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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Crazy Love


Hillary from theothermomma has issued a "linky challenge." All participants are supposed to write about something CRAZY. Hope you'll hop on over to her blog and join in!

Now, Hillary and I literally met in the toilet paper aisle at Wal Mart (we bonded over an ooold sorority date party t-shirt I was wearing), so I guess that might be crazy story enough, but just in case, I think I'll add on the story of my Crazy Year.

Now, if you had met me in the first week of June 2002, here's who you would have met:

(Hold on folks...due to some technical difficulties- and possibly my ability to literally destroy most every computer related thing my poor husband has worked so hard to link up- we have no photo of me in my young, single years. *gasp!* So I guess I'll just have to tell you I was one stunning, 20-something lady with model thin legs and long, flowing blonde hair to the middle of my back...............what? You think I made that up? Okay, fine. I made it up. But I was pretty darn young looking.)

Anywho - I was young, single footloose and fancy free. Working full time as a Youth Director - a job I had held for a little over a year.

Now if, by chance, you saw me that first week of June 2002, and didn't get a chance to speak to me for another 7 months, you would have missed this momentous occasion:



Yep,

Yep, that's right, a mere 7 months later I was married to the love of my life.

And then to add crazy on top of crazy, if you didn't see me again for another 8 months and 2 weeks - just a random number - ha! You would have completely missed out on the 2nd picture above!

(Now, this photo was taken nearly a year later, but you get the idea, we had a kid!)

And that's just about the craziest thing that ever happened to me. One year and five months later, I was a person whom God had taken on a whole new path with a whole new life AND if you had told me that first week of June 2002, that this time next year I'd be married with a baby on the way I would have laughed really hard and then asked if YOU were C-R-A-Z-Y.

That's my crazy thing! What's yours?


Sunday, October 11, 2009

JR Photography Inc.

JR loves (and I mean loooooves) to take pictures with the "real" camera. Ever since the 'Cannon Powershot Incident of mid - 2009' we've only allowed him camera time while we are supervising his photography. But every once in awhile he manages to take a few while we aren't looking. The results are always amusing.

So what is a camera good for? Annoying your baby sister:

Crazy self portraiture - future Facebook profile pic?

Catching your mother in her workout clothes (which I would never wear all day long - nooooo, not me!)

Bothering the poor, sweet, sleeping dog.

And, nearly getting yourself attacked by the family cat.
Fun times.
Next Ansel Adams? We shall see.
Thursday, October 8, 2009

The Tale of a Tutu

I'll never forget the day we bought "the tutu."
While I think the technical name for what we own is a petticoat, poor Rob could never grasp that word (since he had never heard it before in his life - gasp! - poor thing, so deprived of all things Jane Austen & all those other lovely romantic authors.) In any case, this pink, fluffy darling article of clothing became known as simply "the tutu."

ML could have cared less what we called it though. When she saw it on the rack at a local Christmas show (you know the indoor kind with all the booths and vendors?) she DEMANDED to try it on, and once she had it on, she marched away from the booth, already determined that she was the rightful owner of this fluffy pink skirt. And there was nothing anyone could do about it. Period.

It cost of pretty penny, but even Rob forked over the money readily because it was the CUTEST THING EVER. No joke.

We could hardly walk down the aisle without every person stopping to poke the person next to them and say, "Look at that girl in the pink tutu." And if you think ML didn't know she was the center of attention, you'd be wrong, dead wrong. Because if there is one thing ML enjoys, it's the spotlight.

And so it began........ We wore it to Disney to meet the princesses.
(Did I mention it travels well smooshed into a 2 gallon zip lock?)
We wear it around the house for fun.
And yes, we even wear it to bed.
That's right, I went to check on her last night and found her in bed, dead asleep, wearing the tutu.
Because you just never know when Prince Charming might come calling in the middle of the night.
Sweet Dreams.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Fall


Fall is in the air and Fall Break is here to prove it! While I knew this would be our first "official" week long school holiday (what with JR starting Kindergarten this year,) what I didn't anticipate was how lonely we'd be with all of our friends and most of our neighbors off on vacation! We've missed you dearly and can't wait for y'all to hurry back and hear all about your trips.

In the meantime, we've made just about as many trips to Hobby Lobby as is humanly possible in a three day time span. Crafty seems to be the name of the game this week. We made this door hangar pumpkin for Miss Roberts, JR's amazing, super patient, kind (I could go on and on here with the adjectives) Kindergarten teacher. We have a few more things to go with it, but this was the first project.
Next we moved on to making cookies. This was one project I was dragged into kicking and screaming. Hot glue guns and paint pens?? I'm your girl.

Baking cookies? Not so much. But here's where I went wrong, you see last year, JR had an awesome Batman themed birthday party (if I do say so myself) and at one point in the party planning process I found some Halloween cookie cutters with the perfect Batman shaped "bat" cookie cutter. I threw them in the cart (at Hobby Lobby of course!) thinking, "Oh, I can make some great cookies for the party out of that!" Well, of course, guess who never got around to baking cookies for the party? (See above ~ once again the paint pens and glue guns won out!)

So, at the end of October, while packing all the other Halloween decorations away, I tossed in the cookie cutters. Well, low and behold what do my children find when we open the box this week?
And once they found them, it was non stop, relentless, unending - BEGGING. "Please, Mommy? Can we PLEASE make some Halloween cookies? Please?"
So finally I relented.
Please note that they both have their mouths open, talking at the same time.

Now when we began, the perfectionistic, Martha in me assumed we'd be making cookies that looked like the ones located at the bottom of these photos. I mean, hello - I wasn't expecting them to PIPE the icing, just spread the colored icing around nicely, without going too far (aka over the edge) and you know, pretty much just ice the perfect cookie.
Ha!
This is what we got:




And they were beautiful. Each and every one of them. They all tasted yummy too! Perfect with a cup of tea on a cool autumn night.
Happy Fall Y'all!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009

525,600 minutes - Times 5 (years & roughly 9 months)

So it finally arrived - the first day of Kindergarten.  The day designed to remind parents, that one day our children will, in fact, grow up and leave us.  The day that bolsters kleenex sales everywhere (and you always wondered why the teachers require THREE boxes of tissues..... :-)

JR woke up this morning at 5:59 and first thing yelled at the top of his lungs, "Well, guys - I'm ready!"  After Rob & I got out of bed and stumbled to his room, we reminded him that he might want to get dressed first, as wearing your Cars-Cars pajamas to class is generally frowned upon at a school that requires uniforms.  After that and much dressing, showering, and eating of breakfasts, we were all ready to go - Early!  Wonders never cease.

We took a few pictures....






Things went great when we arrived at school.  Rob, ML and I hung around the class for all of 3 minutes (with Rob helpfully pointing out all the important stuff like, "Look, here's your desk."  and, "Here's your cubby!") before JR turned to Rob and asked, "How long are you guys going to stay here?"

Which I totally blame on Rob.  I mean, what good southern boy uses a phrase like "you guys?"  

So, broken hearted, we retreated to the hallway to cry........ okay I retreated to the hallway to cry.  But not for long.  

Because as the song says, "It took awhile to understand the beauty of just letting go."

Thursday, July 30, 2009

A Little Extra Magic




It's no secret that our family has become Disney-aholics.  As in tour book owning, message board posting, DVC loving, we-went-three-times-in-18-months Disney-aholics.

People often ask me for advice on what to do, where to eat, and any little things that will make their vacation a little more "magical."  The photos above are one of my new favorites!  

If you make a trip to Disney and don't utilize Disney Photopass you are really missing out.  Even the best of photographers can't manage to put themselves IN the photo, when they are the ones TAKING ALL the photos!  And how many of we moms -and sometimes dads- are guilty of the "Hey Mom, were you even on this trip?" photo syndrome?  You know the one where you spent so much time taking the pictures, you forgot to actually put yourself IN the pictures?
Disney Photopass will allow your children to see that you were, in fact, actually there for the family vacation to Disney (just try to take off the fanny pack before they snap the shutter - trust me, we still give my mom a LOT of ribbing for that one!)

But, back to the photos above - in each Disney park there are special "animated" photos that can be taken.  In the Animal Kingdom (shown above) you can take your photo holding baby Simba.  In the Magic Kingdom, you can hold Tinkerbell.  Simply ask a Disney Photopass Cast Member (that's what they call their employees) about these photos and they'll be happy to "stage" you.  
One last tip.  You can easily take over 150+ Photopass photos in one trip.  Be sure to save a TON of money by ordering your photopass CD before you go .  Yes, you read that right - order your CD before you go and you'll save $50 off the price of just the CD.  
Hope you have a magical time!
And if you have any extra room in your car - give me a call - I'll be happy to tag along, you won't even have to ask twice! 
Saturday, March 14, 2009

February

A visit from Grandpa & Grandma
I hope you can see this one.  I checked on the kids one night only to find them snuggled in ML's bed.  Awwww....

Valentines Parties








A new look.....

As you can see, I'm trying out a new look.  I'm learning, so please bear with me as I "dress up" our blog.  Tuesday mornings are a special time for ML and I.  With JR at Mother's Morning Out, we spend some quality girl time.  One Tuesday morning in February, ML pulled out her box of dress up dresses.    Here are a few shots from that morning.  Enjoy!




Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Rocket Boys



Well, it was bound to happen, since we are surrounded by rocket scientists here.  Rob & JR's  love of all things math and science took over and they built a rocket!

They went out to a field nearby and had a great time blasting it off.  I think they hit ignition 4 times, before the parachute malfunctioned.  Good times.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

A December to Remember

A mish - mosh of December photos - 


Downtown Chicago to see Wicked



Opening curtain for Wicked

Downtown Chicago

Macy's window

PRCC



Owens Family Christmas Party - Rob's photo interpretation 





Christmas Morning



Christmas Eve