Several photos that weird me out.

I took this photo yesterday before dance photos. This is a photo of my 6 year old. She's six. Not to be confused with 10 or 12 or any age other than 6. Is this a glimpse of things to come?

Yes, I realize that I have created this. It isn't as though she's capable of accurately applying liquid eyeliner to herself. In my weak, shameful defense, I was trying to bribe her younger sister into cleaning her room and getting her pictures taken by offering to do a full makeup on her when Jane jumped on the offer and cleaned her room up lickety split. Lizzy never did. She didn't even get her pictures done. I guess that is just one of the many differences between my two girls. When makeup is calling, Jane answers.

Actually, Lizzy answers too, but she's more interested in applying it herself...

Nice lipstick, Biz.

We took a lot of pictures. In part because Jane is never opposed to having her likeness taken, but mostly because every time I looked at her, I had to make sure that I got a picture of her all dolled up.

She's growing up WAY too fast.

And I'm totally weirded out.

Happy Easter!

I figured that it was about time I posted some family photos, even if they leave something to be desired...

Hope that everyone had a delightful Easter Sunday!

My favorite children in the ENTIRE world playing on what is LITERALLY the biggest pile of dirt that has ever sat in my driveway...

... on what is SINCERELY the most beautiful day that we have seen all year only to be followed by another AMAZING day tomorrow.

Anyone enjoy Thursday night TV as much as I do? Anyone think that Rob Lowe and Alec Baldwin are currently contributing more to society now than they ever have before? Yaaaaa.

Issue one! (speaking of TV... did anyone else's parents make them watch the McLaughlin Group every Saturday evening for their entire childhood? No? Yaaaaaa.) So, we have a big pile of dirt in our driveway. Fourteen cubic yards of dirt, if you want to be specific AND believe the man that dropped said dirt in my driveway this morning. We have a gaping pit in the back corner of our yard that needs to be filled with something other than children who have slipped and fallen and stray soccer balls that the children were chasing. That's where all the dirt comes in.

Issue two! It was nice out today. In the 60s. It was sort of snowing on Monday during Jane's first soccer game and now, 3 days later, my children are playing in a ginormous pile of dirt in sun dresses and without shoes. Gotta love Utah.

Issue three! It's the first day since last year that has been reasonably warm and Charlie has already decided that shirts and shoes are optional. I find this to be equal parts amusing and adorable, although I'm not sure why. When I was growing up, there was a family that lived behind and kiddie corner to us. They had almost all boys and their boys never seemed to wear shirts in this summer. Even as a youth, it bothered me. Enough to remember how much I disliked it all these years later. But for some reason, it's forgivable on Charlie.

Issue four! Can you say bath time?

Pumpkin Patchin' it up

It is the custom in our family to make several trips to pumpkin patches in the month of October. I can't ever help myself. I just love me a pumpkin patch. And I love bringing my camera with me. Fortunately for you, I only got one photo that's worth sharing from our first visit...

I love it.

Please take into consideration that this is the same girl that didn't go to school ALL WEEK LONG because she was too far too sick to function. It's amazing what kind of energy she can muster up when pumpkins are involved.

Fortunately for you, I didn't go to the second pumpkin patch because I was legitimately sick as a dog and therefore, we have no pictures... yet. My sister in law informed me that she got some of the girls and intends to send them my way.

Fortunately for ME, I got to go to another one today and I got tons and tons of photos.

I know, Charlie. I get the same way every time I find myself surrounded by hundreds of pumpkins.

My mom is always getting on my case because I post unattractive pictures of Lizzy all the time. It isn't as easy as she thinks to catch that girl looking adorable. It might be the hair. Or the clothes. Or the absent minded looks she walks around with, but she just isn't the type of kid that's ready for her glamor shot at any given moment. It was a good day for my camera, though...

Take THAT, mom!

On the other hand, Jane is always ready for her close up.

And another.

She looks slightly annoyed here. That might be because I was forcing her to pose for a picture before she went through this:

That is what one would refer to as an awesome maze.

Charlie was the only one who would hold still long enough to take a picture with me, and he wasn't happy about it. He didn't seem to mind having his picture taken with Brooklyn, though.

Sometimes I think my kids like her more than me.

And sometimes I know it.

But even Brooklyn couldn't compete with the tractor.

Nice try, Jane. I'm not buying it.

And I'll leave you all with another adorable Lizzy photo just to let it sink in.

Happy Pumpkin Patching!

LOOTD

I was going to try to write a post about our afternoon, which included Jane getting stung by multiple hornets (one got caught in her pigtail and stung her several times under her hair), the upstairs toilet overflowing and flooding the bathroom* and Jane loosing her first tooth all within the same 60 minute period...

but I'm just not feeling it. Maybe I'm tired from screaming hysterically for my husband's help so many times.

Instead, here are a few photos that I took of Lizzy last week.

She had been wearing her ballet clothes when I told her that I'd invited a couple of her friends to come over. She suddenly became acutely aware of her inappropriate attire and ran upstairs to change into something more suitable.

She was so proud of herself for getting dressed without any assistance. She doesn't like to have to ask for help for anything, especially when she needs to get dressed or go potty. (see the above reference to the overflowing toilet)

Those are tights that, I believe, are made to fit your average 18 month old. And, for effect, she layered them with socks. It was deluxe.

Let the record state that I love Lizzy.

*A couple of months ago, we were preparing to go out with Leslie and Cameron when we received a phone call from them telling us that Ben had happened upon and nest of hornets and been stung several times over. As they were frantically trying to treat him, they failed to notice that their washing machine had disconnected from the wall and was flooding their laundry room. I'm not sure what it is about the hornet sting/flood in the house combo and members of my family, but it's a very effective way to shake up your afternoon. Give it a try sometime.

July 25th is a good day to turn 6

Ok, this whole "children growing up" thing is starting to get a little weird. My first born is officially a full fledged not so little girl and it really doesn't seem like she's been around long enough to be riding scooters around the neighborhood and listening to Taylor Swift. Of course, that didn't stop me from buying her a new scooter and Taylor Swift CD for her birthday.

Happy sixth birthday, Baby Jane! Six is a great age to be and I'm fairly certain that the year will be full of experiences that I had when I was about 12.

Is it just me or do these girls seem to age exponentially?

Nothin' wrong with a trip to a zoo.

At long last, the highly anticipated "trip to the zoo" post has arrived.

Seriously, I love me a zoo, and the San Diego Zoo really is the mother of all zoos. We weren't going to go because the last time any of us kids had been there, we had a bad experience, but as it turns out, there's a reason I love me a zoo. That reason is my dad. My dad LOVES him a zoo and so it was under his advice that we changed our plans last minute and decided to go.

It was a good move.

It was a good day.

What's not to love about one of these little "stick your head in there and let me take your picture!" things?

Nothing. Nothing's not to love.

Are you aware of the fact that there are polar bears at the San Diego Zoo?

Polar Bears, people!

This is not a polar bear.

I kinda wish it was. They're cute when they're small. Or at least this replica of a polar bear is really cute.

Fact: When I was growing up, I loved polar bears.

I'm not sure why I loved them so much, but I thought they were the coolest animals around. I believe I may have even had one of those Zoo Books posters of a polar bear on my wall in my room.

I was really disappointed when it came to my attention that polar bears grow to be gi-freaking-normous and would consume me on the spot if given half a chance.

I also liked seals.

When I was in first grade, we had a special 'money day' when we got to earn fake money and then buy real things with fake money. I lost most of my money somehow and my teacher was really unsympathetic about it. Her name was Mrs. Norris and she was kinda mean to me. She would get mad at me when I needed to go to the bathroom so I would try to hold it and then she'd get mad at me for not going to the bathroom. She would dump my desk out on the floor in front of the whole class when it got messy. In retrospect, she may not have liked me very much.

Anyway, I lost most of my money and so I ended up having to wait until last to be able to pick out what I wanted to buy. Mrs. Norris told me that there wouldn't be anything left when I finally got my turn.

I wanted to buy a stuffed seal.

It was still there.

Mrs. Norris told me that I was "lucky" in a very curt manner.

I bought the stuffed seal with my fake money and then I took it home.

Then I named him Sealy.

That said, look at this picture.

After we took this picture, we went to see the elephants and somewhere along the way, Davie peed through his diaper, so he was mostly naked from the waste down. Then Lizzy peed through her diaper and refused to put on her shoes or wet pants, so she was mostly naked from the waste down. We hopped on the skytram and all clung onto the bar in the middle as though that bar would save us from certain death if our tram suddenly broke free and plummeted hundreds of feet to the ground.

Then we went home.

Then we napped.

Then we went back to the zoo.

The zoo at night is HIGHLY recommended. It was nice out, parking was easy, crowds were way down, it was just good.

Hello koala bear. It's super cool that you can get up close and personal with the koalas, which are NOT bears. Are they? They're marsupials, right? Hello koala marsupial!

We hung out there for a while. Charlie liked them and didn't want to leave. He usually gets what he wants.

We walked right in to see the pandas. The kids LOVED them and took about 17 pictures of them. Can you see it in there? Look closely...

Cool.

After that, we made our way to the reptile house to try to find the komodo dragon for Jane. She was desperate to see it. I don't think we ever found it, but we did find a big huge lizard that in many ways resembled a komodo dragon. We told Jane that it was one. We lied to our child. It isn't the first time and it won't be the last.

And with that weighing heavily on our conscience-s, we went home again.

The zoo = a good time.

The Bride

I WAS going to post about the zoo tonight and since I'm fairly certain that none of you has ever been to a zoo, let alone the San Diego Zoo, you were looking forward to it with uncontrollable anticipation, but as it turns out, I'm really tired.

Deal with it.

I've spent all evening partying like it's 1999 and trying to convince my girls to go to bed. They are currently both squeezed into Jane's twin. I'm guessing I've got until about 12:37 before one of them falls out and we start the whole process over again.

I remember being a little girl and we would wait until my mom tucked us in, then my brother would sneak into my room and sleep in there with me under my Cabbage Patch Kids canopy. I remember hiding him under my dirty clothes so that Mom wouldn't find him if she came to check on us. She didn't approve of our sharing a bed. I didn't understand why.

It makes a little more sense now.

Anyway, I'm somewhat sympathetic so I'm giving this sleeping arrangement a shot, against my better judgement. I do a lot of things that are against my better judgement. It keeps life interesting.

What I'm getting to is that instead of pictures of Koalas, I'm going to post the single photo that I took of the bride. I can't believe that I didn't manage to get a better one, but I didn't and since my mom pointed out my oversight, I will try to make amends.

Stacey was a beautiful bride and was also very thoughtful and kind to our family of disruptive children. I've only met her the once, but I'm inclined to like anyone who orders a special meal of chicken fingers for my kids, provides crayons and coloring books for them to play with and glow bracelets, for when it got dark.

Until next time...

The Wedding

My cousin got married. He's kinda the reason that we went to California on vacation in the first place. I have thanked him for planning his wedding on a beach in Southern California because it gave me and my entire family a really good reason to get out of town and loosen up a little bit. It also gave me a reason to get the whole family dressed up and try to pose for "chic mom on the beach" photos.

"Try" is the operative word. "Try" spends most of it's time being the operative word in my life.

Come on kids! You can do it, just point your faces towards the camera for one second!

Oh nevermind. Go play in the ocean.

Or at least stand there and act like you like each other.

Don't my mom and dad look dashing? I love this photo of them.

"Jane and Mommy" - taken by Lizzy

"Lizzy and Mommy" - taken by Jane.

At the after-party, there were kiddy cocktails,

and smiles,

and girl cousins, (doesn't Leslie look particularly cute? I was a wee but envious of her cuteness)

and dancing,

and..... well.... other forms of dancing,

and a random seagull in a fountain,

and lame-os,

but my favorite part (aside from seeing my family that I never see and going to my cousin's wedding, of course) was the twinners...

Davie matched too. Wait, let me find a photo of him.

hold on...

hold on...

almost got it...

There!

Triplet-ers?

I have to tell this story because I love it so. We were packing the kids in the car to go home for the night, and we had Ben riding with us, so he was getting loaded in too. There was a nice family walking down the street at the same time and one of them shouted to me,

"We love your twins!"

and I smiled back and yelled,

"Thanks!"

My dad and his mom and sister and brother and a couple of stow-aways that no one was mean enough to shoo out of the photo.

Look at my grandma. Isn't she adorable? You love her already, don't you?

The kids do too.

And the whole Sills/Barron side of the family - minus Johnny B, Danielle and my cousin, Kyle's new wife. It really was a lovely wedding and a lovely evening and I enjoyed the whole thing tremendously.

It was totally worth all the sand in the diapers.

And mouths.

And shorts.

And eyes.

And ears.

And noses.

And bellybuttons.

And hair.

Tomorrow, if you're really super lucky, I might tell you about the San Diego Zoo. I know, I know, you can hardly contain yourselves. Try.

btw - I should own up that a bunch of those photos were taken by my favorite brother in law, Cameroon. He's good at sharing.