It's been a while...

Makin' faces:
Shae and her best pals: Auntie Joe and Carson.

Food art -- Shae's masterPEAS (get it? GET IT??)

Playin' in her own little nook of our living room. The walls need stuff and the floors need rugs (it's a little echoy in there!), but this is a glimpse of Shae's new pad:

Zoey's favorite spot in the house -- comfy carpet, but close enough to downstairs so that if she needs to spring into action for any reason she's very closeby.

Maaaaaadison

Taylor got to feed Shae before we went to Joe and Jessica's wedding.
Keeley: A Self Portrait.

I gave Taylor my camera when we got to Jessica and Joe's wedding reception. 107 photos later, I elected to pick-and-choose only a handful for posting. Sorry, Taylor...

Fun at mini putt:

All the girls:

Swimmin' at Gram and Gramps' house:

With Aunt Peg:

Do you guys see anything on my head? I feel like there's something on my head...?

Swingin':

I still don't *love* grass, but I can tolerate it.

Grams, me and my old pal, giraffe:

Three Cups of Tea

I'm taking a moment to make a non-Shae-related post. I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea, the non-fiction account of Greg Mortenson, a former climber who decided to begin building schools for girls in the highest mountain regions of Pakistan in an effort to promote global peace.

From the book, a quote from Brigadier General Bhangoo, fomer personal helicopter pilot to Pakistani President Musharraf:
"Osama [bin Laden] is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy's strength. In America's case, that's not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever."

Mortenson started the Central Asia Institute (CAI) and has built more than 40 schools in northern Pakistan, and has now moved across the border to Afghanistan.

I'm using this medium (my Shae blog) to follow the advice in the acknowledgments of the book to suggest Three Cups of Tea to help spread the word of the needs in that area of the world. Please consider reading the book, and/or supporting the CAI (www.ikat.org).

Shae photos coming soon...

Rated R: Nudity

Shae has some wicked diaper rash on her bits 'n pieces, so we did some nekkid playing this week to let things, ehm, dry out.

Playing (an unfortunate) second fiddle to The Shae: Dax and Zoey. Shhh -- don't tell them that their photos are an afterthought!

Fuzzy puppy lips. Awesomeness.

Bathing Beauty

Inflatable splash pool: $5
Adorable bikini: $10
Coppertone WaterBabies sunscreen, SPF 50: $8
Replacing the camera mama dropped into the pool: $300
Fun in the sun: Priceless
Thank goodness we have a Mastercard! haha.

The Third Week of the Seventh Month of Shae's Life on Earth

A study of Shae, in three parts -- the "I can do it myself" chapter.

Playing with the handicrafts of one of our two favorite woodsmen -- Shae is really good at taking each block off, knocking them together to make all sorts of wonderful sounds, and (with just a little help) re-stacking them to start anew.

"Mama, I can feed myself!" The Lifetime movie will be titled "Squash Gone Wrong: The Shae Lily Story." (We're not trying to stifle anyone's experiential learning, but it might be beneficial to learn which end of the spoon works best for delivering food to the mouth. I'm just sayin'.)

Big girl Shae likes to sit in her chair and read. Okay, so this one is a totally falsified photo-op, but it still works with the theme -- and, let's be honest, she's just cute as a button sitting up in her chair all by herself.