We Can Dance If We Want To...

We're not as good as Craig made us look...but we got hitched nonetheless.



You can see all of Craig's pictures of the wedding at Nelsonfoto

Yeah, as if I'm NOT going to toss Carissa into a pile of leaves...

Was it a moment of inauthenticity on my part, since I went back for the camera before tossing her in?

If you will it, it is no dream...

This baby IS the walrus...

She crawls...





She pulls...



She gnaws...



She communes with nature...



She composes ambient-experimental music...



She wears hats...



Goo goo g'joob.

It's all a Front...

I sometimes worry that Carissa reads Ayn Rand when we're not looking. She's ridiculously good at getting her way. Rule #1: Be extremely cute (as illustrated below). Rule #2: If Rule #1 fails, scream like a hellbeast.






But soon, Rules 1-2 will be obsolete. She practically doesn't even need us anymore:




I really wish my toes were this interesting to me.




Ok, maybe it's not ALL for show.

Vegetables Are Hot This Year

Here we see Carissa modelling some green beans:


And here, showing us how well carrots complement chubby cheeks:


Carissa got to meet up with Skylar again recently.


Skylar liked Carissa so much, she tried to trade her sunglasses for Carissa.


This bothers me. Doesn't Carissa look like she's making a "dude" face?

Latest Accomplishments

Sitting up on her own (like an orangutan), and in a lawnchair at that. (No one quite remembers how she got there.)




Taking charge of daddy's controller. (We won.)

Camera-Phone Pictures from the Frontline

(She's not really sitting up. Sorry. She's suspended by piano wire.)



Trying to tone up those thunder-thighs.



"Look at how much fun we're having, mommy!"



"Stop trying to steal my baby, daddy."

More Big-Girl Activities

She's almost four months old now. She has what we call a "big-girl complex": just look at the pictures. I put her belly down on one of those boppy pillows yesterday (the sort of U-shaped, toilet seat-ish pillow), and I thought she was going to dive over it like a kamikaze. Don't be fooled. She's dangerous.



Some play time in the Johnny Jump-Up. (Here we're still at the dangle-and-slowly-rotate-with-a-random-flare-kick-while-I-try-to-eat-my-way-out-of-this-trap phase.)




Showing us all her giraffe tongue.




Trying out her new furniture.




And then trying out some rice cereal. (You can see that she thought it was amazing.)




Going for a swim (after at least one hour, of course). (Yes, and I'm the dangerous parent...)




"Stop looking at me like that. Get yer own cute baby."

Baby Looks Up, Finds Herself Objectified by Cameras

And to get back at us, she will soon start crawling, at which point we will have to store or get rid of all of our small, dangerous possessions.

Going for a Ride...

Good practice for when she starts hopping on the back of the motorcycle.

Hanging out in the Fort

We went down to Fort Smith last week to meet Carissa's cousin Christopher.

Carissa seemed uncertain about the whole ordeal.




But so did Christopher.




I took her aside and told her that Christopher wouldn't bite or give her cooties.




Here we are striking a Civil War era pose.

She thinks she's a big girl already...

For instance, she thinks that she can hold the ba-ba herself...



And she's been trying to worm in on other people's cake. (Nice cake, isn't it!)






She's starting to grab on to anything near...




(Check out those thunder-thighs!)


And she smiles a lot.