My little monkey! (and her latest hijinks...)

Ever since Larissa was old enough to start crawling, climbing and "toddling," she has been getting into everything! When she was about a year old, I can remember pulling her away from one mess, and while I was cleaning it up, she was busy getting into something else. She was fast, too! One year, after she was potty trained, we were visiting my parents, and while we were all sitting down to play a game, Larissa decided to go to the bathroom. That was her favorite play room at the time. =) I can't remember now who it was that decided to check on her, but when they did, they found Larissa playing with something in the bathroom. She proceeded to inform that person that, "If you don't watch me, I will play." How funny! She came with her own disclaimer!

Fast forward in time to this past winter...Larissa is the tiniest one of us all. She is basically nothing but skin and bones, so she is very sensitive to cold weather (or even the refrigerated section of the grocery store). On a particularly chilly day, she was upstairs playing and evidently felt as though the heat was not high enough in the house, so without consulting us, she turned the heat up to 90!!! By the time I went upstairs later that day, it was a steaming hothouse! She had a "nice little talk" with Daddy, and we figured she had learned her lesson. Until....

Yesterday afternoon, she was upstairs playing by herself and decided she was hot and that the air was not cool enough for her liking. She proceeded to turn the air down to 50!!! Since it is so hot outside and we normally keep our air set on about 77, it took a while for us to notice it this time. It wasn't until we were getting into bed last night around 11 that I noticed it seemed a bit chilly. It's amazing that the unit didn't freeze up! Once again, Daddy had a "nice little talk" with her this morning, so we'll see if it sticks this time. =)

She has gotten better as she's gotten older and doesn't quite get into as many things as she used to. While she's not completely dependable and responsible, she does help out a lot around the house, and for that I'm very thankful. She has an adventurous spirit, and I look forward to seeing how God will one day use that in her.

Okay, before I go, I have to add one more picture and "mess story." Sydney was about 3 months old, Larissa was less than 2 years old and Alyx was just over 3 years old. One morning while I was taking care of Sydney, the other two decided to explore their bedroom. After Sydney was born, the hospital had given me some samples of stuff including little zipper pouches that had baby stuff inside. One of the pouches had a little bottle of baby powder. I hadn't needed the stuff yet, so I had just put it in their closet until I did. They ingeniously pushed their play table over to the closet, stood on top and pulled all that stuff down. By the time I found them, this is what I saw...


Notice how the powder is still floating around in the air. They had fun "finger painting" with the powder. See the hand prints? Such fun! In a weird way, I miss those days. =} You know how it is...When you're in a situation like this, you're pretty upset about it, but when you look at the pictures years down the road, you can't help but laugh in fond remembrance.