3 Months in 30 Seconds

Go!

Amy the Lady Bug,

Kala the Bumblebee

(note the stinger),

Sara the Dragonfly,

and Claire the Butterfly.

Amy the 6 Year Old,

with best friend Anna Grace,

and Kala the Birthday Chorister.

Pile of Christmas presents before...

...and after.

Happy Amy, and

CHEESE!

Done.

Yep, That's Really the Best One

We tried to get a family portrait done at the grandparents for Father's Day, and we utterly failed. We think we know why, and want to offer some suggestions on how NOT to prepare your kids for a decent photo:

1) Don't feed them crepes with chocolate-hazel nut spread, whipped cream, powered sugar, and toffee chips for breakfast. It's great and all to have a dessert breakfast for Father's Day, but we set the kids up for a major crash--and crash they did.
2) Don't expect to have happy kids after an hour drive, where they have enough time to get very, very tired, but not enough time to have any productive sleep.
3) Don't try to do outdoor shots when it's 95 degrees and 80% humidity. The kids no likey.

Easter Dresses

Top Ten Reasons Why it's Good to Have All Girls #2

#2: You Get to Poke Holes in Their Ears.

(For those of you who are new to the blog, you can catch up on the other Top Ten posts here)

I have wanted to pierce my girls' ears ever since Amy was about 6 months old. Joseph was dead set against it. Our compromise was this: At the age of 5, the girls should be able to understand pain and the responsibility associated with taking care of pierced ears and can then decide for themselves. So, for the past year, I have subconsciously convinced Amy that she wanted earrings. We just happened to be in a mall in Savannah on Black Friday (another story for another time) which was the day after Amy's 5th birthday. As we entered the mall, Claire's was right there. I asked Amy if she wanted to get her ears pierced and--surprisingly--she said yes. We went and picked out a pair of earrings, but after watching another girl get her ears pierced, Amy said: "That hurts. I don't want earrings." We walked out of the store, but she kept looking back. She changed her mind at the last minute, and decided that she did want earrings after all. She was very brave and only cried from the initial shock. She has been modeling her pretty blue-green earrings ever since.

Name That Pumpkin Carver

Our family pumpkin was carved into the logo of our beloved Alma Matter this year. And, for a little friendly competition, we're going to play that game we all know and love: "Name That Pumpkin Carver."


For those of you that haven't played for a while, here's a refresher on how it works:

Choose one of the following options and record your choice in a comment to this blog:


A) Joseph (good choice, the "awesome artist")
B) Tamra (also a good choice, the "patient perfectionist")
C) Amy (bad choice, the "4 year old that's not allowed to play with knives")
D) No one, its a fake pumpkin (another good choice)


The winner will be chosen randomly from the correct guessers and will get their personal pumpkin carved for free next Halloween into anything they want by the expert carver who created the above masterpiece*.


*Offer void if the answer is C, because even though Amy will be 5 next year, she still won't be allowed to play with knives. Winner will be responsible for purchasing the pumpkin to be carved. Winner will be chosen at random via the eenie-meenie-minee-moe method. All rebates to dealer. Offer void in California. Also, effective retroactively, the winner may not request their pumpkin to be carved to resemble a TIGER PAW.

Good luck!

Find Your Pumpkin Self

One of our Fall/Halloween Traditions is to Get a pumpkin for each member of the family. In our second year of this tradition, we decided to give our pumpkins more personality, and we created a jack-o-portrait for each of the kids.

Easter Weekend in Savannah

Amy...
going into a sugar coma.


Kada, Ainslee, Amy & Tyler...
like kids in a candy store.


Amy & Claire...
enjoy long walks on the beach.


Kada...
in her own world.


Tyler & Kada...
blown away.


Ainslee, Tyler, Amy, Uncle Thomas & Claire...
getting their feet wet.


Sara...
just chillin' ... yo


Claire...
gold digger.


Claire & Sara...
having their day in the sun.


Tyler & Amy...
best friends forever.

Take 47

Christmas picture of the girls in their Christmas dresses (with their cousin Cadence).

Thanksgiving

Some of the Hood side extended family gathered at the Hood home for Thanksgiving Dinner. Present: Hood[0], Hood[1], Hood[2], Hood[3]*, Jessica with Fiance Jamie, Grandma Scott, Tiffany with this month's boyfriend, and Janis' kids Hanna and Haley. A few more were in and out during the day. We had an excellent meal, and of course, we brought out the traditional "Sombrero of Thankfulness," donned by Mikala this year.


*Family Array Notation: surname[index], will be used throughout this blog to provide a shorthand method for addressing Hood Family branches. Hood[0] refers to the Root Node (Thomas E., Nancy and family members still at home). Hood[1] refers to the branch of the first born (Thomas N., Heather and their offspring). When a Hood child leaves home--i.e. flies the coup or cuts the proverbial apron strings--their branch will then be assigned an index equal to their birth order. This convention can be extended to future generations simply by adding a dimension to the array, i.e. Hood[2][1] for Amy's branch (or Hood[2,1] if you prefer rectangular array indexing). This convention was officially adopted by the Hoods in 2002, and clarifies statements such as: "We'll meet you at the Hood's House at 6:00, and the Hood's will be Babysitting, and the those other Hood's will met us at the restaurant at 7:00."