last week's pictures

an outfit from my sister!

flowers in bloom, already.

playing contently.

crawling up the deck stairs.

awesome star babylegs and dressy black velvet shoes. what every babe wears while playing with her tree house, of course.

this baby loves vegan chili. and, she likes to feed herself.

Saturday afternoon, a and e went shopping at the durham anti-mall. they bought a shirt for smit and some sun glasses for me. i went to see a movie, alone, which i have not done in almost two years.

it's a smitty world after all

"this is the best thirtieth surprise birthday party i will ever have."

this is me at most parties...boring the pregnant women to tears with stories of how their bodies are capable and how important it is to advocate for yourself before labor and birth begin. you know, the usual party talk. woot.

nanc made photo masks of smit through the years. i claimed four year old chicken eating smit for myself. wings are for flying, not frying, smitty.

sweet ass smit sailing around australia. yes, folks, australia. later that night, he and andy walked down the streets of downtown raleigh. andy was carrying ezra and smitty was carrying the full-size photo.

merely moments after his arrival, smitty has changed his shirt, gotten mike to de-clothe, too and convinced wood to take pictures of them in all their hairy bare chestedness.

an impromptu meeting of the hair club for hotties broke out mid-party. they decided on a name change. please refer to them as the bottomless beard boys.

ezra is saying. "i love you, steph. take me to your leader."

notice my shirt. it's cute and dry clean only. baby e and her dad were standing behind me as i was seated talking to friends. a cold rush of water covered my back from above. yes, baby e had poured a bottle of water down my back. i jumped up and screamed. baby e's dad did not even know she had a water bottle in her hands. we ran into the bathroom together and he gave me his undershirt to wear. see if you can read the print on it. warning: content may not be suitable for some.

am i actually talking to chicken wing boysmitty?

mroy is a little undecided whether that's hilarious or really gross.

you got permission to take my picture, sucka? i don't know about that.

listen, i am about to break it down. give a brother a minute to get ready.

dancing with my fave gurl in all da world

go ahead rice girl, geh dowhn.

oh, it's okay, rice. andy's not part of the library paparazzi. see? ha ha.

backwards tom selleck smitty

licking pictures of the birthday boy, of course.

maybe if i close my eyes, these balloons will carry me home.

v-day is d-day

we're not real big on marketed holidays. why spend time and money on some weird made up celebratory day about "love"? ugh. it's almost as bad as christmas, but not quite. just pick an arbitrary day and buy chocolate and sexy stuff. anyone even know why it's feb 14th that we do these things? as lucas said, "what is with today, today?"
feb 14th has always been a low key event for the us lovebirds. we eat at a mexican restaurant and watch the count of monte cristo. back in 2002, this made up holiday changed meaning for us. we were struggling through marriage stuff. we had moved due to a job lay-off, my step-father was terminally ill and we had just lost andy's dad a few months previous. we had few friends, i had returned to school and we bought a house two weeks prior. we spent the late evening crying through really tough stuff. ultimately, we made a commitment to fight through life together. we wanted to remain married. so, v-day became the day that we decided not to get divorced. thus, we dubbed it d-day. perhaps it should really be called no d-day or nd-day. but, we fondly and deeply refer to it as d-day. and, we are thankful for that day where we turned things around. our marriage has grown tremendously since 2002. we were able to forgive and be forgiven for our jerk ass ways. we practically threw away the greatest gift either of us has ever known. we have since seen our relationship exceed our expectations of what love is. and, no matter what happens, we are certainly in this TOGETHER! happy d-day.

what is love? this.

a baby slinging a baby

a baby slinging a baby.

ez carrying her baby around in a homemade sling. it's original use was as a scarf.

camera fun

"i'm not really into this whole spinning purple and white stuff but it entertains them so i'll put up with it. maybe we can go to smoothie king after this."

one of the special guys in baby e's life. for many months now, we have enjoyed getting to know this sweets and his family. i have laughed a lot with his mom. he is so great at sharing toys and food with ez. his mom is fabulous and his dad works very hard. this lil cutie was born on december 31st which is her dad's birthday, too!

playing around with our friends at the germ fest play space. we really only go their to build up her immunity so we don't have to give her shots of aborted fetal tissue, uhm, i mean, vaccinations.

she crawled up into that chair at a bookstore to look at this book. much to my dismay, she had pulled it of the shelf and was carrying it around. what in the world??? another mom had to clue me in about who the shit those people even are!

view from the top. what's up with the blue tint, eh?

she has been called, "ezra the gentle"

lean, green walking baby bean.

the humble abode.


we spent some time outside fooling around with the new camera that my hubby splurged on as a birthday gift for me. it took me a full 24 hours to relent and even open the box b/c i was hoping he would not have spent so much money on me for an item that we already have. but i should know that a gift given is a gift; it cannot be rotunda sonda, as he used to sing back in the 80s.

ez's first bowling

some comments on her outfit: "is that half of a winnie the pooh costume?" which was said in genuineness. "your daughter. i'm lovin it. not in the mcdonald's way. but i love her."

take yur nect ties off and git chur bowl on.

graham is the bowl king. pictured here are his servants

becca is text messaging her first kiss.

everyone look to the right.

gunter girls are bowling.

the ball was placed at the top of that metal thing and then ez would push it down

we were careful to watch for little hands


getting the ball out to the lane


helping her bowl


welcome back, marital bliss! this one's for you.

smallness

lately, it seems that all i ever blog about is how sick we all are here in the casa de sol. didn't we move into a healthy house? one that relies on solar heating and lacks carpets full of dust mites and pet dander? can i blame the mice for making us sick? what is going on here?

poor baby e threw up yesterday and today. her diapers have leaked liquid poop twice today. my poor precious baby love. she's eaten merely a banana today. even mama's milk comes back up half the time. if you know me and have been with us since her birth, you know how i struggle with her low weight. like her dad, she just doesn't have an ounce to spare on her lean frame. i try not to worry, but it's hard as a mom to realize there is nothing more i can do to help her eat right now. i am really glad to trust something bigger than myself but even that doesn't make it easy right now. in retrospect, perhaps i can point to trust in god as getting me through but during the time with a small, fragile one it is tough! having spent years dealing with my own weight and eating issues makes it awkward...isn't she too young for me to worry about her low weight? will i just always worry about it? ugh.