I have never really been a daddy's girl. I know there is a difference in the father's relationship with his daughter. Growing up I was mama's girl. My sister was older than me by five years and got married young. She moved far away, so by the age of 14 I was basically an only child. My mom and I spent a lot of time together. Our relationship was always closer than most, I imagine. But even though I was mama's girl, I knew there was something special and different about my daddy and me. Today, my kids and I called Papa, told him to get ready, we would be on our way soon. We were going to get him and take him with us to Bass Pro. Why? Why not. Daddy is an outdoor man. He knows his stuff. We had not been to the Bass Pro here yet and it seemed like a nice and fun thing to do. Little did I know.... As I watched my own father take each of my kids by the hand, or pick up my youngest child from his stroller, something came over me. This overwhelming feeling. That...

Lyrics - Baby It’s Cold Outside lyrics

This is what happens when Davis gets yogurt out of the fridge and sits it on the floor next to Xander. He tried the spoon... But his finger was far easier... Then he had to suck it off his finger... He realized that was taking too long.... Even the container tastes good. Boys......

Rock on Tank. I promise to get to more of your games in the future. I suck. I just got done watching one of the most awesome things I have ever had the honor of watching. A slide show of my nephew, aka Tank. The pictures told the story of him well. Kicking it on the soccer field. Pure awesomeness. Seriously. Pure awesomeness. While I did not get to many games (as stated above because I suck) I did get to the final game of the HIT tournament. In time to see Tank get a yellow card for taking down that silly kid. And to capture second place. Be sure and send me the schedule for the next session. I am going to print it, highlight it and come to more games. That way, when he is playing Pro ball, I can say, "I knew him when...."

I have often felt very blessed by the family I have. Both my family that I was born into and the family I married into. I know that what I have surrounding me is rare. It is the norm around here is go to my sister's house once a week, if possible. She has three older kids with lots of activities so it can be hard. But at the very least, it is once every other week. Not only is this great for our kids, it has been for us as well. I am not sure that I have ever felt as close to my sister as I do right now. She is undoubtedly my best friend. Not only that, but her kids are.....awesome. They just are. I love them as if they were my own kids. You just have to know these young people. I send them e-mails sometimes and the responses I get.....I read them over and over and wonder how I got so lucky to be their aunt. They are just that phenomenal. No joke. It is beyond words what those kids mean to me. It seriously warms my heart just to see them. To see my nieces and nephew...

One look is all it takes....pure sweetness.

Xander is busy. Not walking yet. Though he can push Elmo around in the doll stroller. No problems there. But he is not taking any steps yet. Aye. Just to give you an idea of what goes on around here with Xander, I give you a couple glimpses of the last two days... I is not doing nuffing mom.... Must. find. a. way. to. climb. the. fridge. Turkey....stood there FOREVER, steady as could be, eating his ice cream cone. But never took one step. How we know he is his father's son: love of ice cream and tongue issues. Ice cream so totally rocks!

Davis ate my xD card today. Luckily I managed to get Xander's birthday pictures off. The only thing that is missing are some pictures I took yesterday of Xander eating an ice cream cone. We will just have to feed him another cone today. I doubt he will be upset. I have pictures from Xan's party. I am too lazy to post many. I have yet another cold. What is it with this weather? Ah, yes. Winter is here. Yay. I can not get the pictures to behave...much like my children.

One year ago today I met someone for the very first time. I had no idea how profoundly he would change my life. Nor how he would change Emmaline. Or Davis. Or Mark. I had no idea what meeting him would mean for my family. What he would symbolize for years to come. I had no idea that my heart would grow even more. One year ago today, someone laid a tiny little being right up next to my face. And that is when I first laid eyes on Alexander Gabriel. It was a moment in time that I wished would last forever. You were born a big boy and you continued to grow with each passing day. We celebrated your first Thanksgiving and Christmas when you were only a few weeks old. Too tiny to know what we were doing. But a blessing to all of us none the less. Winter came and you smiled at us. You began to sit up. You took in the world around you. We watched your big eyes soak up life. You showed us that life was beautiful. Spring came breezing in. We had your first Easter. You got some ...

I am not going to get all political.... Just want to say: make your voice be heard. GO VOTE! It is a privilege to do so. I walked all three kids to the poll today to cast our vote. We all got our I Voted stickers and walked ourselves back home. Now, we wait.

I wonder..... Why do songs evoke emotions in us? Why do we remember song lyrics so easily yet can not recall a history fact? What causes songs to bring up a memory in a second? I love music. Always have. I remember lyrics to songs from the 80's. I remember nothing else. But a song? Can put me right back to that time and place. With the people and the feelings. I wonder what it is that does that to us. I am sure there is some scientific reason. Some study. Some research. I spent many nights listening to music as a teen. It was some sort of relief. If I hear one of those songs today, I can immediately go back to that awkward 13 year old again. I remember songs from being a small child (Free To Be anyone? Rainbow Connection?) I remember songs I sang with my girlfriends (Doin' The Butt, Mambo #5). I remember the last song played at my Senior Prom. But it is not the songs. It is the ability of those songs to bring back the emotions of the time in a sweeping flood....

I can only assume my oldest boy is......unique. This week he has managed to do two things that have made me stop and scratch my head. And almost break my butt. I love the boy.... Yesterday he squirted dish soap all over the bathroom floor. When I went in to use said bathroom I almost fell as the floor was slippery. The entire floor. Do you know how hard it is to clean dish soap off of linoleum? Near impossible as once it is wet, it just lathers up. Not only that but as it dries it leaves a nice film as well. Today he decided to glitter the computer room. I have nothing against glitter. I think is serves a purpose in society. But holy night. Not only did he manage to glitter everything, but then he had the pitcher of pink lemonade and manged to spill the. entire. pitcher. Think about it. Picture it with me now: glitter all over the floor with lemonade ON TOP OF THE GLITTER. Um, the lemonade acted as glue. Seriously. Do you know how hard it is to clean sticky glitter...

I get an idea in my head and well..... I have been thinking of Xan's first birthday party for some time. Knowing I would be making the cake and sugar cookies and trying to come up with a theme. At a year old, it is not like he is into anything. (We will not discuss what my big kids have come up with for their birthdays.) After looking, most of the First Year birthday stuff......is not to my liking. Then for Mother's Day my in-laws got me this awesome cupcake cake pan. Then the idea hit me: Xander's first birthday would be done in blues, brown and white, with polka dots and cupcakes. Awesome plan. Only.....do you know how hard it is to locate paper goods that fit the theme you made up in your head? Not only that but since I was stuck on that exact thing, I could not find anything that came close to the picture in my head. Sigh. I had to make the invitations myself. Complete with cutting out little cupcakes, in different paper, stamping and writing the details, and ...

I have been........busy. My apologies. (Madison.) I had a big cookie opportunity come up and it involved making a little over 100 cookies. Sort of a big deal. Then there was the whole taking care of the kids thing and you know. Life. I also have been trying to get Halloween costumes together as well as plan Xander's first birthday party. It is just a busy time of the year. I have some pictures. I will try to get some up soon and maybe a real post as well. What can I say? I suck.

In short, because you can not keep your kids from hurting. When they fall and get an owie, you can bandage it and make it feel better. It will heal in time. A physical wound just needs time to feel better. But when their heart is hurting? There is only so much you can do. You can hug them and hold them and kiss them and tell them you love them. But you can not bandage up the pain. You can not swoop in and take it away. You have to let them feel it and cry and get it out. As a mom your main purpose is to protect your kids. From hurting. But in the real world there is simply no way to do this all the time. Not only is it impossible, but I fear in the long run it would do your kids a huge disservice to protect them so much. Sheltering. I have learned that when your kids hurt, you hurt too. Even though you are the adult and you understand how life is and you know that sometimes things are for the best, you still hate to see your child hurting. You ache for them. You want to...

Since finding the manual mode on my camera, I have been photo happy. As a result I have taken over 100 pictures this month so far. Yikes. This makes it hard to post pictures because........there are too many I like. My boys. Dressed in matching outfits. I love how in the first one they are looking at one another. This is what we do on Saturdays. Brave the crowds and head to Costco. These were taken with my phone. I just thought it was funny. This one cracks me up. My dressed alike boys. Xander has begun pulling up on everything. I figure it is a matter of time before he is walking now. He see the big kids running around the house and he gets all excited. We went to the park yesterday and my niece asked if I thought Xander would like to swing. I have never put him in a swing because, to be honest, I do not like to be outside. So he has been to the park a few times but I never thought about plopping him in the baby swing. We went and put him in the swing. The boy loved it. He...

I say this a lot. This kid is.....so strange. I have been doing some preschool with Davis. Mostly to keep him out of trouble while Emma is doing school. But also because he was not writing any letters. I was at a loss because Emma learned her letters in preschool. As in one I paid to send her to. And because she seemed interested in learning her letters. Oh. And she is not left handed. I was first not sure how to teach Davis to write because as I said I did not teach Emma. Then, I thought it could not be too hard, right? Wrong. Davis.....marches to a different drum. Actually, I am not sure it is a drum at all that he is hearing. I think it might be some bagpipes or some other different instrument. It may not be an instrument at all. This kid, he is like a puzzle to solve. And he keeps things to himself. For example, he never really drew a lot. He would color and scribble on paper but never really drew any sort of picture. Then one day I notice an animal drawn on the doo...

Well, he started crawling. And every once and a while he will pull himself up to stand. I realize he is ten months old. But really. I was in no hurry. They grow so fast anyways.... Here are some current pictures. I have been playing around with my camera lately. These are some images I have captured in the last few days.... They are handsome men..... I like to stare at them. Mark does not enjoy it so much... First battle wound. Isn't he lovely? He has the longest eye lashes.... It's time for your close up. See? Look at those lashes! Sigh.... Hey dude.... Like how his diaper is hanging out the top of his pants? He rocks the low rise. This was after I told him no. Do you see that ornery grin? Trouble.... How you doin'? Cold weather here. Causing us to lounge most of the day. Fall is on its way. As well as Mr. Xander's first birthday. Where did the year go??? And where did my baby go???

Why yes, that is a song from Free To Be, You and Me. I had the album. As in vinyl. Way back when I was a young girl. Anyway, this is just to post some pictures of my children. Being sisters and brothers. Brothers and sisters. Brothers and brothers. If these photos are any indication of what the future holds......it shall be interesting. You're going down, down, in an earlier round... And sugar you're going down swinging.... You can read to me.... But I will turn the pages... You are not doing it right. What is that at the end of the table? Oh, it is a XANDER MAN!!! Ah yes. The baby crawled today. I am aware that he is almost ten months old so I should not be shocked. But, um, he crawled today. I liked him unable to move. Now, the real fun begins....