It's My Birthiversary!

November is a big month for me -- it's my birthday month (it's my first 39th birthday this year!) ;-), and it's my anniversary month with Rodan+Fields.

This business changed EVERYTHING for me....not only our finances, but my friendships, my sense of purpose and wholeness, my family's dynamic, and my skin.  I'm a new person since this business, and I'm so thankful for this blessing in my life.

All that to say....I FEEL LIKE CELEBRATING! 



In other news, I'm feeling so blessed and loved.  All joking about aging aside, I love having my birthday.  And I really don't mind aging at all.....would I rather be here and now with my wonderful kiddos and a full, happy life?....or 5, 10, 15 years ago with my younger bod?  It's a no-brainer.

My birthday was filled with phone calls from loved ones, hugs and kisses and crayon drawings from my kiddos, and a general feeling of...

I'm alive
On purpose
I LOVE this!

Life is good, friends.  It's not perfect.  It's not tidy.  But, it is good, and I'm so happy to be here!

I'm not the only one with a recent birthday though.  Remember that tiny little bundle who kept me hopping when I started this blog?

He just turned FIVE!

I am head over heels in love with this little boy, and I take every possible opportunity to hold his little hand in mine and to kiss his soft cheeks.

He is the very definition of "little boy"....loud, rambunctious, messy, funny, exhausting....and I wouldn't have him any other way.

He has the craziest ability to stop, drop, and sleep wherever he is:

And he just generally spreads joy and smiles everywhere he goes!  I can't imagine life without my Tommy!

We had a fun little party for him.  Let's see if I can get some YouTube videos linked up here:



I love you, Thomas!  You're extraordinary and wonderful!!

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Fluid Dynamics for Preschoolers

Today is Sammy's favorite kind of day -- her snack day!  She loves choosing something special to wear (even though it makes her mommy cringe sometimes), picking a snack she thinks everyone will enjoy, and toying with us while she makes the decision about who will be the honored parent to join her.

This time, it's Daddy's turn to do snack day.  She brought graham crackers and applesauce, and she brought her stuffed animals "Shug Snuggle" to share with her friends.  The funniest part of this month's decision making process was absolutely the snack....her idea was that she should bring some apples for her classmates and some beer for Daddy!  hehehehe

Apparently, the lesson for today's class has to do with fluid dynamics....preschool style.  Luke just emailed me a video of Sammy's experiment:

Man, I love my life!

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Train A Child In The Way He Should Go...

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Giggles

The frequent highlight of my days...Thomas belly laughs :-) This kid is (almost) always happy, and I love his little laugh. May you always be joyful, my sweet boy!

(Thomas was asking to watch "Cars" on the computer by making his little 'vvv vvvv' sound. I was saying "no" in as many interesting ways as I could think to get him laughing.)

Find more "Just for the Joy of it" here.

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Makes My Heart Sing

My little Sammy has been practicing the Christmas songs she's learning at preschool. She sings them with such spunk...just had to get one on video to share with you.

For those of you who might have a tough time understanding Sammy's stuffed-nose speak: "there was a little baby, oh my Lord...they laid him in a manger, oh my Lord, they named the baby Jesus, oh my Lord...way down in Bethlehem (or BethleHAM if you ask her!)"

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TWO!!

It seems impossible that it was a whole year ago that my baby was turning ONE year old.

It seems even more impossible that it was two whole years ago that my baby was just doing stuff like THIS.

And now?  Now my little guy is romping around and running and playing and eating pizza and corn dogs.  I mean...lots of fresh fruits and veggies, lean proteins, and fiber.  Yeah, that's it.  Hey, I do my best.

This child is joy on two quick legs.  He's dimples and screaming and giggles.  He's jumping on the bed until I get dizzy just watching him.  He's "hi-eee" and a big running hug when I walk in the room.  He's my sparkly-eyed baby.  He is an answer to prayer.  

My sweet Thomas...I love you to bits.

Here are some videos documenting what Thomas is like at the big T-W-O:

Busy (and falling) boy~

Jumping boy~

Seeing his cake (I can't believe I've made my last Elmo cake! (sniff. sniff.)~

Blowing out the candles~

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Camp

We had some adventure this weekend!  After "camping" at my folks' cottage in Wisconsin, pretty much any sort of outdoor activity that doesn't include running water and a hot shower at the end of the day is seriously roughing it.  And this weekend was all about the NON running water and NOT hot shower...or any shower for that matter.  

And it was great.

I started taking pictures when we were in the beautiful Idaho mountains.  We stopped along the way to stretch our legs and to get some solid ground under our Clara's (aka "the puker") feet.  When that girl utters the words "My tummy hurts", we go on high alert.  LEVEL RED PEOPLE!  RED, I SAY, REEEEDDD!!  PULL OVER!!

Here's the 'burb all loaded up with enough gear for 6 people to survive in the wilderness for two days:

Here's me and my man.  Good Lord, I love him with all that's in me:

Here we are all stuffed in the car.  The Puker is mercifully asleep.

We got to the campground and set up camp.  I was amazed by how blue the sky was....how crisp the air was in those mountains.  The world is sure prettier when there's no pollution between your senses and the elements.

We left the top part of the tent off so that we could fall asleep watching the twinkling stars, and we woke to sight of the sky turning from grey to blue to brilliant blue.  The trees swayed in the breeze.  The creek running by our site lulled us to sleep at night.  The birds serenaded us.  It was quite a welcome to the day.  

I, of course, had my camera handy.  I grabbed my little point and shoot - here's what I woke to:

It was a chilly 50 degrees or so, so my big kids came and snuggled with me in my sleeping bag.  "Take our picture, Mommy!" Clara said.  The little sass...she just wanted to monkey.  But me (and my 6 chins?)  we wanted to sleep.

When Ben saw what she was up to, he decided to join in...

Why not?...

Sammy was trying to get snuggled into her sleeping bag, when her air mattress decided to buck her right off onto the ground. 

At least she was a good sport about it...

There was this little creature toddling around our campsite all weekend.  He was covered in ketchup, water, yogurt, and dirt....and he had my son's blue eyes.  We called him Pigpen, but it might have been Thomas.

After a long day of playing in the heat, this little one kept wanting to know when we were going home....and then she'd tear off after the other kids around the campground.  We all feel like we could sleep for about a week straight right about now.

Ummm...what are these doing in here?  These should probably be a different post.  This pretty little creature was on my lavender before we went camping.  

Okay, here we are back to camping.  The power of the lowly apple....give one to a 1 year old or a 3 year old, and they'll be quiet and content and busy for at least 30 minutes.

An apple a day keeps mommy's insanity away...

There's our little tent nestled in the forest:

I just love the color of the bark on the Ponderosa Pines.

And check out the texture of this tree - so pretty!

These trees are so tall!

And then...the drive home.  Nothin' quite like piling 6 tired, sweaty, dirty people in the car to drive a winding mountain road back home.  The Puker lived up to her name.  Thomas almost earned the title of Puker Junior.  He was screaming and pale....but then I cranked the obnoxious kids' music, and it distracted him and calmed him just enough to get some color back in his cheeks.  It's Dramamine for him next trip too.  

And for your viewing pleasure...our road trip home (I love you shower and dishwasher):

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Soooo Sleeeepyyyy

A little giggle for the grandparents on a tough day...

You know all those Funniest Home Videos that showed the kids falling asleep in odd places?  I always thought, "Sheesh, put that poor child to bed!  What sort of parent is so out of touch with their baby that the poor little one falls asleep on their dinner plate?"

Well, now I guess I know.

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Trauma

Okay, so I have some explaining to do before you look at these movie clips.

Ben has had a dangling front tooth for ages - the thing was getting all grey and nasty, so we decided to pull it out.  We tried several days ago, but nothing happened with a gentle tug, so we took the string off and let it dangle for another couple of days.  That was the plan this time too - give it a gentle tug and hopefully it would pop right out.  If not, just let it go for a while longer.

But then this happened.  Ben cried.  I almost cried.  I still wanna cry just thinking about it.

I gave that darn tooth a gentle tug...and HALF of it came out...meaning that it came out sort of crooked.  One little section of tooth was still hanging in there, and the other half was poking painfully into his gums.  

I had two options:  

1.  Pin the kid down on the floor while I wiggled the tooth back IN (would have taken a while and would have hurt like crazy).

2.  Give one hard tug and get the tooth all the way out.  

I had roughly 2 milliseconds to decide, and I chose #2.  It was awful.  But Ben was brave and a popsicle made his world right again.  I, on the other hand, will never be the same.  I'm never pulling a tooth out again even if they beg (which I'm pretty sure they won't after seeing this mishap).  

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The Grandparents Need Their Fix

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Greetings To Yaya & Papa

We miss you!

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Honoring My Parents

Around here, that means one thing: lots and lots of videos and pictures of the grandkids.  Sorry guys - I've been neglecting you!  You can find a video I took just this morning down at the bottom of this post.  I love it when the little ones are still padding around in their jammies and bed heads.  Maybe that's why I often let them stay that way until noon?

Feeling a tad overwhelmed today.  Hubby and I signed up to run a (gulp) half marathon in a mere 8 weeks.  I managed to find and print a "get ready for a half marathon in 8 weeks" plan, and I started yesterday.  I only ran 3.22 miles with some hills included...and right now I HURT from head to toe.  Today I'm supposed to cross train.  More running tomorrow.  Then another day of cross training.  Then...you get the picture.  The goal, of course, is to work up to being able to run 13 miles.  But not just any 13 miles.  For the Race To Robie Creek, it's uphill the entire first half.  And it gets steep - up to 9% grade.  

I don't have an answer for the obvious question you're probably asking (and that I've asked myself ever since I paid my $40 to register).  What?  You don't know what question I'm talking about?  It goes something like this: My dear Daiquiri, what the !@#$ were you thinking?

The good news is that I should be ready for swimsuit season this year.  The bad news is that I'll probably puke on my brand new running shoes upon finishing this race.

In other news, I read a blog yesterday that totally cracked me up.  I didn't grab the link and I can't remember what it's called.  Sorry wonderful blog author.  The general idea behind her post was to type "(your name) needs" into Google, and see what gets spit out.  I was skeptical, but ended up laughing my head of.  Go on - try it!  Some of my results are:

Daiquiri needs saving (Amen!)

Daiquiri needs more rum

Daiquiri needs a home to call her own

Daiquiri needs updating/improvements (again, Amen)

Daiquiri needs a better agent

And THEN I typed in my hubby's name.  Oh, I almost fell off my chair laughing!  Among other things, he needs "to drink more beer" (NO, I'm not kidding!) and "viagra"!!!!!!!!

Seriously, go try it.

Well, I'm off to go tackle my to do list, which includes ordering some client prints, getting my 2009 calendar filled in (I know..it's February), doing some tax stuff, printing 2008 pictures, reading some books, braiding some sweet little girl hair, and...cross training.  Does painting my toenails count as cross training?

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Happy Birthday Papa!

Happy Birthday Dad! Clara drew you a birthday picture before you came for your visit, so I sent it home for Mom to give to you today. Sorry to have not inclued pics from Ben and Sammy. They each made you a special picture for your special day. I'll bring them for Christmas...in the mean time, here's a preview:





This is you and Ben holding hands. Ben was so careful to try and get just the right shade for your eyes :)

Sammy tells me that this is a picture of water. Part of the water does not have a shark, and part does have a shark. See that fishy thing in the lower right? That's the shark :)

And, of course, no birthday would be complete without a special song:

I love you very much! Have a wonderfully happy birthday. Can't wait to see you next week :)

PS. Remember when we did this last year? Man, the kids have changed so much!

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Soundtrack Of My Life

It was a couple of days ago that I picked up my little point and shoot to take a picture of Sammy being silly. When I went to take the picture, I found that the camera was on, and running in "video" mode! The picture isn't much to talk about, but you can *hear* a little slice of our lives around here...Thomas is needy and clingy these days (that kid really wants to walk, just hasn't figured it out yet)...Sammy is lots of fun...and the big kids were outside playing in the backyard. And big surprise, I was in the middle of making cookies :)

Here are the resulting shots of my little goof-ball. She is such a joy. Her latest development is my personal favorite of all time..."Mommy, I wub you", and "You my best Mama". Some days just make all the other days worth it, ya know?

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Happy Birthday, My Little One!

My Dear Sweet Thomas,

How is it possible that your first year is past us already? It seems just yesterday that I sat on the couch, watching your little body tumble around in my belly... and tomorrow we're going to get your first hair cut! It truly was a blink. A blink filled with diapers, giggles, tears, new teeth, snuggles, and drool...but a blink.

Oh, my little one. I just don't have words to tell you how much I adore you!

You are my very last baby, so the feel of you as a babe in my arms will always be a fresh memory for me. Your growing up signals so many changes for us! We will never have another "first tooth", "first smile", "first word", or "first step" once you're past those milestones. I'm trying desperately to remember every precious detail.

You won't remember your first birthday, so let me tell you what you're like right now. The first thing that comes to mind is "LOUD"! You love your voice. So do I, which is a good thing, since it's in "play" mode all the time! :) You're also super high energy. Wrestling, bouncing, tickling, chasing...you're all boy! Let's see..."hungry" is another word that comes to mind. You devour whatever we put in front of you. And of course "joyful". That should have been the first word! You are ALWAYS smiling! You have an easy laugh, and a contagious giggle. Oh, I just love you so much!

My little boy. What does your future hold? What will those little hands of yours do in life? What will the Lord do with your energy and joy? I can hardly wait to see. Actually...I take that back. I CAN wait. So please, don't be in too much of a hurry to grow up!

Happy Birthday, Thomas my sweet. Grow healthy. Grow strong. Grow wise and good. But, for the love of your Mommy...grow a little more slowly.

Love,
Mommy

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