his biggest fan

awww...

isn't He wonderful!

ella took part in the koala class Christmas Production yesterday. really, i shouldn't have used capital letters, because it was a very low-key little number done during chapel time. it was cute though- with mrs. dutton narrating and the kids in their turn replying to her narrative 'isn't He wonderful!'
ella was a shepard, which she wasn't particularly thrilled about initially. she had been out sick for the week prior and all the "good" parts (read: mary) were taken.
when we showed up, the kids were getting into their costumes, so i stuck around to take a couple of shots. seen here is our shepard, surrounded by her two beaus- adam p. (shepard number two) and marcus (king number one). notice possible beau number three looking over her shoulder. and have you ever seen a cuter, more feminine shepard???

once the kids were dressed, josiah and i headed over to the sanctuary to wait for the grand entrance. he entertained himself by...what else...sucking on his fingers.

and...action.

and of course, cast & crew at curtain call...

say cheese

josiah's first photo shoot. he's totally cute and i could hardly pick these two from among all the beautiful head shots...

behind the scenes...

a slideshow, for your viewing enjoyment, of me taking a picture of the kids...

and after all that, we didn't even have a picture worth looking at.

make-up is for girls

ella has recently started taking a real interest in make-up and all things girlie. to any of you out there that know me, this is probably mind-bottling (a la will ferrell)- i can count on one hand the number of times i've actually applied a face full of make-up.

not that i think i'm above it, i'm just not good at it.

but i digress...

ella found this lovely shade in my make-up bucket- it hails from a jackie kennedy costume i wore in the mid 90's. apparently lipstick has the half life of a twinkie, because when she applied it to my lips it was just as velvety smooth as i remembered. she also recently found the slightly more obnoxious shade that i wore to the white trash party and applied it before church. nice.

lipstick seems to be a recurrent theme in our mother-daughter relationship. the fault is mostly mine. i started it all off at her last birthday party when i inadvertently purchased disney princess lip gloss-locket party favors, only to discover that the lip gloss was really the shade of psychedelic purple kool-aid- a color it maintains on the skin. i bet all the moms can't wait for ella's next party so that they can wrestle more whorish party favors out of their sobbing daughter's hands post-party.

ah, motherhood.

p.s. i am not that tan- i think it's the fact that the lipstick has sucked all of the light out from around my lips like a black hole...

man, i look good in a hat.

this is the adorable outfit from aunt marianne & uncle mark. we love it.

sling-o-rama

this post is intended solely to make all you mamas that aren't near me wish that you were.

come to san diego...the weather is lovely.

a more "worldly" post

john and i went to his squadron christmas party on thursday. it was held at the marriott in mission valley.

riddle me this...why do there even exist establishments that serve alcohol without coca cola products? you might be wondering why i care...could i possibly prefer the taste of coke to pepsi so much that it really matters. well, the answer is no- not normally.

however, when i'm going to mix alcohol (read: jack daniels) and a "cola" together i do NOT want that cola to be pepsi.

have you ever heard anyone order a jack & pepsi? or a rum & pepsi? or a jim beam & pepsi??? i'm sure that the answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO. why, because it's gross...nay unnatural, to order something like that. people the world over agree that coke (and perhaps, just maybe diet coke) is the superior mixer. there isn't even any room for discussion. the mere thought of the taste of a jack & pepsi (and yes, i've had it) makes my lips pucker and initiates the gag reflex.

and how did we happen upon this horrible truth? my sweet, sweet husband ordered me a "jack & coke" from the bartender and, horror of horrors, watched him start to pour PEPSI into the glass on top of the jack. thankfully i wasn't there, or i probably would have let out a blood-curdling shriek. john, very calmly, asked whether the man was indeed using pepsi though he'd asked specifically for coke. the man affirmed. john, thoughtfully, changed my order to a cranberry juice & vodka. funny...he didn't try to sub apple juice?!?

and oh yeah...it was fun.

nuf said

if a picture speaks a thousand words, then i guess there's no need to say anything when you post a video. except for this: my son is totally cute.

the other good news of christmas

lots of you know that john's mom, sandra, has been battling metastatic breast cancer for the last year. she was diagnosed and started treatment in april or so and had to change/stop chemotherapy a little over half way through the process because the chemo started to be a bigger problem for her than the cancer. she was exhausted (and i don't mean that lightly) and started losing feeling in her fingers and toes- so blaine, the nurse practitioner, called a temporary stop to the treatment. needless to say, it was frightening to think of all of those beastly little cancer cells running unchecked through sandra's body and we were all nervous (though none of us would admit that to anyone else) to see what the outcome of that interruption to treatment would bring.

well, what happened was in a word...miraculous.

sandra has not had ANY chemo in almost 3 months and her tumor marker levels have continued to drop EVEN more (that's a good thing, it indicates that the tumors themselves are shrinking). we were overjoyed to know that she's OK- although we know she's been in Good Hands the whole time. it's also wonderful to know that she won't have to start chemo (and the unbelievable fatigue and poor health that causes) over the holidays. what's more, her NP says that if her PET scan still looks good in january- she won't have any chemo scheduled now at all. they'll just be monitoring her bloodwork and keeping chemo "in the arsenal" for later use.

thank you, all of you who have so faithfully prayed for sandra throughout all of this. we truly appreciate it!

i love eating

josiah ate his first non-mommy-made meal yesterday...some rice cereal. he wasn't very impressed with it, so i made the mistake of thinking he wasn't ready for food.

i was wrong.

today he ate apples. he LOVED them. tonight he ate sweet potatoes. LOVED those too. i think we've got an eater on our hands. don't tell anyone that i introduced two foods on one day...if i remember correctly, you're not technically supposed to do that.

it was pretty cool, and i'm pretty excited that daddy can take over some of the feeding duties.

the one the mice made

that's right folks...for two years running, ella chose to be cinderella for halloween. this year though, she stipulated the outfit. you guessed it, "the one the mice made." for those of you who haven't watched disney's cinderella lately, try and remember back...

cinderella climbs the many stairs to her castle tower after a grueling day of slave labor, sad as sad can be because her evil stepmother has ruined her chances of making a dress to wear to the ball. imagine her surprise when she opens the door to her tiny bedroom and there they are- her woodland friends- with a gorgeous dress for her to wear. that's the dress that ella wanted. so that's the dress that mommy made. sans pattern.

i think i'm pretty impressive (although i did have a generic dress pattern, to be honest, just not a pattern to tell me how on earth to make this particular dress that those disney geniuses drew NEVER to be replicated in the real world). i worked entirely from a photo i found on the internet. john thinks i should have added a hoop skirt. i didn't appreciate his input (i was 18 hours or so into the dress, after much use of the seam ripper). i think john's pretty impressive too, as he only grumbled a few times about the pink ribbons and material strewn all over our kitchen table.

she looked cute.

oh, and so did her brother. i like to call his costume "baby tiger."

she really liked her costume. her brother wasn't so sure.

the new me

Yes, that's right. With a new baby, a husband recently home from cruising the Persian Gulf and a daughter with no end to her antics...I chose to write our first post about me. I cut my hair. For those of you who haven't seen me in a while, it was long. And when I say long, I mean down-to-the-fanny long. I cut 16 inches off and donated it to an organization called "Locks for Love" which makes wigs for children who, for medical reasons, have no hair. Lest you start to think that I'm a wonderful person, maybe my motivation was getting to tell you all how nice I am.

And it doesn't hurt to have tons (almost literally) less hair to deal with. I actually want to go in and get a little more chopped off.

The rest of the Wagners are fine. The boy is gigantic, the girl is precocious and their daddy is entering the FRS (training squadron for you non-military types) again to learn the new Sierra model of the MH-60 Knighthawk.