It Was Merry, Indeed!

It was a very merry Christmas around here.



Aw, there's nothing like that first Christmas ~ unless it's your thirtieth and you're getting a new bike!



...or it's your fourth and you're getting a new kitchen to make yummy things in...



...or you have a new way to emulate your hero...



...or your eighth and your parents give you new ways to guarantee bumps and bruises...



...or it's the Christmas you're given a second chace at the modeling career you always wanted.



All that to say, we had a positively lovely Christmas, and we pray that it was the same for you!

Merry Christmas to All!

Merry Christmas, our dear friends!

We pray blessings and peace for you and your family on this blessed day!

Love,
Paco, Jamie, Gi-Gi, Bubba, Ya-Ya, and JuJu!

Cookie Cut-ups

Fact: I am a Norman Rockwell lover.

Fact: I want every holiday to have that Rockwell-esque feel to it.

Reality: It never happens that way.

Yesterday, I thought, 'Oh, wouldn't it be fun to make and decorate cookies with the kids. It's such a perfect Christmas thing to do on a Sunday afternoon.'

Fun, it was. Perfect, it was not.

It started like this:

*Please note my husband's face and the fact that Ya-Ya is ducking her head.

Here's why:


The result?

An adorable Ya-Ya covered in powdered sugar.

So, while Mama cleaned it up,

there was an expedition to the front door to enjoy the short afternoon rain shower. (Do you know how rare those are in Arizona?)

After the explosive powdered sugar was cleaned up, we rolled:


and we sprinkled:


Even Ju-Ju got into the act as a taste tester:


The Rockwell family model we are not!

Who wants to be perfect anyways?

I hear it's completely overrated.

Guess I'll never know.

Because They Are Just So Darn Cute!

Because I am a proud mama, I wanted to subject you to more pictures of my amazingly sweet children.

Seeing as it's my blog, I don't think I'll hear any objections.

Because, really, they are just that cute!




Yes, these are my children. Yes, I gave birth to all four of them. Yes, they are worth all the stretch marks.

Well, of course they were going to end up cute with parents like these!


Biased, you say? OF COURSE!

I am just one of those mamas.

My camera is one of the first things I would save if my house was on fire.

*Notice, I said things.

Brace yourselves! Christmas pictures will be coming soon. Prepare to be subjected once again.

Do I hear any objections?

I thought not.

Together Again (At Least for the Weekend)

Celebrate good times, c'mon!

Good thing you can't hear me singing that right now. I think it's stuck in my head.

Oh, dear.

We had some good times this weekend, let me tell you.

There are some families out there who have reunions every year. Not us. Oh, no. We're on the twenty year plan. Seriously.

We figured the last time my mom's family was together was Thanksgiving 1988. I won't even tell you how old I was then.

Let's just say, no one was calling me Babe or Mama.

Why, oh why, do we wait so long?

I'm not sure, but we did finally get everyone together this past weekend.

We laughed, ate amazing food, made announcements, swapped funny stories, and got to know each other a little more. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings, parents. Together again to celebrate (that and eat).

We celebrated being in Arizona in November:


We celebrated eating (as if there was ever any question):



We celebrated the next generation:





We celebrated new love (and engagements):


We celebrated being together:


But most of all, we celebrated our matriarch:


Because without her, there would be no one to come to the family reunions.

There would be no family.

Thanks, Grandma.

Our Fall Adventure

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

More Yumminess

This is what happens when your big brother and sister don't obey and put the crayons away.



He seems to like it, though.


Aye-yi-yi-yi-yi

Just glad it wasn't lipstick...

Happy Birthday, Nonnie!

Okay, okay. Only a lee-tle bit late.

Still love me, Mom?

Of course you do! You wouldn't be a mom if you didn't. But, I also don't want to push my luck. Hee, hee!

(trumpets blast)

And now, here she is:



This is my mom. I love her. She's a very blessed woman. After all, she does have the four most beautiful and adorable grandchildren in the whole world. Only, don't call her Grandma! She is Nonnie.

One of the things that's great about my mom is that she is extremely creative! She came up with the idea to make my curtains out of a table cloth. Good thinking, Mom! She can look at a room and envision furniture placement, paint colors, location of nicknacks and everything else that I never think of. Well, almost never. She is definitely the first person to call when in a decorating jam.

Seriously. I do it all the time.

I think the thing I love most about my mom, though, isn't the help picking out fabric swatches or paint colors. Let me say, my mom is always there for me. She's only a phone call away and she will drop everything to be on my front porch. She's taken children to the ER with me in the middle of the night, come and taken care of me after each of my c-sections, never missed a birthday of any of my children, rejoiced with me and cried with me.

Plus, she passed down her love of chocolate to me, her beloved daughter.

Need I say more?

I love you, Mom. Happy birthday!

Late wishes? Yes, but she'll be 54 for the whole year.

Ooops. Was I supposed to say that?

Fresh-Baked Yumminess!

A few weeks ago, our family was invited to a bakery field trip.

It took one nano-second for me to accept this invitation.

I'm telling you, it doesn't hurt having wonderful friends who let you come on their fieldtrips!

On our field trip the the Tempe Great Harvest Bakery:



we listened (most of the time),


we took notes,


and we got to help out a bit. I didn't realize that bakers were so brave! The thought of all those dirty little hands in my flour... *shudder*


We even enjoyed the fruits of not-our labors, with a sampling of honey-wheat bread. I'm pretending that this is the bread that we helped make. Isn't it lovely?
I did take some pictures of the sampling, but the bread disappeared so quickly that I never really got a good picture.

They have the cutest little shopping area in the front of the bakery that I really wanted to spend time browsing through, but... But, I will be back! Just the thought of those yummy different flavored butt-ahs is making my tummy growl.

Couldn't have said it better myself!

Happy Birthday, My Love!

My poor little blog has been neglected.

Here's the deal, though. I've been living life to create more blog posts.

At least eventually.

However, in all of this living, certain members of my family have been having birthdays that have been not been acknowledged by this esteemed publication.

Sorry, Hubby. Sorry, Mom. (Yikes!)

No, I'm not mad at them. No, I'm not in denial that my husband is now 35. It's just, well, you know.

Life.

So here is my much belated birthday tribute to my husband:

This is my husband:


I like him. I like him a lot.

Here are some of my favorite things about my adorable hubby:

~While I'm getting ready for bed during the cold winter (all three weeks of it), he warms up my side of the bed before I get into it. So nice and snuggly warm. Aaaaahhhh.

~He drives big pick-ups. There's something women like about a pick-up man!

~He was willing to take his three-year old daughter (now eight) and his wife to see the Nutcracker ballet. Not many men would do that.

~He still wants to be a cowboy when he grows up.

~He likes almost every kind of food I make for him. No complaints from this man!

~I've never met anyone funnier. He's definitely the fun parent. I, uh, am not so much. At least the poor children have one.

~He eats the heels of loaves of bread. I don't. We're a perfect match.

~He wasn't afraid to marry a single mom. He took us both on. What a guy!

~He continuously strives to be the man/husband/father that God has called him to be.

Sorry, girls! He's all mine.

There are a lot more, but I just don't think that you would have the time to read ten pages. There are, also, probably some things he wouldn't want me to share on the world wide web. Like that he- Oh, man! That was close!

Happy birthday, Babe! (you don't mind that's it's terribly late, do you?)

Mom, your's is coming. I know you gave me life, but... um, I love you.

100th Post!

I can't believe we're at the 100th post already!

Come celebrate with me!

Life has recently become so hectic and crazy (in a good way!), so the blogging has been something I think about late at night as I'm falling asleep.

And I mean falling like a load of bricks!

So I'm just going to take this oppurtunity to show you some of the things our precious family is up to!




Gi-Gi has just learned how to crochet. Well, kind of. Can you tell? Her Nonnie recently showed her how to make a chain. The chain is now six feet long. Seriously. Unfortunately, that's the only stitch she knows. I'm looking around the house, searching for some way to use a six-foot long crochet chain. Any ideas? Please? But, I am pretty proud of her!


Ju-Ju has been taking guitar lessons. I told you he was advanced! His Daddy's pleased as punch! Even when Daddy is at work, I find Ju-Ju crawling over to the guitar and patting it, trying to make it make some sound. I love the thought of the future day of when our home is filled with (melodious) music made by my children. Of course, I'm not sure if I'll have any hair left by the time they are able to make the music melodious.

Bubba has recently taken up shaving. What can I say? He's growing up way too fast. You'd think he was an Iowan corn-fed farm boy. Good grief! I tremble at the thought of future grocery bills! *shudder* He's also just discovered the joys of riding his bicycle up and down the alley challenging his sister to races. A few scraped knees later...

And then there's our Ya-Ya! She's just busy being three. My baby, my baby. She's keeping us all in stitches, especially when she sings her new song. Here's how it goes:
Jammies and undaweas
Jammies and undaweas
Jammies and undaweas
This is sung in her New Jersey accent. I still haven't figured out where she picked it up! She says butta and stow-ah for butter and store. If anything, she should be talking in an Irish brogue or with a Speedy Gonzalez accent. Go figure.

As for me, well, I'm just living the life! I am so terribly busy keeping up with these five fabulous people and I've never experienced anything more glorious. God is bringing me through a season of such learning that I can't imagine ever being the same as I was. And that's a good thing, my friend. A very good thing. I am blessed. So very blessed. Thank you for being on this journey with me. I'm enjoying being part of this blogging world.