Summah time.

So, here we are: four weeks into Adam's first round of clinicals. Honestly, I've no idea how this happened...our lives keep speeding up without asking my permission and, most days, I'm amazed that it's already  4pm when I look at the clock! So, I'm playing catch-up. I had excellent intentions of catching up on blogging and 84,000 other things while we were on our 3-week vacation in Colorado; instead, I took naps almost every day and spent time with the people I love most. It was much needed, and very very fun....but not actually restful at all, in hindsight.
     We started out with a great little camping trip, just the five of us, up at Woods Canyon Lake. Our day and night were full of capture the flag in the woods, playing in the lake (and mama almost falling asleep by the lake..due to Dramamine), and reading around the campfire at night (after s'mores, of course). The next day we headed down the mountains mid-morning, on our way to Durango...and our car blew up about 40 miles outside of Gallup, NM. Seriously, what is it about our cars and driving to Durango?? The cool part? We ended up right in front of a home belonging to a neat little old couple-who happened to be Christians. The little old man brought us water, and they ended up taking the littles and I into town when the tow-truck driver (whom dispatch assured us would have space for all of us)-well-didn't. Instead, Pax got to ride up front with Adam in the front of the tow-truck and had an absolutely marvelous time!
           To make a long story short, 3 tow-trucks, a McDonald's, a rental car, over 300 miles and many many hours later; we made it to Durango.

 A few days after that, we made it to Ft. Collins in my mother-in-law's car, actually on schedule (we skipped the 2nd mini-camping trip we'd planned) while the van stayed in Durango to have a new engine put in. The kids were fine with missing the 2nd camping trip because it just so happened that they got to go to an awesome water day event at our old church with all their friends and cousins. B was double thrilled because she just made the age-limit!   
       Our days in Colorado were almost all on the cool side; rainy in the afternoons or evenings, and sometimes all day- we loved it! Although, my usually-crazy-brave littlest did discover that he's not at all a fan of thunder.

Blaise, my mom (Grammy), and niece Evie (1 1/2) playing in the little-kid sprinklers while the Bigs were at a park with Adam one morning...they had a marvelous time!

We spent as much time in the beautiful Colorado outdoors as we could. One day, we took my nephew Ayden (11) and our 3 on a hike up to Horsetooth Falls. We left early, to avoid the thunderstorms, and the kids all had a great time-our kiddos have missed hiking these past few months! Another evening, we took him along with our kids to City Park Pool, where  he and Pax took on the giant slides without even blinking. Most evenings were spent playing "kickball" in the backyard until it was dusk, and one rainy afternoon while the littles napped we even got to go see Planes 2 with almost the whole crew-a bit hit!

Intermission: A word about our youngest son.

This little guy...he's seriously brave. And seriously fierce. And seriously smart, as in he watches EVERYTHING and is pretty sure he can do it all just as well as anyone else-if not better. Which is great- but also gives this mama wrinkles because-let's face it-at 2, that's a combination for disaster!! And so this kid has had more than his fair share of crazy almost-catastrophes since he learned to walk a year and a half ago, let me tell you. Thankfully this wasn't one of them. This rock was much higher than it looks in the picture; he kept telling his daddy, "Don't worry, Daddy-I can do it!" yeah...but we'll hold on anyway, at least for another year or two, littlest buddy!

After 5 days, we headed back down to Durango and spent the rest of our time there. Durango is glorious in July, especially if you're coming from Phoenix...we soaked up every second, once again spending our time outside as much as we could. One wonderful evening was spent eating a picnic dinner at a park with our friends the Danquahs, who recently moved back to Durango. We watched a storm roll in...and then watched the kids-all 6 of them- glory in the rain. We had dinner in the back room (read:the wine room) at my in-laws' bakery with my in-laws several times, as well as my brother-and sister-in law and our nieces; another harrowing experience for the mama of a 2-year old. All those bottles! and the ladder! But-worth it for the delicious treats everyone devoured at the end. (Perks of being the grandchild of a French baker: getting to go behind the counter and pick your own as-big-as-your-face pastry.)
       Add to that the wonderful time we got to spend with the Palmers, the Danquahs, and many more old friends at more parks than I can count; tons of cousin time, Blythe's first sleepover (at Aunt Tiff and Uncle YayYay's house-Pax got to go, too. They had some serious fun! And we felt strangely childless with only one...) friends and family, and, well....it was hard to come back to the hot August desert. Blythe was upset for days; so I taught her the fine art of letter-writing. She then proceeded to write letters to all her Colorado friends and family....and was overjoyed to get an answer from her Grammy and Grandaddy and Evie, just the other day.

(See? Giant!! These are 2 of our nieces-Madi (8) and Violet (6).)

This photo just screams summer in Durango to me!

This was a fun Saturday morning spent at Tiff and Jerome's with cousins and the Palmer kids-Kale (10), Pax (6), Jack (5), and Madi (8). I had the chance to do a few photoshoots again while in town, so I had dropped Adam and the kids off at 7 am on my way to a shoot.

    This is how Blaise spent 75% of the time we were at the bakery. He woke up to the sound of beeping trucks backing up, and ran out the door to watch them dig and grade and lift until it was time to leave for that day's adventure.  They're adding a parking lot across the street for the new pediatric center built in the last year; and therefore there's lots and lots of construction vehicles and workers, too. We spent more than one evening exploring the empty work site, mush to his delight...








...These are the Danquah girls. One of the perks of having my MIL's Seqoia is that it fits 8; so one morning, while Megan did some last-minute packing and cleaning for the move into their new home, I took all the girls with us to meet the other mamas at their Tuesday park day. Loud, crazy, giggling fun! Pax says they were telling ghost stories in the back...I don't really know where any of them have ever heard a ghost story, but, there you go.

Pax (6), Lily (7), Sadie (5), Blythe (4), Ollie (3), and Blaise (2). The stair-step kids. Sadie is convinced that they're all "real cousins", despite Lily's attempts to convince her otherwise; and considering that half the people we know and love in Durango ARE "real cousins" and their mama is my birthday "twin"....I can understand her confusion! It's just allllll part of the family.
       And then there's these two. Pax and Ayden. This summer they had SO much fun together! Here you see evidence of their sand/ water days in my parents' backyard, something I have vivid childhood memories of doing. It's so much fun seeing your kiddos enjoy the same summer thrills you did!
     The end of this story: our van is still in Durango, not quite fixed yet. Thankfully, we had the generostiy of my mother-in-law's Sequoia to get us back home and around until it's done. We had a deadline-Adam started Clinicals on the 6th of August, so we didn't have a lot of wiggle room. But that's another story.....
       let's just say- Summer in Colorado was great!

LA LA land

We have these fantastic friends, Megan and Benjie. Our families lived across the street from each other once upon a time in D-town. Now, they live in L.A. and we live in the Valley. BUT, since 6 1/2 hours is a whole lot closer than oh, at least 16...we decided one weekend in October to road trip out there for a three-day weekend.

 And we had so much fun! There's something so very refreshing about old friends-good friends-that you can laugh with, play with, and just pick right back up with where you left off (well, almost. There are a few more littles running around now...). The kids played, and played, and played, and had SO much fun together! Pax turned to Lily (almost5) at one point and told her, "You're my best friend.....(then, glancing over at another little girl from the base who was playing with them, he quickly added) and so are you,". Later that night Lily leaned over and gave Pax a little smooch on the cheek. Pax and Sadie (3) are both super busy, active kids; so if he felt the need to run he'd go up to her and say "Tag! you're it!" or, "Hey, come with me!" or something equally smooth before the two of them ran off.

 Blythe divided her time between trying to keep up with the bigger kiddos, and loving this little sweetie...Olivia is 4 months old, and such a mellow, sweet, kissable little dollie! By the end of the trip, B would tell me, "My baby cry!" When Megan put her down for a nap, or "my baby hungee!" when she was eating. Apparently she's adopted Olivia :)

 As for the adults? We took turns-the guys went out alone Friday morning, the ladies Saturday afternoon-and all 4 of us went out together Friday night. So.much.fun. We laughed until tears came, ate good food, drove down Sunset Boulevard, and went to a club in the Hollywood area that had a random girl in a window. Yes, she was alive...art, I guess? And there are no pictures of the adults-not really sure what happened there.

                                    Sadie, enjoying chocolate chip pancakes Saturday morning!

yummmm....

watching a show with their buddies. I asked them to all sit together so I could get a picture....

...and this is what I got. I should know better than to try to take a picture of a bunch of littles while they're watching t.v.! And this video just makes me laugh...

Megan and Benjie, it was SO fantastic to see you guys last month...and the girl in the window :) Hope we can do it again soon!!

What it is.

We're home. Back after 2 weeks of traveling, 4 8-hour road trips, 2 2-hour plane rides (one of which we were totally THAT FAMILY on. You know...the ones with the screaming baby you don't ever want on your flight? Yup. That was us.), 3 seperate trips, 3 states, more cousins than I can remember, not a whole lot of sleep, tons of pool time, and lots of fun.

It was worth every minute.

But I have a suitcase that still needs to be unpacked, shopping trips to plan if we hope to eat a decent meal tomorrow, and 2 photoshoots from last week to edit before wedding season starts for me this next weekend.

So, although I have some fantastic stories (several of which include finding my Small Son naked in various places....)

Just a couple pictures for tonight. Because summer is what it is...which is fantastic.

Spring Break....

....was a flop. At least, the spring break visit-the-far-away-family trip we had planned was a flop. Today marks the first day 10 days that there haven't been lots of liquids coming out both ends at our house. And I couldn't be more thrilled :) And, although we were bummed we didn't get to see our family...and then bummed that we had to cancel our last ditch attempt to "get away" to Denver with the kiddos on Wednesday...I'm SUPER thankful that we didn't drag a super-sick kiddo (who is already prone to motion sickness) over several mountain passes and then force his sick body to endure a whirlwind of friends, food, and attempts at fun. So what did we do? WElll....
nothing. Just rested, cleaned up after sickness, rested some more, did more laundry in 4 days than I have in the past month (pretty sure our sheets have never been so clean...they both only threw up in their beds once, but managed to hit ours about 10 times. Each.) went on a few walks to air out, see the chiropractor, and do a major grocery store run because I'd perfectly coordinated the emptying of our fridge with our scheduled trip. And, of course, Adam and I tried not to get sick. Which means I've practically sterealized our entire house (spring cleaning, anyone??). We DID manage to make it to a very cool pool in the next town over today and thoroughly wore our kiddos out in 45 minutes-they both crashed in the car at 11:45 and Small Son slept until 3:30. So much fun and totally worth it! Adam is coming down with the crud now; I'm not feeling fantastic myself. Too bad he has to go back to work tomorrow. I so hate seeing my kiddos feel so very crummy...especially when there's just not a lot I can do to help. I've never seen Pax sleep so much or Baby Girl be so fussy. Poor things were miserable. I cannot even describe to you how very, very, very thankful I am that my husband was home this week! He's such a great dad- and, let's face it, it's nice to know you can leave the clean-up to someone else and just take care of washing the sick kiddo off-or vice versa. So. We know how to party, eh? We gotta work on this Spring Break thing...

Thankful Thursday

Shhhh….do you hear that? It’s the sound of me relaxing. Completely, utterly, totally relaxing. By myself. Because, you see, my husband got me one of the best Christmas presents EVER…a trip (by myself) to go see one of my favorite people in the world (and her family….by myself) for about 3 ½ days. Did I mention I get to go BY MYSELF?? Please, don’t get me wrong—I love my family. I adore my husband; love being with him and the life we have. I love being the mama to my two sweet littles. Every mama knows, though, that sometimes---you just need a break. And my fantastic husband gave me just that. The gift of a break. Of time…. to relax, to enjoy being with a great friend, to talk and laugh and see what their life is like now that we live several thousand miles apart, instead of several hundred feet apart.
I gave Adam a trip like this to go see his good buddy for his birthday-and I was completely surprised Christmas morning to see he’d done the same for me! I don’t think words can express just how excited I am…although it’s all very surreal. I can’t even picture what it will be like to fly by myself (which I haven’t done since I was planning my wedding), to be without my kids for more than 12 hours…(that happened last summer, photographing weddings). I haven’t been gone from B overnight yet. I haven’t been away from my husband AND my son since a good friend’s wedding when I was 6 months pregnant with the little girlie. I have absolutely no idea what I’ll do with myself at the airport without little ones to keep track of or take to the bathroom…but I’m pretty sure it’ll involve a cup of coffee and a magazine. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?? Not to mention that on the other end will be a fantastic women I am blessed to call a true friend and her equally fantastic family. I have no doubt that at the end of my trip, I’ll be more than ready to see my little family again. But for now, I’m just planning on enjoying my gift of time. I am so thankful today for this opportunity…so thankful for one of the best Christmas presents ever. And, of course, I’ll be taking my camera.

Giant Cactus and Road Graders

pretty sure that sums up Pax's 2 favorite things from our recent trip to Tucs*n. That is where we went, just in case you didn't get that from the pictures of the huge, many-armed cactus. Although my son (unlike his mama at his age) has a healthy fear of sitting on the spikey things...but that's another story. And fair warning- this will be a long, possibly uninteresting post to anyone but family; but since this blog is also a sort of journal for our family-I'm gonna put in all the details!

We headed down south at the end of January to visit family; both of my dad's sisters live there as do 2 of my mom's brothers. It's where my siblings and I were born-we moved to Colora*o when I was about 8 months old (there, the truth's out...I'm a transplant!). I can hardly recall a spring break growing up that wasn't spent in Tucson; some times Christmas, too. But my kids haven't been there so much-the little guy, just once when he was about 5 months old. And this was, of course, B's first trip. It was a fun, fast 5 days; spent eating, catching up with aunts and uncles, and basking in the warm(er) Arizona sunshine. I'm never a huge fan of traveling without Adam; but with my mom along things went smoothly and, although I felt like I could sleep for a week when I got back, it was worth it! keeping connections with family is always worth it. And now, since it's taken me 3 weeks to get this post done and I have 3 more rolling around in my brain...a few pictures. My camera's battery misteriously was drained by the flight down, so I shared my mom's point-and-shoot...seriously, you should be thankful :)

The kids with my Uncle Gene, my mom's closest-in-age brother...he's only 12 years older than she is :) From the fort, Pax could see a giant, many-armed cactua (read:very old) that he pointed out to everyone who came out..."Look! It's a GIANT CACTUS!!!" It wasn't this one...but aren't saguaros COOL??The first 2 days were spent with my Uncle Gene & Aunt Marilyn. My Aunt Jean and Uncle John (my dad's oldest sister) joined us for dinner the first night; the next day we went to the Desert Museum, which is pretty awesome--what I saw of it as Pax raced through the 2 miles of outdoor desert trails and I raced after him. His favorite parts? The snakes (which B wouldn't even look at); the scorpions which turned green under a black light (which, I'll admit, were pretty cool) and a video of a volcano exploding, which we saw after walking through a cave. We saw some javalina (wild boars) and coyotes in their habitats, too. Have to say the coyotes looked much prettier than their wild counterparts. My kids, however, were much more interested in these:Yup, nothing beats a statue of the real thing and some dirt to play in. After some fantastic Mexican food that night with most of the Arizona connection (aunts, uncles, and a few cousins...I know someone got a picture of all of us; but it wasn't me, as I was trying to keep someone from getting refried beans and root beer all over the world), we went to spent the last few days at my Aunt Janet and Uncle Jimmy's house a bit south and east of Tucson. Pretty much they just live in the desert-but it's different out there, with lots of fun brush and sand and dirt and cactus...a little boy's dream :)Blythe and her Great-Aunt Janet...she's the one who taught me to crochet all those years ago!

A little early-morning digging in the wash.My uncle made a "tractor" out of a lawnmower engine and hooks up a wagon to the back to give rides on....Pax was a bit afraid of it at first, and just wanted to chase it. I suggested his little sis ride with him, and he jumped in and held her...they laughed the whole time! Gotta be brave for the little sister!

He's showing you his dumptruck...he's pretty sure everyone wants to see it as much as he does.We brought B's pack n' play to sleep in, but this is the little nest I made on the floor for my small son out of blankets, 2 sleeping bags, and some pillows. Looked pretty comfy! Our last full day there, we went back into Tucson and visited their Children's Museum, which was of course fantastic.In the little-kid "rainforest" play area...giant blocks!my little firefightersBaby godzilla!Inside of a submarine control panel...Pax LOVED this one! One of the best parts of the trip was when Pax came in from playing outside in the sand barefoot and told me, "It's ok, Mama, I'll just keep my toes on,". As if we would take them off like a pair of socks. All in all, a great trip-thanks for making it possible, Grammy!

Wordless Wednesday

a hint of where the kiddos and I (and my mom) were a couple of weeks ago....'cause where else in the U.S. can you find cactus like these

and have your snow (ok, at least COLD)-bound babies think that 60-degree weather calls for swim suits and little else?

and yes, I'm quite aware that my Wordless Wednesdays are mostly anything but wordless. I'm working on it.

Not sure what it is, exactly...

Maybe it's the love in his eyes. Or the joy in hers. Or the sunlight on them both. But I absolutely adore this picture of my baby girl and her daddy...proving, once again, that not everything needs to be in focus to be fantastic.

P.S. this was taken at her first visit to the beach,last week...she prettymuch dug it. Until, that is, she ate some sand...

California

This

is why I haven't been blogging lately... bliss.

I WILL blog about it; as well as the sweet award (!) my friend Jill gave my blog...but for right now, I need to go catch up on about a million pictures that need to be edited. So. As they say in Brazil...Tchau Tchau!

off we go!

Heading to D-town for spring break...yippee!! Excited to see some wonderful people, many adorable kiddos, and do a fun photo shoot with my great bro-and sis-in law and the 3 most adorable nieces ever. Don't believe me? just wait and see...if you're lucky, I'll share some pictures with you! I had a thought today, when I saw this picture:

I love being this little guy's mama.....