Update

Alli is now sitting up well, and working on learning to crawl. Last week she starting saying DaDa for the first time.

Gabriella came to play

Laura and Gabriella playing harmonica.

Maple Fawn Griffin

Charlie & Kathleen Griffin proudly announce the arrival of our 5th Grandchild
Maple Fawn Griffin
Sunday, Nov. 13, 2005
3:20 PM - 7lbs.10oz. - 20.5" long
Delivery by C-section at the Women's Pavilion, North Port, AL
Mother, Daddy, & Baby doing well!
Maple is beautiful !!!
Rivers & Callie are proud parents!

Sisters

Before

After

First Haircut

Laura got her first haircut! She liked it.

Horseback Ride

Laura, Alli and I went to the Auburn Equestrian Meet. Laura loved watching the horses and didn't want to leave. She got to feed a horse named Blue, and got to ride (be lead around in a circle) a horse named Montana once, and Vinny twice. Her first horse ride I walked beside her, when she got back on the second time she told me I could just stay where I was that she could go by herself. :-)

halloween

Leopards

It just so happened that Laura's first halloween costume when she was a baby was also a leopard. So we dug it out of the attic for Alli, and the girls kinda matched. :-)

Halloween

We had fun at Halloween. Laura decided to be a leopard this year. I found this out because a man at the library saw her princess bike and asked her if she was going to be a princess for halloween. She said, "no, I'm going to be a leopard". And it was decided. I couldn't find a child's leopard costume at the store (and I certainly can't sew well enough to make one) so we got an adults leopard girl costume for her and made do. She still loved it. She dressed up in it every day from the time we bought it until Halloween.

Boo is Dead

Our cat Boo died last night. He was hit by a car crossing the street in front of our house. Chris and the girls were walking to the library when they found him. This is probably the most traumatic event in Laura's life thus far. She cried a lot. Said he was her best friend, and that if we had kept him in the house he would have been safe, and that she wants another grey cat named boo. But all in all she took it well. She wanted to go out with us when we buried him, and she seems to understand pretty well. Periodically she'll say, "Can we talk about Boo?". And then we'll talk about boo, and then she'll get distracted.

We've subsequently decided that we will be keeping Lelah, the kitten we have been caring for.

Meteos Victory

Today, Laura beat her Daddy at a video game. Yes, it's true, she beat him fair and square in a real grown-up video game. It was multi-player meteos for the Nintendo DS. Of course, she did so by randomly moving the blocks around which just happened to work out better than Chris' intended moving the blocks around...the next game she beat Lacey the same way. :-)

CNN.com - Doctors challenge baby feeding myths - Oct 10, 2005

Interesting article on children and their dietary habits. Check it out!

This is Leah, a kitten that needed a temporary Mommy which Laura is now taking care of. She is the daughter of a feral cat who lives outside Lacey's apartment. Yesterday the cathouse that she and her brother were living in was attacked. Only Leah was found, there has been no sign of her brother. So all of Laura's preparation has not been in vain. I suppose you could look at this as a lesson in faith.

If anyone is interested in adopted a kitten, Leah will be available as soon as she is weaned.

Kitten fever

Laura is obsessing lately over wanting to get a kitten to bottle feed. She found a bottle that we used earlier this year for one and now she is preparing just in case another one needs her...she says it is a very important job. We had to clean the bottle before she could go to bed the other night in case a kitten would be here in the morning. She's gotten me (ok I'm a sucker) to go around and look near the feral cat colonies I know of in the area, just in case. She's looked up pictures of baby cats on the internet and printed them off. And yesterday she spastically cleaned the living room so that if we found a kitten there wouldn't be anything it could get into. I've explained to her that most kittens are taken care of by their mother and that that is the best way, but she insist on being ready just in case their is one that needs us.

Laura wrote I love u on this balloon for Alli. 

Laura holding her little sister 

 

There was a little wind earlier today and Laura wanted to try to fly the kite. She had lots of fun with it, though we didn't get the kite very high. 

 

Zebras from the Montgomery zoo...ever since watching the movie "Racing Stripes" Laura has been smitten with zebras. They are her favorite animal of the moment and she cannot understand why we can't have one.  

This is Laura playing Nana's nintendo DS on the car ride home from her visit to Nana and Gramps house. Yes, she is already into video games and has become quite adept with several systems. I used to think it was a bad thing, but maybe in today's world it will give her an edge on technology when she gets older.  

 

 

Full Garb. This is the christening used in Chris's family. It was made by Aunt Sharon, out of material from her own and Mimaw's wedding dress. It is the same christening gown used for Chris when he was a baby.
She is also wearing booties crocheted by my Namaw, socks given to her by Chris' Mimaw, and a necklace given to her by her Uncle Shawn.

Baptism

Alli Kathryn was baptised yesterday at 4:00 pm. The baptism was done at St. Micheal's Catholic Church by Father Todd. The same church and priest as Laura had. The people who attended were (in relation to Alli) Dad, Mom, Nana, Gramps, Granny, Grandpa, Uncle Shawn (her godfather), Uncle Charlie, Aunt Sarah, Mrs. Lacey (her godmother), and Mr. Abel.

Spilled Milk

We usually don't allow open glasses of milk in the living room, but this morning I was sitting in the floor with Laura sharing some milk. Well, I needed to get some reading done before class so I got up and sat on the couch with my book and told Laura she could finish the milk. Well a few minutes later she inevitable spills the milk...she tells me about it by saying, "Mommy, you're not supposed to leave milk on the floor".

Bad Wall

Today Chris and I heard Laura start crying in the hall. We go to check on her and she says her nose is hurting. I ask if it's just sore from rubbing it and she says "no, the wall". So I ask if she ran into the wall, she says an emphatic "no". I ask if the wall ran into her nose, to which she tearfully replies, "yes". This lead of course to the wall getting a stern scolding from Chris :-)

Library Card

Laura now has her very own library card. Which of course she uses just as often as she possibly can. She loves to read.

Roll Over

This past weekend Alli rolled over for the first time all by herself. She was on the floor on her back so no other factors were in play.

Panasonic�s VIERA TH-65PX500 sub 9k 65-inch plasma - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Panasonic�s VIERA TH-65PX500 sub 9k 65-inch plasma - Engadget - www.engadget.com
*drool*

Pirate

This is Alli pretending to be a pirate.

Bandit

This is alli pretending to be a Bandit.

Bonnet

Mrs. Lacey and Alli played dress-up with a cloth diaper and these are the disguises they came up with. To the left is a bonnet.

This is a crab Laura found at the beach, when telling me about it she said she let the other kids on the beach look at it before she let it go. She was very excited. 

Laura fishing at the beach 

Laura singing karaoke at Nana's house. 

Alli's Two Month Checkup

Took Alli to the Doctor today for her two month checkup. While we were their the Doctor saw Laura as well. Alli weighed 11lbs 1.5oz and was 24 1/4" tall. Laura was 30 lbs and was 39 3/4 " tall. Both girls are healthy.

Alli Kat

This is Laura trying to prove she can step on herself.

blinky is the orange platy, poke is the poke-a-dotted puffer, if you look closely you can see kunkun behind pokes tail, and of course snail is easily recognizable.



To the right is blublu, our algea eater.

Fishtank

Here is a picture of Laura and her fishtank. Unfortunately Pom has passed away, but the other fish are doing well and we've had several additions to our tank. Poke, who is a puffer fish, and Snail, who of course is a snail. There are also baby platies hiding in the gravel at the bottom, and I kinda think kunkun may be getting ready to reproduce again...we shall see. The baby fish excite Laura to no end, she's seen them several times and keeps waiting for them to "pop out" of the rocks. ("pop out" was also the term she used for alli being born, so I don't know if she's equating the two or if it's just because the fish move so quickly in and out of the rocks).

picture emails

Thank you to all who are sending pictures to Laura in her email (lauraonzelle@gmail.com) We haven't been good about sending back individual replies, but she is enjoying getting them!

Imaginary friend going home

So last night I was walking around with Laura trying to get her to go to sleep when she says to me, I think I'm really mad. I ask her why, and she replies, "because I don't want Annie to leave". (Annie being an imaginary friend we've had around here lately.) So I say, "well it's ok if Annie spends the night...she can stay." To which Laura says, "no, she has to go, she has work to do" At which point Laura again gets upset b/c she wants Annie to stay. Eventually after a few minutes of both Chris and I trying to reason with a 3 year olds imagination we worked it out that Annie should indeed go home for the night, but that she (or if she was still busy a different imaginary friend) could come back over tomorrow.

Umbilical Cord

Alli lost her umbilical cord this morning! She now has an honest to goodness belly button and will soon be starting to use cloth diapers.

Rude Awakening

This morning Laura woke up before I did...she then snuck up to me and yelled "Boo", successfully scaring me awake.

New Fish

So our fish Bubbles finally died (after a month of upside down swimming). Instead of just quietly replacing him as was our original intention we bit the bullet and told Laura her fish died. She took it in stride as she takes everything, and then got excited when we told her we would be getting new fish. We now have Blinky, Kun Kun, Pom, and BluBlu, 3 platies and an algae eater. They have lived with us 2 days and seem to be doing well so far.

1 month checkup

Alli went to the Doctor today. She weighed in at 9lbs 3 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long. She still has her umbilical cord which is weird, but the doctor said it will come off when it's ready.

Testing

Sorry sweetie I just wanted to make sure I could post to this blog.

Laura wants pictures

Laura was checking her email tonight and wanting pictures. She asked if anyone had sent her pictures, but no one had. Hmm, maybe we can remedy that? Her email is lauraonzelle@gmail.com