If you want a good happy laugh....

And I mean a good laugh but also a laugh where you sigh really big at the end and say awwwwwwwwwwwwwww...then you have to go to Mila's Daydreams.
I don't know the whole story behind the blog but I do know that this woman needs to make a coffee table book of these pictures when she is done because I could look at them all day long!
My daughter thought these were the cutest pictures she had ever seen. And it made me wonder what I did with all of the time I had while my babies were napping?

Touche'

The other day my youngest daughter arrived home from school ever so excited that a dentist had visited them in class! She pulled out her little bag filled with wonderful tooth-ish loot including a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, etc. and some little purple tablets to chew which would show them if their teeth were clean, ala Glee! (tell me you saw Glee last week...I am still tossing around quotes from that episode!!)
My Little One babbled on excitedly about everything the dentist had talked about and when she was done bubbling over with excitement my "glass is half empty" nine year old cocked a hip out to the side and announced,
"In my opinion that dentist was just trying to advertise himself to get some new patients."
I turned around, eyes wide, mouth opened and said "Why do you have to be so negative about it! I am sure he was just there to teach the kids about keeping their teeth healthy and you're ruining it for her with that kind of attitude!"


A few hours later as I was cleaning up the Little One's backpack I emptied the bag from the dentist and inside found a flier announcing that he would be accepting new patients to his practice and how important it was for your child to have clean teeth and that he was the man when it came to finding your child a dentist.
Damn.
So with my tail tucked between my legs I went into the nine year old's room and issued an apology for shooting her theory down so quickly.
She gave me a lovely "I told you so" smile and accepted my apology.
And for the last twenty four hours I have been treated to different renditions of...
"Hey mom, remember when I told you that the dentist was trying to get new patients and you said...."

She hates dogs and old things

This last weekend I went for a girls getaway to This Resort. It was lovely and oddly warm for this time of year.
There was much Swiss goodness to partake of including a delicious bakery on site where the people moved slowly and the goodies behind the glass sparkled with evil delight making it impossible not to induldge in their goodness!
I was only forty mintues from home but I must have spoken to my children and husband a zillion times.
We dig each other like that!
Long ago my friend and I christened these getaways as "Sleep-o-rama's". The idea of the sleep-o-rama is to sleep,digital scrapbook, sleep, eat, sleep....well, you get the idea. Only the sad thing is that the older we get the less sleeping we seem to do on these "sleep-o-ramas". We are too busy multitasking in our regular lives so we must feel the need to multitask on sleep-o-rama too?
We also took some maternity shots since she is heading into the home stretch with Baby B.












She calls her other children her little bear cubs so I was quite pleased to find a little bear on the carousel to show that she has another little cub on the way!
And of course we had to do the heart on the belly because c'mon, who doesn't love the heart!


On every sleep-o-rama we get laughing about something fantasticly funny (only to us). Our husbands say that we think we are soooooooooo funny....I say we KNOW we are soooooooooo funny!
I think one of my favorite quotes from this trip came from my pregnant Pookey when upon my discovery of a wonderful yard full of decrepit old iron furniture and discarded gems she replied....
"I hate dogs.....and old things."
There was something about the delivery of the line that I felt like it needed to be stitched on a sampler and hanging on the wall of her home.

Look Alive Sunshine

The other day I received an email with the link "WATCH THIS".
Now I wasn't scared of what it might be because in the header I knew it was from the My Chemical Romance website.
Who is My Chemical Romance you might ask?
They are only my favorite favorite favorite band.
The kiddies have their Beibers, the tweens have their JoBros, the oldies but goodies have their Elvis and the Deadheads have their Dead, but I have MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE.
So I click the link and up pops this video (above).
Well, my heart started palpitating and my palms got all sweaty because I knew what this video meant.
It means.....THE NEW CD IS COMING OUT SOON!!!!
They have been on hiatus forevertus and it has been brutal.
I have missed their music, their faces, their amazing look and conceptual videos.
The last album The Black Parade was all blacks and whites and greys. Visually stark but musically powerful.
I don't think I listened to anything but that album for probably four months straight!
Looking at the video above I am so inspired.
Love the colors and the futuristic yet 70's style Mad Max-ness of the whole thing.
From the first beat I was hooked and have been humming the song all week.
It is like the most evil teaser to give such a quick glance and listen to what looks to be an amazing song and video.
Love Gerard's red hair!
Love Frankie with any color hair.
For someone who loves photography I wanted to be on that video set snapping stills from every angle!
Inspiring!!!
Oh My Chemical Romance I can't wait to invite you back into the fold and blare your new CD from my sound system....please release this CD soon!!!

Blogging

I really suck as a blogger.
It's not that I don't have anything to blog about, I do, I do have things to blog about. But then the things will come and go and I won't blog about them and then more things come and go and come and go and pretty soon I'm so far behind on blogging anything interesting that I just don't do it.
Plus the stuff that I find interesting may just be interesting to me!


The night before the school year started I said a little prayer to please, please make time slow down.
And then my daughter turned nine.
I know she probably gets tired of us talking about the day she was born, or when she was little, or telling her about clever things she did when she was three.
Last night I held her close and kissed the top of her head that now sits right below my chin when she is standing and I told her how much I love her.
"You are a really wonderful girl."
I said.
"You were a terrible baby but a wonderful girl."
And then we both laughed. Because she was a terrible baby!
I was reading through her twenty seven birthday cards that she got from her classmates yesterday and the common theme in most of them was that they loved how nice and funny she is, they like her smile and they like it when she helps them.
Those are really awesome qualities.
She truly is one of the funniest people I know.
She reminds me of an old time comedienne.
Think Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy.... or even Lucille Ball.
She is the master of the pratfall and her timing is genius!
And she is nice. She wants to make sure everybody is included and hates injustices of any sort being done to people.
Helpful......I am glad she helps her friends because when I ask her to do something here I am usually greeted by a MONUMENTAL sigh of irritation.
Unless I ask her to give me a hug!

On her birthday she kept talking about how exciting it will be when she turns sixteen.
Her dad and I almost had a heart attack.
Little does she know we will never let her turn sixteen! That is forbidden!

I am Happy

Today I was walking around doing the normal everyday things I do around the house and I realized how totally happy I am.
Right now, this time is a wonderful time.
I love every moment and can't wait to see what new things everyday will hold.
But I also love the mundane things, those groundhog day sort of things that you know will happen at least once in each of your twenty four hours....maybe even twice if you count the number of times my oldest daughter will complain about doing something around the house.....hmmmm twice was being very generous. Let's go with twenty times and then if she comes in around fifteen I'll be happy!
I am just so completely, totally happy.
And knowing that makes me even happier!
Perhaps that makes some people want to puke?
It reminds me of this one episode of the Golden Girls where the ever happy sunshine Rose was perplexed because this man at work didn't like her. How could he possibly not like her? Once she realized this she tried even harder to be bouncy and filled with joy. She baked him cakes, she greeted him with cheer.
But he told her that it didn't matter what she did he just didn't like her.
She was happy.
It made him want to puke.
I don't know what any of this has to do with anything?


This person is someone who always make me smile. She blows my mind with her talent, I am lucky to call her my friend.
I was also lucky enough to get to photograph her family and I can't believe I haven't shared it.
It is a rare treat that I get called upon to shoot pictures.
My family takes top priority, so when it works out that I can roam free and follow around beautiful people and capture their memories for them I do it!


















This is just a wee small sample of what we shot.
It was a very good day!
She has some amazing things in the work (fabric,paper scrapbooking goods, digiscrapping goods)...you must check her out!

Summer Musings....

Summer has been good.
Soooooooooo good!
One of those summers where I truly don't want it to end.
Lots and lots and lots of swimming which has been amazing! Especially when you had a daughter who told you a little over a year ago that she hated water and would never ever swim.
Thanks to B. both kids are swimmers! They couldn't wait to get back to him this summer and show him what they could do.
We also had our Cousin Max come and visit! We miss them. The girls can't get enough of Uncle J. and Cousin Max. We missed the whole family before they were even gone.
There have been camps and playdates and sleepovers.
Golf lessons, tennis lessons, piano lessons and more.
These kids better never say they didn't do anything fun when they were kids!


(all products By the amazing Carina Gardner)



(Template by Tiffany Tillman, Paper and embellishments by Sara Schmutz)



(all products By the amazing Carina Gardner)



(all products By the amazing Carina Gardner)


Now onto summer musings.....
*When you go to get a massage for horrible tension headaches it probably should be mandatory that they explain to you that your therapist at some point will be walking on your back.
*Red Mango Yogurt.....great idea, no high fructose corn syrup, not chalk full of sugar, but what is with the smell in that place? If I am paying $5.00 for a so/so cup of yogurt the least you can do is make sure that your place does not smell like an unflushed toilet.
It was baaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
*No shirt guy....you are okay looking, but do you really need to take your two year old on walks in her wagon with no shirt on? That seems so 80's. Plus if you are going to be shirtless maybe you want to go to the gym. It't not that you are fat...just jiggly.
*Mel Gibson....WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!! You obviously need some help, some serious help. I want to believe that they were empty threats but dang! And why so much heavy breathing? Did you run to the phone from the backyard or something to answer the phone?
Th-th-th-thats all folks!