Juggling it all...

A few weeks ago my dad sent an awesome care package full of these for the kids... Little did he know that we had just purchased a few packs of our own seeds to plant in our garden - so the timing was perfect. Scott did all of the dirty work (literally) and showed the kids how to plant and grow the seeds. Now we have this!! All the kids are SUPER proud of their garden and they love check on the progress daily! Brooke calls it her garden; she'll say 'Mama, look at my garden. These are all my plants!' Too cute!! Thanks Dad!!!

On May 21st we celebrated Samantha's FIRST last day of school... OK, well she didn't celebrate, more like I did!! I'm so excited to finally have her all to myself, and even more selfishly, I'm so glad to be able to sleep in this summer and not have to wake her up each day and take and pick her up from school. This is going to be a great summer!! Can you believe my baby went from this... (first day of school photo) ... to this (the last day of school photo)!!! It was quite an emotional day for Samantha that completely caught me off guard. Since day one she has been practically counting down the days 'til summer, but I just don't think she realized how well she had bonded to her teacher until the very last day of school. Sam loves Mrs. Haynie; I love Mrs. Haynie! I debated blogging about this only because it's more of a reflection of the blubbering fool I've become since having kids. Tough on the outside, a complete mess on the inside... So the day rea...

With Scott working this weekend I pretty much boycotted the idea of a Mother's Day this year... to me it would be just as nice if we all pretended this day was just like any other. I truly feel (without the slightest hint of sarcasm, and I'm serious about this one) that I'm not a good mom. I often times have these sort of out-of-body experiences where I can see all these mistakes I'm making and all these things I should be doing better, and yet I feel so helpless when it comes to mothering. But then, today happened. For the most part it really was like any other Sunday... get up, shower, get kids bathed, "make" breakfast (frozen waffles count, right?) and then try my absolute hardest to get all 4 of us to church on-time. Normally I wouldn't have attempted church today because Brody wasn't feeling well and I dread the whole Mother's day candy bar routine at the end. But today was sweet because Samantha and the rest of the little kids sang in ch...

This is even more adorable in person... it is pure yummy-ness (I know, that's not a word, but it's true)!! More colors to come later, but for now enjoy Samantha modeling the latest in hair fashions :-)

So even though Scott only works 3 days a week I often find myself hanging around the house with the kids for fear of getting too far from home with ALL 3 of them... I'm totally out numbered if they decide to revolt. But I'm finding that every day, week and month is some sort of growing milestone for all of them which causes me to get a sense of 'OK, I can do this' attitude and venture just a little farther from home for outings and to explore new and fun things to do. On this particular trip we grabbed our usual half price Sonic slushies and head off to Usery Pass for a little drive and desert exploring. Brody especially LOVED all the dips and hills in the road - it tickled his tummy he would say.

... but I promise I'll be making up for it over the next couple of days... so much to post!! Remember that holiday we celebrated a few weekends ago... yeah, well I almost forgot about it, too. In my attempt to be a photographer I often forget to capture my own families memories and Easter was no exception. I was able to get these few photos from a little party we had with some of the other cousins the day before, but unfortunately this is all we have to remember Easter of 2009 since not one picture was taken on the actual day. Yeah, I'm just that good of a mom ;-)

I'm warning you now this will be a long post... so much to share!! First off we had a total blast! We saw so much, we ate so much and we did so much.... WALKING!!! It was great; we walked almost everywhere which at the end of the trip probably equalled 20+ miles. What kind of vacation is this?? ;-) For me the absolute highlight was going to the taping of the Letterman show. Michael J. Fox was the guest with musical group The Fray (who are now my new favs). Letterman really is hilarious and his side-kick Paul Schafer really is a tiny little man - to me he looked a lot like the actor/comedian Martin Short. Here are some other highlights 1. Probably the worst picture ever taken of the Statue of Liberty, but it was one of the things that Scott really wanted to see on this trip. It was pretty anti-climatic,though as we thought it would be a lot grander than it was. If we had done the ferry tour and Ellis Island trip it probably would have been better. But now Scott can cross thi...