Leftovers

 Dear baby and I, blinded by the flash. (He is the sweetest and has just begun gingerly giving kisses to my cheek while cuddling close.)







After months of wondering when the big day would ever come, and despairing that it ever would, Piper lost her first tooth.  The tooth fairy (ME) left notes under two pillows that night: one for Pip's first baby tooth and one for Mildred's last.  (Her last....sob.)







Speaking of my baby-tooth-less girl, she grows so.  In lieu of making any gifts for others before Christmas, I took pictures of some of the gifts Mildred made.  Somehow, it made me feel better.

While she sometimes asks me to take a picture of her, sometimes she also makes it clear that she'd rather not be in front of the lens.  Like so.






I respect this and her, generally....except when I want to take pictures of the cool stuff she's made!  Seriously, next best thing to making cool things yourself...



 


Look at that girl suffer long, will you?


 


It's so satisfying to see her enjoy creating things that I can't make myself.  I love the diversity that God breathes into people, even those in the same family environment.


Like knitting with toothpicks, for one.  (I don't think my fingers will ever do that.)

HA!  I did take a picture of the note!  Dude, these yellow foam creatures made their way into the garbage can pretty quickly...

Backdrop for the following snapshot: we'd just unloaded everyone and everything from a long day at church, and I had unbraided my hair from a fancy something-or-other.  Upon glimpsing my frizzy tresses, Susannah said, "Ooh, you look so pretty.  You look JUST like that lady on the television show at Grandma Owen's house-- you know, the one with all of the children."  We aren't television watchers, so it took me a minute to realize she was talking about MRS. JIM BOB DUGGER.  (And now you're all going to enter me into every Frumpy Mom Makeover show you can find.)

 

Millie made Luci this little elf bonnet for Christmas.  I now want one for myself. 

 

Annika gave these ceramic ducks to Lucinda for Christmas.  Luci loves them, of course, and has them converse in duck language when she's bored. 

The following pictures deserve a post all their own.  When we bought our car-home, it had a fridge inside, one that was useless during our off-grid summer but that we began using in our mansion a year later when our bigger fridge gave up the ghost.  We grew used to the size, the duct-taped shelves, etc., etc., so a few months ago when John's mom mentioned that she'd like to give us a new fridge, I put my foot down.  I STAMPED it.  HARD.  The fridge worked fine!  It kept food cold!  It was cute! She doesn't listen very well, as you can see by the shiny, new rocketship that's now in our kitchen.  We went from a five-foot fridge to the moon!

 

Also worth mentioning (tho' I have no accompanying photo) is the fact that she also thought 2 years was 2 years too long to go without a dryer.  NO! I said.  I STAMPED my foot.  HARD.  It saves money!  I'm being thrifty!  It's not even any harder than using a dryer!  Our stove will miss those racks!  They're buddies!

I mentioned she doesn't listen very well, right?   (Please don't tell her, but I've since swallowed my words.  Using a dryer in the wintertime is a bajillion times easier.)

Moving on, with great thanks for these robot-machines, 

here's Ezekiel taking his afternoon nap.