Restart

Is anybody still here ere ere?  (echo)

Does anyone even blog anymore?  ore ore?

Well I've recently decided it's time to kick this thing into restart.  Evidence of the entire last year and a half of our lives remains stored away in the deep abyss of Google photos.  Thousands of (low quality) pictures with no descriptions or stories to accompany them.  I must have trusted myself a great deal to remember everything that transpired throughout that time period.  "Surely I will remember this exact funny thing he said, years from now... why should I ever write anything down?"
Well let me tell you something I have learned about trusting myself over the last long while.
"NEVER EVER DO IT"

I have driven through the drop off line at school and forgotten to drop my kids off entirely.  I have driven through the pick up line at school and forgotten to pick my kids up entirely.  Just kept on driving through, like I was part of a parade.  I have remembered to pick up some of my kids while leaving the other half at school...including a child we carpool with. Three times.  THREE.
The other day, I took Tia with me to the JCC since she wasn't feeling well enough to go to school.  She sat in J's office while I worked out, and then.......you can probably guess where this story is going....
I left, withOUT her.  I picked up Gracelyn from the little babysitting room, and drove on home, without a care in the world.  About 10 minutes after I got home, J called wondering where I was, and reminded me that I had a daughter sitting in his office. still.
That was the day the JCC had it's second bomb threat in 2 weeks.
She was there for it all because I left her.

You can see why it's probably best to not count on my memory anymore.
And also why it's probably best that you never ask me to care for your children, or anything else of value to you.

I want to reopen this blog with a series of photos of the one thing I love most in this world.  It's also probably the one thing I've spent the most time doing over the past year.  Snugglin' with this baby girl :

I used to scoff at selfie takers. Selfies have never been my favorite thing...but over the last little while, I've been switchin' my camera to selfie mode every chance I get...because I've realized that ain't nobody else gonna be taking pictures of me with these kids.  I have to capture the special moments myself if I want them captured at all.

Almost every day after we get home from the gym, I do a quick clean up of the house, and then we cuddle.  

Sometimes we turn on the lullabies.  Sometimes we lay there and talk about her day, or about a fun memory she has.  And sometimes we just cuddle in silence until she falls asleep.  

I will be stretching this sweet routine out as long as I can get away with.

 Stay tuned for more posts.  

We have much to catch up on.

Visitors

#1 perk of Mom and Bret living in Delaware:  People have a legitimate reason to come visit.

Back in June, Jon, Katie, and baby Clark (who is even cuter in person than he is on camera, if you can believe it) came out for a visit.  It was so great spending time with them.

I don't know why, but every time we have guests, Ty insists on breakng out the broom stick and doing the limbo.
 Here's Uncle Jon.   Limbo-ing like a boss.

Gracelyn gettin up in Clark's personal space.


These two always seemed to be color coordinated.

Below,  Jordan is telling everyone at the table about his idea for an invention
called  The Dream Catcha.
Look how cute and serious he is.
Hopefully one day this idea will come to fruition and make us millions.

As I mentioned in my last post, we ventured down to the beach and had ourselves a little camp out.
It was Gracelyn's first, so.....kind of a big deal.

A friend of mine made fun of us a little, because apparently sleeping in cabins with A/C, a fridge and a microwave is not officially camping, it's 'Glam-ping'.

Call it what you want.

All I know is that J built some fires that were pretty top notch.

Me and my girl, getting ready to roast some marshmallows.

Keeping up with our ghost story tradition.  

While 'glamping', we happened to have an open afternoon so we decided to go check out 'Minions' at the local theater.

Pre- movie photos.

The anticipation is just killing Hayley

This sad picture was taken after Ty realized it was time to leave the campground and go back home.

His favorite part of the trip was hanging out on his cabin bunkbed, and would ask several times each day, "When is it gonna be time to go to bed?"

Somebody got braces!

Mom and Dad Smith were our most recent  house guests.

I don't think they quite knew the extent of the chaos they would be walking into here, 

but they survived the week and we all had a great time.

These two tend to have a very calming presence, which I love.

One of our favorite things to do when people come into town, is to take them OUT of town to a big smorgasbord called Shady Maple.  We've been there too many times to count now, and pretty much have it down to a science.  We each know exactly what we are going to get in line for first, and the order of the foods we want on our plates.
It's a no nonsense type of deal.

More pictures of Baby girl sticking those stinky feet on the table.  

Her favorite thing to do is disobey, which means she fits in well with the rest of my crew.  

And look how hilarious she thinks she is...

She is not a light weight, so I was shocked that this thing was still standing with her on top of it.

We took Mom and Dad Smith on a hike through the Alapocas trail....

To China Town

And to Independence Hall in Philly.

I've come to realize how lucky we are to live close to so many awesome places.

We had a mission themed night for FHE last week.

Jordan really went above and beyond on this one and scored some major bonus points with the kids and I.

He had prepared ahead of time, a special mission call for each person in our family, addressed all of the individual envelopes, and set them outside of our front door to be found by Ty.

I had no idea he had planned any of this, so I became more and more impressed as the night went on.  

In the envelope along with the typed out mission call, was also a missionary name tag.

The kids were all ecstatic.

Including Gracelyn, who was shaking her entire body in excitement.
Someone open that girl's mission call, she's going to have a heart attack1

Gracelyn was called to Japan, Tia to Argentina, Hayley to Norway, Ty to Hawaii, and me to France.

J told us about his mission...we looked at pictures, and other souveniers from his time in Holland, and then he broke out the desserts that he had bought in secret.  

So sneaky

The kids all went to bed feeling super pumped to serve missions which was the whole point, so, 

'mission' accomplished.

My kids find great ways to entertain themselves.

so brilliant.

Here are Tia and Ty on their first day of gymnastics camp.

4 lovely hours a day.  I had the best time that week. I mean THEY.

THEY had the best time that week

This girl loves to be outside.  In fact, she just started saying the word, 'outside'.
right along with the phrase "I'm ready"
 She doesn't even say the word 'ball' yet, but can almost form a complete sentence expressing her desire to obtain some fresh air.

I found this picture the other day from a few months ago.  Hayley had earned a spot in the district Math 24 competition.  She did SO well.  I was beaming with pride.

A friend of mine was doing a photo shoot for a clothing store and needed a few girls to act as the models for the clothes. Tia loves dressing up, so I went ahead and volunteered her.  The pictures turned out very beautiful, and are on the store's website as well.

More to post soon.

xoxo