4 Paones

We love you, Justin, and miss you already! Jude and Violet send their love and Jude sends one of his signature screams (or two).  Happy Father’s Day!

And dad, happy father’s day to you too. It’s been fun getting a chance to work with you again. May this year bring many exciting twists and turns and (Lord willing) goals accomplished! Yeehaw!

Happy Mother’s Day, mom and Sandy (on Justin’s behalf) . We love you both and are so thankful for not only being wonderful mothers, but great teachers and home schooling not only Justin and I, but all of our wonderful siblings. I have a lot to live up to.  I think I have my hands full with 2, but you both proved it can be done successfully with a whole lot more than that. Love to you both.

And to my sister, sisters in law and fellow mom friends, keep up the good work. Where would I be without all your advice, sympathy, great ideas, kids for my kids to play with and companionship. You’re the best!

And one final special reason to celebrate this day… it’s the day I first met Justin. He moved out to California 8 years ago on Mother’s Day. The rest is history. Thank you for making me a mother, Justin. Our kids are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Sure, they make me crazy and have given me quite a few gray hairs, Jude’s made me a little hard of hearing, sleep in’s are a little hard to come by, but it’s so worth it and every day just gets better. (till their teen years anyway)

Justin and I just spent the afternoon with friends and fellow birthdayer, Tom, and Eva over at a Seafood and Wine festival. If you are ever in Ensenada (Mexico) in late April, I highly suggest you check it out and sample all the local wine and 100 different ways to cook seafood from the best local restaurants. I was very pleasantly surprized. We enjoyed ourselves till the very end. I will definitely attend again if I’m in the area.

Violet this morning: “Daddy, Jude and I have a lot of energy, so that’s we can run around a lot. You and mommy don’t have so much energy, so you can’t.”

Arg… Am I getting old? I watched ‘Up” with Violet last night and had to explain aging. I guess that may have brought this on.

It’s this weekend, April 18th, folks. Be there or… be a bad mom? It’s at the same high school as usual. You can probably do a search of my blog to find old posts that discuss it with the info. I’m feeling lazy today.

Violet turned 4. She’s grown so much in the past 4 years into quite the young lady and is growing up way too fast. This year she’s playing a major part in the planning of her birthday party and is proving to be quite the organizer. She knew right off what she wanted as a theme — an all girl pajama party. She wants glow in the dark decor and purple cupcakes. She woke up this morning with even more plans and details. I love this kid! Happy birthday, baby girl!

Whoa, where is this year going? Valentine’s day came and went. If I’m not careful, Violet’s 4th birthday will be upon me and I won’t have a plan. Well, she’s told me what her plan is… she wants a pajama party. Out with the princess dresses, in with the PJs. She begs me to let her wear her pajamas all day long now. I oblige her on Sundays, but ugh! I want to wear my pjs all the time too.

Nic and Sherry, our good friends from way back, are back in town and getting set up. It’s so nice to have them back around. So much to catch up on. Violet has a new friend. Riana (Nic and Sherry’s 5 year old) and Violet spent the day together all day yesterday. She came up towards the end to tell me that Riana is her friend and they were naughty all day. Hmmm… I asked my innocent little girls what those naughty things might be and it turns out they made “squashy food.” I guess I don’t need to worry just yet.

I’m tired and off to bed. The good news is I sleep pretty well these days. Justin has taken over night time duties for a while. Jude’s weaned now and is acting so grown up… and bossy with his authoritative “No!” to everything. Okay, off to bed. Sweet dreams.

The day when our brothers, David and Titus (David) have their birthdays! Here’s to two wonderful guys who have helped shape our lives and make us better older brothers and sisters (I hope). We love you both and pray you have an exciting year ahead and a fun birthday.

We’ve had a fun new years eve and day and I’m off to bed to catch up on all the sleep you lose staying up on New year’s eve. Arg!

Here’s to praying it’s a good one!

Phew. It’s been a whirlwind of a month. We visited family for thanksgiving and instead of flying back, decided to drive. Heh. The kids were much better than I was expecting, thanks to one Baby Einstein video and the Little Mermaid. They may have the videos memorized, but we made it back in one piece without too much trauma.

Visiting family for the holidays was such a treat. Justin and I loved seeing all the relatives and the kids enjoyed it too. Violet and I had an ice skating adventure and the kids saw their first snow of the year going through Texas. We also got to spend the day with Justin’s siblings and my family at the annual Texas Renaissance Fair, which was lovely, as usual. My favorite part though was getting to see the Tartanics perform. They were awesome!

We’ve been back for a few weeks now which have been spent feverishly preparing for christmas events, laundry, decorating, laundry, shopping, laundry, hosting, more laundry. Ugh! Can you tell I’ve had a bad laundry day? -

Then, to top it all off, I’ve actually lost my camera the day before Christmas. Very scary. I’ll be tearing apart my room tomorrow and seeing if I can’t track it down. If not, some unsuspecting soul may find their camera mysteriously missing for about 24 hours. Nyahaha. (with permission, of course).

Christmas, here we come!

And a small birhday P.S. Happy belated birthday, dad! I love you!