ANNELIESE

Anneliese has started crawling! She just started a few days ago and is getting better everyday! It is amazing how stuff like this is still exciting with the second baby. Here is a video of her crawling towards "baby Jude".

EVIE

Evie cracks me up. Lately she has been using Anneliese as her chair. At first it freaked me out because I thought she would crush Anneliese, but as you can see it doesn't phase her a bit. Lately Evie has also been trying to dress herself, hence, Anneliese's sleeper on her head.

I'm a little concerned with her choice of reading material, however. In our bedroom we have a bookshelf with close to 30 books on it. Everytime, without failing, Evie grabs this one- The Communist Manifesto-a little advanced for her age I think...and a little disturbing.

IT'S A BOY!!!

Congratulations to Drew and Tara who are having a boy. We are so excited for you guys! It will be fun for Jack to have a little brother to play with! Let us know if we can do anything for you.

For those of you who saw the title of this post and thought that I was pregnant yet again...shame on you! =)

FIRST DAY OF CLASS

Today was not only Jude's first day back to class, but mine as well. This semester I am taking an American Sign Language class through the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. I am totally psyched! We learned the alphabet, numbers, and the signs for name, my, you, who is?, Where is?, What is?, same, different, goodness I have already forgotten the rest! Sign Language has been something that has interested me for some time now, but I never chose to do anything about it until now. It feels good to be back in a classroom learning. I love it!

WHY I LOVE BEING A MOM

Here are some recent pictures of the girls. Some of them are sweet. Some of them are funny. And some of them are just plain messy!!!

MY BUDDIES

These are my buddies! I must admit that Evie is probably my best friend, second only to Ashley. I seem to have lost myself somewhere between family/church/school/work responsibilities and any hope of social communion with people of similar age and quirkiness. Hanging out with Evie rocks though because our mental development is at about the same stage and she does not yet realize how weird I sometimes am. She always wants to follow me around and loves to pick up my tools and mimick doing with them what she sees me doing with them, namely: tearing apart old junk that I find on the side of the road as we go for our daily walks in the scorching heat. Yes, Ashley does not approve, but that is why I let her sleep in in the mornings. She also helps me weed my grass, although she does not distinguish grass from weeds. Nor does she distinguish mud and sunscreen from food. So maybe I am slightly more mentally advanced in that area. I would love to have pictures of her eating sunscreen and mud on here, but rather than taking the appropriate parental action of grabbing the camera, I choose to wipe her mouth out to avoid possible injury or death. I also think that Evie is one of only two people who is always excited to see me. Whenever I come home and she hears my key in the door, she comes galloping around the corner just giggling. It melts my heart. I suppose I dread the day when she is older and it is no longer cool to be buddies with dad. Lisi, on the other hand is not yet sure of who I really am. She knows that I am not the milk machine and that seems to be the most important desire in her life at the moment. We do have our giggle fest together though as we chase Evie around the house. I hold Lisi under her arms and swing her like a monkey as we run after Evie. Her and Evie both just look at each other and giggle. It is interesting to see them together. Evie has never been jealous of Lisi, but on the contrary she has always shown her "tuff" love. I say "tuff" love because sometimes Evie does not understand that head-slam kisses hurt. But overall Evie just smiles and hugs and kisses Lisi, while Lisi just smiles in return. Sometimes, if you are in another room you will hear them giggling and when you check to see what is so funny they are just looking at each other laughing as if they are sharing some inside joke.
I love my girls.

BREAK TIME!!!

Well, Jude's summer semester is finally over! This summer has been a killer. He will have a two week break and then he starts back for the fall semester. He is signed up to take 18 credits! Rediculous, I know. But he only has 37 credits left! We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully he will graduate next August. However, if he remains with the company that he co-ops for he will not graduate until May of 2009. Like I mentioned in our previous post, Jude has become interested in power production especially by renewable means. We are hoping that he can find a job where he can get involved in this field.

I am especially happy that Jude has a break from school and soon he will have a break from work as well. A break for him means a break for me! I have been enjoying our girls. It is amazing how fast they grow. Anneliese is rolly-polly and is such a happy baby. Evie is as sassy as ever. Her favorite word right now is "NO!"...nice. But she makes up for it with all her kisses. Lately she has started kissing me if she wants something I've told her she can't have. Smart girl.

Jude's sister Casey had her baby on Thursday, August 2. They named her Abigail Laine. Isn't she a pretty baby?!? We also found out not too long ago that my brother Drew's wife Tara is expecting. They will find out at her next appointment if it's a boy or girl. Exciting!

Abigail Laine ----------->