Somebody got into the cookie jar.

Tonight Wes ate dinner like Carissa usually does, bib and all.

He is also mastering the skill of climbing.

Carissa is picking up on puzzles. She’s getting good at matching pictures and making the pieces fit.

I’m working on getting Carissa a passport. The specifications for a passport photo are very specific: normal head angle, neutral facial expression, clear image, white background, good lighting, etc. You can take the photo at home by yourself, but I thought it’d be easier to just take her to the store and have them both take and print the pictures on site. I took Wes in to this same store for his passport photo when he was about a year old, and it was easy.

This time, it was the opposite of easy.

The second we neared the photo department it was like Carissa smelled strange people (the two photo attendants) that were going to ask her to do strange things (like look at a camera and not cry), and she instantly made it clear that she wasn’t going to have any of it.

After a few minutes of me holding Carissa up to a white background and her crying profusely while the (male) photo attendant said over and over, “Can you calm her down?” I decided to call it quits. We went home and later in the afternoon I had John sit with her against one of our many white walls to photograph her myself.

It went much better. The passport website has a free tool that lets you resize your photo to the proper dimensions. I took it in to the store and they printed it for me.

Viola. And soon we can travel the world.