Spelling Bee

I love the national spelling bee. It's not even a guilty pleasure, I'm proud of it. I love it. But I feel sooo sorry for the kids who miss those words I've never even heard of. Tonight I got teary eyed when the 2nd place boy missed his. Heartbreaking. That is good TV, though.

So things are good around here. Tariku's rapid understanding of English is borderline freaky. The kid is a genius and I can't even take credit for it, how disappointing. Every morning in the car, "Mom, where are we going?" "Mom can I have a snack now or after night, night?" It's baffling.

I'm somewhat baffled at the genius of my eldest as well (that I can and will take all the credit for, if you're keeping score). He does remarkably well at sounding words out and spelling them. He also loves "reading" books and gets pretty darn close. His memory is astounding, we went somewhere the other day (can't remember where, he obviously gets the memory thing from someone else) and he was talking about a memory that happened when he was just under 3-years-old. It was a story that we don't even talk about but he remembered it. I think he should be in some sort of study for the cutest AND smartest 5-year-old in history.

And Dailah is still hit or miss on the potty. It'd probably help if I bought a small potty chair seat because she's a bit scared of falling in and clutches at me pretty hard. But she loves it when she succeeds (or when she doesn't). I still maintain that she'll be our comedienne. She'll do just about anything to get a laugh and remembers EVERYTHING you laugh at so when you get mad at her she checks her reserves and uses all her cuteness and hilarity on you. It's amazing, I think she gets that from the hubby's side. My humor tends to be something only a mother or husband can love (and that's because they have to or I'll punch 'em) whereas my husband's humor is fairly universal and not 5 minutes can go by with hubby's family without me on the verge of wetting myself in a laughter fit. Zach knows one of the main reasons I married him is because of his family, so we're clear about that.

I love laughing it feels good. You know what else I love? PICTURES!!!!!!!

I love this picture because it's Trysten's genuine smile, which is so hard to get nowadays (who says "nowadays" anymore?)



Doozie enjoying her milk.



The boys and Zach's parents, Frank and Terre.



This was our outing when we took Jody's kids for her on Wednesday so she could get stuff done before they headed off to Sierra Leone. Aren't her boys too cute? I got asked quite a few times if they were all mine (and I have a VERY good feeling they were asking because of Tariku and not the 4 blondes).



Max was VERY protective of Ms. Dailah (he told me he had to practice for his sister Kora) the whole time, she ended up getting pissed off but that's because she's divalicious and it had nothing to do with him.



Seriously. He really is ridiculous.