Am I allowed to post with no photos?

Frequently I don't blog because I don't have any photos to post. I tried Google to see if this was a rule, and apparently it's not. So I'm going to stop feeling guilty about a) not blogging more often because I don't have a photo to post with it, and b) blogging without a photo. After that, I'm going to find more things to not feel guilty about. I'm thinking of adding things to the list such as not cleaning my house because I have a newborn, making my husband clean the house because I have a newborn, (technically, he also has a newborn, but if we're looking at percentages here she's more my newborn than his), not making dinner because I have a newborn, not eating veggies because I have a newborn (any excuse to eat less veggies, and let's be honest: it's a lot of standing there chopping, and I need two hands for that. My left arm is on loan to my newborn), and writing grammatically incorrect extremely long sentences thinking that enough punctuation is a good mask for writing extremely long sentences that are grammatically incorrect. But while I tend to feel guilty for a lot of little things, at the end of the day I have to sit down, ponder, and come to the conclusion that yes, in fact, I am amazing. The whole woman, hear me roar, yada yada and whatever.

Updates, 'cause isn't that what blogs are about? Except that they're more about photos.

Emma: lost 8 pounds. Yay! Only 20 more to go. If you ask how I did it, just be prepared that you don't want to hear the answer. Diet and exercise. I count calories. I restrict calories. Yes, being skinny sucks sometimes.

Troy: lost more weight than me. He went on a diet for moral support, yet he's a dog and loses weight faster than me, which actually makes it harder for me to diet. At least he's eating all the veggies with me. I even taught him how to chop them efficiently like a real chef so I don't have to. One more thing to add to my less guilt list.

Taya: still growing. She even has pimples now. I'm hoping they get really bad right about the time we put braces on her, and that awkward phase lasts until right before she meets her future husband in college.

Levi: it's his birthday today! He is now 7 and hasn't been kicked out of first grade yet. Apparently the incidences of screaming and wrestling have gone down, and we've stopped getting so much hate mail. His birthday is the same day as his principal's, and when the school called to ask if they could put him on the morning video announcements about it, I saw the school name on caller ID and just cringed. I realized it's not always bad news, that someone isn't always in the nurse's office for a playground bump, or that someone isn't always in the principal's office because of poor behavior. Sometimes it's because they have the same birthday. At least once a year.

Olivia: loves kindergarten! She has the same teacher that Levi had last year, so the teacher's prepared for any shenanigans. Liv loves to "work it" with that "shy" smile and sit on everyone's lap and be the center of attention while pretending she doesn't want to be! She loves holding the baby, even if she's screaming, and considers it a badge of honor when she can get her to calm down. I need to bottle that.

Julia: is the BIG sister. She's as smart as a stinker. When offered two choices, she always comes up with secret choice number 3 and outsmarts us. When offered two choices, toddlers are supposed to assume those are the only choices and choose one! She knows we're dumber than she is and knows how to get her own way.

Zoey: started smiling! She still spends a lot of time smiling at the ceiling fan, though. Sometimes she smiles at us, and sometimes we think she's smiling at us until we realize the ceiling fan above our heads actually commands more attention and respect than we do. Still, it's cute. And I have photos of her smiling, I just haven't taken them off the card so I can post them because, you guessed it, I have a newborn. But they're coming. I promise. Stay tuned...