Daddy and his boy...

All three kids LOVE when Adam comes home from work at night. of course they do. As soon as they hear the garage door opening, the girls RUN, SCREAMING, and try to find a place to hide from him... the giggling, wiggling, blob under a blanket or behind the couch is usually a pretty easy 'seek' once Daddy walks in the door. Gus barks loudly and then runs around the house looking for a stuffed animal or baby doll blanket to present to his Master. It's all TOTAL CHAOS and so fun...
Then there's Mitchell.
While the girls and Gus are running away from the door, Mitchell heads right for it. He stands right in front of the door and screeches (at the top of his lungs-which is really quite loud these days!) "DAAAAADAAAAAAAA!!!" (take a breath, stomp his feet, giggle) "DAAAAAAADAAAAA!" (spin around in a circle, giggle more...) "DADA. DADA. DADA. DADA.".
and then runs to Adam and grabs onto his leg/feet/briefcase/etc...the second the door opens. Adam has learned not to be on the phone when he walks in the house.
Mitchell really has a sweet, precious, special love for his Daddy. It's adorable and fun and I absolutely love it.





this could've been a great Father's Day post...but I just spent 20 minutes doing it, so there's no way I'm Saving it for a month... Enjoy

Happy Mother's Day to me...

Mother's Day weekend 2011. I was alone with all 3 kids, Adam was out town for a quick trip to Ohio, the weather was grumpy...bah humbug. But then, I remembered that Adam is the greatest husband. He crammed about 10 hours of work +15 hours of driving + 6ish hours of sleep into 24 hours. He made it back home late, late on Saturday night so I could enjoy being a little celebrated on Mother's Day. =) I love the man.

We had a nice morning at church, kids were great, and we even got a few good pictures.



I LOVE LOVE Ainsley's smile in this one!


After 55 pictures snapped, this was my look of: "Really!? can we just get ONE with all four of us looking at the camera?!" Here's my life.

Easter...

I'm getting a little closer to being all caught-up again on this thing. Easter was just two weeks ago and here are the pictures. My mom was in town for a couple days before Easter Sunday, so we did a little front-yard Egg Hunt on Saturday afternoon.


The girls were BEYOND excited and, no surprise here, Elise was an adorable big helper. She also thought it was really cool that she could find/reach eggs that the 'little ones' couldn't...


Ainsley just loved looking at the stuff in the eggs ("oohhh, it's so pretty..." and then kind of dancing about it- stickers, candy, tiny toys, etc...).


Mitchell found his first egg, slammed it open, found some Jellybeans, and never really moved again.

He just stood in that same spot (about 4 feet from the 'start line') for the next 20 minutes. We kept trying to entice him to get MORE eggs, some with bouncy balls, little cars, or stickers inside.
Nope, he was absolutely frozen in one spot devouring jelly beans. It was great.
The girls started finding some 'easy' eggs that we'd hidden for him and would run them to his basket, giggle a little, and then run away again.

Tried taking a few pictures at the end...but they were too excited (sugared up) to sit still. This is my favorite shot of the day:

Spring Break!

We've just finished Spring Break Week, which is a hilarious idea with 5,3, and 1 year olds. I've had a whole week of 'oh-my-gosh-i've-got-to-be-creative-and-fun-and-boundless-energy-for-9-full-days...". Yikes. It was a blast though...

more pics continued from the last post. HOW GREAT is that outfit?
..and she picked out the pink socks and plaid flats to go with it. I give them some choices, ok?!

That outfit could've been from the same Butterick's Spring 1984 catalog that featured this hot number:

I had outfits like that in the 80's, too...they were from this store called "UNITS". Horrible idea. big mistake. WHY did that even exist?!

More Spring Break pictures.... this was the very second before they SMASHED heads, tears from both girls, playtime over for a little bit.


This boy is naked all the time. He seems to love it, we don't really mind it either...


Ainsley was given a REAL ballet leotard and ballet slippers by Mimi last week. That's a three year-old in HEAVEN... she wears it every day, gushes over it, and can't stop watching her reflection in the fireplace. SUCH a riot. The FOCUS she has is awesome, too.

What else? We went to the Zoo one day, stayed in and did crafts one day that rained non-stop, visited three new (to us) parks in town, went grocery shopping one day, played with neighbors, lots of wrestling with daddy in the evenings.
Adam had his USN Reserves weekend this weekend, so I was a little worried about coming up with two more days of new and fun stuff to do....
But, then we found LETTUCE:

You can see Mitchell's face in that picture!? Awesome. He's not too excited about the turtle... but the girls LOVE the smelly thing, so we'll keep him for a few days. We even had a friend (who's a Vet in town) look at him and Dr.M says he looks great and is probably pretty old- like 10ish years. She told us what Lettuce should eat, how to give her water, etc... Elise can't stop playing with it. really funny. Elise found it in the backyard on Saturday morning first thing and it kept them happy ALL day Saturday and parts of Sunday and Monday, too. YAY for a distraction and something cooler than Mommy.

Last picture of the day... Mitchell woke up Friday morning with a black eye! We have no idea how it happened and it hasn't slowed him down one bit. It looks much worse in person than this picture, too... crazy.

Springtime...

So, now that spring has officially hit Virginia, we can have FUN OUTSIDE again! YAY! We so love the outdoors and now that the weather has improved, everyone is happier. =). especially Mommy. We all need a little fresh air and open space, right?

We spend a LOT of time doing bubbles... Ainsley and Mitchell, especially, these days. Look at that little guy's smile. I mean, really!? Yes, he's that cute.
...and, yes, this was 6 weeks ago. I hate that stupid date-stamp on the pictures from our point-and-shoot camera. whatever. That was the 'start' of Spring. Now the real thing is here!

We always love a good run in the rain... =)

Swings are another major pass time...

GORGEOUS SHOT! great backyard, great playset... we love our life.

...just in case...

WE FINALLY have a good whole-family picture. It's the first time we've gotten one since Halloween...that was, uh...6 months ago. awesome. Anyway, the night before we left for Mexico, I kind of freaked out for a minute. just one. Promise. =) I started thinking, "If Adam and I die in a plane/bus/boat/taxi crash in another country, I want the kids to have one last GOOD picture of all of us together." Poor Adam. Yep, this is how I think sometimes. So, kids were in PJ's, house was crazy, but Mimi was here and could snap this pic. I think it turned out great. And, we're all still alive. So that's a win-win!

Vacation bliss...

I'm aware that nobody really enjoys pictures of other people's vacation, but this is my blog...so deal with it. =). I got an email today from my younger brother gently reminding me that I'm overdue on blogs again, so this was a quick and easy one to throw together....

GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS water, scenery, SUN, etc... in Cozumel, Mexico last month.
Do we look relaxed and happy? ...that's because we're on VACATION with no children... the grandmas both stepped up to help out and we got to go away for 5 days. It was glorious.
We even rented (ok, actually, it ended up being FREE-along with two cheesy Cozumel tshirts, a blanket, $20, and a bottle of cheap Tequila..!!!) a jeep for an afternoon and went exploring on the island. It was great.

Ha! That's funny! This was part of the menu- a hunk of wood, really. The Margarita we DID drink was really strong enough for about 4 drinks here in the US. It was good, though!

View from our room. Not bad.


We had tons of fun, Adam went SCUBA diving a couple times, we ate LOTS of good food, didn't get sunburned at all, and are soooo thankful for the time to relax together, reconnect without any interruptions by little munchkins, and have NO schedule for a few days.... so nice.