more pics from utah

My cousin Aubrey took some snapshots of us the last time we were in Utah, so I thought I would post them now.  Since  I have them.  and when I blogged about Utah the first time… i didn’t. :)

Pretty attractive bunch, if I do say so myself.

Bill & Mom with the grandbabies.  I love the faces Carmen makes in photos… way more interesting than your traditional smile or whatever. :)

My brother Ryan with my kiddies.  And yes ladies, he is single.

Me and my sister Carly with “the boys”…

Doesn’t she look hot for just having birthed a baby a few weeks prior to these photos.  Well, I sure think so.

 

love them

Carmen loves to take my digital camera around the house and take pictures of random stuff.  Every once in a while, when I am going through and cleaning them out I find a few gems.

I guess Mose was her subject of the day because she got some really cute shots of him.

Pay no attention to the mess… I swear, it’s never like that.  ahem.

But seriously, is he handsome or what?

He is getting so big.  It is blowing my mind a little bit.   He is now pulling up to stand… and then promptly slipping down whatever he is standing against and thumping his noggin.  I can already tell he is going to have a permanent bruised forehead from now until three years old.

He now has 2 bottom teeth, and he is working on the third one, which is coming in on top.  I am going to miss that gummy grin.  It is so sad to see my baby start to disappear… yet so thrilling to see them accomplish new things on the journey to becoming their own people.  Man, this parenting thing. Wild.  I don’t think I’ll ever feel like I cuddled them enough, even if I did it ’round the clock.

Carmen is also amazing to me.  The stuff she comes up with is always so surprising.  She comes home with cute songs and sayings from preschool all the time.  She is getting so smart, and can now count well into her 30s.  Except, of course, for twenty-thirteen, and thirty-thirteen (in place of twenty-three and thirty-three).  Still impressive though, and I can see where she would get confused.

I just love them.  I am so happy I get to be their mom, and not someone else’s mom.

big hair party

You remember how I have crazy friends right?  Crazy awesome, that is.

Eve’s birthday was a few weeks ago, and so we decided to do another crazy top model photo shoot for her party.  This one’s theme… BIG HAIR!

There was a lot of teasing, crimping, and hair spraying going on.  The end result was some awesome 80s hair band big hair.

We thought Eve (the birthday girl) would have made an awesome Victoria in the twilight movies… as per this photo.

And we also thought Tami looked an awful lot like Bella in her photos, so we may have had a little too much fun photoshopping her pics.

 

All of this sweet action was made possible by the sexy Wendy of blue lily photo.

Here is a pic of the braid Lauren made out of Wendy’s hair later… I think it is awesome because it looks like yarn roving.

And last but not least, here is the red headed barbie cake I made for Eve.  I’m sure Wendy has some much better pictures of it, but I aint got the kind of time to wait for her to get them to me, so you get to see my awesome iPhone one.

halloween

Carmen was a homemade tinkerbell fairy thing.  Not my best work… but she still looked pretty cute.

Here she was for her preschool party:

I really liked the eyelashes… which she yanked off 5 minutes after she got to school.

We carved some “punkins”.  Carmen’s was tinkerbell of course, and I made Moseley’s a pac man inspired jack-o-lantern.

We headed up to Huntington for the Black’s Halloween party.  We forgot the green eyelashes so Carmen shared some of Kaia’s orange ones.

Look how awesome that gnome is.  And the pic doesnt even do it justice, because you cant see Kardiff’s swagger while he was wearing it.  Cutest thing ever.

Of course the night of Halloween Carmen wanted to match Kaia, and wouldn’t wear her green shirt, only the black “underneath” one.  Whatever.

Here is Carmen holding up my adorable little shark… in all his rolly glory.

Ah… that dimple!

Mose didn’t really get the trick’r treating thing. And I mean, how scary can you be when you are strapped into a stroller covered with a blanket?

Thrilled.

However, when we got back home and the kids all dumped out their candy to survey the goods, he got to roll around in it like it was money.

He was making all the kids so mad by putting all their candy in his mouth with the wrappers on.

Yeah. put a nice camera in my hand, and the only thing I can get in focus is the bucket.  Fail.

Oh well, someday I will learn how to use a real camera… Until then I will leave the picture taking up to my talented friends.

sister’s baby blessing

We took a quick road trip up to Utah over the weekend to go to my sister’s baby blessing.

We drove through the night thursday night.  Which I actually liked better due to the fact that our kids slept for a big chunk of the trip, there was no traffic, and it didn’t seem like we wasted a whole day driving.  I watched a bunch of redbox videos on the way down, which made the trip go faster.

Have you done the redbox yet?  Seriously, best invention EVAR!  The outside ones are open all night.  The movies only cost a dollar a day.  And you can return your dvds to any redbox machine!  So we literally rented dvds in California watched them on the way to Utah, and dropped them off when we got there.  Brilliant.

I got a bedheaded Carmen out to go to the bathroom early in the am, so I had to get a shot of her sitting in the big chair.

I am lame at taking pictures, so fast forward to the day of the blessing.

Mose and Daddy… Looking dapper in their Sunday best.

Here is my sister holding her fav nephew.

The rest of the pictures were of my kids mauling little baby Kaius…

He is so cute… he slept the whole time!  And my kids were flopping him around like a rag doll.  Good thing babies are more resilient than we give them credit for, although, tell that to a first time mom.  Sorry Carly. :)  I promise they didn’t hurt him.

moseley 7 1/2 months

He has now started crawling.  And since I started blogging today… he has already turned off the computer once by pushing the hibernate button.  I guess it’s not really his fault… the glowing blue star wars like button really does call out to babies.  I remember Carmen doing the exact same thing at that age.  Which is another reason it takes me forever to get a blog post done.

Another of Moseley’s favorite things to do right now is pick up any random object and whack it as hard as possible on the nearest hard surface, just to see what sound it makes.

He is getting so curious about his little world around him… I can already tell I will probably have to get out the child locks soon.  Which is a bummer, because it seems like I just barely got to take them off, after Carmen’s more mischievous days were “over”.

He is still my happy baby.  He is so good about going down for naps.  With Carmen I would have to nurse her to sleep and then quietly lay her down and sneak out of her room.  With Moseley I can just lay him down, lay his blanket on him and give him a kiss.  He snuggles into his blanket, and goes to sleep on his own.

I just wish I were home more, so that he could get more naps.  I just can not get my kids on a normal sleep schedule.  I know it’s my own fault but mine and Lee’s schedules vary so much from day-to-day… there is about no way to get any consistency. Which I’m sure is why he still wakes me up a few times a night.  One day, I’ll get full nights of sleep again, and I can only imagine what a nice lady I’ll be then. :)

Moseley is still not too sure about baby foods.  He has warmed up to fruit, but veggies and cereals… well, he’s not too fond of.  I can usually only get 3-4 bites shoved into his mouth before he clamps it shut.  I think he’ll eventually really like table food, but he is not a fan of baby food.  Not that I blame him, the stuff smells awful,  But it does surprise me because Carmen would pretty much eat anything… so I hope this doesn’t mean that I am going to have a picky eater on my hands in the future.

Moseley is getting so big, it makes me so sad.  With every milestone he get’s less like a baby, and more like a toddler.  Not that I am not excited to see all those stages, but I don’t want to let my little baby go yet.  I wish I could freeze him in time.  He is just so cute.

Does that kid have the best bod you’ve ever seen or what?  Yum.

goodbye summer

Living in california makes the changing of seasons a little less noticeable for the most part.  So fall seemed to really sneak up on me this year.  All of the sudden, summer is over, and it is getting a little chilly and rainy.  I am sad to see summer go, but the fall brings so much awesomeness that I cant really be that bummed about seeing my tan fade away.

• I now get to get out all the hoodies and woolly sweaters, that beckoned to me from the top shelf of my closet all year.

• I get to start making fun meals that feel like autumn.  Soups, chili and cornbread.  Hot coco.  Pies… which I love to make and eat.  I made some for Lauren and the kiddies while they stayed with us last weekend.

• I get to melt my spicier sentsys.

• And Disneyland!  Now that our passes are no longer blocked out, I love taking the kids to disneyland every once in a while.  It’s weird because, we have pretty much seen all there is to see at disneyland, yet it still calls to me all the time.  It really is a magical place to me for some reason.

Here are some pictures of our last few beach trips:

Either she has a lot of sand in her swimsuit… or she dropped a really big duce.

Even though you can barely see it, the expression on Mose’s face is just hilarious to me.

This picture makes me think that I might make him feel the way he makes me feel.

Could you put that apple down for one sec, so we can see your face?

That’s better.

crazy. busy.

I have been really neglecting blogs lately.  It’s not that I dont love them, I just cant seem to find enough minutes in the day.  I know that everyone hates the “my life is so busy” excuse because it feels like bragging or something… but ferills, I cant seem to stop to come up for air for the life of me.  All of the sudden I turned my life into one of those crazy whirlwinds that I hear other moms talk about.
Carmen started preschool.  (she is doing awesome, by the way)

Which doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I used to have the first few days of the week to recover from the weekend (and clean up the tornado that seems to rip through my house every Saturday and Sunday).    Now I’ve got to have us all up, ready, and fed so I can get Carmen to school by 9:05am.

Also a few months ago, I decided that I would join the gym.  I have been trapped in this old lady body since I got pregnant and I was tired of feeling that way.  So I jumped in head first, bought a gym pass, and started working out for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week.  Which takes a huge chunk of my day.  The benefits seem to outweigh the time and work for me though.  I have now gotten kind of addicted to the gym.  I love going and getting out my stresses of the day there ( the 2 hours of child care doesn’t hurt in the stress relief department either)

I’m sure this sounds  really weird coming from me, because anyone who knows me, knows that I like to be comfortable.  And that I am about the least athletic person in the world, but I really feel so much better.  I find the classes challenging and fun.  Even though I am sore all the time, it is a good sore… the kind that tells you that your muscles are getting stronger and burning calories.  I have more energy and sleep better at night.  (I sound like an infomercial for tony little’s gazelle or something.  You can do iiiit! …That guy just doesn’t look right to me)  Really though, my life is changed.

I also started helping out in the blue lily photo office a little bit.  I will be the one messing up your photo orders and whatnot.  I love it, mostly because I feel like I am helping my friend Wendy to be a little less stressed in some small way.  At least I hope I am.

Oh and I still have to do all the basic mom stuff in between all this craziness.  You know, like child rearing and all that. :)

So if you don’t hear my voice commenting on your blogs as much, don’t give up on me… I will get around to them eventually.  Same goes for my little empty etsy shop.  I still plan to do it,  I just need to figure out a way to manage my time a little better.  Which I am always working on.  I plan to some day be really organized and on top of things… yeah…good luck, I’m going to need it.

nephew!

My sister finally had her baby!  He was born on Sept. 8th… Same birthday as our mother.  His name is Kaius Raymond and he weighed 8lbs 11oz (one ounce different than his cousin Mose… Isn’t it rad that he has a cousin Mose?)  I can’t wait to meet him!

he’s a growing boy

Now that  Moseley is 6 months old there have been a lot of changes around here.  He is now 19 lbs and 27 inches tall.  He can sit up unsupported without toppling right over.  He is getting up on his hands and knees… which means my days of having a stationary baby are soon over.  He finally started solids, and hates every one of them.  Which is fine I guess, it doesn’t seem like he is lacking in the calories department.  I do wish he would be full enough to start sleeping through the night though.  Between him and sister, they are trying to kill me with all the waking up in the middle of the night.  I honestly can’t even remember what 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep feels like.  I remember back in the day when I could sleep for about 11 hours… What would that be like?

Anyway, Carmen and Moseley are just about the cutest best friends ever.  She was helping me with his first rice cereal feeding, and it was about the cutest thing I have ever seen.  They were cracking each other up.

After the newness of eating from a spoon wore off, about 4 bites later, Mose decided he was over rice cereal.  I still had some leftover pumped milk, so I let Carmen feed it to him in a bottle…

I love that I can tell my kids love each other.  Having a second baby is always scary because you can’t imagine loving another as much as the first.  Plus I didn’t know how she would react to having our attention divided.  But I think any attention she loses from us, is made up for times ten by the love she gets from her baby brother.  I mean look at that smile he gives her.  He is completely enamored with his big sister.  And who could not love this boy?
He is still the happiest baby ever.  He always has the hugest dimpled smile for everyone, and he literally lights up every room he enters with it.  There is just something about that big squishy boy, I just can not get enough of him.