We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season!!! Here are a few shots of our attempts to get a Christmas picture of the girls!
And finally, a Christmas kiss from Big Sister to Little Sister!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Bella after the Aquarium
After the aquarium visit - Bella was exhausted and was asleep almost before we were even out of the parking deck!
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Pictures from the Aquarium
Here are some pictures from the Aquarium!
Bella in front of a couple of the exhibits - the first one is in front of the jelly fish exhibit, I'm not sure what the second one is....
One of the four Whale Sharks swimming over our heads! And one of the many sting rays that share the Whale Sharks' tank..
A Sting Ray in the "petting" pool and some very colorful fish from the Coral Reef.
Angel Fish and a Giant Grouper fish
Tiny Sea Horses
As we were getting ready to leave, Deepo, the Aquarium's mascot was walking around! Bella was quite fascinated, but didn't want to have her picture taken with him alone! So, this is Bella, Mommy, Brooklyn (not seen but in the sling I am wearing) and Deepo!
Bella in front of a couple of the exhibits - the first one is in front of the jelly fish exhibit, I'm not sure what the second one is....
One of the four Whale Sharks swimming over our heads! And one of the many sting rays that share the Whale Sharks' tank..
A Sting Ray in the "petting" pool and some very colorful fish from the Coral Reef.
Angel Fish and a Giant Grouper fish
Tiny Sea Horses
As we were getting ready to leave, Deepo, the Aquarium's mascot was walking around! Bella was quite fascinated, but didn't want to have her picture taken with him alone! So, this is Bella, Mommy, Brooklyn (not seen but in the sling I am wearing) and Deepo!
Brooklyn at 1-Month
Brooklyn had her 1-month check-up last Thursday and here are her 1-month stats:
Weight: 9 lbs 6 ozs (75th percentile)
Length: 22 inches (90th percentile)
She is growing like a little weed and it is so hard to believe that it has already been a month!
Weight: 9 lbs 6 ozs (75th percentile)
Length: 22 inches (90th percentile)
She is growing like a little weed and it is so hard to believe that it has already been a month!
Big News - We're Moving
The Parmer family is on the move! We will be moving to South Alabama on Saturday. Brannon graduates from Life University on Friday and we're heading South on Saturday! We'll be "offline" for a bit until we get settled, but will be posting updates as soon as possible!!
Monday, December 4, 2006
Pictures of the Girls
We had pictures made of Bella and Brooklyn. Bella is 16 months and Brooklyn is 3 weeks.
Having fun with my sister!
Sweet girls!
Brooklyn
The Parmer Family
Friday, December 1, 2006
Ready for kids?
Ever thought about having children but aren't sure. Follow these 15 simple tests before you decide to have children…
Test 1
Women: To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months remove 10% of the beans.
Men: To prepare for paternity, go to local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself.Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.
Test 2
Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which theymight improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.
Test 3
To discover how the nights will feel …1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4-6kg, with a radio tuned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.3. Get up at 12pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am 4. Set the alarm for 3am.5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.6. Go to bed at 2.45am.7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off8. Sing songs in the dark until 4 am.9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off10. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.
Test 4
Dressing small children is not as easy at it seems.1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.
Test 5
Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door saloon. And don't think that you can leave it out on the driveway spotless and shining. Family Cars don't look like that.1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.2. Get a coin. Insert it in the cassette player.3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies, mash them into the back seat.4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. . perfect!
Test 6
Get ready to go out.1. Wait2. Go out the front door.3. Come in again.4. Go out.5. Come back in.6. Go out again.7. Walk down the front path/driveway.8. Walk back up it.9. Walk down it again.10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.11. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.12. Retrace your steps.13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.14. Give up and go back into the house.15. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.
Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.
Test 8
Go the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is excellent). If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your weeks groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.
Test 9
Hollow out a melon.1. Make a small hole in the side.2. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it from side to side3. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an aeroplane.4. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.5. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old child.
Test 10
Learn the names of every character from the Fimbles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for at least five years.
Test 11
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?
Test 12Make a recording of Janet Street-Porter shouting "Mummy" repeatedly. Important: No more than a four second delay between each "Mummy " - occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.
Test 13
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continuously tug on your skirt hem/shirt sleeve/elbow while playing the "Mummy" Tape made from Test 12 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.
Test 14
Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting. Now:1. Take a cup of cream, and put 1 cup lemon juice in it.2. Stir.3. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture.4. Attempt to clean your shirt with the saturated towel.5. Do NOT change. You have no time.6. Go directly to work.
Test 15
Go for a drive, but first…1. Find one large tomcat and six pit bulls.2. Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the back seat of your car.3. Put the pit bulls in the front seat of your car.4. While holding something fragile or delicate, strap the cat into thechild seat.5. For the really adventurous…… Run some errands, remove and replace the cat at each stop.
You are now ready to have kids.
Test 1
Women: To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months remove 10% of the beans.
Men: To prepare for paternity, go to local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself.Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.
Test 2
Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which theymight improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.
Test 3
To discover how the nights will feel …1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4-6kg, with a radio tuned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.3. Get up at 12pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am 4. Set the alarm for 3am.5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.6. Go to bed at 2.45am.7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off8. Sing songs in the dark until 4 am.9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off10. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.
Test 4
Dressing small children is not as easy at it seems.1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.
Test 5
Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door saloon. And don't think that you can leave it out on the driveway spotless and shining. Family Cars don't look like that.1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.2. Get a coin. Insert it in the cassette player.3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies, mash them into the back seat.4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. . perfect!
Test 6
Get ready to go out.1. Wait2. Go out the front door.3. Come in again.4. Go out.5. Come back in.6. Go out again.7. Walk down the front path/driveway.8. Walk back up it.9. Walk down it again.10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.11. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.12. Retrace your steps.13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.14. Give up and go back into the house.15. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.
Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.
Test 8
Go the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is excellent). If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your weeks groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.
Test 9
Hollow out a melon.1. Make a small hole in the side.2. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it from side to side3. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an aeroplane.4. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.5. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old child.
Test 10
Learn the names of every character from the Fimbles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for at least five years.
Test 11
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?
Test 12Make a recording of Janet Street-Porter shouting "Mummy" repeatedly. Important: No more than a four second delay between each "Mummy " - occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.
Test 13
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continuously tug on your skirt hem/shirt sleeve/elbow while playing the "Mummy" Tape made from Test 12 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.
Test 14
Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting. Now:1. Take a cup of cream, and put 1 cup lemon juice in it.2. Stir.3. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture.4. Attempt to clean your shirt with the saturated towel.5. Do NOT change. You have no time.6. Go directly to work.
Test 15
Go for a drive, but first…1. Find one large tomcat and six pit bulls.2. Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the back seat of your car.3. Put the pit bulls in the front seat of your car.4. While holding something fragile or delicate, strap the cat into thechild seat.5. For the really adventurous…… Run some errands, remove and replace the cat at each stop.
You are now ready to have kids.
Just a Mom?
A woman, renewing her driver's license at the County Clerk's office was asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation. She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.
"What I mean is," explained the recorder, "do you have a job or are you just a......?"
"Of course I have a job," snapped the woman. “I'm a Mom.”
"We don't list 'Mom' as an occupation, 'housewife' covers it," said the recorder emphatically.
I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall. The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient and possessed of a high sounding title like, "Official Interrogator" or "Town Registrar.” "What is your occupation?" she probed.
What made me say it? I do not know. The words simply popped out.
"I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations."
The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in midair and looked up as though she had not heard right. I repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words.
Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written, in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire. “Might I ask," said the clerk with new interest, "just what you do in your field?” Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply,
"I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn't) in the laboratory and in the field,(normally I would have said indoors and out). I'm working for my Masters, (first the Lord and then the whole family) and already have four credits (all daughters).
Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it).
But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money."
There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she completed the form, stood up and personally ushered me to the door.
As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants -- ages 13, 7, and 3. Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model, (a 6 month old baby) in the child development program, testing out a new vocal pattern.
I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy! And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than "just another Mom."
Motherhood!! What a glorious career! Especially when there's a title on the door.
Does this make grandmothers “Senior Research associates in the field of Child Development and Human Relations” and great grandmothers "Executive Senior Research Associates"? I think so!!! I also think it makes Aunts "Associate Research Assistants".
"What I mean is," explained the recorder, "do you have a job or are you just a......?"
"Of course I have a job," snapped the woman. “I'm a Mom.”
"We don't list 'Mom' as an occupation, 'housewife' covers it," said the recorder emphatically.
I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall. The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient and possessed of a high sounding title like, "Official Interrogator" or "Town Registrar.” "What is your occupation?" she probed.
What made me say it? I do not know. The words simply popped out.
"I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations."
The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in midair and looked up as though she had not heard right. I repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words.
Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written, in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire. “Might I ask," said the clerk with new interest, "just what you do in your field?” Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply,
"I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn't) in the laboratory and in the field,(normally I would have said indoors and out). I'm working for my Masters, (first the Lord and then the whole family) and already have four credits (all daughters).
Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it).
But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money."
There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she completed the form, stood up and personally ushered me to the door.
As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants -- ages 13, 7, and 3. Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model, (a 6 month old baby) in the child development program, testing out a new vocal pattern.
I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy! And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than "just another Mom."
Motherhood!! What a glorious career! Especially when there's a title on the door.
Does this make grandmothers “Senior Research associates in the field of Child Development and Human Relations” and great grandmothers "Executive Senior Research Associates"? I think so!!! I also think it makes Aunts "Associate Research Assistants".
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The Lights of Life
Here are a few shots of the Lights of Life on display at Life University. The pictures are not that clear but you get the idea! Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!!!
Happy Thanksgiving
HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2006!!
We tried to get a "family photo" on Thanksgiving evening, but someone - not to mention any names, BELLA - wasn't interested in sitting with her family! So we got a nice shot of Brannon, Brooklyn and I and then one of Bella on her own!
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! And Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays - whichever you prefer!
Guilty as Charged or Wrongly Accused?
Another favorite pasttime of Bella's is finding the Kleenex boxes (or diaper wipes for that matter) throughout the house, and methodically taking each tissue (or wipe) out of the box/packaging one by one...See evidence from two separate instances below! Charges are pending further investigation.
Brooklyn at 2-Weeks
Brooklyn had her 2-week checkup with the pediatrician and here were her 2-week stats:
Weight: 8 lbs. 2 oz. - she is in the 50th percentile
Height: 20 inches - she is in the 25th percentile
Monday, November 20, 2006
Our Little Monkey
Bella's newest "trick" is that she has learned to climb up on the kitchen table chairs all by herself!!! One would think that keeping the chairs pushed nicely under the table might deter her climbing - oh no!!! However, she wasn't exactly sure what to do once she got up in the chair...
When she is able to get into the chair successfully, she has also learned to climb up onto the table!
Brooklyn at 1-week
We had our follow-up with our pediatrician for Brooklyn last week. She is also doing very well and was back up to her birth weight (7 lbs 7 oz)! We go back for her 2-week check-up this week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)