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I’ve been trying to add these pictures for a while, but I’ve had trouble getting on to edit!  *ugh*

Anyway, Matt and I are doing some home improvement, mainly painting.  Since we bought our house new, it has “settled” some, and there are a few nail holes poking out here and there.  And there was the “dartboard incident.”  And just some other things we for which we needed a tub of spackle.  Well, the actual spackeling was done after the girls went to bed one night. 

The jar wasn’t sealed tight.

Apparently.

And it was within reach of the girls.

Apparently.

BUT they had fun, and it washed up nicely, thank goodness!

Tailynn insists on dresses.  We don’t have that many, and she’s really growing out of some of her favorites.  We also don’t want to spend an arm and a leg on a bunch of new clothes, either.  So thankfully there is mock smock material!  You can buy it by the inch, and just make a hem up the side/back (whatever).  I added straps to keep it up, and voila!  Dress!

A few Tailynn stories to go along with this…

There was a pesky fly buzzing around the kitchen a few nights ago.  I nabbed the fly swater, and wiffed a few times.  Then…after a careful hunt…. I beat the sucker down!  I ended up hitting it so hard, he kinda split in two.  Tailynn looks up at me with big eyes and says

“Hey mom?  You spank his buns?”

Yes, baby.  I spanked his buns…

Story #2:

This morning Tailynn was crying (over what, I don’t recall), but she noticed my knee was wet.  She says, “Oh no, Mom!  I got cry on you!”

It almost made ME cry!

I said, “That’s okay.  You can get cry on me any time.”

In Hennessey land:  Tooth #3 came in on 3/29.  Top right tooth.  She looks sort of bucked toothed because there is only one through.  The other is coming with a vengence, though.  Terrible rash, and she’s been getting up a few times at night again. 

Speaking of which, I’m anticipating to hear her soon, so I’d best be off. 

G’night everyone!  Sweet dreams ’till Mr. Sun gives us a beautiful, sunny day!

Today was fun times at Nana’s house!  We colored Easter Eggs!  My niece & nephew came over, and Tailynn had the time of her life!!   Hennessey could’ve cared less, really, but she got plenty of snacks to keep her fairly entertained.

Mostly.

Well…sorta.

You’ll see.

We’ve been house sitting for Nana and Papa.  During this time Hennessey broke her first (and thusly second) tooth.  The lil’ sucker has also decided to start pulling up by herself! (and now I have to lower her crib mattress).  I missed it the first time… Tailynn and I were getting the dogs put away.  We leave the room, she’s sitting.  We come back, she’s standing at the table.  She’s such a little babbler, as well.  She likes mamamama, and she’s been trying really hard to imitate noises she hears.  I think she’ll be he happiest baby when she can walk, and has those pesky teeth over and done with!  Conrats, lil’ H! You are getting so big!  Here is one so you can see her teeth (well, one tooth great and one tooth is SORTA there…) and spaghetti night.  The girl can slurp a noodle like no other!

Tailynn has gotten to watch a bit more TV than usual (being as we don’t even have local channels hooked up to ours).  She loves to watch Nick Jr. and has been learning lots from “preschool on TV.”  She can say hello in Chineese. Ni hao (knee-how).  So she walks around saying “Ni hao, Hennessey!  Ni hao, Mommy!  Ni hao, Spirit!”  She’ll sing lots of songs from the shows, and repeat the mantras, such as from the Yo Gabba Gabba show…”Don’t bite your friends!”  This from the child who, I’m pretty sure, has never purposely hurt anyone in her life!

The other night she wouldn’t let me give her kisses to bed, so I ended up “inveting” a new one.  The Vampire Kiss!  You open your mouth, “bite” the neck of the receiver, and growl/roar a little.  She LOVES it, and demands to have “bampire tisses” before bed and naps.  And she likes to give ‘em too.  :)

Tailynn has also taken a liking to cowboy boots (which we agreed she could have when she doesn’t need a diaper for night time anymore), and nightgowns.  So instead of buying some crappy nightgowns that would likely feel funny or have characters on them (which I don’t like to buy because I’m against using my kid as a billboard), I decided to sew her some myself!  I went down to the fabric store, and let T choose her own fabrics.  The first two she picked out were brown with dots, and pink bandanna print with horses all over it.  The first nightgown turned out okay.  I did a lot of seam ripping, and the horses on the front are upside down, but that’s okay.  She loves it.  It’s also a little long.  SO for the second one, the brown with dots, I shortened it up, and made it sleeveless.  I used purple binding for the edges, and it’s cute, but I thought it seemed a little shorter than I wanted.  Since I decided they were going well, I we picked up two more fabrics, and I got permission to use a third that my mom has had laying around.  The third and fourth nightgowns are made out of a pink fabric that has buttons all over it (printed on, not real buttons).  These turned out JUST RIGHT!  I think the one with the ruffles is my favorite.  I leanred many valuable things during the course of this project:

1) I CAN sew by myself.  It’s just nice to have someone there to double check your work.
2) Sewing faux fur is a pain in the butt.
3) My sewing machine CAN be jammed.  Crap.  (it’s going to the repair shop tomorrow, if I’m not going to the airport).
4) Sleeves can be infuriating.  But they look darn cute when they turn out right!
5) I like to trace my pattern onto newspaper so I don’t muss up the original.  Especially when the size I need is the inside one, and I don’t want to cut all of the other sizes off because I might need them.  I ♥ Newspaper!
6) Sewing is actually more therapeutic, after the initial frustrations, than I thought.

Here are some pictures of the nightgowns!
“My Spirits, Mom!”

Evil Faux Fur.

And lastly, Mommy’s favorite set.  Maybe we’ll do the soft green ones next!

Tailynn is 2 years and 7 months old.

Hennessey is 10 months old.

Hennessey broke her first tooth!  We’ve been waiting for this for a few months!  HOORAY HENNESSEY!

Tailynn likes to call me by my first name sometimes, and it makes me laugh.

Hennessey has learned to Army crawl!  It’s terribly cute (I’ll do my best to get a video…).  I suspected she might have forward movement on Sunday (1/10/10), but didn’t have time to test it out (more on why later).  About late morning, I received a text from my super-fab sister in law that there was official forward movement!  Hooray!

Tailynn has done some terribly adorable things, as well.  She was playing with her plastic horses in the kitchen.  She was gliding them along the linoleum.  After a minute or so, she looks up and says “Look! Horses are ice skating!”  I about died!  They totally WERE ice skating!

Then yesterday in the car she had her bear.  I hear her say from the back seat “I’ll pick you up.  You can look out the window.”  So I do a quick head turn, and she’s got bear hoisted up so he can see out the window!  After a few minutes she says “Okay, you can look out Hennessey’s window,” and she turns him around to take a peek out the other side of the car.  Too adorable!

Matt and I finally got to do something fun together, no kiddos involved.  We took a gun class!  I know, it seems totally strange, but it was SO super fun!  A great friend (thanks, Josh!) lent us the weaponry, and we bought ammo.  We took the CCW (carry concealed weapon) class from Matt’s friend at work who is a certified instructor.  It was cheap, and covered 22 hours (!!!) over three days.  We did a LOT of “classroom” stuff, and spent most of our time learning how NOT to be gun-retarded.  It was awesome.  Sunday morning we had to take the shooting test.  It was the VERY first time I had EVER fired a weapon.  EVER.  Matt has been shooting before (granted, not for 16+ years), and the other dude, Justin, has taken a CCW class in two states before, and has been to shooting ranges.

I kicked their butt.

It was awesome.

Matt and I had a super fun time, and if I had a gun that didn’t give my poor hand bruises, I’d totally go to the shooting range again!

Tailynn had her first experience putting out milk and cookies for Santa.  She chose the cookies and set everything up on her little table for Santa.  Mom snuck in a few pictures after Santa’s visit.

(Mommy’s artsy efforts…)

Ahhh, the magic of Christmas!  Tailynn has been singing Jingle Bell Rock and trying to get out some Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  We’ve watched Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas, The Polar Express, Elf, and Charlie Brown Christmas a hundred times.  We’ve put up the tree, and taken portraits.  And now it’s Christmas Eve.  While I tried to clean today (so that our house wouldn’t look like a dump in our Christmas morning video), Tailynn played with her Hello Kitty Tiara.

I also was working on the computer for a bit.  While I was doing this, Tailynn and Jackie found the bag of plastic Easter Eggs sitting in the hallway (they had been packed with my Christmas stuff and were awaiting repacking to a proper home).  We ended up looking like this:

and this:

I’m glad I have a vacuum.  It made cleaning this up easier.  Word to the wise: use your hose attachment, don’t try to suck it up under the turning blades (I didn’t do this, I’m just passing along some logical wisdom).

We *finally* ate lunch, and had some spaghetti.  Well, I had spaghetti, the girls ate plain noodles.  Hennessey has the best toothless grin!

I agree, it isn’t the most flattering picture of Tailynn, but if you demand you get your picture taken every time your sister does, then this is what may happen!