Believe it or not..

the new babe finally has a name... Ripley Rose Mulsanne

The above photo is a promotional image for the 1971 Steve McQueen movie Le Mans. Some of you may remember it. The race is the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The part of the track featured in this photo is the Mulsanne Straight. It is an actual road in the small French community of Mulsanne, hence, Mulsanne straight. (Check it out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_de_la_Sarthe ) Adam and Piper just love to watch this admittedly incredibly boring to non race fans movie. Rory and I watch them in amazement wondering what the appeal is. (Sidenote: I finally figured out why Rory does not particularly like the Pixar flick Cars, she finally said the other day, "Where are the people?" Right there with you Rory.)

Ahem, anyway..

Rose has a few reasons. If you have spoken to us recently you know prior to getting her official name, the baby was unofficially "Rosalina" according to Rory and Piper thought "Rosie" sounded better. So I compromised and made them both unhappy (heh).

Anyway "Rose" gives her an inadvertent tie in to Doctor Who with her sisters. The actress who played the character "Rose" is named Billie Piper. There is a character on the current seasons called "Rory" though admittedly Rory is a boy character who didn't appear on the show until 2 years after our Rory was born hence the inadvertent connection.

Still I thought it would connect her to her sisters just like Ripley does.

It is the best combination of both girls' names without being too much like one or the other. We also tried to make sure that since all of our daughter's names have links to so called pop culture heroines that they at least be likable ones.

I know many of you are just hearing Ripley! Believe it or Not! and sure we are aware of that. To us, however, Ripley is the awesomesauce alien butt kicking heroine from, you know, Alien and to a lesser extent Aliens.

Anyway, I am rambling, my reasons for naming my children in the impossibly quixotic way that I love to could fill many hours of conversation.

One last thing. We gave her 3 names because she is number 3 and she still has as many syllables in her name as Piper so it isn't anymore of a mouthful than Piper Imola.

But hey, if you don't like the name I will tell you the same thing I told Piper. Go have your own baby and name it whatever you want! :-)

Baby Update

It's been a few weeks and I haven't said anything I know, but here is a little update.
Baby is measuring bigger than Piper and Rory did at the same age
Baby is breech like Rory was at 20 weeks (which I suspected at the time based on where the kicks were being felt)
Baby is a girl.
Baby girl has no name. No I am serious, she does not have a first name. She has a middle name it is not Italian but it is related to her sisters' middle names. (It's French, chew on that :)
I will tell you her middle name when I know her first name.
That about covers it, I think most of you know this stuff but in case you didn't that's the run down...
Thanks for being patient with me.

Kids being kids

The kids have been really cute so I thought I would share. Rory was not being cute in this picture. She took a razor to her face. Second time she's done this.
Anyway, last night Rory said her prayers. They went something like this: Thank you for the pizza...thank you ... Ummm... Thank you for.... What's the password? (Amen) AMEN! Yeah, I about died so if you're wondering, the password is apparently Amen.
Now this morning, Rory was playing in the darkened living room. She finally got tired of this and turned the light on with a pez dispenser. She turned to me and said "Mommy! I did it! I used a tool!" those of you that know us have probably seen this in action. Because we are lazy terrible parents we tell our children to learn how to use tools to accomplish tasks they otherwise could not because after all, using tools is what separates us from lower order mammals. Today, Rory inched her way closer to humanity.

Now the big girl. She complains that she doesn't do "cute" things anymore and everyone likes Rory, Storie, etc better than her dumb big self.
Some of you may have heard this ranting. She's right I don't have "cute" stories like "what's the password" for her, but the above picture is Piper riding her bike while eating TWO ice cream cones. One even matched her shirt. She's lost two more teeth and the tooth fairy has totally FAILED! Two nights in a row. In her actually his defense. Piper didn't put her tooth out the first night and last night she snuck into Papa's bed so she's not been that cooperative.
On the tools front Piper has progressed much further into humanity. Most mornings she prepares her own bowl of cereal. She gets it all pours everything we don't usually lift a finger. I am so proud and grateful.
P.S. Rory provided Piper's facial battle scar too. She's terribly violent, I'm concerned about her evolution to be honest she seems more primitive at 3 than Piper was.
P.S.S. don't tell Rory you hope she gets a brother. Your face may end up like Piper's. I have no new "good" pictures because I can't hold that heavy camera and keep my head above water. Metaphorically speaking. Well until yesterday.

You say tomato, I say iPhone.

Baby Face

First pic side view good shot of the leggies.

Face time. The face with hand obscuring one side.

Another side view can see hands again.

Should be here around 8/25 ;)

You say tomato, I say iPhone.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Playing dress up, with Santa hats completing the outfit.

Counting and Fishing

I thought I would share some of the goings on in the house the past couple of days. Piper, despite incredible language skills that started revealing themselves before she was one (Cigarette, anyone? :) has not shown much of an interest or early capability in reading and has shown her math skills instead.

To set this up, let's have some backstory. Piper has spent the night with Sue, Pop and Nancy a few times in the last month. The last time she did this she informed me that they go to bed at 10 o'clock which is later than her normal bed time of 9 o'clock.

A couple of nights ago she was still up past her bedtime and complaining about staying up longer. I informed her it was already 2 hours past her bedtime.

This is what she said to me "YOU MEAN IT'S ELEVEN O'CLOCK?!" yeah, actually, it is.

A little while later I asked Adam about that. His response was something along the lines of "oh yeah, she does a lot of basic math in her head." Well that's good, since she's not going to be reading anytime soon. Maybe she is just doing that in her head.

AND NOW TO RORY

As I type this, she is doing that thing where she gets out of bed and puts the blanket over head and thinks we can't see her. I only got her in bed by agreeing to let her watch the video of her butchering Happy Birthday to her Grammie. Anyway, Rory's story is a bit crass.

I was sitting here on the couch just like I am now when Adam comes in laughing and trying to speak through his laughter. This is the story he tells (some backstory: in case you don't know, Rory is mostly potty trained, she wears a pull up at night.)

Rory was in the bathroom, unsupervised (this is usually the case, she won't really go with us in there and now we know kind of why) with the "bowl" from her potty chair.

She tells Adam; "I'm fishing. This is my fish."

Yeah, you've probably guessed right about now. Her fish was her very own poo she had just done. She likes to poo in the potty chair and then dump it in the toilet and flush it herself)

She decided rather than flush it this time, she would fish it out with her potty chair bowl and pretend her poo was her fish.

This is why we don't need any sons.

Rory also came to me today and said she needed some paper. "I need to draw a tamango." I never saw the tamango, btw.

Christmas Baking

A little holiday baking to get you in the mood, with a little help from..

Rory and of course..

Piper. Why is she getting so big? I don't care how big she does get though, she is quickly asserting herself as the "baby" of the family..

Rory for her part, does not seem to want to be the baby,

So I think it's going to be ok

She still looks up to her big sister though..

And look holiday cookies! Made by the whole family!

No really, there are pictures of mine and Adam's hands if you look closely. :) Merry Christmas!

p.s. I hope some of you have gotten your Christmas cards.

Dial 'M' for Murder

I walked in when Grace Kelly was stabbing her attacker with scissors. This is what I saw. I don't know if Hitchcock is appropriate for Rory, but what a great movie.

Happy Thanksgiving! With some pictures..

That don't feature turkey..

Just table settings..

And a picture of a nice healthy salad..

She's enjoying it..

with diet cranberry Sierra Mist

Writer's Block?

Sometimes, I go through periods where I rarely get the camera out. This is one of those times. It's not that I'm busy or the kids are demanding my time and energy, I just don't have a desire to capture anything. If not for Halloween and Rory's birthday, I don't know if I would have picked up the camera 3 times in the past month.

I suppose it's like when musicians and writers can't find a groove. You continue to do it, just because maybe you will find some inspiration or sometimes it's just to bide your time until the feeling and excitement come back.

I will remind everyone again, I love my children and I love taking their photos, but my children are not why I bought a camera in the first place.

Anyway, the point being, I don't know how frequently I will be posting in the future.. so bear with me.