Veenie Babies

Remember us?

This is our fancy, professional-like, family portrait. The scan's not the best and there are imperfections in the pose that I think the photographer should have caught (like the overall darkness for example), but I still like it. We are the Veenie Babies, after all, perfection and cleanliness are not our style. Don't worry Jamikins, we ordered some reprints so that you could have a 5X7, but you owe us $129.84.

What follows this post are about two months worth of unblogged events and photos. They're not neccessarily in chronological order, so cut me some slack, remembering of course, that Veenie Babies = imperfection. I hope you enjoy them and I hope you haven't missed the blog too much. It's been about two years, and I think we're all starting to lose some momentum on our on-line journals. I know, I know, say it ain't so. . . but that's just the facts of life, folks. At first they were a wonderful way of sharing our lives with minimal effort, but, at least with me, even this is becoming too much work. Veenie Babies is not gonna go away, but the guilt over not updating it seems to have ridden off into the sunset.

You say it's your birthday? It's my birthday too.

Here are some pics from my birthday party this year. . . er, I mean Hailie's birthday party. Or was it Laura's? Or Brandi's? Or Danny's or Emily's for that matter. . . heck, I don't know. The point is, we were all together, we each aged a year, and a good time was had by all. That's what birthday's are all about, right? Oh, of course we got presents, too, that's what birthday's are all about, right? But since it was just about two months ago, I don't remember what any of them were. Other party componants included dancing, games, prizes, and one sick child watching TV in grandma's bedroom.

The picture Jamie doesn't want you to see.

We got a new bed.

It's attractive, soft yet firm, and has a sweet 'new-bedding' smell. It's nearly twice as tall as our old bed, though, and you need to attend some kind of college-level lab to figure out how to make it, but all-in-all, our contentedness-quotient has just improved five-fold. The first night, though, I was extremely uncomfortable, and couldn't sleep. I assumed it was the bed and felt very disapointed, but then I ran to the bathroom to upchuck, and realized that I was only sick. I did it three more times, but it was a relief to know that the bed wasn't the problem, considering how much we paid for this beast (tax return $).

This is why he doesn't get paid for babysitting

Chantze wasn't actually babysitting. He actually just soothed Elia to sleep in his bed then fell asleep himself. He's very sweet to his little cousin and I think he's one of her favorite people. When we go next door to pick up the kids after school, sometimes we can be a bit overwhelming to the baby, and the first person she runs for is her big cousin. Then when I see him fawning over her, I have to wonder why he isn't kindler and gentler to his own sisters.

Kids with cameras

Up above is a picture of me, taken by Paige, as I'm learning important things about the unifying theory between quantum mechanics and astrophysics from a camoflauged textbook, see how it blends in with my pants? And below is a collection of pictures the kids took themselves - of themselves (but mostly by Paige again). I really like what they've done, and I think that I'll allow them to do it more often. I had to edit the crap out of them, but the way they've captured their personalities is more than a little impressive. Wouldst thou not concurreth?

We're constantly being stalked by wild beasts

This is a deer. They come into our backyard. Everyday. We don't see them everyday, though. Sometimes we are doing other things. Like being at work. Or painting flattering likenesses of Goerge W. on our walls with different colors of toothpaste. In case you couldn't tell, this post goes with the post below. It would have made sense to put them in the same post. Google video didn't seem amenable to that. Ho-hum.

The Return of the King (from picking up his daughters at daycare)

This is just one of the weird random things we find left out by the girls after their attention spans drag them elsewhere. Another common discovery is every seat at our dinette occupied by stuffed dogs - and no, they're not playing poker, I think they're coloring and having birthday parties. Remember the people on plates from a few months ago? That was just creepy. And the superhero's sitting around a cup of water with half-naked polly pockets? I also have another picture which I'm reluctant to post, containing two female dolls under the sheets of a toy bed, one kind of on top of the other. I really like them at that age, and I'm completely sure that I'm gonna miss this kind of stuff when I start finding non-Dora undergarments and wrappers from the monthly 'you-know-whats' laying around.

Pictures of three-fourths of my brood.

This here is just a collage of some random pics Maw snapped with the newer camera. In my opinion, its stills ain't so good, the color is realistic but the lighting and detail is too low. Anysuchaways, we been playing lots of board games and the like - these here expressions may have been taken during one of those bouts: Chantze arrogant, Paige frustrated, Brooke cool as always.

Winter dawg.

Here she is, curled obediently in her doggie-corner after coming in from outside. She knows that when she's covered with snow that to go anywhere but directly to her blanket results in angry faces and angry voices. Here she is saying, "Did I do what I was supposed to do good?"

Hailie's song


She did a good job, huh? btw, big birthday party for everybody at Grandma's, Sat, Jan. 13th.

Jibson Christmas program

Kids impromptu play


The kids make up yet another play

First gifts 2006


After posing and unneccessary delays, the kids finally get to open one.

Veenie Baby Christmas slideshow 2006


Veenie Baby Christmas slideshow 2006

And then on Christmas Eve...

Will he shoot his eye out?

Unlike Ralphie from the movie, Chantze has been very conscientious about safety and such. I can't get him to use a better posture, but his aim is surprisingly good. In this instance, not having a white Christmas worked to our advantage - the weather has been just lovely, and we were able to spend a couple days outside shooting. Here we are aiming at this 'Hawaaian Punch' container, and after about fifty shots, I felt a richocheted BB bounce off my shoulder. On closer inspection, the plastic punch carton was completely undamaged - the BB's had been bouncing off from it the whole time. I'm a bad 'parental superviser' I guess. We switched over to a beer can at that point.

A very Veenie christmas

Ahh... here we are once more. That most magical night of all nights, the night before Christmas Eve (or whenever we get an opportunity to have our Christmas in between other Christmas'es and my visitation schedule - in this case, Dec. 23rd, 8 pm). It was exceptionally sweet, with everybody getting exciting, touching, well-thought-out gifts, and no yelling whatsoever. It's about love, and togetherness, and giving from the heart, not to mention acquiring every single one of the materiel items you've had your eye on for the previous year but didn't have a good enough reason to buy.

Here's a rundown of the major acquisitions: Hailie - clothes, jewelry & giftcards, Twins - 'Wake-me-up' Rescue pets, & Barbies ('Baby Dr.', 'teacher', and '12 dancing princesses' varieties), Chantze - PS2 games and a Red Ryder B.B. gun, Cindy - perfume, undergarments, and season 1 & 2 of Newsradio, me - laptop accessories, boots, and the PC game and clothes I got early.