These went out today

I just mailed out all Nina's baptism invitations. Jill did a great job taking the pictures and creating this whole invitation. It's helpful to know creative people. I am very pleased that Nina has chosen to be baptized.

Surprise!

Actually, I shouldn't have been surprised. But she tries to throw me off her tracks every once in awhile. So just a couple of weeks ago I would have thought that Nina had learned her lesson and we wouldn't have to address cutting our own hair anymore. But here we are having that discussion again. Right before her baptism and baptism pictures.

One thing leads to another

As you can see, it all started with a little discovery in Nina's room. Almost daily I do a sweep of her room to find anything that doesn't belong. This usually includes food she has taken and stored for later. But I have also found knives, lotions, my jewelry, a brother's trophy and random things of that nature. Today we found pieces of hair. I really wish I would have taken a picture of how lovely her hair looked, but I wasn't in that frame of mind. That discovery led us to the kitchen where I had to try to fix things the best I could, but I'm not too keen with the scissors myself. I just know better than to cut my own hair. 4 inches later I call it good and luckily she is still cute.

Getting back into the blogging thing

I was thinking about this blog a few months ago. I invited Nina to come take a peek at it and she loved it. She and I sat in front of the computer reading and laughing at pictures and funny quotes and stories. She asked things like, "did I really pick out that outfit?" and said things like "I can't believe I did that!". It made me feel so happy that I had taken the time to record all the fun, crazy, frustrating and happy things we've experienced with this girl of ours. I think that one of the reasons I stopped adding to this blog was because she was going through a few things that I didn't feel comfortable posting for all to see. Sometimes the things our kids do make us crazy, but we can laugh about them soon after. Some of the challenges we were having with Nina were things that I didn't think we would ever find funny. We will be so glad when we are past them, and we will be so proud of her for overcoming some hard things, but they won't be things I will be posting about. I know she provides us with lots of other memories, and I look forward to trying to keep up with them. I was browsing through some pictures and found this sweet picture. She came home from school feeling sick, and quickly fell asleep. I went up to check on her and stayed there for a few minutes thinking about what a sweet and perfect girl she was. I am so grateful she is in our lives.

The happy photo bomber

So here we have a happy Nina holding one of our geckos.

and less than a minute later our mood has dramatically changed. And we got it on camera. She didn't want other people to get a picture with the gecko I guess. I honestly don't remember why she was mad.

3 for 3

I was at the school one day working on some of my PTO stuff when Nina's teacher, Mrs. Frye, stopped me in the hall and told me that Nina really needed to get her eyes checked. Nina was sick on the day that the school had their vision and hearing screenings so we missed that chance. Sure enough, we take her in and she's blind as a bat. Just like Matt, me, Donovan and Howie. I guess there wasn't a whole lot of hope for her! She picked out some cute frames and can clearly see all the future mischief she would like to engage in. One of my favorite things is the ride home after the kids pick up their glasses. The whole time she was pointing out all the signs she could read, like she was seeing for the first time.

Finally a lost tooth

Nina was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with her when she went all the way through kindergarten without losing a tooth. Apparently "everyone" else lost one that year and it was so embarrassing that she never did. Because I know that 5 year olds get a lot more street cred when they are missing teeth. So I'm glad things are looking brighter for Nina. We all love a happy Nina.

editor's note. I can't remember which day she lost her tooth. This picture was a week or two after the fact. Poor third child.