Concert

Jennalee has an old phone of ours that she loves. It offers her a lot of entertainment and on occasions like this it affords us the same. Her performance would make Milli Vanilli proud.

Adeline

If it ever seems like we don't have as many pictures of Adeline as we do the other two kids that is because, well, we don't. Maybe it is because she is four, or maybe it's because she thinks cameras will somehow capture her soul... for whatever reason, she hates having her picture made. So when we get a picture of her we feel lucky. Actually, we are starting to see signs of her emerging from this shyness -- that would be nice, since we would someday like to have evidence that we did in fact raise three beautiful girls.

Vintage Jennalee

I (Reed) was helping Jennalee with her home-schooling on my day off. While she worked I was looking at a magazine. I was trying to keep her on task (which is really hard to do) when the following exchange occurred...

RSD: Jennalee, you need to keep working. Don't just sit there and look at my magazine.

JRD: Okay, but I may still look at it every now and then on accident.

RSD: That's okay, if you will just try to keep working.

JRD: You may need to get grumpy with me.

RSD: What?

JRD: Sometimes Momma has to get grumpy with me to get me to keep working.

RSD: Do you like it when she gets grumpy?

JRD: No, but it gets me to do my work.

Tarik Turns Two!

Today, our littlest girly swirl turned two. If it seems like just about nine months since her last birthday that is because it was... we are moving her birthday up a few months. So this was her first run at a December birthday and all reports are that it went well.

Our family is not spending much time blogging these days but we are doing well. Tarik continues to be a total clown (when she is not teething). She has moved to the big girl bed, which she calls the "good girl" bed. She loves her sisters and they love her. We continue to be amazed at how seamlessly she has integrated into our family. She also sings constantly. Her favorite songs are Twinkle, Twinkle; Baby Bumble Bee; The ABC's (a creative version), The WonderPets Theme (she sings "Underpants"), Ring Around the Rosy, and others. When we are lucky she mashes all the songs up into one medley.

On a legal note, one of the final hurdles to finalizing the adoption is our Missouri court date, which is set for December 17. No real change should happen, it is just the state recognizing the adoption. Seeing as how she is black, I would think the adoption is already quite recognizable, but maybe not. On that date, however, we are officially moving her birthday and changing her name to Tarikwa Teka (her original Ethiopian name - it is currently Tarikwa Reed).

That is a lot of logistics stuffed into a birthday blog, but our posts are rare enough that we needed to catch you up.

FUSSY

Bat Conservation

Jennalee loves anything that has to do with nature and she also loves to watch cooking shows. This video is kind of a mixture of both. Her style of narration is what comes from cooking shows - don't worry, she doesn't try to cook the bat! The floating sucker is courtesy of Adeline. This is not the most amazing video ever - the sweetness lies in the fact that stuff like this is happening all the time at our house.

My favorite quote is kind of hard to hear, Jennalee tells us, "Bat make'n is kinda hard, you know?"

Summertime

In honor of the passing of summer.