Hair Cuts

The kids like to pretend that they are giving each other hair cuts. I am careful to leave all scissors well out of their reach, in case they get any funny ideas about real hair cuts. Jessenia will often come up to me and say, "I want to get my hair cuts". It is pretty stinkin' cute. Unfortunately for her I want her hair to grow out so that it will fit in a pony tail. And so that I don't have to deal with those ghastly bangs!
While we were in Snowflake this last weekend we decided to take advantage of Grandpa's mad hair cutting skills and get the kids' hair cut. Reese went first. I wasn't there so I don't have any pictures but apparently it was super traumatizing. He screamed and cried the whole time. When I got there I could tell that he had been crying. He looked good though.
Jessenia wanted to go next. Not only is Grandpa a hair cutting professional he is a 'non-haircutting' genius. He informed me that he has given many a fake haircut in his day. He did an impecable job and Jessenia was thrilled!
Grandpa even left her pigtails in because I didn't want to redo them after the 15 minutes I spent on it that morning. (Kids will believe anything!)
Next up was Brisbane. That's right. Brisbane's first hair cut. He really needed one. He had a mullet. But I still didn't want to do it. Hair cuts are for big kids and Brisbane is still my baby. But the temptation of a free hair cut from Grandpa in a stress free kitchen with Mack there to help won out. So we did it.

Look how cute he is in the little smock. He took it very well. No crying or anything. And Grandpa did a great job!

Mack did have to hold his head because he was a bit squirmy.

He doesn't look too happy in this one.

But in the end he gave Grandpa a big kiss!

His hair looked a lot better and I was glad that we did it. Even if it still makes me a little sad.

Thanks Grandpa, we love you!

Non-Awkward vs. Awkward

Non-Awkward:
Last week we were at the library and while we were checking out there was a man wearing shorts with a prosthetic leg at the self-checkout next to us. The kids might not have noticed him but I could tell he was struggling with the machine so I went over to assist. I could see Reese and Jessenia with their eyes glued to his leg and so I called them back closer to me. Reese immediately asked, "What is on that guy's leg?" I figured the guy wouldn't be embarassed (since he was wearing shorts) and told Reese that it was a prosthetic leg or a fake leg and that some people need to have them. Reese could have gone through a thousand "why's?" at that point but I told him we would talk about it later. When we got to the car I gave a further explanation about why some people need prosthetic legs, he seemed satisfied and we had a totally non-awkward encounter about a potentially sensitive subject.
Akward:
Reese and I are in the frozen section of the grocery store discussing frozen pizza when he catches a glance of a man in our aisle. He asks, "Why does that man not have any pants on?" Of course I immediately spin around to look for the naked man. There was an older gentleman in white running shorts with a semi-longish shirt on. But he was wearing shorts (thank goodness). I hoped that the man didn't hear and tried to explain to Reese that he was wearing shorts. Reese seemed skeptical so I just tried to move on quickly, blushing as I went.

You Break It, You Bought It

We went to visit Mack's parents in Snowflake this last weekend (pictures and stories to come). The suitcase from our trip was sitting open in our bedroom this morning. Jessenia was rummaging through it and found my sunglasses (a bit of an obsession with her). The lens had popped out of them (it happens all the time) and she began asking two thousand questions about it (also very typical). She wanted to know how they had gotten broken and who had done it. We told her that Mommy broke them but we could fix them really easy. She immediately turned to me and said, "If you break it, you don't get another one!" We started cracking up. I tell the kids all the time that if they break something or lose it that they will not get another one. I guess they really are listening to me.

Walking Man

Brisbane is going to be one next month {GIANT tear}. I can't believe he is so big. He is a good crawler, so consequently he does not want to walk. He is also a big fraidy-cat so he keeps a firm grip on objects when standing. A week ago I got him to the point where he would stand up in the middle of the room and then sink to his bottom. Now he just skips the standing and goes straight to the bottom.

He got this awesome train for Christmas. It is a walker and also has a caboose that attaches for him to sit on. His siblings really like it. I really like it too until it is the end of the day and I am sick of the loud song it plays. Recently Brisbane has decided that he will walk behind it. And he is fast! The kids clap and cheer for him when he walks so he thinks he is hot stuff.

Mack really wants Brisbane to walk before he is one. Secretly, I am hoping so as well. It will be so much easier to go to the park and take the kids places when we can all walk. Even if it means three kids walking in different directions.

Mack is motivated by sheer competitiveness. Brisbane is kind of a scrawny guy. Short, skinny. Way below average in weight and height. At 9 months he was in the 14th percetile for weight. But if he starts walking before he is one he will have beaten out all of his little baby friends for Supreme Walker. (That really is a title.) I am not sure he is going to make it and if he doesn't it's ok with me. But we are looking forward to our little boy growing up, even if it does make his mom cry occassionally.

"Look Mom, one hand!"

Shoes

I have a few pairs of shoes. I also have a habit of leaving my few pairs of shoes lying around. (My mother is currently thinking, "Some things never change".) I call the scattered shoes all over my bedroom my 'Shoe Garden'. Eventually I get tired of all of them lying around and I put them away. Mack some times plants shoes in my garden...we are kindred spirits like that.
Occassionally I will leave a pair (or two) in the living room. Ever since Brisbane started chewing on everything this has become increasingly more rare. But the other day Reese and Jessenia found some of my shoes.
They kept walking around saying, "Look! I'm Mom". They were very proud of themselves that they could walk and wear those boats on their feet. So I took a picture.
P.S. I may or may not have had to bribe Reese to give a real smile in this picture instead of that maniacal face we usually get.
Note to Jo (if you are reading this): You will see that Jessenia has that little coin purse Cili gave her clutched in her hand. That thing goes everywhere with her. She keeps this scrap of paper that she got in nursery in it and whips it out and asks me to read it all the time. It says, "Follow the Prophet." "Joseph Smith taught us to read the scriptures." I don't even look at it anymore. Just recite the little saying. Super cute!
Jessenia & Reese LOVE Cili!

Dirt

As a mother I spend a lot of time shaking my head as my children do something I know is a bad idea. Usually they either also find out that it was a bad idea or have a lot of fun doing it and we all have to clean it up together.
I also need to admit that I am kind of a scardy-cat. I am afraid of lots of things. Just ask Mack. We can't even pray with the lights off because I am afraid of whatever might be under the bed (i.e. alligators). Some of my fears are pretty irrational (which I am sure you figured out while reading the previous sentence). I found out yesterday that I am afraid of dirt. I had the older kids play outside while Brisbane was taking his morning nap. I was inside working and I look out to see this....
my darling children (and Zippy) playing in the dirt. My skin started to crawl. The thought of the dirt on their pants and underneath their fingernails made me squirm. Worst of all, that dirt was on the palms of their hands. That makes me want to run and wash mine just thinking about it. {shudder}
But instead of telling the two cuties that they should not play in the dirt (you are probably thinking what else are they supposed to do in the back-dirt) I just let them get all good and dirtified. Aren't you proud of me?
They were so dirty that when Jessenia got a time out for throwing one of the lovely tennis ball cans at her brother's head I wouldn't even let her sit on the carpet. She had to sit on the tile, far enough from any walls that she wouldn't touch them.
When back-dirt time was over, we took a bath. It was very therapeutic...at least for me.
So I guess I am still afraid. But if the kids aren't and they like dirt, might as well enjoy it. I think I probably liked playing in dirt at one point too. Gross!

The One Constant Through All The Years...

has been baseball!
Pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training this last weekend. If you know me, which you should, you will know that I am a baseball fanatic. I now have kids. These kids must be fanatics as well. My father is coming in a couple of weeks and we are taking the kids to their first game to start early indoctrination. We are already three years behind on Reese and two years for Jessenia. Brisbane watched his first game on the computer at one week old!
A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, Jessenia told me that her favorite sport is baseball. Love her. And that was before formal indoctrination began.
I bought the kids a little T-ball/pitching machine so that we could burn off some energy in the back-dirt (it is not a back-yard, as you can see from the pictures). Plus I thought it was cool. :)
So I took the kids outside and after some initial rules we were free swinging.

Look at that kids form! We don't have much raw talent in the batting department. The kid does have a killer arm though. He's a lefty so I have hope for him.

Jessenia sure was cute. She actually missed the ball on most of her swings and then made contact on the backswing. It was awesome.

Let's be honest, they are two and three. We have lots of time to train them up for the majors.

Then Jessenia decided that she was a better spectator than a player (smart decision...she was right). She sat on that chair in the doorway and cheered Reese on every time he hit the ball. It was super adorable. I wish I could have got the video camera fast enough to capture her clapping away for her big brother.

Then Reese returned the favor. Too cute!

Sidenote: The title of this blog is from my favorite movie of all time...Field of Dreams. If you knew that, you just earned some major bonus points in my book.

My 3-year Old Can Read! How 'Bout Yours?

We like to read at our house. We go to the library each week. We check out as many books as we are allowed. The kids and I really like going to the library. Last time we were there we saw a whole flock of peacocks. We have A LOT of children's books at our house. I was a teacher in a former life so it comes with the territory. But we like to go and get new ones to add variety to our lives. Let me rephrase that.... I, MOM, like to get new ones. The kids could read the same book over and over and over and over again. In fact, we have to have a rule that we must read every library book we got before we do repeats. (Mom's rule...not Dad's...he doesn't care)
At the library the children have interesting methods of selecting books. Jessenia selects all books that have pink binding (did I mention girly-girl?) and Reese tries to find all of the ones with trains on the cover. Although this last time he selected five books in mass, all sitting together on the first shelf he saw. And then immediately asked me if we could go look at the movies. Grrr.... we are looking at movies first next time so that I don't end up with a bunch of really long books, with lots of words, that were written eighty years ago, with terrible illustrations, about sailors.
This last week we were checking out some books and I selected Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. illustrated by Eric Carle. It's a classic, if you are like my husband and have never read it. Run to your nearest library!
When I was in college and was learning about teaching children to read one of my professors told us that even little children who don't read words can read. She used Brown Bear, Brown Bear as an example. She said that kids will look at the pictures and be able to follow the pattern of the story and 'read' (aka memorize with the help of the pictures) the book. No kidding, I read the book to the kids one time and soon enough Reese was sitting on the sofa 'reading' it again. (For those who have never read the book. It says the same thing on each page but with reference to a different animal and it's color.) He asked me the next day if I would read it to him and I told him no, but that he could read it to me.
In other reading news, the kids have Quiet Time every day in the afternoon. Quiet Time consists of Brisbane napping, Reese sitting on my bed and playing with puzzles, books, coloring, but not coming out to chat me up, and Jessenia attempting to do what Reese gets to do (but in her room) and eventually falling asleep. The older kids always pick two library books to take to Quiet Time. The other day Reese chose this really obnoxious train book that has no plot and repeats the same thing over and over and is ridiculous. I think it is nonfiction but what it really is is LAME. I digress. He took the lame train book with him and a few minutes later I heard him in his room saying "clickity-clack" and "choo-choo". He was pretty into it. And it was adorable.
What can I say? My three year old is a reader!

Valentine's Day

We tried to make Valentine's Day really fun this year. This was our first big holiday with the kids and so we wanted it to be special. Mack and I are not huge Valentine's Day people but we usually try to get each other a card and Mack gets me flowers...always. This year I got chocolate covered strawberries...YUMMY!

So for breakfast we had toast and honey shaped like hearts. The kids love toast and honey and I don't do it that often so it was a real treat. I also put red food coloring in their milk so that they had 'pink milk'. I was too cheap to buy strawberry syrup.
After breakfast we did a scavenger hunt so the kids could find their Valentine's goodies. I hid heart shape clues in some places I knew they could find.
Under the kitchen table...

In the bathtub.... (this was a little tricky since we have two tubs. Reese looked in both & couldn't find it. But Jessenia was on top of it.)

The goodies were hidden in the laundry room. Look at that face!

They got a pretty good haul between their parents and grandparents. We have never given them candy before (Mack's parents brought them some once) and so I wasn't sure what we were getting ourselves into. I had to pace them. They would have had it all consumed in moments if they didn't need us to open the wrappers. We tried to get them some non-candy items: goldfish, fruit snacks, Sesame Street bags, valentine's to color, etc. (P.S. Love the dollar spot at Target)

They were of course most excited about the candy. Look at Reese trying to get those Twix open as fast as he can!

Jessenia loves that Elmo bag. She carries it around and has even made up a song about it that she sings over and over and over and over and over.

Brisbane liked his goodies too. He was perfectly happy to eat his paper bag. Mom and Dad were grateful for the candy that Grandma and Grandpa sent for {clears throat} Brisbane.

This is what really tired parents look like who stayed up late studying for Medical School and decorating the kitchen and living room.

During Brisbane's nap time, the other kids and I made mosaic owls with stickers. I thought the kids would love it because they are obsessed with stickers. They really liked it but the stickers were a little hard for them. They lost a lot of them and so we have two incomplete owls, which are adorable. I also found several in Brisbane's mouth.

Then in the afternoon we did a colored heart sort. I cut out tons of construction paper hearts and glued different colors into a muffin tin. The kids had to sort the hearts into the muffin tin based on color. It held their attention for a little while.

We got this activity out a couple days later and they had a lot more fun the second time. Totally worth cutting out all those hearts!

We had heart shaped sandwiches for lunch (nothing too exciting).

Then for dinner we had normal non-heart shaped food, but we had birthday cake! February 14th is Arizona's birthday and this year our dear old state happened to be turning 100. So we had birthday cake (red velvet) with hearts on it. Not my best work but Mack wasn't home all day and we were rushed.

We sang Happy Birthday and enjoyed some yummy cake!

It was a fun first holiday with lots of love. The best part about the day was that we did not have any major meltdowns or tantrums. In fact my two year old made it the whole day without a time out (that does NOT happen).

I also learned that on Valentine's Day kids get to eat a lot of heart shaped food and parents get to eat a lot of the edge (or leftover) from the food getting cut into a heart. Yummy Yummy!

Bonding

We decided to have some bonding time with the kiddos. Mack took Reese to mutual Wednesday night and I kept Jessenia and Brisbane at home. Jessenia is a totaly girly-girl and unfortunately has me for a mother. So I dug down deep and painted her nails. She choose the girliest purple color that I had (although as soon as I was done asked if they could be black...uh...no). We read some stories together and after they were dry she wanted to show them off.

Adorable.

We had a fun night. Jessenia wanted to take some pictures so I let her take a shot of Brisbane (and Zippy).
I sure do love my sweet Jessenia, girly-girl and all.

The best part about the nail painting though was the next day when I took the kids to counseling. Reese told EVERYONE about his sister's nails being painted. He told the people in the waiting room, he told the ladies in the elevator with us, and of course he told the counselor. It was pretty cute.

Former Life

Two Fridays ago we were at the park eating lunch with Mack. I was sitting with Brisbane at the picnic table and Mack was playing with the kids on the swings. I saw some young girl go over and start talking to Mack. Well I know that Mack has game with the younger ladies (since he snagged yours truly) so I had to go and stake my claim. When I got there I found out that she was the former foster 'sister' of Reese and Jessenia. She was there with another little girl that her parents are fostering. She recognized Reese and asked Mack to confirm that he was who she thought he was. She asked if she could give the kids hugs and we chatted for a bit. It was a totally random experience and not at all something that I was expecting.
I have thought about it a lot since then. We have now had the kids for four weeks. In a strange way it seems like they just arrived (since I still have no clue what I am doing) but also feels as if they have lived with us forever. It is strange to think about what their life was like before they knew us. You can tell that they have struggled with moving around a lot and being passed from family to family. They will often ask me when we are going somewhere, "Are you staying with us?" They don't want me to just drop them off and leave them. It is sad every time they ask.
I look forward to the day when they finally realize that they are stuck with us forever. Even more I look forward to having them sealed to use for eternity. We love our little kids so much. Even on the hard days.

Update

Brisbane was 'cooking' last night while we were eating dinner. Jessenia was the one that noticed this time. I then asked the kids what he was making. Reese said, "Salad and chicken nuggets". Hmm... that's what we were eating at the time. I am a little worried about this. I am the one doing all the work and Brisbane is getting all of the credit.

I better get locks on those cabinets soon!

Chef Brisbane

I knew this day was coming, but I wasn't prepared for it. Yesterday Brisbane figured out that he can open the kitchen cupboards. I have actually been surprised that he hasn't figured it out before since the kitchen (i.e. dishwasher) is one of his favorite places in the house. The other kids were eating lunch when we saw this...

Reese says to me, "Look Mom, Brisbane's cooking!"

It was too adorable. We then had a lengthy conversation about all of the delicious foods that Brisbane was going to make us for dinner. Reese may have convinced Brisane to make chicken noodle soup.

You never know, he might become quite the chef when he is older. I wouldn't mind if he wanted to take over cooking duties from here on out.

Family Portraits

When Mack and I first got married we wanted to have family pictures taken every year. Well, we were married in October of 2008 and we had our first family pictures taken in January of 2012. Needless to say, we failed at that goal. But now that we have cute kids to make the pictures look nice we thought we would give it a go. Plus we bought a Groupon to force ourselves to do it. So on the last day before the Groupon expired, five days after we obtained custody of Reese and Jessenia, we went and got family pictures taken.
It was an adventure and a half. A three year old, a two year old, and a ten month old make for some entertaining picture taking. It was hard to get the kids all to smile, much less at the same time. The poor girl that took our pictures sure earned her money. After we were done Mack asked me if I selected the pictures that made him look the slimmest. I told him that I didn't even look at the two of us because in general we were smiling and looking at the camera in all of them. I had to lower my expectations of smiles from everyone and just go with ones where we were all looking at the camera. We only have one of the pictures in digital form so here it is.

Not too bad, eh? I think all of the kids look really sweet. Brisbane had a fever and looks ghost white pale. He is even making Mack and I look tan (so not the case). You should see the ones that didn't make the cut. They had to eventually put Brisbane in a box for the children only pictures because the other two couldn't control them. Can't wait until they are all a year older so we can do it again.

Maybe we will have four kids by then! Just Kidding!

You've Got Mail

After naps we always take a walk to go check the mail. It gives the kids a chance to run around and kills about 20 minutes in the afternoon before dinner. Yes, it takes about that long to walk 100 yards to the mailbox. Last week each of the kids recieved a card from Grandma. I couldn't resist letting them open them right away, even though I knew it was their Valentines.

Jessenia LOVED that her card had a mirror. In fact, Reese also loved that her card had a mirror. Let the contention begin.

Reese loved that his card had a truck on it. But more importantly, he was ecstatic about the Lightning McQueen stamp on the outside. He walked around with that envelope for days. I found out later from my mom that she put that stamp on just for him, even though it was already a prepaid envelope. Looks like that forty-something cents was totally worth it to this 3 year old.

I realize that with my whiz-bang camera it is hard to see the look of utter joy on that child's face as he waves two dollars in the air, but trust me, it is there. Each of the children got two dollars that we are going to use to go get ice cream after Daddy is done with finals. I of course immediately confiscated their money (they were not happy) and they like to point at it, stuck up on the fridge.

Brisbane mostly just liked the envelope. He also took a bite out of the card. Brisbane is on a steady diet these days of paper. He is not a respector of paper but eats all kinds. It is a constant struggle.

And the looks on those kids faces are those of absolute envy. Brisbane's card had Snoopy stickers in it. So even though Jessenia had the mirror and Reese had the truck and Lightning McQueen, they both immediately coveted Brisbane's stickers.

Addendum

I cannot believe I forgot to include this little gem about reading the Book of Mormon each night. Reese refers to it as The Book About Mormon. Or yesterday he was calling it The Broken Mormon. He is going to be pretty excited when we get the part that really is ABOUT Mormon.

Church

The kids really like going to church. They attended church with their previous foster families and so they are used to it. They used to ask every day if we were going to church. They have now realized that they don't need to ask, we only go once a week. Jessenia has never been fazed by going to nursery. She was a little ticked their first Sunday when I went in to sing with the kids (I am the Primary Chorister) and wouldn't hold her the whole time. Reese on the other hand does freak out a bit when left in Sunbeams. Mack had to sit with him the whole time his first week. Last Sunday he cried in the very beginning (which all of the Sunbeams were doing since it is still the beginning of the year) and then stopped after Mack left. Reese sat next to a member of the Primary Presidency in Sharing/Singing Time. She told me after that while I was teaching he kept poking her and whispering, "That's my mom". Oh dear, makes me want to cry. I love these kids!
They (meaning Reese) also love to read the Book of Mormon each night. I am amazed at how much of the story he remembers the next night. We read an old illustrated Book of Mormon from my childhood and Reese always wants us to point out where the Lamanites are in any picture they are mentioned. It's awesome.
We took some pictures before church last Sunday. I love this first one. It reminds me of a picture of David and I when we were little. He was holding me because I was crying. David loved me even when we were little. Just like you can tell that Reese is a good big brother and loves his little sister.
This is a terrible picture of me (part of my inspiration to stop straightening my hair...it is too long now) but Reese is so adorable I had to include it.

LOVE this picture of Daddy and his little girl.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I spend a significant amount of time each day breaking up fights. Hey, that's the business when you have multiple toddlers. Multiple toddlers who all miraculously want the same toy (or bucket, or container, or piece of dental floss) at the same exact moment. Even when mere moments before they were both totally engrossed in completely seperate things. Or my favorite, they need to have eight possible toys laying all around them so that in case their sibling decides they are interested in the one that they had their back to, they can immediately claim, "Mom! I was playing with that! He/She took it from me!" Oh the drama.

So today I took Jessenia to the store. This was the first time that I had taken only one children for some special time with just Mommy. Mauricio took it well that he didn't get to come along. We had fun shopping (well, as fun as shopping can be) and when we got home the kids immediately ran to each other and gave each other a great big hug. It was pretty adorable. And it made me think, "Huh, they really do like each other. How sweet."

Then they started arguing over the Disney Dominoes strewn all over the floor at their feet. And just like that. The moment was gone.

We're Twins!

I had another post planned for today, but these pictures are too good not to share immediately. Plus I have recieved inquiries about when Zippy will make her first appearance on the blog, and here she is, in all her glory.

So the kids are still going strong selecting their own clothes and getting themselves dressed. Reese found a Cars themed shirt in his bin (it has one of the cars from the original movie on it but since I have never seen the movie, I am not sure). He was super excited about it. Then he realized that Brisbane was also wearing a shirt with a truck on it and he became ECSTATIC!

So this is how these pictures came to be...

Reese: "Jessenia, Brisbane and I both have trucks on our shirts and you don't!"

Mom: "Reese, be nice."

Reese: "Ok. Jessenia, Brisbane and I both have trucks on our shirts!" [jumping up and down]

Mom: "Should we take a picture?"
Reese: "YEAH!"

[Mom goes to get camera]

[Reese goes to get Brisbane]

[Zippy makes brief appearance to sniff children]

Reese: "Look Mom, he is sitting on my lap."

Mom: "Be gentle Reese." "Smile!"

The above picture SLAYS me. It looks as if Reese has the most evil maniacal face while he is intentionally trying to strangle his little brother. But that is just the face he makes when we tell him to smile for the camera (Ugh!) and that is just him loving his little brother.

Mom: "Reese, I don't think he likes it, let's try one standing up."

Mom: "No, really Reese. Let go, he doesn't like it."

[After several failed attempts at getting Brisbane to stand, Reese agrees that he can sit so we can get the full effect of the truck shirts.]

Mom: "Smile Reese!"

[Zippy makes another appearance to lick the leftover breakfast from hands.]

Mom: "Go Away Zippy!"

And then we got a semi-decent shot. It could do with being cropped so that we don't see Zip walking out of the frame. But there are my two handsome boys in their truck shirts. And those are the kinds of things that we get excited about around here!

"Mom, Can We Stop Now?"

These are the first pictures that I took of Reese and Jessenia, so they are from a couple of weeks ago. We try to do some sort of "structured" play everyday, it doesn't always happen, but we try. This day we did Shaving Cream Art. The kids put on some of Mack's old T-Shirts (I was secretly hoping they would ruin them. Don't get me started on Mack advertising for companies that have laid him off, by walking around in their shirts half the days of the week). Don't they look cute?


Then I put shaving cream on a jelly roll pan and let the kids go at it.
I thought they would love getting their hands dirty and playing around with the shaving cream. Don't they look like happy kids?

Let's just say that Reese is doing a really good job of faking it for the picture. About two minutes in, he asked if he could wash his hands (must take after his Uncle Paul). This is the same kid who tells me several times a day that Brisbane is "putting his slobber on it". He doesn't handle yucky well. I should have known.

Jessenia had a pretty good time though. Please ignore her hair. I am ashamed to admit that I did create the awesome side pony tail look that she is sporting. Like I said, some of the first pictures. Which means some of the first days of me doing hair. If you know me, you know that I am clueless as to maintaining my own appearance so it is only appropriate that I am equally abysmal at my daughter's looks. I digress...

"I am smiling, but this is gross!"