the love bug and the ham and the other mama

there's love in the air today! i think noe is teaching her sister some bad habits. mali has always been a very out going and affectionate baby (hence the nick name "love bug"), but today, she started doling out kisses to the little boys at play group like they were candy. while she shared her snack with ethan and preston, she would lean over and give them kisses. it was cute, yes, and i did get pictures (see below), but this is the same behavior i'm trying to discourage in noe. quite a few times during play group, i had to stop noe from kissing brenton. to be fair, brenton was trying to kiss her, too. these two are keeping kellie (brenton's mom) and i on our toes! they gave lots of hugs and even snuck a few pecks on the cheek before i finally got her out the door. at one point, she turned around and held her hands out to stop him, saying, "i'm going home to have pizza now." on another love note, noe has started throwing herself into my arms, hugging me and saying "I LOVE YOU, MOMMY". and since mali sees sissy doing it, she does it, too. now that kind of love i can handle!

also at play group, mali found herself another "mama". now, while she is a social kid, she doesn't generally warm up enough to want to climb on people's laps or give them them hugs unless she's known them for a while. but today, she climbed away from me, across karma (preston's mom), and demanded that "mama" take her. "mama", however, was not me. she was calling jennifer erickson (issac's mom) mama, and continued to do so the entire morning we were there. she was perfectly happy to sit on her lap, talk to her, play with her, etc. and ignored me for quite a while. even after she finally came back (to get a cookie), she frequently returned to her new mama. i told jen that maybe this is a sign that she's either pregnant or will be soon. fingers crossed!

noe has become quite the little ham. she loves having her picture taken, which is quite a change from last year and the year before. i'm really glad, because i've been getting some really cute photos of her lately. i'm going to have start printing them and hanging them up.

the birthday party for sister ram when well. we didn't invite a lot of people, but it was a full house! we just tried to keep it down to the people close by. we had a good time, though, and i got a lot of pictures, but most of them were blurry from all the movement, so i didn't post them.

here are the other pics, though. enjoy!

kissing preston (he makes that face when he sees a camera, but he didn't actually mind the kiss)

ethan, on the other hand, got this horrified expression after she kissed him the first two times, but got used to it by the third and fourth (the fourth is pictured here)

i tried to get the horrified expression, but he got over it too fast and focused on the food

i opened the snack and suddenly i became the most popular mom there

"I'm so cute"

"What you doin'?"

"Make sure to get my best side"

*winking*

"even my tongue is cute"

lots and lots of cheese

*fish face*

*puffing out my cheeks*

just being a ham

this started as her showing me where her nose is...but then she almost lost her finger in there.

no permanent damage, though

"i'm a morning person...mommy says i get it from my daddy"

trying to get a close up

dress up

notice she's hanging upside down...in a cabinet. you'd think this was a surprise...but not really

sharing is fun

"not my best side"

i think she likes feeding mali and mali definitely likes being fed

she likes to hold the banana, but doesn't really eat it.