Make room for Jayla

My husband snapped this picture of me and the girls last night. I can frequently be found in this exact position - a 12 pound girl on one knee and a 46 pound girl on the other one. Jayla rarely just lets Tamyra sit on my lap without claiming a knee for herself. Balancing the two is not as easy as I make it look.

Generations

My great-great grandmother died on May 21, 1979 at 84 years old. I was 3 months old. For her funeral, I made my second trip from my home in Ohio to Mississippi where 90% of my family resides. The first trip to Mississippi occurred when I was about 6 weeks old. The trip was for the specific purpose of me meeting my great-great grandmother. Mama Delie (as everyone called her) had been sick with cancer but, promised my mom that she would hold on to see her child born. And she did. That means that there were 5 generations living at one time on my mom's side of the family. And in my mom's infinite 23-year-old wisdom, she did not document me meeting my great-great grandmother in photograph form.

Three weeks ago, we flew to Chicago (both girls were amazingly well-behaved and non-commotion-causing on the flights!!) and drove over to Milwaukee for a family reunion. We flew into Chicago so that we could visit with my grandmother there. She has been sick and decided that she did not want to drive to Milwaukee for the reunion. So, we came to her. It was Tamyra's first time meeting her great-grandmother. And we managed to get a 4 generations picture of my grandmother and her only daughter, my mom with both of her daughters, and of course, me with both of my daughters:

Mama Delie's granddaughter, great-granddaughter, great-great granddaughters, and great-great-great granddaughters.

And I have to note that in full-circle fashion, Jayla was born on what would have been Mama Delie's 110th birthday.

My daughters are also blessed to have a great-great grandmother still living. My husband's great-grandmother lives in Milwaukee so, we also got to visit with her while we were there. More photo opportunities! Here they are...Jayla and Tamyra with their great-great grandmother, Mother Dear (on the left):

The lady on the right is "Sister", almost like a stand-in for her sister "Suga-doo", my husband's deceased grandmother.

I hope my girls appreciate these pictures one day because not everyone gets these types of opportunities.

Happy Holidays to Daddy!

The husband's 32nd birthday happened to fall on Father's Day yesterday. And we managed to do almost nothing for the entire day! Quite honestly, I think he appreciated some time alone to just surf the 'net while the girls and I engaged in our Sunday nap ritual...or at last that what I've been telling myself.

We went to church yesterday morning and the girls were dressed alike for the first time. My mom sent them matching dresses last week and Jayla was completely beside herself with excitement at the idea of dressing like her baby sister.

She really was excited...this first picture just doesn't convey that excitement. She was actually chewing a piece of turkey bacon in the picture.

After church, Daddy was showered with gifts, including a new basketball (Jayla was adamant that he needed one!) and a few pair of sandles (Mama keeps thinking that his feet have got to be hot in socks and sneakers everyday!).


Then after a few hours of nothingness, we had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Tee Tee came along with us.


Jayla suffered a monumental breakdown at the end of our outing. Finally, Tee Tee just took her out to the car while Daddy, Tamyra, and I paid the bill and got Daddy a piece of cheesecake to go (He just pulled it out of the refrigerator to finally eat it as I typed this sentence - how does he do that? I would've gobbled mine up in the car on the way home last night!).

It was a very low key day but, it was just what we needed in the midst of such a busy season. Plus, it gave Jayla the creative time that she needed to come up with a song that was appropriate for the day. Essentially, she just got tired of wishing Daddy a happy birthday and a happy father's day so, she shortened it to "Happy Holidays to Daddy!"

Return of the headband

During the first year of her life, Jayla was known for rocking a headband almost everyday.


And while most people probably remember Jayla looking like this in her infanthood, the truth is that we really didn't do anything to her hair AT ALL until she was probably 5 or 6 months old. That's about when the completely natural afro started needing a little attention.

Tamyra's hair has, likewise, needed absolutely no attention over the past 8 weeks. I just occasionally wash the spit-up out of it and keep going. And yet, this is what she looked like at Vacation Bible School yesterday:


And while I know she is not yet at the point that I will put a headband on her everyday, I think she knew how cute she was with it on.

Dance Recital Weekend

Exhausting. There were times when I wasn't certain that I was going to make it out alive. But, she had a blast!

Before the show - excited to be wearing "lips"...

After the show - twitching her nose in hopes that her bouquet of flowers will turn into candy!

Shunning the camera to punish us for buying flowers instead of candy

Heading to the car...resigned to the fact that her brilliant dance performance *only* got her a bouquet of flowers