'Like the moon in a bag'...

How was everyone's weekend?! Mine went by way too fast. They pretty much tend to always do that on me. Even when I take a Friday or a Monday off. Still flies right by me.
My cousin Will was here this weekend. (Or, my cousin 'ill' in Emma's words) The guys golfed, went into the city for a street festival, we grilled and hung out by the pool. The kids are pretty proud of themselves that they can swim 'by themselves' now. (With their life vests on, but they just don't need to be holding onto anyone or anything) They finally realized that was possible.

            My Little Fish!

In that first pic. of her on the left Drew was splish splashin' her. I love the dramatic face.

Emma & Drew loungin' around on Saturday morning:

Spending some time with Will

I thought this picture was cute - - Emma just floating around, hanging out with all her guys

So I think my blog has officially become a 'picture blog.' I've been using it as my electronic photo album,  with comments.

The other day Emma was telling me how much she loved me (she says I love you big, big, BIG much!) I then told her that I loved her all the way to the moon and back. She just sort of nodded and went along with it. The next day she comes up to me and says "Mommy... I love you like the moon in a bag!"
It took me a second to decipher, and then I laughed to myself. Funny girl...

We have Andrews parents in town this week (Emma and Drew's YiaYia and Papou). They arrive tomorrow and are here for a week, and the day after they leave we leave for Cape Cod!! I'm SO excited. That's definitely one of my all time favorite places and I always look forward to it. We always go in August... and this Summer I really made a conscious effort not to wish my summer away by looking forward to going too much.



A first for everything

Alright... I'm tired, so I'm going to make this a quickie - but I just wanted to get these videos out here for Andrews parents. Long story, but the videos I take on my phone error out when I text them or email them to his dad (and when I email them to myself they do the same thing actually...) So I have to save them and drop them into the blog, and... Wha La! A little quirky, but we hit a major milestone today so I really wanted them to see these videos. (they rarely miss out on any major 'firsts' because they come to visit us a lot, and we do lots of pictures, videos and webcam. They are actually going to be here in just a few days.)
As you know, my parents have a pool and we pretty much live in it during the Summer months, so Emma and Drew have spent an ample amount of time in the water (Pool, beach, pond, etc...) and are very comfortable in and around water, but have never just swam by themselves without being held. They like to play around on the steps of the pool, float around in rafts, or be held while they float around the pool. They do have life vests on whenever they are around the pool though. But it was like all of a sudden today was the day that both of them decided they were going to go into the pool on their own, without holding on to anyones hands or anything and swim around! So I made sure to take videos - I actually took a lot, but here are a few -
That's my dad in there with them. He taught me how to swim when I was pretty young, and surprisingly I remember a lot of it.. And now he's teaching my munchkins! (My mom and my dad, sorry mom. You just weren't in any of these videos...)
I was not in the pool because I was on pizza duty. When I left to go pick up the pizzas they were doing their typical hangin' out on the steps deal, I was back within 15 minutes and they were out in the middle of the pool on their own swimming their little hearts out!!

In these videos of Emma she has a noodle because she really was pretty much in there by herself , but earlier in the evening she was doing it without the noodle assistance. (And to clear up the comment about her being in the pool alone, there were 5 adults standing at the edge and she had a life vest on.)

My cousin is in town from NJ, spending the weekend here with  us. They golfed this afternoon, and we did a little evening swimming, and our regular Friday pizza night. Hopefully the weather holds out for him because we pretty much have  thunderstorm warnings for the entire weekend. You never know though. This afternoon and tonight wound up turning out really sunny and hot and it was supposed to be stormy.

I'm hoping we don't get hit with any more severe storms... I don't think this area can  handle any more trees down, power outages, traffic lights out ....

We had the craziest storm about a week or two ago. It rolled in around 7:15 ish in the morning, I was driving to work, had my sunglasses on, parked the car, walked in, onto the elevator and in the time it took me to get on the elevator, up to my floor and take a few steps it was  pitch black dark outside with hurricane-like winds and rain. It was major, but the strangest part is that it rolled in and out so quickly. It was gone in minutes! But it left over 600,000 homes without power in the Chicago suburbs for days (some poor people were without power for close to a week because they simply didn't have the man power to get to everyone quick enough.) Traffic lights were out, trees were down everywhere, it was such a mess. THANK GOD we did not lose power. Our nanny was here with the kids when it happened and said we lost it for just a few minutes but it came back on and remained on. I really was devastated for the people that were without A/C in the hot, humid temperatures for days, who lost everything in their fridge and freezers. If we had  more room I would have been taking people in. That's just a terrible situation, and to know that there is no guarantee of when they will be able to make it to your house because you are one of 600,000.
So I'm hoping and praying and wishing that with the thunderstorms we're getting tonight (and had last night) that they don't do anything like that. I almost feel guilty, like we escaped having to go through that hell and I really really don't want to have to. Our house is practically shaking from thunder and lightning is lighting up the entire room. Worse than any Arizona summer monsoon I've ever seen! So, keeping my fingers crossed. I don't mind storms but not when the thunder shakes the walls and rattles the windows! =/

Drew said something funny last night. Andrew tries to find movies for them to watch to break up the typical line up of Dora and Diego that we let them watch before bed time. So I come out of the bathroom from washing my face and the 3 of them are sitting in my bed watching The Adams Family! So I made a comment about it probably not being the best thing for them to watch especially before bed, and Drew says 'Nope, dad... We not watch this, it's too dangerous.'

I thought that was cute.

Well, apparently my 'quickie' blog turned into a sleepy rambling novel. But I really just wanted to get a few of the videos out there for Andrews dad since they didn't work on his phone. My little fishies. They are so tuckered out, and maybe.... just  maybe, they will sleep in a little bit for mom & dad in the morning!

I think the thunder is directly over our roof, and that the lightning is continuously hitting our deck. So I'm going to go hide under my pillow now!

My Soccer Players, A few candles and a Birthday Wish....

Yesterday was my sisters birthday, so we had her birthday dinner at my parents last night. In our family, for your birthday you get to pick whatever you want for dinner (no matter how strange the combination may end up being) and dessert for your at home family birthday celebration. We like birthdays. My kids especially like birthdays... I think every time there is a birthday in the family they think it's theirs. And they are always allowed to blow out the candles on the cake because it's their favorite part. So last night we all went to my parents for steak, crab legs, waffle fries, salad and ice cream cake (and cupcakes that looked just like the ice cream cake for Emma because of her issue with dairy these days.)
Before Emma and Drew could say 'Shauna' they called my sister 'Cha-Cha' which just sort of stuck around.

Happy Birthday Cha-Cha!!

Emma helping ChaCha blow out her candles

Drew helping blow out candles

Cupcake Time!!

This was pretty funny... Emma was pretending to take pictures from a fake cell phone. (meanwhile getting her grubby icing covered cake crumbly fingers all over it.) Drew was on the other side of the table carefully wiping his hands with a napkin after each bite. hahah

Very serious face.

I am off work today, hanging at home with my kiddos. We are having a heat wave (well, I wouldn't say the actual temperatures are bad, but the humidity is horrible.) So I didn't want them to be outside for too long today, but we went to the park for a bit this morning. The swings were way too hot and would have burnt their tushies off... and basically, most of the playground stuff was too hot. So we played with a ball on the soccer field. And let me tell you... I think we've got a few soccer players!

(Warning - - PLEASE for your own sake make sure your computer volume is muted. My voice in these is just obnoxiously annoying.)

Emma was pretty good also, but I must have had sunscreen or something on the lens so hers came out really foggy.

A Sunny Day at the Park

I had to work from home on Wednesday and it was such a gorgeous day, but I was SO busy and had a lot to get done work-wise, so it was just killing me how nice it was outside. And then I started to feel bad that the kids were stuck in the house also. Because their nanny gets them out every day. (They are so lucky to have her by the way - she is great.) And if they are at my moms, they are outside for some or most of the day also, either swimming or playing. So I think they were getting a little restless. By the time 3:45 or 4:00 rolled around, it was still gorgeous outside, temperature was perfect, the sun was shining, Andrew wasn't home yet, so we took a walk around the neighborhood. And they convinced me to take them to the park. Selfishly I kind of wanted to get a little more walking in for my own exercise, but I caved. As usual.

We lost Emma on the way. She refused to take a nap all day, and then crashed out on our walk to the park.

So I parked her in the shade so she could snooze while Drew and I played on the playground.

Sleepy head.

Look at what a perfect day it was!

That's what is so great about Summer... this picture was probably taken around 5ish, maybe later. It would be dark at this time of day during the winter, and the sun wasn't even close to setting.

You can see Drew swinging in this one.

I've been playing around with editing pictures a little bit lately at night after the kids go to bed.

It's kinda fun. I put a few of them in here. Once again, these are cell phone pics - so not the best quality. But it's a camera that I always have on me.

Emma is our dirty girl. She loves to dig in dirt, play with rocks and mud, bugs and weeds and roll in the grass. Drew on the other hand, freaks out if his hands are messy and demands that I help him wash his hands right away. Sometimes he even insists on me washing his hands in the middle of a meal. (Which is interesting considering he usually prefers to eat with his hands instead of his fork?) So I was watching him go down the slide and he yells over to me that there's a bug on him. I went over to check out this bug that he was so concerned about, and it was a cute little lady bug. I wanted him to see it, but he obviously wanted no part of it crawling all over him, so I put it on my hand and let him check it out. If it were Emma, she would probably be tormenting the poor thing by then. Once it was off of him, he was really interested in it.

And then there were two!

After about 40 minutes or so Emma decided to join us.

I just thought this looked really neat with the sun. (This one is not edited.)

Emma swingin'. She probably could have hung out on that swing ALL night long. Eventually I had to pry her out of it after many attempts to reason with her, beg, bribe, whatever. I told her Daddy was home now and we were going to go home and have dinner. She was not having it. She was perfectly content in her little swing, right where she was, doing what she was doing.

While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt



My Family is the Sunshine of My Life

We actually had a 'relaxing' weekend (for us, anyway.) Which was really nice. Andrew's uncle Bill was here visiting us for a few days. He arrived Thursday evening and left Saturday morning to continue on his road trip journey. It was nice having him here. He is really great with kids and Emma and Drew absolutely adore him. They were sad to see him go. Andrew took Friday off and they golfed, took the kids to swim and went to Arlington Race track.
Saturday the boys (Andrew & Drew) had haircuts, we went out to lunch and ran all of the typical errands - Costco, Target....

Drew getting his hair cut. He's had so many haircuts, his hair grows unbelievably fast. But I have not had Emma's haircut yet. Partially at the beginning because it was really curly (ringlets) and still is; but it didn't seem as long as it actually was once it dried and the curls bounced up. But, I think it's time. Just for a little bitty trim. Although Emma thinks she has gotten her hair cut several times, so may be confused when she actually does. She feels left out when Drew gets his haircut and she doesn't get a turn, so Rachel puts her up in the chair, takes the time to put a smock on her, spritz her hair down, and do a quick pretend cut - little snipets with the scissors somewhere over her head. And she jumps down from her chair with the biggest smile on her face and comes running to me "Mommy! I got my hair cut!! Look!!" (Is that bad?)

Out to lunch

That lunch actually ended quicker than we had anticipated... I'm trying really hard to stick to my word, and when I say stop it or else (XXXX) then I really need to follow through with my 'or else' whatever it may be at the time, even if it isn't convenient for me. Because otherwise they don't take me seriously. And we are definitely going through a streak of the 2's (times 2) that everyone speaks so unpleasantly about. Some days are more challenging than others. And they are definitely better behaved when they are separated and I only have one of them. All things considered, I'm sure they actually are much better behaved than most kids their age, I think Andrew and I both just have really high expectations of them. (But that's what parents are for, right?) Anyway, back to the lunch story, Drew was doing something I didn't want him to do, I don't really even remember what it was now, standing or jumping on the booth or something - and I had asked him a few times to stop, eventually said the eminent 'Sit down NOW or we are out of here.' And a minute later, there we went. (Drew and I) with unfinished lunches, etc... Out to the car. Andrew and Emma finished eating and came out after. I like the advice of my Nan - Don't have a lot of rules, but the ones you do have - Stick to them.

Saturday night I was able to meet up with one of my besties from college who was in town for the weekend. It was really nice to be able to catch up with her a little bit.

I had some fun playing around with editing some pictures tonight. Although, once again... always forget to use my good camera, so there's only so much you can do when you are workin' with cell phone pics.

 Today was really just a relaxing day. We hung around at home almost all day, which almost never happens on weekends (or ever, for that matter.)  I caught up on some laundry, a little organizing... and spent a lot of time just playing with my munchkins.

They were drawing/erasing on their chalkboard - I say that because they really were more amused with the erasing part I think. We had to work out a rotating schedule to take turns with the eraser.

And of course life isn't always perfect and peachy, so for the sake of reality... there was also a little bit of this:

You don't really get the full effect without hearing the screechy scream that came with it.

Please disregard the hair. I had not yet had a chance to do her hair.... yikes!

Emma was really (I mean REALLY) proud of her smiley face that she drew on the chalk board and asked me to take a picture of it for her.

She also requested this pic. And then was very excited to come over and see how the picture turned out.

I changed and washed the sheets on all of the beds today, and I don't know what it is, but when I take the sheets and blankets off of our bed, the kids love to come in and jump around on the bed. Not sure what kind of difference there is with/without sheets, but it gets them all keyed up.

Drew was helping me. Well not really, he was much more of a distraction because I just wound up playing with him for a long time instead.

Emma laughing about something with Daddy

She got a booboo on her hand today, just a tiny little scrape, but daddy made it all better with a bandaid.

Later in the day Drew was walking in the same place Emma was when she fell and he turned around to me and said "Mom, I better watch where my going," and then he does this confirmation head nod. Funny little guy.

We grilled at home tonight, and while Andrew was grilling Emma & Drew played with our neighbors little kids. How terrible is this? We have now lived here a few years and I didn't even know that our neighbors had a daughter Emma and Drew's age!!?! But, in my defense their back backs up to our back so it's not like they are actually on our street. But either way, we're just always on the go on the weekends.

I was so happy with something I found today for my little girl - Lactose Free Ice Cream!! Recently we discovered that she has a little issue with lactose. It's not severe or anything but she gets really bad stomach pains, so we just avoid it. They get milk every night before bed and without fail Emma would wake up screaming and crying at night with a bad tummy (We didn't know it was her stomach right away either) but eventually associated it with milk & other heavy dairy products. Now she drinks Silk, and we have had no issues since. She did however love ice cream, and it was only a treat that they would get at my parents because I don't buy it at home. But after we cut out her heavy dairy, ice cream had to go. So when I saw the ice creams that were made from coconut milk, or soy, I got excited and had to buy some for her. Sucker, I know. So after dinner tonight the kids had ice cream with sprinkles.

I took that picture the other night when they were watching tv in my bed.

And this one is from a few days ago also, but I just couldn't resist. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, Drew is absolutely, positively, without a doubt infatuated with cars. Or, anything with wheels for that matter. He usually refuses to go to bed or take a nap without a few of them - and there are a couple that always end up coming with us wherever we go. Usually I will find random little cars in my purse after a weekend because he knows I throw things in my purse to take with me before we leave the house, so I've caught him putting his little cars in there occasionally.

So, I put them in for naps, and he didn't want to take a nap but I told him I didn't care if he slept, but he had to be quiet and stay in his bed. Eventually I knew he would fall asleep. So I went in a little bit later to check on him and found this:

"The only thing worth stealing is a kiss from a sleeping child."  ~Joe Houldsworth

"Love the Life you Live; Live the Life you Love"

We had such perfect weather for a long weekend. We had a very full (but fun) holiday weekend. Andrew was able to get a few rounds of golf in, we did a lot of hangin' by the pool, a 4th of July party, a summer festival, fireworks, bbq's...  And we were on the go all the way up until late Monday night. I really could have used one more day off - just to rest a little bit and get organized. I was tired last night! (Not to mention sleeping through my alarms this morning.) I had to apologize to our nanny when she arrived this morning that my kids will smell like sun screen and chlorine when they wake up because baths just did not happen last night. (and maybe a little bug spray) Emma crashed out before we even got home and Drew was getting there himself. I'm running around after toddlers all day, so it makes for a better excuse, but have you noticed that you can do nothing but relax in the sun - and at the end of the day you feel so drained and exhausted, just from the sun? After 4 straight days of it I was ready to collapse last night.

Monday our friends Serena & Lee and their daughter 'Fi' came to swim and grill.

They have been in my blog a few times so I'm sure I've mentioned it - but Serena and I went to college in Arizona together and years later both of us wound up living in the Chicago suburbs, and had babies around the same time.

Drew & Fi playing in the little pool. He is much more comfortable in the little pool. I'm not sure what happened between last summer and this summer, but he definitely was a much bigger fan of the pool last year. He goes in the pool and he will play on the steps, or let me push him around on a raft, but he is much more hesitant than he ever was.

Emma, Drew & Fi

Serena & Fi, floating around the pool. (She did have a swim suit on, I promise. We were not skinny dipping!)

Me & Emma

Serena & Emma hanging out in the baby pool (Which we had to dump pool water into every once in a while to cool it off - because the sun was heating it up so much it felt like a hot tub!)

I saw this car pool float at the store, and taking into consideration Drew's absolute LOVE for cars, I just had to get it for him. Well, he was really into it when it was sitting on the kitchen floor, but once it was in the pool he wasn't really so hot on the idea. So Emma and Fi played in it, which changed his mind a little bit. I think he still would have much rather it be on the ground outside of the pool though.

Emma cruisin' around the pool in her ride.

She must have looked like she was going to fall over or something - Look at all of the hands reaching out for her in this picture!!

Emma giving her Mimi kisses

Drew taking a spin 

My favorite little boy in the whole world.

“Palm trees, ocean breeze, salty air, sun kissed hair. That endless summer, take me there.”

Stars, Stripes, Fireworks and My American Girl

I took a lot of pictures yesterday... so this is going to end up being more of a picture blog.

My little American Girl

Yesterday we went to a 4th of July party. The weather was beautiful, great food, drinks and company.. and the kids had a blast. It was a fun day. By the end of the night our munchkins were tuckered out. (Mom & Dad were  pretty tired also!)

Drew & Ciera were SO cute. Playing together and walking around holding hands. (I did not mean to cut part of Ciera's head off, but they were walking towards me when I took the pic so it was a little closer than I had anticipated. Not claiming to be a professional photographer here! *And once again, forgot our new good camera, so all of these are from my phone.)

They are right around a week apart in age - born at the same hospital, within days of one another. I think I wound up having Emma and Drew on Molly's due date actually.

~ Buddies ~

Drew hangin' out with Dad.

They each wound up with different clothes on by the end of the night - between Drew deciding to step into the pool with his clothes on, Emma spilling a beer down the front of her (No, she was not drinking beer. I'm actually not sure how all of that went down exactly.) and.. she sat on a strawberry in white shorts....

Emma had fun playing with her little friend Kate

                                             Rolling around in the grass with the older boys....

Stacking the drink cups

Blowing bubbles with 'Reesa' (Teresa)

And... snacking on fruit kabobs!

The kids loved the little water fall/river thing in the backyard.

Drew, very amazed at the fireworks they were shooting off from behind the pool

Drew & his Pop

You would think from this picture that they jumped off the diving board. Nope. Poor Justin hung out down there waiting for her to jump off forever and she kept changing her mind. Eventually the final decision was a no.

There were a lot of delicious desserts, but this cake pretty much wound up being the little kids. And they all would walk by it and stick their fingers in it

Emma and Drew were able to stick it out for fireworks last night! Mission accomplished!! I really just wanted them to see fireworks this year, even if it was just for a few minutes. I thought they would really like it... and the night before they couldn't make it up late enough to see them. On our way home last night we stopped and watched them for about 10 minutes.

Drew & Daddy watching fireworks.

We have had a fun filled, sun filled, busy weekend. Andrew is golfing this morning and later this afternoon our friends Serena & Lee are bringing their daughter over to swim and grill - (She's Em & Drews age)

I'm really tired this morning... I could have slept in a little bit. But Emma and Drew obviously had other plans!

I hope everyone had a very happy, fun and safe 4th of July weekend.

Such a cute video clip of Drew & Ciera

(and Emma jumps in there at the end!)