Emma's Second Tooth

Today Rich and I noticed that Emma's second tooth finally broke through!

She can hold her own and then some

Brooke can definitely hold her own in almost all situations. Today we walked Braden upstairs to his classroom, so I could pay for his cap and gown (Braden is going to be sooooo stinkin' adorable) and to talk to Braden's teacher about his progress. While I was busy talking to Christy about graduation, an upcoming field trip, and what things Braden has and has not mastered, Brooke made herself at home. She confidently sashayed (and I do mean sashayed) over to the Housekeeping center and quickly started playing with the girls in Braden's class. When it was almost time to go, I let Brooke know that she had about 5 more minutes to play and then we had to leave; she responded, "Yes, ma'am." Then she looked back at the girls, placed her hands on her hips, and said, "My mama said it is time to go in five minutes." It was so funny to see the other girls working so hard to keep Miss Priss happy, even bringing her a chair to sit in. Later as we were getting in the van, I asked Brooke, "So did you have fun playing with the girls?" Her response, "Yes, but they made me so angry!" I guess they laughed when she didn't want them to laugh. What a sassy priss pot! Luckily for us and this world, she has both sugar and spice! Most of the time we see the sugar, but when she needs to, the big guns come out and the spice starts flying! She can hold her own and then some!!!!!!!!!!!!

Adobe Photoshop is the BOMB!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I did say the bomb; hey cut me a break, I am excited! I am now officially in love, as in love as you can be with a computer program, with Adobe Photoshop. No, I am not an expert, but I am learning about all of the cool things it can do. Here is my most recent creation:

Before (not bad, but it could be better):

After:

Okay, so what do you think? I admit, it is still not perfect (I am way too much of a perfectionist), but I think it looks pretty good for one of my first attempts. (In case anyone is wondering this is my brother and his fiance Amanda's hands)

Braden Our Photographer

Braden has recently decided that he loves photography! He loves to go around the house with my digital camera and take pictures, and I think he is pretty good for a 4 year old with no instruction; anything he has learned is simply from watching me taking pictures (so I guess he has plenty of time to watch; my father in law jokes that I am like a Japanese tourist-of course I must point out that he too is addicted to photography). Now I wonder if Rich and I should have gotten Braden a camera for Christmas. Oh well, his birthday is coming up in May. Here are some of his recent pictures.

*I would like to point out that I had just recently woken up from a Sunday nap (hence the somewhat sleepy look).

A New Development on the Imaginary Friend Front

Okay, I had to write this down before I forgot; I was attempting to wash the dishes (cleaning is always an attempt with 3 children 4 and under around), when Brooke comes into the kitchen and announces that she no longer has an imaginary friend named Sally. She declares that she in fact has 3 imaginary friends all named Sally; one is 12, one is 13, and one is 7 months, and she also informs me that one has yellow hair, one has brown hair, and one has blue hair. The Sally that is 7 months has yellow hair, but I am not quite sure about the older 2. Where does she come up with this stuff?! I love her imagination! There is never a dull moment with Brooke around!

Our Booty Shaker

For those that don't know, we, the Masedas, are a dancing family, especially the cuties and I; Rich is a good dancer, but sometimes it takes a little persuading to get him to join the party. We dance while we cook, dance while we clean, and dance just for fun; my question to you is, 'Why would Emma be any different?!' Emma has become our resident Booty Shaker; it started about a month and a half ago, at the ripe age of 7 months (almost 8). For Father's Day I had given Rich a musical card, which played the song Celebration; of course after some abuse from Braden and Brooke it no longer worked when you opened the card, so Rich was going to throw it away. Being the pack rat that I am, I rescued the card from a possible early demise; I knew that I could use it for something, and I was right. I got the card working again; well, during the repair process Emma was sitting beside me. At some point, she really started listening to the music, and then I realized she was dancing; I couldn't believe it! I quickly closed the card to see if I had been imagining things, and sure enough she stopped and gave me that, 'What are you doing?!' 'Open that thing again; I want to hear the music.' So, I opened the card, the music started again, and so did the dancing. At first she could only bop up and down on her little bottom, but now that she can stand she gets her legs into the action. She also has progressed past Celebration to other songs, but her favorite is still Celebration. Here is a video of "our booty shaker" dancing to her favorite tune; I hope you enjoy it! I just wish we would have started filming her a little sooner, when she was really shaking her cute little legs! Isn't she just the cutest little booty shaker?!

Cooking Caps

Don't you just want to laugh?! I know I did! Braden and Brooke came bouncing down the stairs decked out in these 'cooking caps', or at least that is what they called them. Brooke is wearing a shower cap, and Braden is wearing rubber training pants turned upside down. I guess they were up in the playroom cooking up some treats, because they also came bearing gifts, a plastic taco and two dollops of plastic whip cream. You have to give them credit; they definitely have vivid imaginations, and they are very entertaining! Remind me that I said that on the days they use their imagination for destructive reasons, because I don't think I will be feeling very entertained; today though I am just going to smile and try to remember how funny and adorable Braden and Brooke looked bounding down the stairs in their 'cooking caps.'

I am the champion, the Scrabble champion that is!

Well, it finally happened; I beat Rich's cute little butt at Scrabble! Usually what happens is that I start out with a good lead, Rich narrows my lead, and then passes me to take the lead and eventually win, but not this time. This time, I came, I saw, I pulled out all of my exquisite word skills, and beat his cute little butt! Of course, I must admit that Scrabble is half skill and half luck; if you don't get lucky enough to pull out a good combo of vowels and consonants your little Scrabble boat is sunk, but this time the luck (and skill ;) ) were with me! Obviously, I informed Rich that he and I didn't need to play Scrabble again, because I like being the reigning Scrabble champ of the Maseda house; that should at least give me a couple months to enjoy my new title, because Rich is way too competitive to not want a rematch (a couple months should give me plenty of time to hone my word skills and study my friend 'Webster').

Now that I have basked in my Scrabble glory, I guess I should move on to what we did the rest of New Year's Eve. Last year we went to a friend's house, but this year we opted for a quiet night in as a family. We watched movies, ate pizza, popped popcorn, played games, and watched the ball drop. Besides Scrabble, we also played Twister Moves, which is harder than it looks. After a while, the cuties and I gave up and just did our own thing; we decided that we could do better on our own anyway! Rich however stuck out to the end, and did a much better job than the rest of us keeping up with the dance instructions; Brooke in fact announced, "I am tired of playing this game!"

All in all, it was a fun night and a perfect way to ring in the new year!