Reasons I can't wait for vacation...

We are getting closer and closer to our big Disneyland vacation and I cannot wait. I was thinking about some of the reasons why ...

• Road trips. I simply love road trips. Put me in a car, with a big ol' diet coke and some good music and I am good to go. I'm pretty sure this is a genetic trait passed on to me by my mom.
• No rushing to go our separate ways. It seems like mornings aren't a lot of fun some (most) days. We are all rushing to go our separate ways. We are rushed, which often means we are grumpy. Although I don't anticipate any sleeping in on our trip, I love the fact that we will all be rushing off together.
• Long talks with Jeff. Honestly a long road trip is the best time to just talk and talk and talk. I'm so looking forward to that.
• Reunited and it feels so good. Although it has only been since October since our whole family was together, I miss them! I miss all of us being together and laughing. I haven't seen either of my sisters since then, way, way, way too long!
• Kiddos. I *love* being an aunt. It is one of my favorite jobs. I haven't seen Darcy, Max & Eliza since December and I haven't seen Lila baby since October. Oh little Lila, who was a two month old little baby and is now a babbling, giggling 6 month old. I can't wait to kiss her little cheeks and smell her baby goodness.
• Cousins. I miss the kids, but oh how Mylie misses all 4 of her cousins. She talks to them on the phone and talks about them all time. For as much as I miss the kids, I think Mylie misses them more. Her cousins are her very best friends.
• Her face. I can't wait to see the look on Mylie's face the first time she sees a princess. I hope my camera is ready at that moment.
• Their faces. I can't wait to watch the look on my parent's face as they watch their grandchildren have a magical trip. So reminiscent of the Disneyland trip my grandparents took us on 17 years ago.
• The pictures. Yes, I'll admit that the first items on my packing list aren't clothes or things for the kids. It is my camera, lenses, extra battery, battery charger. I cannot wait to capture this trip.
• Sun. Oh how I hope there is sunshine on our trip. We haven't had sun in weeks, blasted inversion. The fog outside has made its way to my emotions and I feel like I am in a fog. I need sunshine outside and sunshine in my soul.

The countdown is ON and we CAN'T WAIT!! Dear world, please note that I will be unavailable for a week. I won't be grading your papers or tests. I won't be dealing with your children who broke the law. I won't be chairing meetings. I most certainly will not be doing paperwork. I will be in the happiest place on earth with my most favorite people. It is much anticipated and much needed.

Fetch!

Little Bosco is growing up so fast! He is almost 6 months old. Although is he a crazy puppy, overall he is really good. He is hyper, but that is to be expected. As long as he has toys or bones, he is pretty content (usually). He is discovering a love for fetch. I came home at lunch today to let him out and took him in the back to play fetch and he was a super happy puppy. When I got home (at 9 tonight) he ran to me toy in mouth ready to play again.


An extreme closeup. "C'mon Mom! Get off Facebook and play fetch with me!"

Soon Bosco won't love us as much. He is staying at the vet's while we are in California. He will be losing his manhood while he is there. Hopefully he will forgive us.

Happy Valentine's Day!

It has been a great Valentine's weekend ... and the best part ... it isn't over yet! Jeff and I both have tomorrow off of work, yippee! We swapped babysitting with my friend Melanie this weekend, so we watched their kids on Friday night (Mylie was in heaven, she LOVES them) and they watched Mylie and Blake on Saturday afternoon. Jeff and I went to Sherlock Holmes (I really liked it) and then to dinner.

Jeff made breakfast this morning and we opened some Valentine's presents. Mylie had been shopping for both mommy and daddy, so that was fun to see what she had picked out. She made cards for everyone too. Jeff and I surprised the kids this morning with a pink bean bag chair for Mylie's room (that she drools over everytime we go to Target) and a little table and chair set for Blake's new big boy room. They were super excited!

Jeff had told me earlier in the week that he and Mylie were going to be in charge of Valentine's Day lunch, so they go to work when we got home from church. It was delish! Steaks, garlic mashed potatoes, vegetable shish-kabobs, texas toast and peanut butter brownies. Yum!

After all that eating, we decided we better go on a walk. Here is the gang right before Mylie rode her bike through a patch a stickers, deflating both of her tires.



Jeff then walked the bike and Mylie decided she would walk Bosco.

She later decided she would try running with him and pulled her right to the ground. Thankfully it was on the grass and she wasn't hurt and was laughing, because Jeff and I were laughing so hard!

And now we are just hanging out. The kids are in Blake's room playing cars, Jeff is riding the exercise bike and watching the Olympics, and I'm just relaxing. I have papers to grade later tonight ... but for now I am just going to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

Valentine's Day is fun, but it doesn't take a holiday to remind me of how much I love this little family of mine.

Reason #4917 why I love Mylie ...

This afternoon we were at Target. We walked past the luggage aisle. One the end cap was a brown suitcase with big flowers on it. She said, and I quote, "Helloooooooooo gorgeous!"

Did you get the memo?

Blake has declared today no shirt Wednesday. He gave me this look everytime I tried to put a shirt on him. There is never a dull moment at this house.

8!

Today is Jeff and I's 8th anniversary! It's hard to believe that 8 years ago we were just two kids (well 25 and 26 year old kids), we had just bought our house and moved to Star. I was still a juvenile probation officer and Jeff worked for felony probation & parole. We had Jeep and a Geo Metro (both red). We went to the movies often. The walls in our house were all still painted white and our carpet had less wear and tear. We thought our hearts were as full of love as they could ever be.

8 years later ... We still live in our house in Star and we love it here. Our jobs have both changed and our cars have changed (only one is red). We rarely make it to the movies, but sure watch a lot of Netflix movies. Our kitchen is yellow, the family room is green, Mylie's room is purple and Blakey's is green. Our carpet has seen better days ... and we now know that our hearts were nowhere near as full of love as they would be.

Our lives are much busier, our nights are much shorter, but our house has the laughter of two little kids ... the best gifts we have received in our marriage. They have taught us so much about love, about sacrifice, about laughter and about ourselves. Being parents has strengthened our marriage. I'm excited to see what the next 8 years will bring to our lives.

Life is good when you are married to your best friend!

Note to self ...

Do not write a blog post on Sunday night about not wanting to go to work on Monday. Invariably, you will wake up with the stomach flu on Monday morning, which is worse than work. Ugh.

Winter Carnival

Today was the last day of the Winter Carnival in McCall. We usually go every year, but haven't been in a few years and decided to would go today. McCall is about 2 hours away. We have had icky fog and cloudy days for weeks, but when we got out of the valley and into the mountains, the sky turned a beautiful shade of blue. Look at that!!

At Winter Carnival there are snow sculpture contests. Mylie loved posing by all of them.

We had to play in the snow a little bit.

Oh how I love these three!

This was a marvelous sculpture of a bathroom. Mylie was excited to sit on the snow toilet and get her picture taken.

And take a bath in the snow bathtub.

Then we went on a wagon ride pulled by mules. Blake was very serious at first and then I put him up in the front. About 5 minutes later he noticed the mules (although I had tried to point them out to him multiple times). He got super excited!

It was a fabulous day. It was simply a gorgeous drive and the blue skies were so refreshing. Mylie and I totally had a concert in the car on the way home. Our water bottles became our microphones and we sang our little hearts out. She said that our band name should be the Princesses. She totally picks up on song lyrics and her newest sing along favorites include selections from Abba, Sugarland, Josh Turner, Kid Rock, Barenaked Ladies, and Dierks Bentley. My personal favorite is when she sings "Come a Little Closer" by Dierks Bentley and makes her voice go really low when she sings the chorus. What a fun little girl she is!

We came home, Jeff made dinner (and a pineapple cake) and watched the Superbowl. After that I set up our new Blu-Ray DVD player that we got yesterday (happy anniversary to us). I've had our old DVD player for probably 11 years or so and it now has some definite technical difficulties. We were just going to replace it with a regular DVD player. Jeff has been replacing all of his James Bond movies on DVD (he had them all on VHS). He was down to only 2 that he couldn't' find so I was looking for them on Amazon and one of them was no longer available in DVD, just in Blu-Ray, that was the clincher! We found a great deal on a Blu-Ray player at Costco, picked up "Get Smart" on Blu-Ray for a whopping $12. We watched the movie tonight, I graded papers (and more papers).

I love the weekends. Friday night I went to a 7 hour scrapbook crop that was simply lovely. It was such fun. Saturday we ran some errands and went to dinner at Goodwood (yummy!) with Jeff's parents to celebrate Blake's birthday.

But I'm not ready for tomorrow to get here. The first few days of the week are so busy that I just don't look forward to Mondays. We have only a few weeks until we leave for Disneyland. I am so excited! I know that we have so much to do between now and then and the weeks are going to fly by!!! I'm so glad that we always spend our weekends hanging out together.

Double Trouble!

{Blake and Henry}

This Boy.

This boy turned 2 today! Wow! It is like those 2 years just flew by. I love him madly. I love his big brown eyes, the way he says momma, how much he loves his sissy, how he follows Jeff around and does everything he does. I love the copious amounts of cars and trucks that are at our house. I love listening to him slowly learn to talk and watching his animated hand gestures and facial expressions. I love watching him white boy dance everyday. I love all the laughter he has brought to our house.


He had a fun birthday. Jeff and I got him a tool bench, he and Mylie started building stuff immediately this morning.


Mylie got him a toy phone. He loves it and called "Gamma" many times this morning.

We had friends over for cake and ice cream tonight. There was cake, ice cream and lots of cars to play with.

Happy Birthday Bubba. You make me smile and make my heart swell with love everyday. I love you madly!