little bit of rain

it seems like ages ago when i had a girl who would love to play in the puddles and i'd be happy to capture it all with the camera. today i don't think i would have even whipped out the camera if she didn't look so darn cute as she came into my bedroom wearing my socks. 🙂

seriously that's all she had for me. and since all the cold air was coming in, i was fine with just that. it's been rainy. i'm not a rain kind of person. sorta hard on me. i haven't stepped outside at all today, even to take these pics, i was still inside and i just shooed her outside to get some nice light 🙂

just to clarify, yes she is wearing the saaaame boots from 2 years ago 🙂 they were big at the time and she wore lots of socks to fit. now they are close to being too small. she loves them so much, she's going to be sad when she does finally outgrow them!

February 5, 2010 9

warm and happy

snickerdoodles.

she is so used to working with just 3 fingers of her right hand. she puts the other 2 in her mouth, so she knows to keep them up like that when she's in public, trying to keep them germfree. 🙂

snickerdoodles. onions. breakfast. tea. even brussel sprouts. these are all examples of things I didn't like when i was younger, but as i got older (and wiser) i slowly started to like these things more. i love telling these little factoids to the kids, 'oh one day you'll like it. believe me….' for instance: snickerdoodles- i'm just not a big sugar cookie person. i need other things of sugar goodness in there to make me satisfied, ie chocolate or caramel. but then i tried a different recipe and i think they turned out awesome. note that there aren't cookie pics after they were baked. they were devoured too quick!

tea. okay geez, it's not like real australian tea, it's chocolate mint. hahaha. but i do love it and i am so glad that dots cupcakes introduced it to me. i'll even drink a green tea mint. 😉 onions. used to hate them. over time and with plenty of innout burgers, i began to have them grilled. now i love them raw even. 🙂 just depends on my mood. breakfast. i would go to school every morning against my mom's requests to eat breakfast. i just don't like breakfast food. but lately i'm so into eggs over easy with garlic fried rice. i could eat that every morning and i firmly believe my days will go by smoother 🙂 that being since jelly filled donuts are totally unreasonable on a daily basis. 😉 brussel sprouts. this one's a stretch but has to be doused in butter and herbs. and i won't make them. they have to come from someone else's kitchen and resemble nothing like the brussel sprout in it's normal state. 🙂 i still stand very firmly on my inabilities to eat spicy food though. 😉

there you go. my afternoon of baking with elsie transformed this whole post into a favorite parenting phrase of mine, 'one day you'll like it'. 🙂

December 15, 2009 11

reunited

last weekend. he's been traveling quite a bit lately and it's good to have my other half back home with me! he walks and drives the kids to school for me in the morning so that i can stay indoors with elsie in our jammies. and while he was gone, racing to get everyone out the door- not an easy task. i always pack lunches in the morning, even though the night before would be more practical. i am not a morning person. i will tell you that i drive in my pajamas 🙂 just getting out the door on time is good enough for me. and of course we happened to run out of coffee and instead of just ordering some online, i did the thing that we haven't done since july- go to starbucks! we got this machine and it has been so wonderful for us to just make our own coffee at home and not spend a fortune at starbucks every week. my week was just off. besides being exhausted in general- i tend to stay up till the wee hours and then have to wake up for school in the morning- vicious cycle…i found myself missing conversations. it's just not the same to converse over email and texting. i miss my daily need to unload every detail of my life and our kids lives to my husband. it was emotionally exhausting as well. thank goodness for my inlaws, who live nearby, i frequently visit them to keep my loneliness to a minimum. and to let elsie unload some of her energy and chattiness onto other family members 🙂

but ahhh all is well back in our household. we are complete.

October 13, 2009 8

I actually

have pics and things to blog about but thanks to our ever unreliable Internet provider, I can’t! 😦 I have access on my phone but I have little patience staring at the little phone screen. it’s actually been refreshing, being forced to take an Internet/tv break (our Internet and tv are from the same company). I’ve been able to do some purging that I usually ignore because I’m sucked into the vortex of the world wide web. the kids have been forced to do thing like look up something in the dictionary rather than on dictionary.com! and though it’s nice to have a little break, there’s so much we rely on the Internet to provide for us, so after many frustrated calls- I’m hoping to get reconnected soon.
🙂

September 14, 2009 1

morning

our mornings are about to change next week. the 3 big kids will be going back to school and a few weeks later, els will start 2 day a week preschool. here's a glimpse of how many of our mornings have begun this summer.
both of the boys wake up early to watch morning cartoons and play video games. one takes a break and usually hops in bed with els as she is super snuggly and warm.

she takes after me, she likes to sleep in and it takes her awhile to get out of bed.

and that's enough 🙂
as crazy as it gets sometimes with all 4 kids home and running around like wild children, i absolutely love summer. i love having them here with me.. no itinerary, no where to be. we spend a good portion of our days in our pajamas and only leave the house if we must 🙂 this year is going to be a huge chapter in our lives. 3 of the 4 kids are starting at new schools. as i was downloading these pics to my august folder, i was embarrassed to see that i only took photos one other time this month. geeeeeez. wedding season does that to me. i'll be camera ready for these new chapters i speak of. 🙂

August 28, 2009 8

stop

every now and then she needs to remind me to stop. this day as i was working on the computer, she asked me to take some pictures of her with her friends. how could i resist? i dropped everything for some pics and cuddles!

i like to think that i'm pretty good with my time management. i feel pretty good when i cross off a few things off my lists. and i completely don't mind stopping what i'm doing to climb in bed for some snuggles. 🙂

have a great weekend!

July 31, 2009 16

making stuff

the kids and i got a bee in our bonnets last night and made 5 of these puppies! so fun, and so gratifying to use up all those ribbons 🙂

tonight, we tackle on the teacher presents! 🙂
and here are a few more from the dodger day… elsie waiting in the car before we got there 🙂

dad has hopes of her playing ball 🙂

and me with my favorite ball player 🙂

oh! also added my next 7 pages for my december daily book over here… just trying to condense blog space 🙂

December 18, 2008 10

sleep, glorious sleep!

From Jack Johnson's 'Banana Pancakes'--

"We got everything we need right here 
And everything we need is enough 
It's just so easy 
When the whole world fits inside of your arms 
Do we really need to pay attention to the alarm"

this was us today. i stayed in bed for SO long. it was heaven. as 
soon as i got out of the shower this morning,  the sunlight was 
hitting my bed just so- it was calling me- come back, come back... 
and so i did. caleb came home sick from preschool yesterday, 
so he was a little groggy too. but we read books and played board 
games and fell back asleep. chris did too for a bit until his phone 
rang. he had just gotten back from a business trip, so he totally has 
a reason. me? not so much. you'd think i just had a newborn and 
was craving the sleep or something. nope, i just wanted to cuddle 
my boys in bed. that's it. i dragged myself out at 130 this afternoon. 
and now i feel really unproductive. lol. now it's almost time to pick 
my kids up from school where i am sure they have been working 
their hineys off. 🙂 
good for them.

December 15, 2005 2