Jen's baby shower

Have I mentioned that my sister in law, Jen, is having a baby?  And our babies are due the exact SAME day?  Not at all planned that way but how fun, no?  So, Saturday was Jen's baby shower, it was so much fun to put together and get ready for it!  I hope she loved it!  It was a lot of fun.  Here are some pictures.  I didn't have my camera in working order that day, these are from Jen's camera.

   The Cupcake tower.  In Purple, for Jen.

The diaper cake.  Jen seemed to really love this!

The clothesline.  I love love love this idea for decor at a baby shower!  I thought it turned out pretty cute here!

Our babies at 36.5 weeks.  

Jen and her mom.  I so love her mom, she's easily one of the nicest people on the planet!  And she let me throw the party at her house!  

Baby Shower, Baby Cousins

This past weekend my mom threw a baby shower for me.  It was so much fun,  so many people were able to come, lots of laughing, good food and beautiful gifts.  Sadly 99% of the pictures from that day are pretty blurry, the ones that aren't are not ones people would appreciate me posting. 
These are a couple from the end of the shower, my 2 sisters-in-law and I and our babies.  Evidently Leda was feeling left out, not being pregnant anymore and all and decided to pretend it was a couple of months ago and have Gavin be back in the belly. 

Not the weekend I had planned

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This was not the weekend I had planned, or the group of nieces I thought I'd spend time with this weekend.  With all the crazy upheaval in my world right now though, it was a good get away into happy chaos.  I am still sad at what I missed out on this weekend.  But also happy to be able to laugh with these sillies for a bit.

And as chance had it we were there just a day shy of Danica's birthday, a reason to celebrate for sure!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday.  I'm thankful that for today we live right down the street and could spend the day with him.  He is pretty much the coolest guy ever.  Really.  If you don't believe me just ask Spencer.  I feel so lucky that I have such a wonderful man to call Dad in this life, and so lucky that my kids have such a wonderful Grandpa too.
I had in mind a few photos of my dad in the 40's and 50's for this post, and a particular one from recently but the external hard drive wasn't cooperating so here is this one.  New Years 2010, its a pretty great picture too, I think.
Happy 66th birthday dad!

A little Honey

How fantastic is it that these cute girls live just down the street now and we can see them more often?  Very, we think.
Even though for the most part Karissa calls me "Aunt Liza" (because Aunties are pretty interchangeable right? haha)  We love having them here.  I wish I'd gotten some pictures of the 'before' of this yarn.  Lexi loved it and carried it around for almost an hour just cuddling with it.  Then Karissa must have noticed that Lexi was holding it and she wasn't, and these pictures show how she remedied that! 
There was much singing of Little Mermaid songs, I loved it!
When I told Karissa her picture looked great she said "I know, because I'm a little Honey!".  Cutie girl!

Belated Party Pictures

While I did post Tia's birthday list and all that jazz, she's still wondering why her party pictures never made it here.  She's pretty sure all parties need to make it onto this blog (they don't, by a long shot) but, for her, here are her party pictures.  Looking at these pictures makes it look like it was just John and I and a herd of kids (which isn't odd at our house) but 4 grandparents and a couple of uncles were here as well.  I had lots of helpers for decorating cupcakes, and yes...all of those are cupcakes.  Meaning there were more than enough for Grandpa Clinger and a bunch of the kids to have a cupcake eating contest toward the end of the party (see last picture, Cannon was almost the champion cupcake eater!)

Getting outside!

Found this little challenge at 5 Orange Potatoes and thought I'd jump in and accept the challenge, as it is something I very much agree with!  The link will get you to the original post about it for the whole story.  Basically, get outside, every day, with your kids.  And so, here we go.  Mindfully making time to be outdoors, every day every day (not just this month) and a photo of our outdoor adventures each day for at least the rest of the month.  (which amazingly is over half gone...I have NO idea how that happened, musta been a time warp).

Mud puddles.  Really is there anything more joy provoking in childhood?  The magical part for the mamas of these muddy kiddos is how delighted said kiddos were to have us join them but how content they were for hours after we disappeared onto the porch to listen to those wonderful laughing sounds but ..away.  Oh magical grown up conversations without little ears near by. Wonderful.

Happy 14th Birthday Tia!

So post 200!  Wowza!  What better to use it for than this girl's birthday?  How can it be that she is 14?  I swear she was just a sweet little girl a minute ago!
"Tooters" was a nickname that at 12 she insisted she was too old for, for a day, then she told her dad that he could keep calling her that for a while but only until she was 14.  ~(I'm sure at 12 the age 14 seemed Forever away).  Wonder how she'll really feel about that, my guess is that she'll let her dad get away with calling her silly nicknames for at least a year or two more!:)
Tia just turned 14 and here is her list of 14 very favorites right now, in her words, her order:

TIA'S FAVORITE THINGS:

1)  Natasha Bedingfield
2) Nachos
3) Pepsi
4) Dena and Dad
5) Drawing
6) Friends
7) Facebook
8) Hanging out with my family
9) Pictures
10) Dancing
11) Singing
12) Making bracelets
13) New Moon
14) Summer

A few other things I can think of off the top of my head that she loves: phones~any phone anyone will let her play with, and on that note-texting-texting everyone she knows, going to movies,  laughing, makeup, crazy color highlights in our hair, her mp3 player, girl time with lots of girl talk about boys, the color green, vampire stories, scary movies and scary books.  And this beautiful girl is such a caregiver.  She tries hard to take care of her siblings and keep peace between them.  She's also a super babysitter and takes such good care of all the babies in the family.  It has been fun (and sometimes crazy and frustrating:) to watch her grow from a little girl into this teenage creature she's becoming.

Happy Birthday Tia!  We love you so much!  We're so proud of the smart, funny caring person you are.

Happy Birthday Mother-In-Law of mine!

More about last weekend, we had a party!  It was John's mom's birthday so after we got back into town on Sunday we made some bright cupcakes and went over to celebrate with her.

I love this picture of Cannon enjoying a cupcake.  He was so excited about the cupcakes!  He was also so excited about the candles, he couldn't control himself (you could tell he was trying so hard) he blew out the candles twice as John lit them before we could even make it into the next room where Grandma was! 

The gift list was impressive too, kid art, a Monkees album, hand lotion.......and cupcakes!  (I have another great picture of my goofy mother-in-law showing off her cd but I don't have permission to post it, you'll just have to trust me that it is as hilarious as she is......wonder where her sons get their goofiness from :)

This past weekend...a.k.a. Jen and Dena go on a date

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It is almost weekend time again, how did it take me so long to post this!? Sorry for the wait Jen!

It was time for new tires on the car so that meant a trip to somewhere to get tires, so we decided an overnight family date would be fun and we went to stay with A.J. and Jen.

We all know how John feels about theaters, and about people (not much fondness for them) so when Jen suggested the boys go to a movie and we stay in and watch movies they wouldn't like John reversed the plan to be that he and A.J. could watch zombie movies at home, kids in bed and Jen and I could go out.  

It was almost as big of a deal as prom! So exciting to go to a movie, no kiddos.  Laughing is always fun, it is my favorite after all, and there was much laughing so I enjoyed the weekend!  

The girls were pretty excited to see Spencer too.  The first night we were there Spencer was playing one of the video games on the T.V. and Karissa was dancing in front of him and every minute or so would touch her nose to his and say "hi, hi, hi".  So cute!  And he was so patient, just kept pausing the game to tell her hi too.  On the way home he said that even though the girls always wanted to be right next to him and he barely was alone all weekend he thinks they're cute and it made him happy that they were so excited to see him.

Thanks for having us over guys!

Happy Birthday to my mom!

We had a birthday party for my mom tonight.  It was a lot of fun!  Can't tell you how old she turned.  Because I'm not sure.  She's a little unsure about the year she was born! :)

I made Chicken Marsala for dinner and a little cupcake cake for her.  We gave her flowers and books for her birthday.  After dinner and singing and cake we played a bit of Blackjack.  Because Grandma wanted to, and it was her birthday!  So, we taught the 9 year old how to gamble.  Funny.  It was such a good time!  I found that I am much like my dad, an eternal optimist.  Always so sure I'm going to win.  "I have a nineteen, do I want another card....sure~!!! The next card MUST be a 2!!"  And tonight, I found that my dad plays the same way! 
We did hear a funny story tonight about my parent's honeymoon to Jackpot years ago that pertains to gambling.  I'll get around to sharing that story soon.  Its a funny one!  But for tonight I just want to say Happy Birthday to my Mom!  We love you!

Happy (early) birthday David!

We celebrated David's birthday a couple of weeks early because chances are, we won't see him again before then. 

I love that we had to relight candles a few times for Cannon and Karissa to blow out.  I love the excitement little ones bring to every occasion!

I love the laughing and calm chaos that a houseful of friends and family creates.

David's 12 favorites for the year he's turning 12 (his list, his words, his order):

1. his mp3 player (from us, happy birthday!)

2. books, especially about Greek mythology right now

3. playing board games with family

4. video games

5. hanging out with his dad

6. eating things that make his sisters want to gag

7. football

8. guns and shooting

9. a girl at school whose name he won't share

10. bookstores

11. Nickelback

12. Just being cool

We do think you are pretty cool David, we love you!  Happy birthday!