when it came time to clean up, she helped - by putting all of her eggs into the cardboard "egg-drying" box. She had at least 10 eggs in there before anyone realized what she was doing.



Jackson thought that the eggs were far too round, so he created egg mush. Either that, or he really wanted some scrambled eggs.



G had a blast. One hand was green, one hand was purple, and in between was a huge smile.



Turner got the most amazing colors - really deep and dark. I can't believe Grandma tried to help him in her white pantsuit. Seriously - who else but Grandma would wear white to a shop party/birthday party/egg dying party?!? And she didn't have a spot on her when she left.



Noah was serious about his eggs. He used a wax crayon and drew Star Wars images on them. As you can see, Dad totally approved. Ha!



The twins and Taryn were held and cuddled by everyone, but they didn't get to play with eggs. Next year should be fun. :-)

On Sunday, we went to church and then to Grandma and Grandpa's house for food, egg hunting, and more food. We threw in some candy-eating to break up the food.

Hope you had a great Easter, too!

At least someone is happy about all this snow.

Guess who is 3 months old today?

If you said Maddox & Holden, you are correct!



Look at Max flirt with the camera (he's on the right in the blue stripes). :-)

"She's got brooms for eyelashes."

A direct quote from Ray. :-)

Ray. Laura, and Eamon were here from Colorado for a visit. We had an awesome time, and all of us were sad when they had to leave. There is another house for sale in our neighborhood, guys - hint hint!

During their stay, Quinn slept on the air mattress in the boys' room so that our guests could (a) have a crib; (b) have a room with a door and not sleep on an air mattress on the toy room floor; and (c) not freeze to death at night. As a result, Miss Quinn has rejected sleeping in a crib. I went in search of a bed yesterday but didn't find anything I liked ... so we improvised and she is sleeping on the pullout in her room.You can not believe how much she loves this! This morning she disappeared, and I found her in the bed with her beloved pink fleece blanket.



If only pottytraining were this easy!

Got babies?

Yep. Sure do!

Once Upon a Time,

there was a princess. Her name was Quinn. She ruled Lessingerdom with a gentle but iron-clad fist.

She refused to keep pigtails in her hair, and generally looked like she was an escapee from an episode of "What Not To Wear."

She hated having her face washed and often sported a bit of leftover lunch around her lips.

If the servants of the kingdom tried to wash her face, she would scream and her "stork bite" would pop out on her forehead.

But then she would smile and all would be good. The end. :-)



Here's a shot of my little redhead.



And the twins ...



Holden was much more cooperative. Max wanted nothing to do with pictures. My, how young they learn ...



He doesn't really have an abnormally large forehead ... just the angle. He's really holding his head up well - especially for just turning 10 weeks old!

One more shot of Holden and "the uncooperative one."



Have a great weekend!

G is 4!

Just a quick post for G's big day!

We made a rocket cake - group activity. :-)





I think they just wanted to eat the M&M's, personally.

And today, we made a matching "rocket" hat. G's preschool is big on hats for special days and special helpers, so we adapted the idea for home.

It's actually a 2-fer ... a rocket in front, and a "king hat" in the back.



Tonight is G's choice for supper - Indian tacos. Mmmmm. And then we'll eat the cake and open a few presents.

Before I go, here are a couple shots of the babies.

Holden



And Max.



A bit out of focus, but that smile is worth it. :-) They are both smiling at us when we talk to them and really starting to follow things with their eyes. At their 2 month checkup, Holden was 9 lb, 15.5 oz, and Maddox was 9 lb, 14 oz. Pretty close! And for those of you that think Holden has a bigger head, he really doesn't. Their head circumferences are about .2 cm different. Minimal. It must be the way I photograph them - ha!

Knitwear x 2

I made two little knit sleepers for the babies after I learned that I was having 2 boys. I wasn't sure how big to make them, so I made a newborn size. And when the boys were born, I thought: These things won't fit until the babies are 3 months or older. I stuck the sleepers in the closet.

Last week, I pulled them out to see how much bigger the twins needed to be to wear them.



Glad I didn't wait much longer!

She let me take her picture!

Those of you that know Quinners know that she is non-compliant when it comes to cameras. She hates when she sees me pull it out, and usually starts complaining. No amount of bribery will get her to sit still for 4.3 seconds while I fire off some shots.

So tonight I sat down to complete Ruth's Christmas gift (a 10x20 storyboard). Yes, I know Christmas was like 2 months ago. But we wanted to include photos of the twins. And once they got here, taking photos became much more complicated.

Anyway. I sat down to work on the storyboard and get it ordered, and I realized I had no recent photos of Quinn. See paragraph one above. I decided to try to take just a couple of shots, with very low expectations - I was willing to beg and give her suckers.

She was TOTALLY into it. In fact, I was ready to stop and she asked me to keep taking photos. I think the key was taking the pictures about 15 minutes before bed time ... she seemed to realize in that deep, secret part of her brain that if she kept me down in the basement taking photos, I couldn't make her go to bed. My girl is smart like that. :-) The props were her idea. She wanted the flower, and then asked for the chair (she was originally on a black saddle stool, which was much more coordinated with the backdrop. But hey - she let me taker her picture!)



And yes - she got to eat the sucker.



Here's the final storyboard.

Quinn gets too much screen time.

Noah was playing with my video camera the other day. He decided he'd check in with Quinn, and this is what he recorded. If you haven't seen the movie Cars 47,379 times (like all Lessingers have), you might not realize that my girl is enacting the final race scene - both the spoken words and the corresponding action. Nice.

PS: Ignore the crazy hair.




And then we have this: Noah was upstairs, recording random stuff. It was the first time he ever played with the video camera. When he came back down, he showed me what he recorded, and this little gem was on there. I've edited out the end (think a lot of butt-wiggling, hee hee!) but it totally cracked me up. :-)

Guess who is home!

Yep ... we got home Saturday. Both little guys are doing better, and to celebrate we took a couple of photos.



I was explaining this thing called "the sun" ... not sure they understood since we see it so infrequently.



That's not gas ... they are both starting to smile, albeit a bit randomly!



I love this one. So sweet.



PS: Holden is on the left, and Max is in stripes on the right. In case you couldn't tell.



And with that, I'm off to make brownies with Griffin. Have a great day!