Company

There's been a fair amount of traffic in and out of the Kansas City area. The ever-enthusiastic Aunt Chrissy showed up for a while to add both joy and chemical dyes to her beloved family. Her visit was eclipsed by both the Ralston clan and Samantha's "Favorite Uncle" Mel and Aunt Sandy. More visits are expected in the coming weeks, assuring us a continuation of this superb, familial bliss.

Zoey Ralston is four months younger than Sam. She's obviously put forth more effort into growing hair, but that didn't help her when we tried out the toddler-sized brass knuckles.




Cassie Ralston was more interactive with both our daughters. This one on the left shows Samantha doing her impression of a dementor.


Fine. Zoey's cute. What do you want from me?







Posers.








With all these people coming over, Samantha pitched in with the chores. This is the aftermath of helping to empty the dishwasher.







"Favortie Uncle" Mel with his super-human nuzzle.







Grandma Deanna made Lucy's blessing dress and bonnet. We tried it on. You can place orders at http://minkpoop.blogspot.com/ I think they cost about a million billion dollars for non-descendants.






Cooper, Ethan, and Max all test their mettle against Sam's superior intellectual prowess. She switched to red to throw them off.
That little girl is going to make a lot of powerful people uncomfortable one day.

Our Young Gets Less-So

We celebrated Sam's 2nd birthday this weekend. She won't actually be two years old until the 22nd. Her cousin Maxwell is two weeks her senior, so Grandma and Papa Thorne were kind enough to gather the entire herd to their backyard for a celebration. Like any other kine in Missouri, we mostly lounged in the shade while we grazed.
Sam's favorite gift was a makeup kit, which will only be used under strict supervision from now on.
Apparently, there's a limit to the number of pictures you can include in a single posting, so keep scrolling. I like candid shots.

If anybody can guess the nature of that brown blob next to the spoon, you win a special prize.

More

birthday movies

These videos do a decent job of demonstrating our little Samantha's varied social skills.

Chin Up

Salutations! That's my fancy way of saying "Hello."

This is Sam's "Daddy farted" face.
Hot sweaty girls should always try to keep their legs moist.




These two pictures show the gorgeous shawl that Great-greandma Ashe made for Sam. It's too bad we're in the middle of a Missouri summer. It should still fit in the fall.


Aunt Rachel made us another scrumptious quilt. We get one every time we procreate. If that isn't motivation to get busy as soon as possible, I don't know what is.

The Tempest

Sam's adjustment to her new sister's arrival is hopefully approaching its apex. We're on a steady diet of pouting and whining with daily supplements of prostrate flailing and self-flaggelation. She even managed to repeatedly kick herself in the face the other day.
Jon is currently finishing up week 1 of his 6-week "capstone". During the capstone portion of his schooling, he gets to work on the night shift on the Progressive Care Unit at Centerpointe Medical Center. Does he get money? Ha. His August 11th graduation looms ever closer.
Becky is doing a spectacular job holding the household together despite her husband's irregularly nocturnal schedule, her toddler's malcontent, and her infant's overactive poop gland. She even looks good. REAL good.

This is the position for Sam's "power pout". We also call it tantrum level green.

In truth, she's a very sweet little girl 82% of the time. That's what we try to document.





Sam prefers the cat version.

Watch

The Tolmans have been inducted into the digital realm by way of a generous birthday/birth present from some visually starved grandparents. Let your famished eyes glut on the pixelated feast afforded by handsome technology.

Lucy and her nose.

It's hard to tell here whether Sam is genuinely pleased to have her sister next to her or if she's just holding that grin until we look away and she has the opportunity to strike.

Babies aren't supposed to be able to climb into their basinette.

Not many people realize that Becky gave up a career as a mediocre center in the NBA before she gave it all up to spawn girls. I just wish she'd been more careful with her money.




Our new piece of technology allows us to do things like this. We would have gotten a video of Lucy, but it would have looked a whole lot like the still photos.