Made Me Smile

Danny: "I wish we had a pet mouse."
Me: "I would be scared of it if we had a mouse!"
Danny: "No you wouldn't.  It would just live in my lunchbox."
Me: "But then it would eat all your lunch!"
Danny: "No, it would just eat macaroni and cheese all the time.  Not my lunch.  Can you please make macaroni and cheese to put in my lunchbox everday?"

:)

6 Months (For a Few More Hours)

You, my sweet baby, will be seven months old tomorrow. SEVEN months. 

Dear Ella,
I want to remember everything about you.  I LOVE this stage so much.  You sit and smile and never want to miss a thing.  You are curious and excited and happy all the time.  I feel like if I blink my eyes you will be crawling and have a mouthful of teeth.  I wish I could keep you 6 months and 29 days old forever.
Tiffany took some beautiful photos of you a couple of weeks ago.

...Your bright beautiful eyes, your full cheeks, your perfect little nose.  I can't get enough of your beautiful face! 

You were so cute at the botanical gardens during our photo shoot.  When we sat you on the thick, luscious grass you weren't sure what to make of it.  You curled your little toes and folded your little hands, but didn't cry or complain like we'd expected.  You are always up for a new adventure.  It was sweet to see you look a little nervous, but still up for this new "grass adventure".

You made us laugh several times.  We sat you near some beautiful pebbles and you were VERY interested in picking up as many pebbles and you could possibly get your hands on.  Then we tried to lie you down on your tummy on some pretty, shiny stones.  Once you saw your reflection in the stone you began giggling and kissing (aka slobbering on) your reflection. 

You are the most adorable, fun, interesting little model.  I love you so very much my beautiful girl.  Please do me a favor and try to stay tiny forever.  Thanks ;)

All my love, forever and always,

Mommy

Goodnight Sweethearts

15 Months in 15 Minutes

 ...Also known as Photo Dump #2. I finally got around to looking at Brian's phone. Here is our life over the past 15 months according to Brian's phone.

Summer 2011... all I remember is being thrilled to be pregnant and being as sick as I can ever remember being pretty much every day.  Blech.  Pretty much the only thing I had enough energy to do was sit on the couch and read.  Luckily, I had some willing listeners most of the time.

Sometimes I couldn't even muster the energy to read out loud.  Kirsten also led some great read alouds.





Brian and I celebrated our 9th anniversary 6/22/11.  Well, actually that's not true.  We didn't celebrate at all.  Instead I spent "date night" at All Children's with Matt.  Four stitches and four hours later the restaurant was closed and I was emotionally spent.  My little guy was very brave.

Fall 2011 brought soccer for Matt and Danny.  I wouldn't say they are "naturals" but they sure were cute.

Especially after running through the celebration tunnel at the end of each practice.

Fall 2011 also brought several more trips to All Children's.  First, I got a frantic phone call from the preschool that Danny BIT A HOLE THROUGH HIS TONGUE.  A big hole.  FYI: Tongues bleed  A LOT and after a 4.5 hour wait in the ER you are sent home to gargle with salt water and take some Tylenol.  Apparently, tongue holes (seriously, a HOLE) are not treated.   At least they have fun computers in the waiting room.

 The "we don't treat tongues" policy proved a bit tricky.  I thought I had a handle on how to handle tongue injuries.  So, when Matt fell at the playground 29 days later and bit his tongue really, really, really badly I thought I knew what to do.  Ice, Tylenol, hugs.

WRONG.

Apparently, Matt hit his chin (and bit his tongue) so hard that he gave himself a concussion.  There were no computer games or long wait during that ER visit.  It was the "real emergency" kind of visit.  Luckily, an MRI ruled out brain bleeding (thank GOD) so we were left with the "Tylenol, hug" part of the treatment plan.  (Okay, I just realized this picture is Danny... we were too upset for pictures during Matt's ordeal... you get the idea.)

We celebrated our Forever Day at Yogurtology.  I was really, really sick that day (like I was pretty much every day for 9 months) so excuse the green hue my skin is sporting... at least Kirsten looks cute.

We read lots and lots of books by the Christmas tree.  It was so sweet.  I LOVE this picture of Danny.  He's not even faking... he really fell asleep under the tree... MY child... asleep!

Brian and Kirsten had a wonderful time at the annual Father Daughter dance.  Unfortunately they did not win the basket that Kirsten felt so lucky about.

My favorite find on the phone, hands down.  Our beautiful, BRAND NEW baby.  I took this picture 6 hours after Ella was born to text to her brothers and sister before they headed out to school.  That is one PRECIOUS baby!

...And how cute is this guy?  Sporting new pjs and slippers

We had a great time at the annual Easter Egg Hunt.  How cute are my "big kids"?

Look at that baby bunny!

Tell me this isn't the prettiest little baby you've ever seen and then I'll call you a liar.

 Matt and Danny turned FIVE!

They celebrated with a gymnastics party for their school friends... all 40 of them!  (This is not the part of the boys being in separate classes that I love...)

Kirsten rocked out at the Spring Hop concert.

We celebrated Labor Day at the beach with the Ward/Kirby crew.

 Cutest. Baby. Ever.

We spent Mimi's birthday visiting Winter the dolphin which was very exciting...

...although not quite as exciting as the ride on a REAL TROLLEY we got to take to visit the movie sets.

 Do you think these guys enjoyed it??

...So there we go.  15 months (although that took MUCH longer then 15 minutes!!)



Lucky Liam

Last night was Kirsten's first middle school dance.

To say she was excited would be a MAJOR understatement.
She went with her friend Charlton and met up with most of the other girls in her class.  Two of the girls asked boys to dance.

Guess who one of those girls was...

His name was Liam. 
He was cute and nice. 
He poured her soda for her and opened the door for her.

She learned all the important information about him.
Like the fact that he has asthma, he's Presbyterian, and he was very excited to finally meet a girl smaller then he is.

I'd say this  4ft 6 inch, 54 lb, blonde beauty made Liam's night.

My Happy Girls

 

Phone Photo Dump

In an effort to document some of the events that happened during my (very, very) long blog hiatus there will be some very random posts from time to time.  Today is one of those days :)

I finally downloaded the pictures on my phone from Spring/Summer 2012.  Here is a "dump" of some favorites with an overview of our spring.

As always, we celebrated our luck on St. Patrick's Day.  

The leprechauns always come and play silly tricks and leave little treats for us.  This year we were VERY lucky to have a little leprechaun of our own :)

Kirsten had a great time at field day.  The field day at Frontier is AWESOME.  Huge team spirit and excitement everywhere.  It is a really fun day.

K. Grace worked up a big appetite in her events, the wheelbarrow (which she won), the balloon toss, and the tug of war.

This cute little (3 week old) cheerleader came to support her big sis.

I got a Moses Basket for Ella.  I have always LOVED these baskets.  There is something so dreamy about them.  As you can see, Ella agreed.

Ella continued to demand a good, solid swaddle to get any rest.

We all loved our new little love more then we ever thought possible.

Kirsten headed to her LAST day of elementary school. EVER. Ridiculous.

She was much happier about becoming an official middle schooler then her parents were ;)

Ella started smiling... and she hasn't stopped since.

Ella seemed to like the beach as much as the rest of us do :)

Kirsten was thrilled to get a mermaid tail for her birthday.  She spent the rest of the summer fluttering through pools as the envy of every other 'tween around.

We celebrated Kirsten's birthday at Tiffany's house during the day and at Mimi's for a pool party the next day.  As usual, Kirsten cleaned up in the birthday department :)



Mimi and Grandpa continued their tradition of giving her a week of summer camp for one of her gifts.  After three years at Tampa Bay Watch, she attended the Dali camp this year.  After the Junior Docent presentation she was able to write down her secret wish...

...and hang it with the wishes of all the other museum visitors.  The wishing trees are just beautiful.

Kirsten, Ella, the Girl Scouts, and I went to Savannah (much more on that some other time).

 And we had a wonderful, annual Ward, Taylor, Kirby Ft. Lauderdale vacation.

Throw in a few foot tumors, a few gall bladder attacks, and some big 5 year old moments that I'll update on soon (birthdays, graduations etc) and I'm not too terribly far behind anymore :)