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? 
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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!
Justin and Jude are both October boys and we’ve been having fun celebrating in anticipation of each of their big days. We celebrated Jude’s birthday at Oma’s Pumpkin Patch with a bunch of his little friends. The kids loved the hay maze, the cotton seed slide. Jude was in Heaven getting to ride on all the big farm equipment. He was a little horror on the hayride, but that was my fault for not following my instincts that he was still a little too young for that. Violet is a pro at milking cows and Jude’s good at terrorizing the baby cows in the petting zoo. For Justin’s birthday celebration, we teamed up birthdays with Maria of Sam (Doehler) and enjoyed beer and sausages (and real beer floats) at the Stone Ale Brewery Gardens and Bistro in Escondido. I fell in love with that place and can’t wait to go back. I haven’t seen anything quite like it, the mix of modern architecture, beer and gardens. If you’re ever in Escondido, ask me to take you there. I’d be happy to oblige.
Tomorrow is Justin’s big day. He’s been a little sick with sinus problems, but hopefully he’ll be up and around tomorrow enough to party just a little. Jude, meanwhile, yep… he’s still teething. Another molar just broke through, poor baby. Violet is a happy little clam…. er, mermaid these days. She’s just being her princessy little self. I scored a few princess dresses and a some cute outfits for her at the annual Parent Connection swap meet. So, be on the lookout for Belle or Snow White (with a real red bow) walking around our home next time you’re over. You’ll score extra brownie points if you can name the princess right and comment on her dress when she looks down and pats it timidly. Jude, meanwhile, is busy practicing with his dragon gear. Apparently he’s got a knight or two to take out with some firey breathing in a couple weeks at the kids dress up party.
Here are a few pictures at the Pumpkin Patch
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To keep this from being my absolute worst posting month, I’m sneaking in one last September post. — just a small update. I can’t give any major excuses for my absence from the blog, except maybe really bad internet. The two constants in my life these days — bad internet and Jude teething. Heh. He just got his first molar this past week. He walks, talks, reads… okay, fine — he just walks and shrieks all throughout the house all day. Other than that, he’s about the naughtiest kid on the block at the moment. We were joking about needing to make him a special play box with plugs, a fan, some extra electric sockets, sprinkler heads, small rocks, a spoon to bang on things, a cell phone and IPOD to throw in the garbage or flush down the toilet the second you’re not looking. He rushes out the door every time it opens and God forbid you try to sneak out of the room without him. He will walk up and bite you on your toes and feet if you’re not paying attention — or give you a nice bear hug followed by a little bite on the shoulder. Ahem. He turns one on October 24th and will celebrate his first birthday (weather permitting) at Oma’s Pumpkin Patch with a few friends. So… that’s the 411 on Jude the Terrible.
Violet is my fairy princess. She’s going to her first official fairy party this coming weekend. Her friend, Carly, is turning 4, so that’s the occasion. She’s decided to be the Christmas Tree fairy. She has also decided that I can be no other than Poppy and Jude must be “little white clover.” Hmmm… We should have a few pictures to post in a few short days. Violet is still learning to speak clearly, but her vocabulary is quite extensive. -She made her first real trip to the dentist last week and I was so proud of her. I was nervous of having her sedated unless it was absolutely necessary and she ended up doing fine with the laughing gas. She was so brave and didn’t make a peep. She goes back in in few weeks to get her other two cavities filled — yep, she had 4. The dentist said it was from not flossing.
Justin and I celebrated our 5th anniversary by getting to go have a nice dinner sans two little ruffians. We enjoyed a few hours to dress up and go out to a fancy restaurant for some grown up time. That was fun! It’s been an exciting 5 years. I feel bad I didn’t do a anniversary post this year, but the good news is we BOTH remembered our anniversary in plenty of time to plan something nice together. Progress!
Well, that’s the midnight report. I’m tired and off to bed to wake up tomorrow morning in October, the month of birthday boys, time changes and holloween parties. Good night!
Activated Ministries, that is. We turn 10 years old this year and we all got to enjoy a special 3 day holiday celebration — just so we don’t forget it. We had a blast and wore ourselves (and the kids) out. Phew…. Now, onto the next ten years.
Here are a few photos of some of our activities. We had a nice dinner, a barbecue at Las Canadas WaterPark, a picnic at LA Cetto winery… and a few other things in between. I was hoping to link to Tammy’s site as she took a lot of great pictures, but is having trouble getting it to work. Ah… she’s married to a techie… it should be up in no time. If, however, being married to a techie is like being married to a handyman (they fix everyone else up and you have a long list of things you’re waiting on) heheh, then I will do the honors and post her pictures so you can enjoy her pictures too.
And before I forget, here are all my pictures of our Indiana vacation and family reunion. Many have already been posted by relatives on Facebook, but if you aren’t on Facebook, or part of their exclusive clan, enjoy!
I talked Justin into taking Violet shopping with him the other day. After all, what little girl doesn’t love Home Depot (heehee). Afterwards, she wanted to get an ice cream at the “M” store or Mr. Donald, so Justin got her and Oreo McFlurry. As they’re happily eating their ice cream, Violet wants to know how you make an Oreo milk shake. So Justin proceeds to tell her… “Well, they take an Oreo and cut it up into little pieces and mix it into your milk shake.” Violet’s face turns red. She covers her mouth with her hand and pushes away the milk shake. She has tears streaming down her face. Justin’s a little stumped at first and then realized, she calls Ariel, the Little Mermaid, Oreo. Gulp! At least it was easily explained and she was okay. Pretty traumatic thought for a 3 year old with their favorite super hero. Poor baby!
Justin has dubbed me the “moose” from Violet book entitled — “If you give a Moose a Muffin”. It goes something like this… You give a moose a muffin, he’ll want some jam to go with it. When he’s done with the muffins he’ll want some more. You’ll have to go to the store to get some muffin mix. He’ll want to go with you. But its cold, so he asks you to borrow a sweater. He notices one of the buttons is loose on the sweater, so he asks for a needle and thread. The button reminds him of the puppets his grandmother used to make. So he’ll ask for some old socks. And on and on it goes until at the end he remembers he actually wanted some muffins.I think it’s a very irritating book about an extremely irritating moose.
Anyways… back to Justin …. thankfully (for him), he wasn’t calling me a moose, but rather suggesting that the moose and I share a common trait – getting side tracked in what we’re doing when something new catches our eye. Of course, what I am doing is all good – but here’s what happens. I’m putting away laundry. As I take some laundry to the closet to put it away, I see a messy bookshelf and proceed to start organizing that before heading back to finish laundry. As I’m putting away books, I notice a puzzle out of place. As I’m bringing that to it’s place, I notice the sink is dirty…We’re out of Ajax so i run downstairs to get some and… well, often forget what I’m trying to find by the time I get downstairs. You get the picture though. I’ve started to notice when I’m doing it now though and am developing an anti-moose strategy. Kill that moose and focus! Now… what kid’s book character describes Justin?