T.Q. Beauty

Its been a long time

jsomera — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:11:50 +0000

Since I have become a member of Facebook I have neglected this site. Most everyone I know who visits this site now is my friend on facebook. I have been trying to find a reason to continue this site and have really only landed on two good ones. 1. People really like to view and read this (if this is true I would love to hear from you). 2. You can express more than just a quick one liner on Facebook. The second one has been very interesting to me. Since Lauren has come home I have no longer worked and am officially a “housewife’. Whatever that really means. As a result of this I feel I have neglected my creative side. I used to write everyday and I not only wrote curriculum but was a ghost writer for books, articles and many other learning products. I think maybe I should not use this blog as an outlet (possibly start a new site) but should utilize it to catalogue Lauren’s life. Just thinking (or typing) out loud!

One year as a family

jsomera — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:07:17 +0000

One year ago today we held our beautiful little girl in our arms for the first time. In some ways it seems like it was a lifetime ago and in some ways it is hard to believe it has been one whole year. So what did we do for our family day? We flew to North Carolina and celebrated it with 4 of the 7 families who all got our precious baby girls on 10/6. I can not explain how amazing it was to wake up this morning and see 4 little beauties running around the kitchen. We are so blessed to have our Lauren and feel like the luckiest people in the world to get to be her mom and dad.

I unfortunately do not have a picture on this computer from last year to compare…….but here are some from today.

The connection here is not great so I will post more pics when we get home.

Happy Birthday Megan!

jsomera — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:56:41 +0000

Today my Megan turned 14 years old! It is really hard for me to believe. Megan is such a good big sister to Lauren and a wonderful daughter. So when Megan asked me if we could bake her cake this year, I said “sure no problem”.

I will start by saying I am a master griller. Give me the BBQ and I guarantee I will cook you a masterpiece. Give me a baking pan and I guarantee a disaster!! Well that is pretty much what happened. I thought we will make a 3 tier round cake…..can’t be that hard, right? NOT! I sorta burnt one of the cakes and in an attempt to save it, I just cut off the ends where it was a little too brown. No big deal…..cake saved, whew! Ok, so then I begin stacking them, adding a thick layer of cream cheese frosting between each layer. When we got to the top Megan says to me “it looks like a big hamburger”. That can’t be right? Then the entire care starts to slide. Not sure what to do I stuck two chop sticks down the middle to hold it together (Thanks Panda Express!). Now what! Megan says hey now it looks like an alien! Oh my gosh!!! Help!

In the end after some creative (ok, maybe not so creative) doctoring. Here is the final cake! Hold back the laughs please!!!!

Thank God Megan has a really great sense of humor and is completely happy that she has a unique and odd birthday cake. Of course, I personally can’t wait to hear all the ridicule from the family tonight! I sure hope it tastes a lot better than it looks!

20 month old update (a week late)

jsomera — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:00:05 +0000

Lauren turned 20 months last week and I did not get a chance to update. Here is what our baby girl is doing!

I do not have any pictures today because I dropped my memory card off yesterday to print up everything. I promise some by the end of the week. Sorry!

Words that Lauren can “sign”

Momma

Dada

Eat

Drink

Baby

Hug

Cup

Ball

Bowl

Banana

Shoes

Socks

All done

Milk

Down

Book

Blanket

Asleep

Play

Fish

Drive

working on

I love you (she has the concept just cant get all the little fingers up)

Roll (this one she knows but needs work on getting her hands placed correctly)

We try to learn one new sign each week and work on it all during the week. She catches on so quickly.

She also puts words together like if she wants another book she will say more book. A few days ago she had a picture book open and she was signing the pictures she was seeing. It was soooo cute.

If you ask her what her favorite color is she will reply “yellow”. Very cute!

She will also say purple if you ask but does not recognize this one by color yet.

She is repeating just about everything, but it is not always understandable.

Words she does say that you can understand:

Yellow, obviously

Momma

Dadda

Bye bye, with the pageant wave of course. In fact whenever a car is driving down our road she will stop fact the street and with a do the beauty pageant wave. It’s so cute. She knows she is a princess

Bread

Here you go – Still sounds a little like ear dough

Bath

Bike (but its pronounced “bye-ka) Any time she sees a bike she stars yelling bye-ka.

Elbow

Low-Low (Lauren)

She says many other words but only those closest to her really can understand.

My ultimate favorite thing she does is when her daddy’s cell phone rings she puts her hand to her head and says “hi”. Then once he starts talking she starts saying “blah, blah, blah, blah”. This goes on until he hangs up the phone! It is a knee slapper! And she thinks anything and everything is a phone ( a shoe, a brush, a calculator) you name it.

She knows pretty much every body part including our favorite “arm pit”. This one gets everyone laughing. Most kids know there nose, tongue, etc, but our Lauren of course knows her “arm pit”.

She is also amazingly musical. She will sit at the piano and try to play it, not pound it, but play it. She loves to play the drums and gets a little wild with the drumsticks. She will stand at the drums (the ones from the rockband game) and get her whole body involved. This past weekend we were at our restaurant and the band was playing. She pulled out a chair from the table and started pounding it like a drum. The whole place melted. A star is born!

A few other fun facts……. She is left handed (like her daddy), she does not care for chocolate (what!?!), and loves to be dripping in jewelry.

We leave for the east coast next week. Hopefully my next update will be of Lauren and the family in DC.

Ready for fall

jsomera — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:46:03 +0000

I am so very excited that fall is right around the corner. We are tired of melting!! We are heading to the coast this weekend to escape the heat. Last time we took Lauren to the beach was in April. She was scared to death of the sand. Would not touch it and would cry if we tried to put her down. I am hoping this time will be better. I am not holding my breath though. Lauren does NOT like to be dirty. If we are outside or at the park she gets so upset when dirt gets onto her hands. She is so girlie. I guess we will soon find out!

Getting bigger

jsomera — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:22:26 +0000

Wow we had such a fun and busy summer. I am sad to say my camera took a dump and I not only lost a bunch of photos but I also did not have one for a while to take new ones! But I am back up and in business. Lauren has grown so much over the past couple of months. She is starting to talk alot now (of course we are really the only ones that understand her most of the time). She is signing very well and it helps so much when communicating with a toddler. I will also admit she has gotten a bit ornery and the volume level has gone up right along with it. All in all though she is still my mild mannered little princess. Ok…so here are the photos everyone has been waiting for. **Don’t forget to double click on the photo to make it bigger**

16 Months Old!!!!!

jsomera — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:33:07 +0000

Yesterday Lauren turned 16 months old.

So what does a 16 month old do?

Lauren will now hand you something and say “here you go”. However, it sounds more like “ear dough”.

She can put on and take off her own shoes

She can sign about 8 different things…..but she sometimes gets “drink” and “all done” mixed up. Very cute!

She says nana when she sees my mom but it is very high pitched with an emphasis on the second “na”

She meows like the cat

Will show you her muscles and in a deep voice say “arrggghh”

And best of all….her hair will now fit in piggy tails… Ok, as you can see from the pictures below that one is a bit of a stretch but give me something…the girl is half bald!!!

: ignore the toes!!! ha!

Mothers Day

jsomera — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:45:11 +0000

Yesterday was truly the best Mothers Day I have ever had. Our church had a group of children from Uganda singing during service. All the children ranged from about 8 years old to 12 years old. They were all orphans from the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa and were touring the US with a missions group. A couple of them shared their stories and it was heartbreaking. However, they had all found love and peace through GOD. At the end of the service we signed up to sponsor a child through World Hope. It was an awesome way to start the day.

We then spent the afternoon at my sister in-laws enjoying a wonderful meal and spending time with the family. There are some amazing Mothers in my life. Not only my own, who is responsible for everything I am today, but also my mother in-law and my sister in-law. They are two of the best examples of what a mother should be.

There has been a lot to be thankful for this last year. But I am always most thankful for my children. They are the loves of my life and the light in my heart. I am blessed!

My 3 girls!

Warning!!

jsomera — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:18:51 +0000

These pictures are sooooo cute they may cause a permanent smile on your face! Ok, I may be a little biased….but DANG this girl is cute!!

View at your own risk!

: I get anything I want!

Fun in the sun!

jsomera — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:48:15 +0000

The weather has been so warm here and Lauren has loved playing outside everyday. She is already a California girl!

whheeeeee!

Love my new jungle gym

coming down!

I love bean burritos!!

Thinking of getting into trouble!

I have something to say

Do I fit in here?