Fun with Fritz

Amy's back in CA! Yeah! It's kind of our routine to do an after dinner dance party. This night Uncle Fritz (Chris' nickname) pumped up the tunes with the kids while Amy and I were cleaning up dinner dishes. We ditched the dishes once we heard all the fun we were missing.

Bubba Got Married

This is a make-up post -- this all happened a few months ago, but it's too memorable to skip over.

Bubba is my little bro. He's great and he married Emily who is at least equally as great. Don't they just look like they both made out like bandits in the deal? I love it. The whole family made it for the event making it even more memorable.

My Aunties and Mom master-minded the reception decor. Fancy, eh?

Every time there's a photographer around, I give a family picture a go. It always turns out kind of like this.

And now we're getting ready for the last of the siblings to join the ranks of the espoused. Courtney's engaged to Greg -- the date is set for December. YEAH COURTEY!
She came out to visit a few weeks ago and updated me on all things hip. I learned about Antoine Dodson, Maroon 5, and played a lot of "What NOT to wear." Courtney helped me teach my kids a lot of lessons, like when she told them "When you get to college you can eat Oreos for breakfast!" and when I told them "Look kids, this is what happens when you don't put sunscreen on at the beach!" She got fried.

The kids LOVE having Auntie Courtney here. Lucy even suggested they play beauty parlor and allowed Court to put her hair in pigtails!

We're finally in the swing of things now that it's about the first day of fall. Something about those long summer days makes me want to throw all responsibility and care to the wind, but the cool (it's only 72 right now at 2:44 pm) weather somehow grounds me again. Now we're planning Halloween costumes, looking forward to a last hurrah boating trip with cousins in a few weeks, and I'm training to run the Las Vegas Ragnar relay with my girlfriend Sarah (and 10 others as our team). It's my turning 30 "coming of age" adventure. I'm going to celebrate by spending that many hours relaying across the desert. Courtney, who can't understand my need to run, said "But you can run here for free and spend that money on a nice dress for my wedding!" A dress or exhaustion and blisters for a cause? It's an obvious choice.

And then there was the time we dressed up like cows...

If I were really cool, I would have posted something a week ago so you too could have sported cow costumes and eaten for free. Put it on your calendar for next year. July 9th: Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A. At first I felt a little apprehensive to go out in public dressed like a cow not on Halloween. But, my good friend Sheri was totally down with sporting the spots and really it's always fun to dress up, isn't it! The free food made the late-night spot pinning worth it!

Can you guess what they're saying?

This is just one of the ways we're having the rockin'est summer ever.

Actually, though, I'm just trying to stay afloat with all three kids home. I know I only had one less during the school year and that was only for 6 hours most days, but it makes a difference. We're settling in to our schedule a bit more and also enjoying not having to stay in the schedule. A few things that define our summer:

It's a good day when we only wear PJ's and swimsuits throughout the entire day.

Popsicles count as a snack anytime (rewards for Benny's potty training right now)

We try to keep up daily quiet time and chore charts (some days better than others...).

We took the whole fam to the beach for a few nights of enjoying nature. Once we got used to the idea that Ben would be a ball of dirt for the entire 3 days, our camping trip improved dramatically! Really, though, we had ourselves a nice couple of days together -- just the family and the sand (and dirt).

To stay entertained while not at the beach, we frequented the camp store, antagonizing the sales person by playing with all of the toys and pulling candy away from Ben.

We explored the caves in the morning at low tide and found lots of cool anemones, muscles, and crabs.

Check out Ben's curls. Oooh, I just love 'em!

Chris likes digging big holes. The kids like playing in big holes. The only downside -- the lifeguard made him break it down because I guess big holes are dangerous. Shyah!

Finally! A break from the daily grind.

Next time I'll give the kids their lollipops after the picture.

We also got a visit from Grandma and helped watch cousin Kate while her parents went on a cruise. Let me tell ya-- adding one kid and a grandma to the mix required adding a Dr. Pepper to your breakfast milk. Actually I think that Grandma might have really been spiking her breakfast milk with Dr. Pepper. Maybe Kate's too. I'm not sure. But we had fun. Mom and I even got a girls night out complete with a Tom Cruise flick and shopping. Love ya, Mom!!! We had so much fun having you out!

Show me your eyes Ben! (that's what I said and that's what I got).

Grandma even made cleaning the windows fun! How does she do it?

Free Mercer Lane Frames

So you know how my aunts make really amazingly gorgeous frames? Well, I've been helping my aunts get a blog to help them market those frames (mercerlane.blogspot.com if you want to check it out). Someone girl who has a product review blog found the frames blog and asked for some frames to do a review. She LOVED them (of course) and is now running a FREE FRAME GIVEAWAY through her blog (and supported graciously by my loving aunties). Here's the link. It only runs through Memorial Day at midnight (the link tells you how to enter the contest):

Go here to enter http://takeitfrom-me.blogspot.com/2010/05/mercer-lane-review-giveaway.html

And here are a couple of my favorites!

There's a Lizard on my Head

We had Chris' parents and sister Theresa visit this week for spring break. We had a great visit with them. I love when family comes to town because then we actually get out and enjoy all thing So-Californian, like In-N-Out.

And what trip down here would be complete without paying homage to the happiest place on earth? (Thanks, Doris, for tying quilts to earn our "Give a Day, Get a Day" Tickets).

We let the kids pick out some souvenirs--their very own mustard packets! Included in the price of admission, I might add. Our poor, poor children.

We visited a few museums locally as well. One of them had a reptile room with snakes, lizards, spiders and other things that make your skin crawl. Benny has been quite afraid of lizards. We have them all over our yard. I heard him screaming one day while they were playing back there. I found him on some stairs in the very back of the yard paralyzed with fear, a 3-inch lizard clinging to some bricks a few feet from where he sat. He's a pretty thick-skinned kid usually, so I'm trying to help him get over it. We looked at all of the caged specimens at the museum. He clung to me, but seemed interested. I set him down for a few minutes after he got comfortable. I turned to look at something, inadvertently brushing his glamorous blond curls that extend quite beyond the edges of his head. He let out some screams that made me think one of the tarantulas had escaped and was gnawing on his scalp! We ran him out of the room, calmed him down, and after a thorough check of his head determined he just thought a lizard was on his head. The next few days confirmed our theory. He kept one hand on his head most of the time. Upon awakening, he would grab his head and ask "Li-yo?" (Lizard?). "No, Benny. All of the lizards are locked up in their cages. You are safe." We ate our Easter dinner outside. The breeze kept blowing his curls. He wouldn't eat. He kept looking around, one hand holding his head, saying "Li-yo, li-yo." I finally grabbed one of Lucy's hairties and pulled his hair back in a pony tail. That helped. I thought it looked dope. Chris said "No. It looks white-trash."

Later that night.

I love Ben's curls. Do I really need to cut them? Will this be the straw that broke the camel's back (or the needle that cracked the donkey's back, right Amy?)? Someone told me my little girl was cute the other day, too. He doesn't look girly. Really. He's husky and looks boylish if you ask Sam (his made up word). But maybe it's time.

V-Day and the B-Fam

I haven't posted in awhile. Oi! I was so excited when the new year came -- I felt motivated to clean up Christmas and get jumping on my resolutions. I've been going full steam ahead organizing junk drawers, getting back on the running bandwagon (it's on between Chris and I for a half in May -- he thinks he actually has a shot at beating me), finishing projects...I even learned how to prune my roses! As wonderful and magical as Christmas is, the post-Christmas detox has really left me feeling good. The rain down here has turned our normal desert landscape green and lush. It's only the second time since we've lived here that we've seen this kind of greenery. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Cupid's arrow has hit a few of us here in Barneyville. Sam says the girls at school organized a "crew" and chase him and two other boys around trying to kiss them. Lucy got her first non-family-boy Valentine and it was from our neighbor, a 1st grader -- he laid the carnation on her pillow during her nap! And Ben, well, Ben started acting like a puppy and licks everyone all the time. I guess that ties in with my love theme in the puppy love category. Chris loves me, too. He watched the kids after dinner so I could go get a haircut and do some errands. Of course we're going on a classy Valentine's date to our ward dinner dance. I told him we could leave early and hit a movie to sweeten the deal. Any suggestions on good flicks out right now?

I hope you all have a fantastic Valentine's Day. We send you our love (and licks!).

XOXOXOXOXOXO

What do you bring to a white elephant gift exchange?

That!