Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Easter, part II

Man, the blogosphere Gods are against me!  I get all ready to post Easter pictures about a week ago and our desktop won't start up.  (It's been struggling for a while, but we can usually get it going by sneaking through the back door.  Spencer thinks the entire hard drive just needs to be wiped clean and rebooted...I think he's in denial of having to buy a new computer.  We'll see whose right.)  The laptop is kind of a pain in the butt to post pictures with, so I put it off.  But then I get all gung-ho this morning about updating the blog when I realize how long it's been since my last post (eek! nearly 2 weeks!) and I can't find the cords that connect the camera with the laptop for picture uploading.  I was ready to give up on the whole thing when I remember that I had already saved most of my Easter pictures on Facebook and could get them off of there (woo-hoo!)...sooo...here we are!  Enjoy!

first off: Egg Dying!  I know, I know, I'm a crazy-pants to insist on a full-fledge, 4 dozen, actual dye, egg-coloring session with 4 young kids (sidenote: when can I stop including Ezra in the young kids definition?), but I'm actually kind of hard-core about egg dying, even with all the mess and massive amounts of leftover eggs.  I just love me a good tradition.  I've found that 4 dozen is just about the right amount for everyone to leave the table satisfied.  We might have to bump it up another half-dozen next year when Oak will be old enough to do more than 3 eggs and get bored.

Confession: I still have like half-dozen hard boiled eggs in the fridge waiting to get eaten, 2 1/2 weeks post-Easter.  Normally I take care of them much sooner, but my tastes have been finicky with pregnancy.  I'll have to make up some egg salad for sandwiches or something 'cause I don't think I'll trust them after another week.

If my kids look homeless, it's because it was Saturday morning *cough*or afternoon*cough*.  They look fairly vagrant-ish most Saturdays.











We also did resurrection rolls, per-tradition, but Spencer was in charge of the camera for that activity...and...well...I love my husband but he has a tendency to take really odd pictures from really odd angles.  I might've included a few on here just as proof (of the activity...not my husband's photography skills ;)  and for kicks and giggles, but they didn't make the Facebook cut so I can't get to them right now.  Sorry, Honey!

Finally...the Easter Egg Hunt!  I'd love for my kids to stay in their lovely Easter clothes for the hunt too, but as they're so darn eager to get out of Sunday clothes (refer to previous story about having to drag Ezra back INTO his clothing post-church, pre-pictures), we all just have to live with more vagabond-looking offspring for event photos.   Oh well, c'est la vie.



Poor Oakie was so, so, so unhappy.  We had to wake him up from his nap for the egg hunt (it was 5:30pm! The kids were having a conniption having to wait so long) and he was NOT a happy camper!  His mood drastically improved after the kids showed him his candy.







Ok, friends, I think that's it for our Easter catch-up!  phew!

In other news, we have our first ultrasound on Friday and hopefully we'll get a peek at the gender.  So darn excited!!  I really have absolutely no idea if it's a girl or a boy.  Promise I'm not just being mean and withholding symptom information.  Each of my pregnancies have varied on different things, and it seems to have little gender correlation.  Anyway, I'll let you what our little tie-breaker baby is asap!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Easter, part I

I'm gonna cut to the chase and just post a bunch of pictures.  We all know that's what you're here for anyway ;)

note: if it seems I love taking pictures of some of my children more than others, just remember that some were more willing to cooperate than others (ie: not running away at the first camera break)

All the mowglis, looking slightly less mowgli-ish than usual

Ezra was completely disgruntled at having to take pictures in this shot.  Against direct orders, he had ran into the house, completely changed out of his church clothes, and had washed the gel from his hair...only to be forced back into it all again for pictures.  I should feel bad, but I don't.  He was heavily warned ahead of time that there wouldn't be any getting out of them.

I reminded him of the forthcoming Easter candy that would be withheld upon lack of participation.

He decided to participate.

The Girls
Oh, look! Feminized versions of my husband!

I can't even believe how old they're getting!

I case you need a reminder of Bad Scarlett Poses of Easters Past

I love, love, love this shot of Scarlett.

Every girl needs a close-up

What can I say?
Georgia loves having her picture taken

How sunny is this girl?
so bright I need shades.

This picture is true Georgia-ness

yay! yay! for sisters!

The Boys
Love this picture of this good-lookin' boy
(with a wonky tie because he had to re-put it on after taking it off :P)

He's saying "dude" here, per his father's request.
ya know, in case you were wondering.

This boy knows how to work the camera.

What handsome little men I have!

this is his naughty face.
I'm all-too-familiar with it.

Ezra believes that open eyes for pictures are optional.
no, he seriously does.  you can ask him.
the funny thing is no one can tell the difference.

Oak was oh-so-proud of the big stick he found.

such a little big man he's becoming

Well, I was going to post pictures of egg dying and egg hunting too, but those are gonna have to wait.  It's after 10:00pm and I have a hot bath, a new book, and a bag of lemon drops a-callin' my name.

However, if you can't possibly wait another minute to see more pictures of my children, I'm including the links to previous years' Easter pictures just for kicks and giggles.

You're welcome, Stephanie ;)

2010- I & II

The End

Sunday, March 17, 2013

a much-procrastinated uber-post

confession:
I've been putting off posting for an ridiculously long time.  I don't even really want to be posting right now (can you blame a girl? I have leftover key lime pie and a nice long read calling my name).

It's not you, it's me.
promise.

Mostly,  I know I have a lot of posting to catch-up on and it's just been adding up as the weeks go by, so I've been avoiding the whole thing like an overwhelming homework assignment.  Throw onto that the fact I have minimal pictures of said events and it makes the whole thing nausea-inducing.  So...here's the deal...I'm just go throw some pictures up on the blog, which may or may-not be in chronological order, and we'll see what we end up with.  It probably won't be all that I need to post, but at the very least, it'll break the blogging ice that's been building up over the last couple months of non-posting or pseudo-mini-posting.

On February 9th, Sarah, Natalie and I threw a shower for one of my besties, Jennae.  I went waaay out of my comfort zone and offered up my house for the party.  I figured having a deadline would ensure we had the dining/kitchen completely finished for it, which, luckily we did (but just by the skin of our teeth!).  Party-throwing is not my forte, by any means (I'm too scattered to plan thoroughly), but it was so much fun putting our heads together and seeing what we could come up with.  Kudos to both Sarah and Natalie, I was in the throws of some serious morning sickness and they definitely picked up my slack.  Anyway, the girls and I were so busy hosting that we didn't get around to taking many pictures, but I figured I'd post what I have :)

The shower invite I designed.  I gotta say, it's one of my personal favorites out of my stash

the super-yummy spread!
(note the mustache-bedecked stripey straws at the top.  They were adorable!)

The fabulous cupcakes, which were almost too cute to eat!

You can't see it well, but Sarah made this smashing little man banner.

Natalie's adorable little man onesie banner

I couldn't resist snapping a shot of Meggin's to-die-for sushi gift
(onesies, washcloths, and miscellaneous baby items all wrapped up in heat-shrunken cellophane)

Sarah's Pin The Mustache on The Baby game

A quick shot of a some of the lovely ladies who attended.  The vastly pregnant one on the right is Jennae ;)

A quick shout-out to Miss Jennae who just had her baby, Talon Trevor yesterday evening!  Congrats, Lady!


...aaaand speaking of finishing up the remodeling....here's the long-promised official before/after shots of our dining room.

Before:
the dining room wall

From the kitchen looking towards the dining room

During:
The wall comes out!

We finish laying the floor on Christmas Day

The new floor and old floor, post-sanding

All stained up!

After:
The Finished Product

Overall, we finished up the wall, re-routed the wiring (since our previous light switch was on the wall we took down), did the flooring, and painted the upper half of the wall the same yellow as we have in the kitchen.  We also wanted to add some more white to keep the room light and to tie it in with pre-existing white kitchen panelling and the (hopefully soon-to-be painted not-yet-white) cabinets in the kitchen.  We wanted some texture on the bottom half of the wall, so we added a really shallow strip of masonite for a board-and-batten look.  We just really love how the whole thing turned out!

Here's a close-up of the board-and-batten

A slightly closer look at the dining room

A close-up of the gallery wall.  My mom came up to celebrate my birthday and this was my much-longed for birthday present.  I'm always straightening pictures, but it's so worth it.  I makes me smile every time I look at it.


Just for good measure, I figured I'd throw a semi-blurry 14-week belly picture into the mix for inquiring minds :)


I couldn't resist taking a couple of St. Patrick's Day pictures.  Originally I had an adorable 4-kid picture planned in my head (especially since the boys were both wearing a lot of green), but Oak fell asleep on the drive home and Ezra promptly refused, ran upstairs, got in pjs, and washed the gel out of his hair.  oh well. c'est la vie.  So, you get just the girls instead.

Thank heaven for little girls...even if one of them acted absolutely ghastly at church today.

hint: it's the one you're thinking of.


I have to do a mini-brag here, so indulge me for a moment.  So, Georgia was throwing a massive whine-fest this morning because she owns literally no green.  I had suggested alternatives (white dress with green bows and jewelry, etc), but she wasn't buying it.  Always one to compare, she insisted she had to have at least as much as Scarlett did (oh the horror of being one-upped by a little sister!).  As I'm frantically trying to come up with alternate clothing options I couldn't help but wish we had had this conversation the night before since I have some scrap green fabric I could've worked some kind of skirt out of, if push came to shove.  Then...[cue the dramatic music]...I noticed her light green curtains.  I whisked the valence off the rod, threaded some elastic through the casing at the top, safety pinned it closed and down the back, and...

voila! a skirt was born!

I'd like to say things were all giggles and sunshine after that, but honestly, Georgia moans and groans every week on the way to church regardless.  At least I got her out the door with something green to cover her bum up with and she didn't notice I dressed her in her sister's shirt, right?

We moms need to take our victories anyway we can.

Well chums, while I didn't get everything covered that I wanted to, I put a pretty decent dent in things.  Honestly, if we don't cover snow days and Mardi Gras, I'm pretty sure no one will notice regardless. ;)

The End