31/365

It's a great day! The oldest of our offspring is 11 today! 11 years ago, we became parents for the first time. This kiddo changed our world forever. Happy birthday, you awesome boy.

Another reason to celebrate...I have officially completed one month of this little project of mine! Now, I just need to multiply that by 12 and I'm good to go.

30/365

So...Micah had this project assigned to him about a month ago. Somehow, we haven't done a lick of it until today. Yeah, that's my very most favorite way to handle big projects...NOT!!!! Anyway, Micah is supposed to do this book on his life as if her were President of the United States. Like a retrospective kind of thing. It's a very cool concept, but not so fun when you haven't had more than about 4 hours of asleep after a night shift, and you have to go back again that night. Yay! It worked out okay, and we bonded, so it's fine.

Fine print: I mean absolutely no disrespect to George Washington by plastering Micah's face over his. Just so you know.

29/365

We like to make sure that the kids spend lots of time cooking with Aunt Jamie, so they can bring back all the secrets of her culinary magic. We learned a lot after this session.

28/365

Oh, they're SOOOO tortured...poor kids.

27/365

Aunts are awesome. This auntie is especially awesome.

Can you see all the little grapes? Every time the grape would hit her mouth, she would close her eyes. They would pop right back open every time, which was pretty cute, but I didn't quite catch that part. Anyway, even though it looks like she quite possibly could, she did NOT choke, and was thrilled to catch it in her mouth.

Oh, and one picture couldn't do this scenario justice, so you get a gaggle. Love ya!

26/365

So, the kids missed a few days of school last week for our family activities. This kiddo somehow ended up with strep throat and an earache, and has managed to miss school all of this week, too.

Blah.

He has officially collected more homework than illnesses this week, which is good and bad.

25/365

How about a little impromptu daddy/daughter dance?

24/365

peace. serenity. I want to go back.

23/365

What we did today:

A lot of this. We slowly went from freezing cold, to roasty toasty!

22/365

I went skiing today! For the first time ever!!!

Some highlights:

--my awesome instructor (the hubsters)
--the incredible patience he showed when it took at least an hour to make it down the hill the first time. Woo!
--Taking 20 minutes on the same hill the second time. Yes!
--Not wiping out once getting on or off the ski lift
--The bunny hill pulley thingy, which we went to for a little while after it took me an hour going down that first time.
--My eight-year old daughter beating me down the hill EVERY TIME
--My cute SIL hanging out with me on the slopes after my instructor ditched me (at my request)
--I really liked it! I was worried!

Oh...and we came home to Navajo Tacos. Yeah, that was awesome.

21/365

Word of the Day: COLD

Or maybe it's HOT? Not totally sure...

20/365

New babies ROCK!!!

Ahh...new babies make me happy! This one, especially! Congratulations, Justin and Dayna!

19/365

Mad Face

So, this girl has inherited her dad's ability to pull any 'look' out of her bag of tricks.  This one is a crowd favorite.  We call it MAD FACE.  It's not like she's really mad, in fact she was having a ball here, listening to some funky tunes in the car.  It's so HER that it must be included in this little ol' project of mine.  Yes, I know she's been dominating around here as of late, but if you know her personality, then you know it is very telling of our lives right now...

18/365

So this was actually taken yesterday, after this Baby Doll wiped out on the swings. Thanks for getting it, Ivy! AND I have pictures of my purse! Yay! But they're not cooperating, so until I can figure out why my photoshop is on strike, they won't be forthcoming.

Today has been one heck of a day, to say the least! It's a long story, but involved a lot of driving (locally), changing cars around and arriving after long-ish drives to destinations where keys or garage door openers are required, but not present. It was exhausting, but the BEST part of the day was described by my tootie-pie little sister, Ivy, and you NEED to go check it out. totally made my day!

17/365

We went on an epic adventure today! We had bikes, the bike trailer, and rollerblades between all of us. We went out on the trails to this cool little park. Baby Doll here found swings!

Then she tried to go all NO HANDS on us and did this mega flip on her head. Woo! Not good. She was okay. Then we went on a journey uphill to this really cool track/exercise park place. AWESOME! I was hauling the two little ones in the bike trailer. I estimate I was hauling around 70 pounds all the way up! Woo! This older guy (a walker) mentioned that I was lagging behind. Yes. Thank you, sir. By the time I was done I wanted a little nap on the cool grass.

I learned something, though. You can rollerblade with poles! Yes you can!

16/365

Lil·li·pu·tian/ˌliləˈpyo͞oSHən/
Adjective: Trivial or very small.
Noun: A trivial or very small person or thing.

He is FAR from trivial, but definitely a very small person. And he likes chillin' in bananas. AND I love him.

15/365

We started Hawaiian dance again last week, and look who is right in the middle of it!

You can also see another newbie right behind her! Can you guess who it is? Yep, it's my tootie-pie little sister, Ivy! She's doing great! She passed Auntie Clayre's test, so she is in it for the season, if she is still here for the Aloha Festival. Fun!

14/365

Wuv.

And mischief.

She was being all sweet and lovey-like...then she went all mischievous.  Then she said she wanted to go outside, and all the loving was done.

13/365

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!

12/365

joy. joy. joy.

joy.

I wish there was a way to just bottle them up like this. These pictures are like my little bottles, keeping track of the little things that I KNOW I will miss someday.

What methods have you found to work the best to keep track of all these little moments? That is, without spending all of your time working on encapsulating those memories, but actually participating and soaking it up, too?

For me:

--taking the actual picture (you don't get the moment back, no do-overs on Christmas morning)

--not obsess about taking the picture, but being ready for a quick shot (kids don't like having the camera in their face all the time)

--having a simplified record keeping method (this blog is mighty helpful!)

--don't go nutso trying to cutesifie everything, you probably won't like the cutesy things in 20 years. Actually, I know you won't.

--just do it and be accountable to someone for doing it.  (your family?)

--simplify, and enjoy life

(know that this is very much a work in progress, subject to constant reassessment and re-evaluation!)

11/365

I woke up from my pre-work nap to the most delicious smells wafting from the kitchen! My tootie-pie little sister, Ivy, has been trying a new, slightly more complicated chili recipe. It's one that NicholeV posted, actually! Anyway, I couldn't stand laying there in bed with that yummy smell, so I broke off the nap early to check it out.

Ivy was chopping all the veggies up, then finally broke out the gloves to chop up the peppers. She mentioned that she needed to remove the membranes on the peppers, and started peeling the peppers...huh? It took me a minute, but then I realized that she thought the membranes were the peel! Then she said that she had already peeled all of the bell peppers!

hee hee ho ho haha...

Oh dear, I needed a good little laugh, and she delivered! She is SUCH a good sport, that she even let me take a picture of that sorry little jalapeno and put it on my blog!!!

Love this sweet girl. 

wait...

wait for it....

note: this is another EXCELLENT day to have a birthday! 1/11/11 I can't WAIT for NOvember 11th. I might have to purposely schedule myself at work to make sure I am a part of that very excellent occasion.

10/365

9/365

This will soon become my newest purse. It would already be my purse if I hadn't gotten caught up in some family happenings:

-a nap

-dinner

-bathtime

-painting my baby's toenails

-yapping at my tootie-pie litle sister

-yapping at my cute hubby

-sprucing up my sewing room

-drawing pictures of my future purse

-bedtime for the kiddos

THEN...I found my little box of things I've saved over the years, and started going through all the papers and letters I saved over the years. I found the newspaper clipping from when I ran into this girl on a bike who came out from behind this electrical box (don't worry, it was about 2 miles/hour and she was fine)...a newspaper clipping about this older gentleman that kept running into a bunch of things in Sun City that has me rolling every time I read it...some old notes from my cute hubsters from when we were dating (made me smile). I also found some letters from a roommate who came from Japan to go to school. I looked for her on facebook but couldn't find her. I hope to someday! She was awesome!

Anyway, that's why the purse isn't done, but I'm going for Tuesday now.

8/365

I had several options for today's picture:

-Hawaiian dance started today...yay! We even roped my tootie pie little sister into joining us.

-Micah had his first club soccer game. They played a team from Flagstaff, and kind of stomped them. It's a whole new level of soccer and competition. Fun!

-I made another baked italian sub, which is so, so good! Could have done a great little picture of that.

-Ultimately, I had to go with this one. She was playing at the park during the soccer game, and kept running back to give me some sweet little kisses. She even kissed the camera! Then she gave me this face:

'nuff said.

7/365

Yay for good friends moving closer! YAY!!!

This was right before one of the moving guys lost his footing coming out of the moving truck and somehow landed underneath a shelving unit thing. He was tough, though.

6/365

Look at that! 6 days in a row!

Tonight was kind of a big boy for the oldest of our offspring! He earned his Arrow of Light in Cub Scouts tonight! He officially won't be moving on until the end of the month, but is essentially done with the cubbies. I'm so proud and sad at the same time! He's such a good boy. Here he is getting ready to cross over the bridge to the Boy Scouts:

Let's analyze this, shall we?

5/365

Isn't he a cutie? I think so...even with those headphones permanently attached to his ears...

This one is SOOC (straight out of camera), aside from a few color tweaks in my RAW editor. I only tell you this because I want you to look closely at the way this is blurred. It's kind of a cheater way of doing a tilt-shift lens technique with the lens you have. Here are some examples of tilt-shift pictures. The blur is different than what you normally get with your average lens. Normally, there is a focal point that is sharper with a range of blur in the background. This lens makes for a different blurring. The way I did it was to take my lens off the camera, then hold it snug up against the camera body. It takes some practice, but is heck of a lot cheaper than springing for the trusty tilt-shift!

4/365

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Plato

I think of this often...it doesn't matter how put together someone may appear, their profession, politics, whatever! Everyone needs to be shown a little kindness. (That includes me when I pull up to the local fast-food McWhatever, thank you very much. That topic alone is worthy of an entirely different post.)

Have any of you seen this video before? It's short and sweet. My tootie-pie little sister Ivy shared this with me a while ago. I just love the message! The ending is a little weird, but the rest is cute. The best part is at 00:20.

3/365

Grandmother, would you care for some tea?

The kids are losing one of their favorite playmates today.  Grandma is heading back to colder weather, if that is possible.  It's been downright cold here the past few days!  Even Grandma would agree with that one. 

AND, because I love so many things in yesterday's POTD (picture of the day), I am doing a little recap. My favorite things here...
-that seriously awesome fellow below
-delicious fresh basil
-the gas stove
-my awesome knife that I researched to pieces before purchasing last year

I LOVE:

2/365

Lasagna.

This recipe from Pioneer Woman is one of our favorite meals to eat. I've made it in the dutch oven, too! Let me tell you...it is one of the most comforting things to snarf down when you're out camping! Cam loves it so much, he came right home and made it today. It's even better when you don't have to make it yourself!

Here he is in progress:

Boys, when you grow up, make this for your families...they will love it, and YOU for doing it!

Make this!

1/365

Happy New Year!

It might just be the coolest birthday ever! 1.1.11 (It's the labor and delivery nurse in me that thinks that way...) True story: I worked on 10.10.10 and my patient had a baby at 10:00. Without even trying! How cool is that? Anyway, we made a 1.1.11...see?

Anything can happen this year! Here's hoping it's full of joy, love and laughter!