Four minutes. Ten seconds. Totally unrelated.

So, I have this friend Sandra. She takes awesome and beautiful pictures. She preserves her memories well by blogging. Basically, she's got it going on. No wonder she entreated me to take four minutes out of my "cook-eat-clean-throwinthelaundry-homeschool-repeat" cycle and take a few pictures of Silas.

Actually, it was good advice because I will be sad later on if I only had a handful of pictures from his wee days. He was conveniently wearing his my-new-favorite Moose outfit (which I love because it's brown; I pretty much love anything brown) so I didn't even need to re-dress him. He's a little pimply at 1 month, 4 days, but other than that, he's just the cutest little man I've ever held. [Ok, truthfully? Other than my own kids, I haven't held that many babies. So...bad analogy. But he's cute, ok?]

Then, since I had the camera out already, I thought I'd pop out into the backyard and see what the big girls were doing. [In case you were wondering, Abby was with me as a photograhpers assistant, directing Silas when and how to smile: "Cheese! Si-as! Cheeeeeeeese! Siiiiiiiiiiiiii-assssssssss! Baby!! Siii-aaaaaaaas!"]

The older girls were in the backyard digging in the dirt playing happily. They love driving in the Cozy Coupe I bought at a garage sale last weekend for $7! We have had a few wrecks, but no major injuries yet. The rope swing has also been a big hit since we arrived in this home.

And, again...since I already had the camera out, I'd just like to post this to show you one of the many reasons why I miss my house helper:
I do that three times a day, folks. And my floors still look....ick. =)

In a completely unrelated note, we experienced 10 seconds of total panic today.

Not even kidding.

Today, this morning while we were at the breakfast table, I could completely identify with people in third-world countries and yuppies from LA, all at the same time.

We experienced a 4.5 earthquake.

In Oklahoma.

[Yes, I already said I wasn't kidding!]

The entire house shook and rumbled; I instinctively reached for my children and started pushing them toward the door. My heart rumbled in my chest and didn't quiet for nearly a half hour AFTER we discovered (via facebook and the news) that it was indeed an earthquake and not an explosion/bomb/terrorist attack.

Now I understand the fear and chaos and panic that always makes headlines when earthquakes happen. It was truly scary, and it only lasted for ten seconds. I'm SO glad we don't live in California! I wouldn't be able to deal with those shocks on a more regular basis!

Hope you liked the pictures. I vow, with all of you as my witnesses, to make more 4-minuteses come about.