Minguh smiles, and other stuff that's happened

Dah!  This new blogger formatting junk 'n trash is not working for me yet.  However, this is all going to be neatly slurped (or is it blurped?) into a blog book someday and all will be well (and within the margins) then, right?


Still can't get my pics in chronological order, but we haven't changed too much in the past month so here we go anyway. 

Minguh's a binky baby, through and through.  Not as thoroughly through and through as Charlie was/is, thankfully, but just enough.

Kyle started his last semester of school today (probably ever) and is considerably nervous and excited about it.  These will likely be four of the most important months of his life thus far.  Before today, though, he squeezed in a few rounds of golf over the break, for r&r, and also for practice at being a business executive. 

Ming was gifted this darling holiday dress at my baby sprinkle and it's the newborn size, that size that technically terminates at seven pounds.  You know, her birth weight.  Still, it was a lot too cute to NOT wear at least once.  Her first opportunity for semi-formal wear was Christmas day, but she donned a blessing dress for that occasion.  So, we relented and started bringing her to church last Sunday and just barely got this dress buttoned.  Worth it!  She loved the experience way more than is depicted here.

Matching red shoes!  Dah!

You would seriously not believe how sweet these two are together.  For the record, Kyle has loved all of our children the same.  For the other more honest record, he has never loved a baby like he loves this one. 

For that same honest record, I have never loved bottomless sweet potato fries and mud pie like Red Robins'.  This indulgence was a top-off to an Old Navy clearance sale run, so yeah.  Life is pretty sweet.

Speaking of pretty sweet...   Considering the intensity of Ellie's post-tonsillectomy halitosis, Erik's sub-conscious willingness to snuggle up to her is as sweet as it gets.  Very brave, as well.

I wasn't here for this one.  I'm pretty sure Ellie stole my camera AND my baby.  And Charlie's crab pillow.

Here are two Pretty Pretty Princesses in their element.  Kyle will not be happy when he sees our son bedazzled with jewelry, but I always sympathize with the kid and paint his toenails a nice neutral color when he wants in on the fun.  Boys like to be pampered, too!

Ellie was one seriously pitiful creature for that first week after her tonsillectomy.  It was downright dreadful, and I'm referring to her recovery, not just her dragon breath.  (For the record, the doctor did warn us that "bad breath" was a common post-surgery symptom.  The smell of a decomposing animal carcass constitutes more than "bad breath" in my book, but perhaps there is no medical term for this type of stench.)  Okay but really, mostly we just felt so awful for this poor, sweet girl who was so completely out of sorts and in a tremendous amount of pain.  I don't know that she consumed more than a scoop of ice cream and a few sips of juice a day with her pain meds for the first week.  She was so lethargic, too, and clearly just miserable.  Ellie's whining is not my favorite, and she does tend to milk her injuries for sympathy, but we let her have whatever she wanted for those first few days.  Thankfully, after a week of misery, she started to improve gradually and was actually completely recovered after two weeks.  I have to say it was so wonderful to have our old Ellie back-- we missed her helpfulness and cheerfulness!  (Kyle and Mish also had surgeries at this time, and family all left town, so it was kind of a rotten week, but Kyle and Mish thankfully recovered quickly.)

I lost another round of Iron Chef/Chopped, a tasty and stressful family tradition of a few years.  Joe was my partner this time because I tend to stress Kyle out when I'm partnered with him and I was definitely the weakest link.  Joe was amazing and came up with perfect ideas for our appetizer and dessert.  We just couldn't compete with Mish and Kyle's rich chocolate cake dome in the end, though.  Their dessert dwarfed ours quite literally.  Next year I either call dibbs on a judge's seat or a rematch!  I am actually a decent cook (though nothing like a chef) so I really ought to win one of these years.

We also played another scavenger hunt across town.  All of our team's pics were on a different camera except for this one that I tried to take of myself with an illegal immigrant there in the background.  I didn't ask for id, though.  Come to think of it, most of the good pics taken during family reunion times were taken by someone other than me, and I didn't even bother to copy them before those cameras left.  Oops.

Mish and Bob got birthday cupcakes this year, as did Charlie the Unicorn.

He was more than happy to help Uncle Bob start and finish his cupcake.

And left nothing but candles for his cousin/best frenemy Alex, or Loralex, as Charlie lovingly dubbed him after his first exposure to Dr. Seuss' Lorax character.

This is also how we celebrate birthdays.

And this is how we celebrate anniversaries.  That's seven for us, if you're keeping track!

That's my girl!  I'm sure he'd earned that punch, one way or another.

All of the kids have actually done surprisingly well with baby Ming.  They all genuinely enjoy holding her for pockets of time proportional to their ages, only Charlie's are in seconds and the other kids' in minutes.

 She tolerates her brothers reasonably well.  Ellie is relieved to finally have someone around who understand what she puts up with.

 Amelia very much prefers to be held, but for short intervals she will consent to being left to her own devices in her swing, which is a great convenience to me when at times I bother attending to the needs of my other children.  It's also completely to her own advantage because there's a mirror hanging directly above her face.  Do you envy her yet?

 What if I told you that she not only gets to stare at her own pudgalicious reflection, but that it's also a jovial reflection quite often these days?

 Cameras do her absolutely no justice, I tell ya.  I took about a brazillion shots today because what I experienced live was just not coming up accurately on my digital screen.  Oh well, that's probably got nothing to do with how she objectively looks anyway.  Mamas see nothing but unrivaled beauty and charm.

 But you see a glimpse of it too, n'est-ce pas?  Yep, after seven weeks of waiting for these smiles to surface, I can now officially declare that the pain-in-the-rear they call labor and delivery were most definitely and certainly WORTH IT.  Swoon.