iPhone photo dump {week 15}

Lots of pictures this week. I guess that'll make up for not having any next week since I'll be completely unplugged (hopefully aside from some very quick factime with the kids using the crazy expensive wifi on the boat) while we're on our cruise. I'm going to be having some serious facebook and google reader withdrawal, for sure!




Highlights:

• We had our anniversary dinner at the Melting Pot. Vats of cheese and chocolate?! Yes please!
• Saturday was a beautiful day for tennis (while sporting awesome sweat bands, of course), voting, and checking out a ton of books at the library.
• I started reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to the boys, and we're all loving it. Can't wait to finish the book so I can re-watch the original movie with them and see the new one for the first time.
• The boys and I went to my mom's church (the church I grew up in, it's Episcopalian) on Sunday to watch my niece, Raina, get baptized. Baptisms are really cool there now because they have a huge baptismal font. The boys were amazingly good in church, considering we/they rarely go. Adam stayed home with Lorelai since she wasn't feeling well and the service plus a family lunch afterwards went past her nap time, but we missed them.
• Adam was able to come home early just about every day this week to get Aidan off the bus and make dinner for us.
• Lorelai came home from daycare with an absolutely crazy hair do. She pulled out the pigtails I put in, and whoever put them back up did a terrible job. Not really a true highlight, but it was good for a laugh.
• That picture of Logan and Lorelai just cracks me up. Her shirt is off (and her belly is huge) because we had spaghetti, his shirt is off for no good reason. She's wearing my necklace, he's wearing a tail. Just awesome :)
• The other morning Lorelai was snuggling in bed with us and she pointed to me, Adam, then herself and said in that order "Mommy, Daddy, Pretty." I guess she hears that a lot from us, huh? :)
• My toes are all ready for our cruise (although I unfortunately didn't have time to get them professionally done). We leave on Sunday!! 
• We booked our cruise excursions. We'll be doing the Mayan Ruins of Tulum in Cozumel, and zipline and crystal cave tubing in Belize. I am seriously SO excited. So so so excited.
• I had shrimp pad thai for lunch yesterday, which will always fondly remind me of my trip to the hospital when I was in labor with Lorelai. Ah, memories.
• A quick trip to Target this morning. Starbucks + Target + cute kids who run around with their hands casually in their pockets and balance vitamin water on their head = good times.

Lowlights:

• Lorelai wasn't feeling well over the weekend. She had a slight fever and not much appetite. Luckily she was all better by Monday so she could go to daycare.
• Photobucket just completely eliminated their collage tool where I used to do all my blog collages. Since I upload my iPhone photos directly from my phone to Photobucket, it'll be an huge PITA to put them on the computer first to do a collage in Picasa, which is the only other option I know of. How does everyone else do collages? All the pictures above are just pasted individually via HTML and resized to look like a collage, but I'm worried that it'll look wonky if I ever change blog margins and layouts. First blogger changes, and now this. I don't like change.
• I've been stressing about getting everything ready to go on our cruise (there's so much to pack!!), and I'm still stressing about leaving the kids for such a long period of time.
• We just found out that after getting home next Sunday at 5pm after a week away from the kids, Adam has to be on a plane back to Florida for work bright and early at 6am on Monday. As in, he'll have like 2 hours with the kids in a span of 10 whole days. That SUCKS. For him and for them.

That was our week, how was yours?

Linking up with a good life.

Wise Words Wednesday: Vote

“The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.” -Lyndon B. Johnson 

Confession: In the past, I've only ever voted in Presidential elections (but I have voted in every single once since I've been eligible). I've already admitted that I'm not well-versed in politics, so unfortunately I don't know enough (or go out of my way to know enough) to vote in any other local elections.

However, this past Saturday, a routine trip to the library turned into an impromptu voting trip for me and the boys. Side note: early voting rocks! I was already going to go on May 8, but this saved me an extra trip.



This election is an important one for North Carolina because Amendment One, the “Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State” is up for vote. I've already ranted about this, and I'm happy to say I've done my part and voted against it to protect all NC families.

I explained to the boys that in our family, we believe that you should be able to marry the person you love, whether they're a man or a woman. We believe that families are made up of people who love each other, and sometimes that means two mommies or two daddies. We don't believe that the government should tell us who we can and can't love.

There's a kid they know at daycare who has two moms, so I explained to them how hurtful it would be to him if this amendment passed and how sad it is that people don't think his family is as good as our family just because we have a mom and a dad. I think they get how unfair that is.

Regardless of your religious or political views, this amendment is by most accounts poorly written and has harmful consequences even beyond a (redundant) ban on gay marriage. There are many other legal ramifications to this amendment (like these, but it's hard to find a completely non-partisan link although this Q&A is pretty helpful), but the bottom line is that rights will be taken away from many citizens of North Carolina, discrimination will be written into the constitution, and it's just not right.

"In this case, we have a proposed piece of legislation that is going to hurt people. It is going to harm people. It is going to hurt and harm for no reason. I don't know how I could, as a follower of Jesus and in good conscience, not oppose this amendment on the grounds of my faith. " - The Rt. Rev. Michael B. Curry, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina


I respect that people have differing religious and moral beliefs, and if you don't believe in same sex marriage, that's fine. Don't marry someone of the same sex, simple as that. But I absolutely can't condone imposing those beliefs on others by way of the government, especially when what they're doing doesn't hurt you at all. I haven't heard any sound arguments that don't cite the Bible or Christian beliefs as the basis for backing this amendment. Where is the separation of church and state here?

I hope everyone in NC who wants to protect all families and the rights of our citizens will do their part and vote against Amendment One. Go do it now. Early voting is so easy, there weren't any lines at all when I went. It's so important to exercise our power and vote for what we believe in, and take a stand against injustice.

iPhone photo dump {week 14}

Highlights:

• After several weeks in a row of tennis getting rained out, the boys finally had their lessons again (and Lorelai tried to scale the fence to get in there with them).
• I planted some flowers in my deck planters. I love the dahlias and daisies we got.
• Aidan vacuumed without complaining at all. Maybe he's finally back to his normally helpful self.
• Aidan also went back to school after his 3 week intersession and was all smiles. He was very happy to be back (and brought home a great report card, too!).
• Logan had a great dentist appointment. No cavities (I was worried he had one)!
• We spent lots of time outside in the evenings enjoying the beautiful weather for most of the week. We even went on a bug hunt since Logan was talking about bugs at school this week. Thankfully, we didn't see anything creepier than an ant. (Logan said we were only looking for insects, so we avoided any spiders.)
• Our anniversary. We're going on a real date tonight, but last night we just stayed in and watched The Sitter, which was nice (funny movie).

Lowlights:

• I don't like the new blogger interface. At all.

That's it! Good week! How was yours?

Linking up with a good life.

A whole decade of wedded bliss

Adam and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary today. Hard to believe (and proud to say) we've been married a whole decade. Crazytown!

Last night I was joking with him that 10 years must be the diamond anniversary, right? We both laughed that one off because diamonds are definitely not happening for us this year and I'm more than happy with my one diamond engagement ring. Then I joked that the 10 year gift is probably something lame like aluminum, because 9 years was pottery. Who comes up with these anyway? Imagine my surprise this morning when I looked it up and I was right, 10 years is tin/aluminum. Super lame.

We don't really do the traditional gifts anyway, but instead of getting each other something awesome like canned goods (you know, in tin cans?), we're going on a second honeymoon cruise!! We leave next week and will be gone a whole week. I'm SO excited, but I'm also really apprehensive about leaving the kids for that long. I haven't been away from Lorelai for longer than a weekend since she's been born. I don't even think Adam and I have been away from the boys for longer than 3 days ever. In fact, the last time Adam and I have taken a week-long vacation was our honeymoon cruise.

Our honeymoon cruise was amazing. It was a Princess cruise around the western Caribbean.

We hung out on the beach at Princess Cays in the Bahamas...

 We shopped in Costa Maya...

and hung out with a donkey, because...yeah.

We snorkeled in Cozumel...

...and shopped some more in Cozumel...

(At least I think this was Cozumel. My memory is a bit fuzzy after all this time. Maybe we were there for 2 days?)

And my favorite excursion of all, we swam with the stingrays in Grand Cayman.

We somehow didn't manage to get a picture of Adam with the stingrays. Bummer.

(on the boat out to Stingray City)

(Please pardon the poor quality of these photos. We took our leftover disposable cameras from the wedding reception. No high quality digital photos from back in the day, I had to scan these using our new scanner.)

This time, we're going on a Carnival cruise around the western Caribbean to Cozumel, Belize, Honduras and Grand Cayman. Even though we've already been to Cozumel and Grand Cayman, one of the main reasons we picked this particular cruise is that it was one of the ones (in our price range) that stopped in a place (Belize) that offers a zip-lining canopy tour, which I REALLY wanted to do. We thought about going around the eastern Caribbean this time, but this one has the excursions we're most interested in. We're also planning to do a tour of some ruins in Cozumel, which we didn't get to do the first time.

Have I mentioned how excited I am?! Now I've just got to get over the stress of figuring out what to bring, packing (oh, so much packing!) and being away from my little loves, and we'll have such an awesome time. 

If anyone has ever been on a Carnival cruise or been to any of the places we're going, I'd love to hear any must-dos, or any tips. And if anyone wants to come pack for me, please do!

Happy 10 years to my main man. Love you, honey!

PS: you can see some wedding photos here.

Goodwill finds v.2

Woohoo, I scored big at goodwill again. This time, mostly for Aidan (and therefore Logan in a few years, 3rd hand clothes, holla!). I went there specifically looking for shorts and t-shirts for Aidan and I hit the jackpot. He's really into basketball shorts these days, so these UNC blue ones were perfect. And now he's got a Hurricanes shirt to wear if we go to any more games, sweet.



I got 6 pairs of shorts and a t-shirt for $1.59 each, a pair of shoes for Lorelai for $2.35, and an orange canvas bin for $2.59. A little over $16 for all of that, and it's all in really good shape. Score!

Granted, the t-shirt is a little too big for Aidan this year, and the shoes for Lorelai are huge again (size 11 this time) so she won't be able to wear them for years, but Converse are normally at least $20, so I couldn't pass them up. Adam thought I was crazy for buying so far ahead, and said she might not even like them in a few years. But come on, they're sparkly pink, and she's a girl. She's going to love them when she's 5, right?! She loves them now, at least. When I first brought them home, she saw them and just had to put them on.



I did tell him I wouldn't keep buying so far ahead, but I'm going to have a hard passing up such good deals like this! Shhhh, don't tell. I'll just hide them up in a bin in her closet :)

Linking up with Harper's Happenings High on Thrifting Thursday.

Wise Words Wednesday: Independence

"The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence." -Denis Waitley

Lorelai insisted on pushing her car on our walk home from the playground, and got really mad whenever
Adam and I tried to help her steer.

Lorelai has definitely been Miss Independent lately. She's all about doing things all by herself, and is very insistent about it. Everything from pushing her car all the way home, to watering the plants, to eating her spaghetti and yogurt the way she wants to (read: messy), to doing the stairs on her own. If anyone tries to help, we get a "NO, mommy!" or a "NO, daddy!" or the boys will get a shove to go away.

I know this is a good thing, but I have to keep reminding myself of that. Especially when her independence means more work for me in the short term. Sometimes it's so easy for me to just want to do something for her myself, because it's what's easy or quick at the time. But how's she ever going to learn, if I don't let her try, right?

What's an extra 10 minutes to get home, or a watering can poured over her feet instead of over the plant, or a messy spaghetti face (and table and chair and clothes and floor...) for something that makes her happy and more importantly, is good for all of us in the long run?

Love that messy girl! And she loved the spaghetti, eating 3 plates of it!

Monster Jam

With all the Easter excitement, I almost forgot that Aidan and Logan went to Monster Jam last Saturday. Adam took them, and they all had so much fun!



They cheered on their favorite truck, Grave Digger, who won the freestyle. The arena was pretty small so the trucks couldn't do a lot of racing, but the boys said they did some awesome tricks. Aidan's favorite part was the big trucks doing wheelies, and Logan really loved watching the motor cross riders do back flips and freestyle tricks.

Adam said it was LOUD in there, so it was good that they had super stylish ear plugs :)



They also stuffed their bellies with $40(!!) worth of stadium food in the form of popcorn, soft pretzels, dippin' dots, nachos and Gatorade. It's impressive they didn't vomit from the sheer amount of junk food that was consumed. Although Aidan did have a tummy ache when he got home.



A good time was had by all, and this was definitely a huge deposit into the memory bank for them.

iPhone photo dump {week 13}

Highlights:

• A great Easter Sunday.
• Gorgeous weekend weather and more walks outside. In fact, Lorelai is pretty much obsessed with going outside.
• My cousin's cupcakes. I've been eating the leftovers from Easter instead of the cadbury mini eggs at night. So bad for me...but oh so yum.
• Lorelai and Logan have both been happy to see me all week when I've picked them up. Logan's been having good drop-offs for Adam, too. Good enough that he wanted to model a cowboy hat for him.
• I had an all-time personal best move in words with friends: 113 points for booze. Yes, that's seriously a highlight.
• This week really seemed to fly by for some reason. I guess that's a highlight?

Lowlights:

• Aidan was grouchy all week. He didn't smile at me once when I dropped him off or picked him up from his intersession camp (he does say he has fun while he's there). He's been whiny and not as helpful lately, either. No idea what's going on with him, but it really makes me feel terrible when I show up with a big smile on my face happy to see him, and I get nothing but a bad attitude in return :(
• I had to tell Logan to stop farting on his brother and to not blow snot boogers onto the floor. Things I never in my life thought I'd ever have to tell someone. Boys, ew.
• On a semi-related note, I'm pretty sure Lorelai has added the word "fart" to her vocabulary. She passed gas the other day then touched her butt and said something that sounded a whole lot like fart. Although, maybe this should go under the highlights since she's saying more words?
• Lorelai now stands at the door every day and cries to go outside, and when we do go outside, she cries when we have to come back in. It pretty much sucks. The other day, we were busy cleaning up from dinner but she was so insistent (and LOUD) about going out, that I opened the door for her to go out by herself (we have a completely fenced back yard and we were still watching her, don't worry). She didn't quite know what to think about it, standing out on the patio while we were all inside watching her. She decided to come back in...and fuss some more.

And not really a highlight or a lowlight, but Lorelai has started to take after Logan and dip everything in ketchup, then proceed to lick it off the plate with her fingers. Gross (yet strangely cute).

All in all, not a terrible week...but it was really all downhill after Sunday. I guess we just set the bar too high! How was your week?


Linking up with a good life.

Easter photo dump

This year for Easter, we had family over to our house for the festivities. It was a gorgeous day and we had lots of fun with my mom, my sister and her kids, my in-laws, my sister-in-law and her son, and my aunt, uncle and cousin. Whew! I just love that we've got family (both mine and Adam's) close by and we can all get together like this.

So, very much like last year, our Easter was filled with a beautiful girl in a beautiful dress...

Seriously, how freaking adorable is this dress we got from Raina!?! I died of cuteness, OMG. And Lorelai and Raina even had matching sandals.

Handsome boys (one of whom was so focused on his egg hunt he couldn't be bothered to pose)...





Cute cousins...






Egg hunts...









Lots (and lots and lots) of playing...









Great conversation...







Some chaos getting dinner ready...

see? crazy! :)

...and a wonderful dinner with my wonderful family.



Once we got the kids all settled with dinner at the kitchen table, the grown ups sat down to a fantastic dinner of ham, lamb, scalloped potatoes, mac & cheese, broccoli salad and asparagus. Dessert was amazing homemade pound cake and cupcakes. So yummy!



To get the table ready, I put some inexpensive flowers in my DIY painted blue mason jars (sadly none of cut tulips at the store were open at all, so I went with this mix instead), decoupaged some plastic eggs (although I really wish I'd gone with a smaller print paper napkin like the example I followed, but I just worked with what I had), chalkboard spray painted some plastic eggs to use as place cards, and the boys and I folded bunny napkins to set on my mom's good china. I thought everything turned out lovely, if I do say so myself!

It was definitely cozy with 10 people crowded around my dining room table, but hey, we're all family. It's cool!

With the egg hunt in the morning and the egg dying after that, plus all the cleaning and getting ready, it was a jam-packed day. But I didn't stress too much, thanks to my family for taking a huge burden off me by going potluck on the food, and thanks to the kids being really great (aside from a couple of minor scuffles...and Lorelai peeing on me. Oops, diaper malfunction)!

We had a truly wonderful Easter. And now after three whole posts on it, you'll never have to hear me talk about it again (until next year...ha!).