Christmas Morning

The boys had a wonderful Christmas Day! We woke and had our traditional big breakfast and then opened gifts. Both boys had so much fun ripping open their packages!

full screen and sound options on bottom of box

different shades

day 5 of the black eye

goodmorning sun

This mornings sunrise colors were so pretty, not the best picture but worth sharing.

boys by the tree

He wouldnt be serious, so here's his true spirit shining through. What a goof!

About the best I could do with little J for a tree photo, he needed to rearrange alot!

again !@$%it!!!!!

It's only been about 2 good weeks since everyone in the house got better.... and now, little J has another cold and/or sinus infection.... poor guy, both Thanksgiving and now likely Christmas - with snotty face!! Today was spent with alot of time laying around (above) and just taking it easy.

The black eye goes well with the super red cheeks from him constantly wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt... it's a domino effect at that point... snot + shirt = scratch to face on next wipe. Needless to say, we are changing shirts alot and alot of those shirts are short sleeve since we're indoors anyway.

Bring on Christmas.... and the tissues.

young love

Either she really felt sad for him about his booboo eye, or he's got it going on at a very young age.... either way - that boy is going to be trouble someday w/ the girls!

changes

It's amazing how fast big E is growing into a young man!!
I was playing around and captured him laughing...

MMA training, day 2

Day two.... gives a whole new meaning to "blue" eyes....

I needed that

It's been a CRAZY week!!! I needed to read this.....

Maybe we should all write a letter to santa to humor ourselves!

twas the day before pictures...

.... and there was a head on collision with another kid in his class....



looks like a shiner for this year's Winter portriats.

A lifetime of Memories...

Today my brother would have been 41. I'm reminded of something I read once...

"..in the End, all that really matters isn't the things you did, but what its effects are today, not the knowledge you have learned, but how you applied it, not the words that were said, but how they made you feel, and most of all, not the moment of occurrence, but how its now just a part of our memory.. Everyday, we make memories.. Let's paint lives with happy ones.." ~unknown~

Mike sure painted his life with alot of happy memories.

The photo collage is my way of remembering... laughing... crying... and honoring today. You can turn the sound ON and also watch full screen.. buttons are on the bottom.

"Don't cry because it's over, Smile because it happened."

dough boys

We spent the morning making salt dough, and ornaments.... some by hand, some with cookie cutters. Then we baked them, and later painted them.

You can see by the expression on his face (below), he has no interest in his hands feeling 'gooey'....but he had fun making the ornaments just the same!!

Both boys had so much fun with this, our oldest was more on a mission to make his ornaments, our youngest wanted to keep doing this over and over and over....

....so he played for a little over an hour with the dough.

dear blog

I've not paid you any attention... sorry. :) I'll be back with something fabulous someday soon...

Meme....

Ok - I got tagged by Julie over at CoomMomGuide so here you go Jules... I took mine in the bathroom mirror right after we finished chatting today...

Shot on the spot, where you’re supposed to take a picture and post it right away.

Rules are:
1) Take a picture of yourself right NOW!
2) DON’T change your clothes, DON’T fix your hair… Just take a picture.
3) Post that picture with NO editing.
4) Post these instructions with your picture.
5)Tag up to 10 people to do this, be sure to let them know they're tagged!


My tags are: ItSpewsForth, BrianIsARockstar, ChocolateOnMyCranium, TheGloverFamily

ggc rocks my day

I love GGC..... the blog keeps me reading. I've been reading since just after little J was born, and I even ordered her book recently, she's quite the down to earth kind of chic and not at all for the easily offended. I had to share today's topic, I often find myself in this boat. The boat where I don't ASK for opinion, but get it anyway... I'm trying to be very self-aware and not give it.... there has to be a place where you draw the line between "just friendly conversation and sharing" and being a know it all. Where do you draw that line, and which person in the conversaton draws it?? Personalities differ, and I respect that. I totally know I'm guilty at one point or another. I love GGC's post and momversation about it.

Link to post and momversation....

Some wise person once told me "you're always a better parent, before you actually become one..."

more like it

Got a new "do" today.... a little caramel highlight and a fresh cut! I love my hair stylist Misty... I've gone to her now for about 2 years and she's 100% on top of making it easy for me to style :). I let her have her way with my hair for the color and I love it :).

So... enough about me....

We're headed out tonight to see some Christmas lights w/ the kids... I'm betting they'll love it!

flashback Friday

Today I share a treasure.... while on our honeymoon we stumbled upon this Pfizer nascar.... it was funny.... honeymoon and viagra car..... ok - so it's funny to me.

very little...

... to offer to a blog post... I'm just in a blog slump. Not feeling it this week. It's been a pretty up and down week...... maybe next week I'll be back in blog land... for now - I have to get my head around life.