Tuesday & Dinner with Lee

Here are Leia Rose and Annie watching me get ready for the day (again). I don't know why, but this activity always makes for some cute pictures of the girls whether they are posing for the picture (with Annie in the middle of a clap) . . .

. . . or whether they are just fooling around.

Speaking of clapping, that's Annie's favorite activity these days. I have just instituted Patty Cake as one of our official games and, I'll admit, she looks at me like I'm crazy every time I do it. Still, it's fun to see her clap along. And now for the crawling update:

Nope, Annie's not crawling yet, but she is up on her knees and has advanced a bit beyond yesterday in that she's up, then flops forward. Up, flops forward. Up, flops forward. Then she rocks, rocks, rocks. She'll get it soon, I'm sure. Maybe tomorrow.

Another big activity for Leia Rose today was to do her first real pen pal letter/picture to her friend Yukino in Japan. Leia Rose spent such a long time drawing with markers, . . . it may be the longest she has ever spent on one drawing. Anyway, as you can guess, she wanted to draw dinosaurs, so here she is with all of her dinosaur figures in front of her as evidence that, at one point, she was trying to figure out how to draw particular dinosaurs.

Isn't this a fabulous picture? She began with a field full of roses under a blue sunny sky. Then she added (from left to right) a triceratops (see the frill and three horns?), a parasauralophus (see him standing on two legs with is pointed crest?), a raptor (you can't see his teeth because "his mouth is closed"), and of course a tyrannosaurus rex (note the huge jaws).

On the back she drew a brachiosaurus in a lake, complete with long neck. She also made a great attempt at writing "To Yukino Love, Leia Rose." But, as you can see, it ended up looking like ToYwhinoLELiOVEARorz. It's so much more special when she does it on her very own, you know?

Yukino and Hiroko, if you're reading the blog tonight, just know that we miss you! Hope you are enjoying Japan! We can't wait to hear all about it! We will send Yukino's picture tomorrow (8/15) so we'll see exactly how long it takes to get to Japan. (Don't look too close at the pictures so they can still be a surprise.)

The latter part of the day we spent in preparation for a old friend to come to dinner. His name is Lee Ringer, and he was Uncle Alan's good friend in high school, so he's from Newberry just like Brian. Here's a picture of Lee from the web. You see, he's kind of a local celebrity in that he's the local meteorologist with News 14 Carolina, so lots of people know his face. We were excited to get together and talk about Newberry, . . . and the weather. (Ha!)

Leia Rose helped prepare by harvesting chives from our garden so I could make a special dip for chips (as an appetizer).

And here's Leia Rose entertaining our guest before dinner. We all had a great time! Lee, we'll see you again soon, I'm sure!