my giggle for the day

elsie's become a big fan of taylor swift. she's even learning the words to her songs. she seems young for this but it could be worse (enter justin bieber, the latest obsession of a sweet girl in elsie's dance class). so she says to me today, "i wish taylor swift was my mom." she wasn't mad at me and didn't say it in anger or anything. just honesty. made me giggle. i guess i can't really blame her.

family pictures

my parents sprung for family pictures for their kiddos this year as a christmas gift. as much as i hate having my picture taken (as many of you know), it was probably time since the last round we did was when i was 12 and i had horrible 80's bangs. horrible, seriously! (this is where i should insert such a picture but, well, i don't have one. honestly, i don't. i wouldn't keep that sort of treasure from you!) the kind where the top half stands erect in a roll and the bottom half rests on your forehead. nothing cute about this. why didn't someone tell me?



i digress. so these photos were very important to my parents, since their family has grown quite a bit since i was 12 and bryan at 15. boy am i glad we did this. (thanks parents!) if you are considering a family photo session, please talk with tara malouf (red thread photo). she's amazing. she shot kayley's wedding and her pics are beautiful (of course, kayley's a beautiful girl so that was going to happen anyway).



she captured some great pics of my mom and dad, and of my brother's family and his beautiful girls. but of course my favorite is one of elsie being, um, elsie:

anyway, if you want to see some of the others, well you can find them here. keep the comments clean people, this is family-friendly!

simple toys

i'm sitting in my kitchen with my kiddo and my husband. i'm telling charles "gee, she just seems like such a big girl to me all of a sudden." i've had the pleasure of spending quite a bit of time with her over last couple of weeks so i'm wondering if that's why she seems like a 'big kid' to me 'all of a sudden'. that makes me sad for a different reason.

so as i'm saying this to charles, elsie is digging in the lazy susan that houses lots of containers and lids, but none that fit with each other. she finds the salad spinner and wants to know how it works. her dad shows her with great enthusiasm. elsie runs to find some toys that clearly need a ride on the "salad spinner". this makes me giggle and then i'm thinking, 'well, maybe she's still got lots of little kiddo left in her." as i'm having this thought, charles is the one spinning the toys in the salad spinner with big belly laughs.

okay, is my girl getting to be a big kid or is my husband becoming a child?