How Freakin' Cute Is She?

Thanksgiving 2004

Very proud of her new sweater

Mia with her first baby cousin while visiting Granny Johnson

Mia smiling as usual with best friend in Austing Elijah (Jaja)

Christmas 2004

August 2003

Showing Papa some rocks in October 2003

Mia's Baby Days

I was just looking through Mia's baby book and found some of the funniest stories.  They were all written under one date, but I imagine they had all happened within a pretty small amount of time.  Here are just a few:

5-10-05  (25 months old)

A few weeks ago Daddy was driving you to Gaga's house and you asked "why are ll these cars following us to Gaga's house?"  HE tried to explain to you that they were just going the same direction, but you didn't understand.  You paused then said "Daddy, all these cars on the road, it's making me crazy... It's not right."

We enrolled you in a class called Kiddie College with the Plano Parks and Rec.  After the first few days you told Daddy you loved it and wanted to "live there every day."  Later, when Daddy brought you to see me at work you told me you wanted to go to a different school because "Those kids just weren't being very smart to me."

We passed a McDonalds and you asked why we couldn't get food from "Old McDonald."  I told you McDonalds burgers were bad for your health and would make your heart hurt.  You said "Then would Jesus hurt too?"

We called you a baby in the car today and you said "I'm not a baby.  I'm a big woman!"

Kids Really Do Say the Darndest Things

Mia's friend that she made while in Plymouth this summer came over for a sleepover last night.  She is just so funny and I thought I had to share a few of the gems she laid on us while she was here.

"My favorite movie is the news.  I like traffic."

"Yeah, I'll have some mac n cheese, but can I have some water with it.  If I don't have some water I won't be able to breath."

She lives in a town called Menden.  "Did you know that Mended was the first planet?  Or maybe it was the first country.  Something."

"I don't need anything for breakfast.  I can just eat later.  Really, there is this place by my house where you can get food."

I know she said more hysterical stuff too, but right now I can't recall them all.  If I can think of more I will post them.  She and Mia had a blast and were sad to leave eachother this morning.  Mia recovered quickly though because we pretty much went straight to church after dropping off Nicole and after church she went with the Brills for Naomi's 8th birthday party.  They are going to paint pottery and go to lunch and then Mia is sleeping over at their house tonight...ON A SCHOOL NIGHT!  The girls get really excited when we let them do that.  Ta ta for now!

New Tradition

We thought we'd start a new blogging tradition.  On everyone's birthday's we'll try to do this from now on.  I wish I had thought of it a month ago cause we've now missed about 3 trillion people's birthday's already in this family.  Oh well.  You'll have something to look forward to for next year!  

Birthday Wishes

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETHANY!!

MAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE

Dada?

I just met Claire for coffee and to take the kids to the library for a little playing and story/song time.  She had been out shopping for cool buttons for Mateus' new backpack when she found one she thought I would like and one she thought Mia would like.  The one for me is this hilarious picture of Jack Black with his mouth wide open in like a rock star style scream.  The one for Mia has Shrek on it.  Anyway, a little while later at the library, Lennon was rifling through my bag looking for a pacifier.  He suddenly stopped at the button which I had pinned to the front of my bag and said in a loud voice "Dada!"  It was so hysterical because this picture of Jack Black could not be funnier and looked nothing like Shelby except maybe the extreme amounts of facial hair he has which Shelby until very recently had also.  

Mia's Song and Dance

Just after the bath the kids were running around naked and playing with the kitchen in Mia's room.  She started dancing around crazily and singing a song she made up on the spot that she titled "Naked Kids Dancin' Around."  I thought I better not get that on video cause you never know what sicko might be viewing the blog, so once they were both clothed I got her to reenact the song and dance.  Also, Lennon's favorite baby sign to do is the sign for fish which is smacking your lips together.  He loves it and anytime he sees a fish, picture of a fish or even ducks which I guess he considers fish because they are in the water too he does the fish sign over and over and over again.  Oh and it was sooo sweet tonight as Shelby was getting ready to leave for school.  The kids were in the bath and Shelby came in to tell them goodbye and goodnight.  Lennon - who usually will only kiss Mia, himself in the mirror, or pictures of babies - started kissing in the air toward Shelby.  When Shelby walked over to the bathtub and leaned down Lennon actually gave him a big ol kiss.  It was super cute because as I said, he just doesn't do that.  He usually won't even kiss me.  Anyway, without further ado, here is the video.  

Sisterly Inspiration

I had the kids in the bath tonight and they were so darn cute and since Hill had just posted a bunch of pics of her little cutie in the bath I decided to take some pics of mine and post them as well.  

Silly faces from Lennon

Silly faces from Mia

Lennon loves everything Mia does

Mia loves to help entertain Lennon

Here he's trying to drink the dirty bath water!

She's such a sweetie!

Little Loving

Lennon's little friend Bianca had gotten into a bad habit of needing to be held to fall asleep.  So last night Claire decided to break that habit and let her cry it out.  For the first ten minutes she cried "mama!  Mama!"  For the second ten minutes she cried "dada!  Dada!"  Then for the last few minutes before falling quietly to sleep she cried "Lennon!  Lennon!"  In the car today Claire asked her if she loved Lennon and she shook her head yes.  Then Mateus spoke up.  "I love Mia too...I love her in her bathing suit."  What a strange thing for a four year old to say Claire thought, so she asked him to explain.  "Why Mateus?"  "Because she looks pretty in her bathing suit.  It has Ariel on it and when she runs you can see her legs."  Maybe a little frightening that a four year old thinks my six year old has nice legs, but then again his father is Brazilian.  Maybe it's a cultural thing!  :)  

Just as a side note.  Mia is sitting at the coffee table right now, doing math for fun.  She requested working in a math book instead of her usual bedtime story.  She already did her 15 minutes of reading for the day and we read or rather sang Puff The Magic Dragon earlier with Lennon before he went to bed.  I'm so glad she likes math.  

Mamma's Got Back

I almost forgot - the highlight of my week.  So, one afternoon we were sitting at the kitchen table working on homework.  Lennon walked past and Mia made some comment about his little baby booty to which I added that she had a tiny little booty too.  She does.  What can I say?  Everything about that little girl is tiny.  Well, except her voice.  That she definitely inherited from Vavoom, aka - me.  Anyway, to get to the good part, Mia then said "I think you have a really big booty."  Nice.  I laughed.  "Why do you think I have a really big booty?"  I was looking for a silver lining or a punch line, anything!  "Because.  I just think you have a big booty."  Awesome.  Best part of my week.  My six year old thinks I have a "really big booty."  Nice.  I had to laugh.

Strange Ways

Lately, Lennon has been doing the strangest thing.  Every so often he will pick up a toy, or sometimes he simply uses his hands and just starts whacking himself in the head.  He did this in a video a couple posts back.  It is the weirdest thing and we don't really know what is going on or why he would be doing this.  Sometimes he acts shocked about it and cries as if someone else did it and other times he just does it and then looks over at me as if to say "what?  I can take it."  He is such a weirdo!  Sometimes he does it when I tell him no sternly and so I wonder if it's some form of protest.  I always tell him to be gentle like I would if he were hitting me or the cat or anything else, but he seems to hit even harder when I say that.  Today at church he was not more than 10 feet away from me with another little baby during the brunch and suddenly we all heard this crash and the two babies were underneath two folding tables that had been leaned up against the wall.  Both babies ended up being fine, but the table hit Lennon on the head and he was visibly angry about what had happened.  It wasn't those really super heavy tables, it was a couple of those kind of lightweight plastic ones.  Still, it had to hurt.  After church he feel asleep in the car and took a pretty good nap.  Later, at home after his nap, he started kind of fussing and pointing toward the front door and hitting himself in the head.  I wondered if he was trying to suggest that his head was hurting from when the tables hit him earlier.  I asked him if his head was hurting and he shook his head yes.  I gave him some ibuprofen and he seemed to be feeling better not too long afterwards.  So then this made me wonder if the other times he smacks himself in the head he could be trying to tell me that he is in pain.  He is teething big time so maybe he is getting like tension headaches or something from the pressure of teeth coming in?  Who knows.  He is the spawn of me and Shelby so he's bound to exhibit some bizarre behavior at some point - okay, several points during his life.

Poor Sweet Little Brother Lennon

One of the cutest things I've seen so far with my kids.  Mia and Naomi had set up the little sesame street couch with pillows and blankets to watch Ariel's Beginning and they were just getting comfortable and ready to settle in when Lennon noticed them and just started climbing all over them and cuddling them.  Each time I would say "come on Lennon, time for bed"  he would just climb back in the middle of them and snuggle into them.  He was giggling and they were loving it.  It was so sweet.  It was like he knew what was going on and he wanted to be a part of it.  I tried to snap a picture, but the battery on my camera was dying so I didn't get a good one.  They are so darn cute.  I almost can't stand it.  It's just so sweet that Mia and Naomi are so sweet with him and they usually don't mind him being in her room with them while they are playing and he just loves it.  I can get so much done around the house when the two of them are playing together.  I'm not looking forward to the day when she decides he's not cool and he can't play in her room and stuff.  Poor little brother Lennon.  He's got it pretty good I think having her as a big sister.

Our Little Karate Princess

Little Lennon in an Apple Tree

The Best Compliment Ever

I think I forgot to mention this, but if I did already maybe someone who doesn't keep up to date here will get some new information and the rest of you will get a repeat.  I am as of right now, too lazy to bother checking back at older posts to see which is the case.  Either way...here goes.

Several days ago at school we were standing in line waiting for the teacher to come out and escort the kids in Mia's class into school for the day.  The kid in line next to Mia was telling her mom about the Mexican Jumping Beans Mia had brought in to show the class the day before.  Then she sort of put her hand on Mia's shoulder and said "Yep, this is the cool sciency girl."  I thought it was so totally sweet.  Cool.  And sciency!  My daughter.  How she accomplished being both cool and sciency and only by the second week of school must be just an amazingly perfect pairing of DNA from the general Francis/Sheriff/Tudor/Stephens pool.  I don't think I could ever have been called "cool"  and definitely not "sciency."  Shelby on the other hand as I understand was definitely "cool"  I don't know about "sciency", but he was probably good at science.  But the kicker is she is "cool"  "sciency"  AND she is a girl!  I'm pretty impressed.  As I think you should be also.  te he

Why Did My Hand Hit Myself with this Toy?

Two Little Monkeys Jumpin on the Bed

One of Lennon and Mia's new favorite activities together is jumping on the twin mattresses that are in his room.  He obviously cannot really jump quite yet, but he sure tries.  He does a combination of awkwardly bending his knees and doing this funny step-step move with his feet.  It's pretty funny to watch.  I tried getting a video today, but he had stopped by the time I got the camera ready.  They are having more and more fun together.  Mia is coming to the end of her two week trail for karate so now we are going to have to decide if we sign her up for a whole year or six months.  She is loving it and says if she had to choose between karate and gymnastics she would choose karate.  Pretty crazy because she loves gymnastics.  Lennon fell at the park today and smacked his mouth on the ground.  It was pretty awful.  He was screaming and pointing at the ground where he fell as if he wanted it to be punished.  His mouth was bleeding and he was really upset.  Luckily, Bianca was there with us and so he calmed back down and went on ahead playing with her.  They are so cute together, but they are starting to fight more.  She's almost two and doesn't really like to share and he doesn't understand the concept of sharing really.  If you tell him to give something back or hand you something he sort of holds it out to you and then as soon as you reach for it he pulls his hand back and goes off in the other direction.  Similar to when I say "no Lennon don't put that in your mouth!"  and he shoves the contraband into his mouth and goes running the other direction.  He definitely understands no, but doesn't quite care yet.  Boys are definitely different than girls.   

Just a few pics. More to come soon.

A shot from Nauset Beach on the Cape with the church group.

Lennon giggling in an apple tree at the Nashoba Valley Harvest Festival Saturday

Mia and Lila posing in their dress up during their playdate monday afternoon

What's That Smell?

The week started out like any other school week.  It was Mia's first monday of the new school year.  Everyone was fed and dressed and Shelby had left for work.  As we were all getting buckled up in the car Mia commented in disgust "Ewwww... It smells like a trash can in here!"  "Yes." I told her.  "I know we need to clean the car out."  We, as you know, had just come back from camping, among other things and our car -which is usually a pretty big mess in the first place- had succumbed to the filth for good.  It's true, it was totally full of trash.  Nothing totally nasty.  Lots of empty bottles of water, maybe one or two rogue grapes Lennon had thrown down in protest.  It really shouldn't smell this bad, I thought.  After dropping her at school our day continued as usual.  I didn't really think about the smell again except to think, "I should really clean this out tonight after the kids go to bed."  As you can imagine, if you know me, that did not happen.  

Tuesday morning.  Back in the car.  It smells sooo much worse than it did the day before.  I suddenly think, "I don't remember unloading that canadian bacon from the grocery store sunday night."  Could it be?  Would that really smell this bad.  I said to myself "I'll just get back there and check after I drop Mia at school."  After dropping her today I completely forgot to go back and check if the canadian bacon was in there.  Later in the day I thought maybe there was a diaper I had changed - just pee don't freak out - sitting in the back of the car making us all sick from the smell.  Flash forward to picking Mia up from school today.  When I loaded Lennon in the car - after waking him from a sound sleep - it smelled so bad.  Literally, like Mia said, a trash can.  Really more like a trash dump.  It was gross!  I determined I would not forget to go back there and check after I picked Mia up from school.  The moment came.  I put the kids in their seats and headed back to see if indeed the canadian bacon had fallen out of a grocery bag and sat in the back seat in the heat for two days making the whole car smell so rotten.  As I opened the back end I had to step back a little it smelled so horrible.  I started to be a little concerned about my own car.  What the heck is that smell??  To my horror I found in a neat little grocery sack, not a small rotting package of canadian bacon.  Oh no!  That would have been a nice surprise.  This neat little plastic grocery sack contained - pause for effect - One POUND of ground turkey meat, one package of raw chicken breasts, one package of string cheese, one package of shredded mozzarella cheese, and of course, the canadian bacon.  All of which had, yes, been sitting in the back of our car for TWO DAYS!!!  I quickly twisted the bag back up and drove to the nearest trash can I could find.  It seemed to smell much worse even though I'm sure it was just my imagination.  I thought I might throw up just at the thought of us driving around all that time with all that nasty raw meat just sitting in the car.  

I am pleased I guess, that the car didn't just smell so bad from our general filthiness.  Still, it's pretty darn sick!  

Oh yeah, p.s....  Sunday night I went to the store after the kids were both asleep.  When I returned I grabbed as many bags as I could and went inside to ask Shelby for some help.  Now, one of us didn't grab that last bag.  I'm not going to point the finger or name names, but this person has the initials SHELBY KENT FRANCIS.  Oh woops!  Sorry honey!  

I love you anyway honey.  I love you anyway.

Just had to share...

This afternoon one of Mia's friends from school came over for a playdate.  This particular child was accepted into the "gifted" program at school.  Now, already we knew that this sweet little girl had no clue when her birthday was and was hazy on how many siblings she had.  We were all a little confused about that last bit.  Anyhoo, the playdate was going longer than I had anticipated so I asked Mia to go ahead and get her homework out of the way and then they could get back to playing.  Part of her homework is to practice reading for 15 minutes each night.  After Mia finished reading the first story she asked how much more she had to do.  I told her maybe two more stories out of this one particular book.  I also said if her friend wanted to read some that we could count that toward their time, although they are in different class I assumed that similar requirements were in place.  The little girl, rather than jumping in and reading, said "I can't.  I don't know how to read."  What?  You mean a kid in the "gifted" class doesn't know how to read.  What exactly are they basing this program on anyway?  

I know, I know.  I need to get over it already.  I am getting more and more over it daily as things like this happen.  Plus, Mia's class this year is smaller than the gifted class anyway.  I hope I don't sound completely bitter.  Because really, I'm only a little bitter still.  

The Sweetest Six Year Old on the Block

I forgot to mention that while we were in Texas in August, we all got at one point or another this nasty one day stomach bug.  Mia was the first victim.  I found her upstairs at Papa and Nana's house laying in bed quietly and when I asked her if I could get her anything she just asked for some hot tea with honey.  As I was leaving, Lennon on my hip, Mia looked up so sweetly and said "I'm so happy we have Lennon.  I'm glad we decided to have another children."  I could have eaten her up right then and there.  It's so awesome that they love eachother so much.  Yesterday she was blocking him from putting non-trash items into the diaper champ and he reached out and pinched her.  On purpose.  It was sad and she cried a little, but more out of hurt feelings than out of pain.  He is definitely a different person than she is.  I guess that goes without saying, but every day is like a new adventure in parenting for me.  I was noticing this morning at the playground that he is a lot more tenacious that she ever was.  She would try to get up on something for about 2 seconds before asking for help whereas he tries and tries until he either gets it or moves on.  On the other hand if she asked for something and was told no she would move on whereas he would buckle his knees and scream for the next fifteen minutes out of protest.  Ahhh, tenacity.  What a gift.

TCCS (Texas, Cape, Camping and School)

Sorry for the long lapse since my last entry.  This summer has been by far the most traveling summer of my life.  I feel like I went to sleep sometime in early June and woke up and it was September...Only without the wonderful feeling of rest that one would have after having slept for three months.  Either way, here we are in September.  Fall is quickly approaching and I have yet to tell of our final summer adventures in August.  To start Shelby and I went to NYC for the weekend at the beginning of the month and Gaga flew in to stay with the kids  THANKS GAGA!!!! We definitely couldn't have done it without you!  We stayed in an awesome hotel and got upgraded for free to a junior suite and ate at a fabulous Spanish restaurant in the west village, I think.  We then spent the day at a music festival in a beautiful state park overlooking Manhattan.  We even rode a ferry to the park and went past the statue of liberty and ellis island.  It was really cool.  We saw Radiohead and Kings of Leon, two of our favorite bands.  Gaga and the kids had a great time too.  They went to the science museum and church and had some good Gaga bonding time.  Gaga brought Mia some real live Mexican Jumping Beans and we are still enjoying the random "clicking" noises they emit.

A few days after we got home from the concert we were off again, but this time as a family, to Texas to celebrate Pepa's 80th birthday.  The party was awesome!  It was so fun to see everyone and the cake was yummy!!  Pepa makes 80 look like fun!  The visit was way too short though as Granmommy, Grandaddy, Kelsey and Bethany and Shelby all had to go back to their respective homes sunday afternoon.  The kids and I stayed however for about another 10 days.  

We spent some time with Papa and Nana, swimming and throwing the ball with Freckles.  We also spent a few days with Gaga and Jimmy hanging out and watching old family favorites like Santa Claus the Movie and The Electric Grandmother.  Shelby came back for the next weekend and we celebrated his 29th birthday and Jackson's big #1!!!  Jackson's party was so fun and although Hill says he was having a hard day, you would never have known, he seemed to be reveling in the attention.  Tuesday morning the kids and I flew back home to Boston but didn't arrive until around 5PM.  This might have been a good time to relax and unwind, but no.  Technically Mia should have started school that day, tuesday, but instead we were flying home from Texas.  Well then she could have started back to school the next day, wednesday, but no.  Instead we decided that she would have a better experience spending a few days down on the cape with some good friends.  Enjoying the last few days of summer.  So, tuesday night I quickly shuffled around our stuff from this bag to that bag.  Packing and unpacking and repacking all at once.  Wednesday morning we took off with Claire and her two kids to meet Amy and her two kids and her friend Malissa down in West Falmouth on Cape Cod.  The house was great.  A short walk to a beautiful beach and a fenced in backyard for the kids to play endless games of red light green light and unbeknownst to the adults rip up a bunch of the shrubbery to make a "bed" for the characters they were pretending to be.  I hope the owner of the house wasn't a major gardener.  Oh yeah, and we also didn't notice this wine rack in the dining room with 30 year old bottles of wine on it.  Well, we didn't notice it that is, until Lennon smashed one of the bottles to pieces all over the dining room floor.  Luckily no one was hurt, but I am definitely keeping my fingers crossed that it wasn't some collectors bottle or something.  

Wednesday, thursday and friday in West Falmouth and then Shelby and Claire's husband Walderie drove down to meet up with us friday night.  Saturday it was time to say goodbye to the nice cozy, a/c in every room cape house and hello to the four man tent in the woods with the church group.  It was our very first attempt at camping as a family and overall it went very well.  Despite the fact that afterwards we were down one camera  and one cell phone, found a large crack in our windshield and Shelby and I sustained some mildly painful sunburns we had a really great time.  Both kids slept really well and it was super nice to wake up and know that the campers next to us would be up and ready to share a cup of coffee and convo while the kids played in the dirt.  The beach was gorgeous and I had forgotten how fun it was to fall asleep listening to the sounds of the outdoors.  We did discuss that for the next time we will need to get some memory foam or something to sleep on instead of just a sleeping bag.  It wasn't quite so uncomfortable to sleep on the ground as a kid!  

So we get home monday afternoon from camping and Mia starts school the next morning.  

The first day of first grade!!!  She was a little less than totally excited because all of her friends were in the same class except her, but she still got dressed and had a smile on her face and was looking forward to a new year.  I had gone out and gotten her the last Tinkerbell backpack and a Tinkerbell lunchbox the night before we left for the cape and she was lovin both of those for sure.  She seemed very proud of them and it made me feel good to know I had done something so simple for her that was giving her so much obvious pleasure.  Tinkerbell is pretty cool I guess, but I had no idea how cool Mia thought she was.  Anyway, she ended up coming home early from school with a headache that I thought might be more stress related than anything, but she did have a fever.  The doc couldn't find anything specific wrong with her but did note the slight temp.  He said he doubted she was contagious and as long as she felt like going the next day to send her.  She had a hard time sleeping and woke a little late, but when I finally took her in around 10 she seemed to have a great day.  Her teacher seems really cool and she has steadily made more and more friends all week.  Last night after she finished her homework she asked if we could make her some more homework.  When she finished that she complained that she wished she had more homework.  I should record that and play it for her when she's taking 9th grade algebra and see what she says then.  We're happy that she's enjoying it this week and hope it is just a sign of things to come this year.  It couldn't be much worse than last year, so already our hopes are high.  

Mia had her first karate lesson today and starts back to gymnastics in the morning.  After lunch we are heading over to Nashoba Valley for their annual Harvest Festival for some apple picking, face painting, hay rides and more fun stuff.  I love the fall in New England.  It's probably what I'll miss the most when we leave.  Sorry for the long long longest blog update but now I feel like I can move forward with the fall and leave the summer behind.  Talk to you soon!

Kissy Face

Lennon has started giving the cutest little kisses.  The only problem is he only gives them to Mia or pictures.  If Shelby or I ask for a kiss he either dodges us or sometimes even vehemently shakes his head no at us.  It's so cute when he does it, but sad that he won't kiss us.  He's such a hunny!