Spring has Sprung! (Among other things)**

Is it April already? We are excited for spring, for Pascha (rain or shine!) and swimming and walking and good weather. Calvin has taken a few weeks off so we'll have Spring Break together, and its been great to have him around in general. I've had days where I haven't washed a dish! Yay!
--Oh--an aside: we're foregoing our big dream of a major remodel because of the economy, but are planning a round of "home-repair" they call it. We're going to get a dishwasher, first and foremost, but then update the wallpaper, countertops, linoleum, and bathrooms. Hooray!

The girls are doing fine, depending on when you talk to me about them. Eliana is trying to talk, she says appropriately: ball, baby, bear, bird (Okay, they all sound like Buh-bu or some variation thereof) uh-oh, achoo (whenever anyone sneezes), Dada, and Deta (for Adessa). Maybe only I understand her, but she's on her way to mini-words! She's also trying to walk, cruising on everything and wanting to hold fingers and hands and be walked around. Part of learning to pull herself up and walk is her irritating habit of finding me wherever I am rooted (washing dishes) and swaying from my pant legs. When I'm wearing my PJs, that means she pantses me. Her big walking milestone coming up means there have been a few nights where I wake up to feel around in bed for her and find her standing up against the wall. It's like wrestling to get her to stop climbing the wall and hold still long enough to fall back to sleep.

Adessa is moving through her emotional life daily, experimenting with all the ranges of cheerfulness, sweetness, sadness, defiance, and disappointment. She has a clear idea of how she wants her juice, which spoon she wants to stir her yogurt with and which spoon she's going to eat it with. This girl loves routines, and we all pay if the spoon she considers essential is dirty at the time its requested. Arg. She has moments of extreme loveliness, with us and with Eliana, which give me much hope, and really, most of the time we have lots of fun with her. I'm just still shocked and blindsided when things seem to be going swimmingly and an unforseen trigger gets her going and going and going. Adessa says funny things, too: "Scrack, Cackle, Pop" for Rice Krispies, and "gralala" for granola. She's saying lots of "the darndest things", her word combos are surprising us all the time, especially when they're our words coming back at us. "Try to concentrate on this music." as she plays Eliana's little piano. "Plan ahead, Mommy!" when I'm getting ready to go to work. "First things, first!" when she lines her shoes up by the door. (Those last two are entirely thanks to Calvin, neither of those phrases have ever graced my lips.)

**Please be advised, some of the following pictures depict an unsavory and upsetting view of what are normally considered innocent hair folicles. Calvin entered a contest at work, much to my very vocal chagrin. The whole cadre of coworkers have taken the month of March to see who can grow the best mustache. I'm sure that Calvin can be very proud of his hair sprouting abilities, and I have been ready all month for him to shave the scratchy thing off. We had an agreement when we married, all vows were nullified by upper-lip-adornment, his or mine. I've allowed this temporary lapse, but be assured that Calvin has heard how I feel about it. I'm told September is Sideburn month, much more palatable. 8)

This is my new most favorite picture ever. You'll be seeing this one again, hopefully a REAL photo, printed and everything, framed in our house. (Why does it seem so hard to do that these days?)


Daddy and previously mentioned facial hair, out on the patio with Eliana.


The mustached man and his family.


Eliana's first bubble beard, kind of like lamb chops on her. Calvin could have gotten away with a bubble-stache.

Adessa is old hat at these bubble adornments, but poses anyway.


Eliana is cruising around, with help from Adessa and her push-walker.