Fine Dining!

Anyone who has been on a cruise, knows that you get to meet wonderful people each night as you fine dine. You are put, by random, with people you don't know for the entire length of your cruise each night for dinner. We definitely got put on the best table ever. These women, all from CA, were the best dining partners ever. Joanne, one of our dinner partners, sent this picture over to me, so I needed to include it. These woman deserve props for our wonderful trip. Every night, we closed down the dinner room. Our waiter had to tell us to leave because he had to get ready for the next round. Thank you guys for chatting and chatting with us every night. Thank you Donna for the advice every night on how to order!! Thank you ladies for being so amazing! And no, I have no idea why Dean is sitting like that....

Where Have I Been?

Oh, you ask where I have been? Well, just been doing a little cruising!! YEAH! Dean and I had an awesome week with my brother and sister-in-law for the past 6 days. On the spur of the moment, for our 10 year anniversary, we decided to do a 5 day cruise with Dean's brother and his wife. None of us had ever been on a cruise before, so we were all rookies. It was so much fun, surprising my sister-in-law (she had no clue where she was going until about an hour from boarding the boat). We lounged and lounged and lounged. Our only port, was Cabo San Lucas. We spent the day there walking the beach and swimming in the water (well, the 3 of them swam, I waded..my fear of the ocean took over). Very relaxing....highly recommended to rejuvenate and refresh!!

Our boat---the Carnival Elation



Cabo locals selling their goods.




My lovely brother and sister-in-law...our faithful cruising companions!

Can You Forgive Me?

Dean's peace treaty for burning my rocking chair. The secret to a girls heart, flowers, and more importantly....Starbucks!

Attention!!

This is for all you 4, almost 5, year old girls. This little stud is available....but not for another 15 years. You'll just have to be patient...good things come to those who wait. Oh yeah, and you would have an awesome mother-in-law too by the way!! (haha).

Couldn't Resist

I was riding down the road, and I saw this sign. I couldn't resist changing it up a bit.

And one of my little urban model.

Gasp!!

I seriously do not know how I ever let her out of the house looking like this. It may have been my lack of coffee this morning, which in turn contributes to my lack of awareness. I loaded them all in the car to make a visit to the mall. (I know, your all cringing right now...). As we were half way there, I looked back in the truck, b/c Josie was making the most awful singing noises (not unlike her, so I think God was trying to prepare my eyes before I reached the mall). And much to my gasping and heart stopping....I saw the most funky, elaborate, uncoordinated thing in my life...along with every faux pas known to man. Here she was, in cheetah shoes with hot pink Valentine heart socks, grease stained sweatshirt material brown capri's, a totally different shade of hot pink shirt, jean jacket that is WAY too short for her long torso, a suede brown headband with obnoxious flowers all over, and 2 pigtails that stick straight out of the side of her head, that have been in since yesterday morning. And there she sat, happy as a clam. And there I sat, not willing to turn around and go back home to change her. We did it. We went to the mall, and we walked around like nothing was the matter. I acted totally oblivious to the fact that my child looked like a dirty little rat that just came out of an 80's video.

I am a blustering mess!

Ahhh....big exhale. Tonight was bittersweet. I never thought I would be emotional about things like this. But, it had to happen. She (and he) have been asking for months to have new beds. I think it was ME who was prolonging the inevitable. So, tonight we DID IT!!


All 3 girls have slept in this crib. It has been up, and never taken down, for 5 years now. When we moved into our house 5 years ago, Elli was 15 mo. old. I was 7 mo. pregnant with the twins and at that point we knew Elli needed to be put in a big girl bed within the next 2 mo. since I was not going to have 3 cribs in one house. So, the day we moved into this house, was the day Elli started in a big girl bed. A few weeks later we put this crib back up, along with a 2nd one for Thys, and it has been up ever since. I remember the night we put it back up anticipating the twins. As Dean set it up in their room I sat on the floor, big as a whale, and was having the hardest time deciding about which baby I was going to let sleep in the "nice" bed, since the other crib we had was an old one I had bought at a garage sale. Ultimately, I thought that the "girl" twin should sleep in it, since Elli being a girl, had slept in it previously. I know....it's the only way I could justify not showing favoritism.

Josie slept in it until about 2 weeks before Tessa was born, when she moved into her big girl bed now. My kids couldn't even give me a nice smile while I was wiping away tears behind the camera. They were complaining about why they had to stop watching some tv show to stand in a crib, while their mommy cried and literally wanted to stop daddy with every screw he was screwing out. Someday, they will get all sappy about it....right?

And now Tessa's new big girl bed....if you look close, you can almost see her peeking out. I know, she is too little for a bed that size right? I should have never done it, she needs the comfort of a bed her size for a bit longer. She can't be old enough yet for this.....will this scar her? Will she grow up thinking that this world is just too big for her lonely little soul?

The big man himself, in the bed and bedroom he has been talking about for years. Well, not really years since he is only 4 and didn't really comprehend the whole bed thing until about age 3, and then didn't even want to be separated from his sisters until about 3 mo. ago...so, he has been talking about this bed and bedroom for umm.. about 3 mo. (How do you like that for a run on sentence!!).

Ok, and then to top it all off....my nasty husband (I say that with every term of endearment left in me)....I need to add that in there, since I need to blame someone for my emotional state right now, decided to burn the rocking chair that I have rocked all my babies in the middle of the night in. Let me clarify this, since I don't really want you all to think that I have the nastiest husband out there (although, I could put up a good argument right now--he is going to tell me I am throwing him under the bus again). This rocking chair has been falling apart for a few years now, but again, I needed to hold onto it. Too many memories of rocking those little babes in the middle of the night. Projectile vomit splattering on it, and me being too tired to clean it up. I can do it in the morning...to never do it, to find it completely dried up 2 weeks later. It had a little creak, that only I could eliminate at 2am. I knew exactly how to rock in it, so that it never creaked, as to not wake the baby once they had drifted off to never never land. So, tonight, since I was already a blustering mess, I decided to allow Dean to get rid of it. I knew the garbage man was coming tomorrow, so I asked Dean if he could take it apart and put it in the garbage can. Next thing I knew, he was coming up the back hill with a gasoline can in his hand. WHAT!!! What are you doing with that? He tells me he is burning the rocking chair I have rocked, nursed, cleaned vomit, and poop off of for 6 years. All I asked was for him to nicely place it in the garbage can for the nice garbage man to throw gently into the nice blue garbage truck tomorrow morning, hopefully before I roll out of bed to see it all happening. Instead, I have this raging fire in my back yard right now.

And to top it all off, all 4 kids wanted to watch it burn. No, "thanks mom for rocking us it for hours upon hours", "thanks for nursing me and keeping me alive for 6mo in the middle of night in it", "thanks mom for cleaning up my vomit while my tummy hurt because you decided to eat those extra spicy burritos tonight", no, I got nothing. I got nothing but a little turd who couldn't run fast enough to watch the sentimental rocking chair burn, that she fell flat on her face while running down the hill to get a better look.

Recent Gig!

Recent gig. See, I have to photograph other peoples kids in order to get smiles instead of wacky faces. These kids are way too cute.

Pictures Like This Make My Heart Melt

My favorite is Tessa's little pig-tail sticking out. Too cute!!