Shenaniquin in the Kitchen

Naturally, Jim saw the counter and sink installation as a shenaniquin photo op.

Kitchen should be finished soon, and I can't wait.  For the most part, I think it's very pretty.  (Most others are confused, however.  "You're so brave to stain the cabinets on site!"  "So the cabinets aren't finished yet?"  Yep, folks, we're leaving them natural.  They are finished.)  The bad news is we've found about 20 things we're not happy with - bluish lights that make it seem like a lab out of a horror movie, dings, plywood hanging down below the counter, etc.  We're hoping they can fix some of those problems.  I also realized yesterday when I used the new microwave for the first time that we put it too high in the cabinet.  I'm barely tall enough to use it, and I'm not tall enough to clean it.  I am really, really, really sad about that.  Live and learn.  I'll post pictures when the kitchen's done.

Reno

We went to Reno the weekend before last to visit with Rob, Anna, their kiddies, and Court (who flew in from DC).  It was our first trip with the Wee.  She was pretty much a dream traveler, although we did have to take a lot of stuff along for her.  We'll have to get used to paying to check baggage. 

We arrived on Friday night.  Rob and Anna's house is a quick jaunt from the airport and is located in a really neat spot in the foothills.  We loved looking out the guest room(/office) window down on the city lights. 

Saturday, Ann Marie was kind enough to watch the Wee in the morning so I could ski.  Dawn and Ed Flinn, Jim's sister and brother-in-law, made the 2 1/2-hour trek from Yuba City to join us.  Rob, Lu, Tucker, the Flinns, Jim, and I had a leisurely morning skiing at Mt. Rose, while Clara took a ski class (we thought).  Turns out that shortly after they started, Clarice decided she was done.  She sat in the lodge until class was over.  Of course, she regretted that decision when everyone went out to ski after lunch and she couldn't join them.  Anna brought Anders and Ever up around noon, after Anders finished a scouting activity.  We got to introduce the Flinns to Ever, and then Anna, Clara, and I headed home while the keiki, Jim, and Rob got in a little more time on the slopes.  Court spent the day with her best friend from home, Kadie, who drove in with her fam from Oregon, but joined us for a delicious dinner that night at the best-named Chinese restaurant in America - 168 Chinese Restaurant. 

Sunday after church, Rob, Anna, and Court went on a long walk, while Jim and I stayed home with the keiki.  We had a wonderful Brazilian dinner courtesy of Ann Marie. 

(Brazilian food not featured.  Photo by Court.)

Court held an Everdeen photo shoot. 

This girl is in love with Jim: 

They are very cute together.  Sunday afternoon, he read to her out of his medical journal in a very animated, I'm-reading-a-kid's-book voice.  It took me some time to realize what he was reading.  (Sodium levels?  Heart failure?)  That night, she asked him to read her Barbie book to her.  He read it for a while.  And then he sang it.  Man, what a song!  Loud, confident, and verging on operatic, although not necessarily melodic.  He'd repeat lines so Clara could sign along, too.  "It shimmers!  It sparkles!  It shimmers!  It sparkles!"  She was jumping and dancing on the bed as he sang.  I tried to join in sometimes to spice things up.  (Not that they needed spicing.)  Court videotaped a small portion of it.  I'd post that if I had it. 

Monday we tried to go to Tahoe but turned around because of snow on the road.  We ended up doing a beautiful little winter-wonderland walk, where sleeping Everdeen posed for a multitude of shenaniquin pictures. 

  

 

With her hair smushed down from her Christmas beanie and no pink in sight, Ever looked like a little boy on the way home.

Court left super early Tuesday morning.  Rob, Anna, Clara, Jim, Ever, and I headed up to Tahoe after Clarice's gymnastics class.  Tahoe was gorgeous, and Ever did a lot more shenaniquining.  She was extremely unhappy at first.

 

(Do I not look exactly like Cornyee in this picture?)

  

Then Clarice, who was also having a rough morning, got in on the action - involuntarily, of course.

We thought it was pretty funny.  The little ones did not.  They were both screaming.

It took a long time to get a proper shenaniquin picture of Everdeen on this boulder.  She was asleep by this point and kept falling from one side to the other.

We finally got this one.  Jim is proud because he's barely visible. 

She's very cooperative when she's sleeping.

This place is beautiful.  We hope to spend lots more time here.



 

Catching Up to Reno

This post will consist of random photos of Everdeen to catch us up to our trip to Reno last weekend.

First:  (Not-So-)Exotic Locale Photo Shoot No. 2.  By way of explanation, Jim and Sam, while on a surf trip, came up with this idea of freaking out Tatum and me by placing mannequins around the house as though they were human.  For instance, I'd go downstairs one night to get a drink in the kitchen, and I'd see a mannequin peering in the kitchen window.  Or I'd go in to take a shower, and there would be a mannequin on the toilet reading a newspaper.  Or I'd go downstairs in the morning, and there would be a mannequin holding a cup of coffee at the breakfast table, or out on the lanai smoking a cigarette, or hanging from the ceiling.  You get the idea.  Sam and Jim went back and forth, building off each other, and the whole thing escalated until they really believed they could make money off this thing.  (I kind of did too, actually.  It's so weird that it just might work.)  Jim came up with a GENIUS name:  Shenaniquins.  Mannequins engaging in shenanigans.  They discussed creating a blog or website of some sort where they would post a daily picture of a Shenaniquin.  People would check the website every morning when they got to work and be like, "Hey, did you see what the Shenaniquin did today?"  And eventually a Shenaniquin movie would be made, wherein the Shenaniquins would take over the world, and Jim and Sam would quit their day jobs.  So Jim's obsession with putting Ever in weird places and making it look as if she got there by herself is sort of inspired by the Shenaniquins. 

With that background, here are the Shenaniquin shots of Everdeen in our bedroom, taken right after her bath (and hence with her hair in full bloom): 

Happy on the headboard.

The T.V.

The random end table that is in our room because it has no place else to be and because we needed surfaces upon which to place baby junk.

The decorative vase.

Then there's Dean (thank you, Cornyee, for that nickname) just being Dean.  I was going to say this is after our first successful day at church with the Wee, but it wasn't really very successful.  Jim was rounding at the hospital that day.  Dean and I didn't make it to church until Sunday School had started (we missed sacrament meeting), despite the fact that I started the morning process two hours before church started.  She started fussing about two minutes after I sat down.  I realized she was probably hungry again, so I headed to the mother's room.  She wouldn't really eat and then had a crazy blow-out right before Relief Society, where I had to teach.  I was frantic.  Jim arrived in the nick of time, and I muddled through my lesson, totally out of sorts.  She was pleased with herself:

 
Burp time:

Just a really good hair day:

Sleeping with dad, arm behind head:

Sleeping champion-style:

Just cute:

When her hair is down in the front and then up in the back like this, it reminds me of the "emotional" 'do of an extremely effeminate Asian dude I used to see on the subway in L.A. all the time.  Is that wrong?

She gets major dreadlocks.  I've cut off three so far.