Family Ties

If you live within close driving distance of family or in-laws I'm sure you have found yourself thinking at one time or another "Man, I wish I didn't live so close to them".  Let me tell you, this is a thought you should forever erase from your mind and just be thankful for what you have. For Morgan's mom or my mom or my sister to visit it would require a 6 hour plane ride.  For Morgan's sister to visit it requires a good 7 hour car ride. As you can imagine, we don't see any of them very often - this sucks!

Obviously it sucks to not see your mom and your sibling on holidays, that's a given.  This is something that Morgan and I have pretty much come to terms with, we won't be spending alot of holidays/birthdays with them.  That's just the way it is, gas and plane tickets are just too expensive and there isn't much you can do about that.  Missing holidays together isn't the suckiest part, the suckiest part for me is also the simplest part.  I'm talking about all those everyday times where it would just be nice to have someone to help out.

My beautiful big sister, Jeanette meeting Avrie for the first time. She has only seen her one time since then.

Earlier this week I cleaned out our spare bedroom (well, sort of, at least you can see the bed).  What should have taken an hour or so took all day. Every five minutes I would have to stop - to go figure out who was crying and why, to go change a diaper or help with potty or to make someone a snack.   How nice it would have been to be able to call mom, sis, Bev or Courtney and say hey, can I bring the girls over for the afternoon?  I know that if any of them were here they would have said "Of Course!"  Thats what family is for, to be your last minute, un-planned babysitters.  At least that's how I remember it growing up. 

During one of my mom's visits we went and had our pictures done together.  I guess the next time she is here we need to get one with Piper

Morgan and I can all but forget about getting any kind of date night or alone time.  Sure, we have a great group of friends that would gladly watch one or both of the girls with some majorly advanced planning.  I appreciate that, I really do, but I realize how much work two additional kids can be and I don't want to put that pressure on anyone. If Morgan and I wan't any type of alone time, before we do anything we are out $70 just for daycare.  Add dinner and a movie and its really not that affordable.  Honestly, on those rare occasions when we do get some alone time we are so exhausted that all we want to do is have a little dinner and get to sleep. 

It also sucks that my girls don't get enough time with their aunts, uncle, and grandmas.  Bev hasn't seen Piper since she was a few weeks old, I have only seen my sister once in like 6 years, Morgan's sis in about 7 months and mom since December.  I guess the only good thing about not getting to see them that often is it makes our time together more special and more meaningful when we do get it.  There are no unimportant moments when we are in each others company, all moments are memorable and special.  I understand this, but I what I wouldn't give to be spending so much time with them all that I began to get tired of seeing them.  I'll keep waiting for this day, but I just don't think it will ever get here. 

Avrie, Piper and I making the long trip from Kentucky.  Normally I wouldn't put such an awful picture of myself on the internet, but this one pretty much sums up how I was feeling and how much this journey really sucks!

Easter Bunny Business

Up until Wednesday of this week I had absolutely no intention of celebrating the Easter Bunny this year.  I figured the girls are still young enough to not really get it or care and it just seemed easier and cheaper to pretend like the Easter Bunny and all his traditions didn't exist.  No Easter baskets, no Easter Bunny, No coloring eggs, no nothing.  Well, that made it until about 1:00 pm Wednesday.  I started thinking about Easter's of my childhood and how cool it always was to wake up to a special Easter basket. Granted, I was the kind of kid who rarely ate the Easter candy, I got more joy out of just looking at it, and sometimes there were 2 Easter Baskets, one from mom and one from dad.  But regardless, it made me think about how just waking up to a little something would make the girls day a little brighter.

So,  off I went to get the girls an Easter Basket and a few goodies.  And this treat would be it.  No waiting in line to see the Easter Bunny, no MESS, I mean colored eggs, the Easter Baskets would be it.  I figured I would go buy the cheapest baskets I could find, get the girls each a set of pajamas, some socks and call it good.  Lord knows we have enough toys and stuffed animals in this house.  This seemed all fine and dandy until out of the blue Avrie tells me that "Easter Bunny's don't bring outfits they bring candy." Dang....busted. I can't let my baby girl down so off I go in search of the world's smallest chocolate rabbit.  And that's it!  I convinced myself one chocolate bunny and that's it.  I wouldn't be buying any plastic eggs, no marshmallow chicks, no egg shaped gum...one small chocolate bunny and that's it.    Well, I guess you know how that ended - with a shopping cart full of candy filled plastic eggs, marshmallow bunnies and gummy bears.  I did have to even out the candy with some arts and crafts stuff but still.... a far cry from "No Easter Bunny" philosophy earlier in the week.

Next order of business, I figured if Avrie was going to be getting a basket of goodies on Sunday, she should at least be getting them from someone she knows so off we go to find the Easter Bunny.  If you know where I live you understand that venturing to "town" can pretty much be an all day event.  We are miles away from any box store and sometimes it seems like packing for a simple trip to Target takes the same amount of time and effort as going away for the weekend. We get all dressed up, make it to the mall, wait in line for 15 minutes and 2 kids away from sitting on the Easter bunny's lap Avrie tells me she wants to go home.  She was happy to see him but didn't want to touch him.  Piper seemed just as happy to be only a spectator so after the long trip to the mall, we headed home empty handed.

Finally, I absolutely had NO intention of dying Easter eggs. Nothing about the process excites me.  Boiling some eggs so they can go to waste,  putting some dye in my fav glasses. Risking said dye ending up on the carpet, hair, clothes, toys or cats of the house... Just didn't seem like a good idea.  But Morgan insisted.  He really wanted to do this so, against my better judgement we did.  And you know what.... it was great.  Avrie had a great time. Morgan had a great time, I had a great time, Piper probably would have but she was asleep.  There were no messes, no stains, no need for paper towels.  Just some good bonding and laughs between a little girl and her parents.

With all of this happening it made me wonder, how much of the holiday traditions are for our kids and how many are for us, the parents.  I wanted the Easter baskets because it brought back memories of my childhood, Morgan wanted egg dying because it brought back memories of his.  Bottom line, I think both Morgan and I re-lived a little of our childhoods today, we gave our kids a little more of a childhood and everyone is happy and smiling in the end.  I guess that makes it all worth it.

Meeting Milestones

It's really interesting to me how much your parenting style changes when you go from having one baby to two.  With the first, its all about getting the baby to have all of their "firsts" as fast as possible. You can't wait to give them rice cereal at 4 months, try your hardest to get them walking by 8 months, speaking in complete sentences by 18 months.  It's crazy really, you read all the books about when babies should reach these milestones and your determined to make sure they get hit on time or earlier. But then, before you know it all your teaching, coaching and insisting has resulted in a fairly self sufficient three year old that really only needs you to pay for their toys and take the wrapper off their gum.  So much time is spent making the baby grow up that you lose track of the time and she grows up way too fast.

With baby number two, you already know the sleepless nights won't last forever, you know they will be feeding themselves and bathing themselves and pretty much doing everything for themselves in the blink of an eye. With baby number two you make the decision not to push anything, not to strive for beating those "milestones" and just try and keep your baby a baby as long as possible. Yes, most 12 month kids are walking and Piper is not.  Does that bother me?  Absolutely NOT, because I know that once the walking starts, the independance, lack of need for mommy hugs, and big girl attitude is right around the corner.  I want to hold onto my last baby as long as possible and she can reach all these milestones on her own schedule. Now I know that whatever that schedule is, it will be here too fast!

Avrie - 5 Days Old

Piper - One Day Old

Birthday Traditions

It's always been really interesting to me how different cultures celebrate and what different traditions there are out there.  Its very important to me to have traditions.  I have weekly traditions, holiday traditions, family traditions and so on.  There is something so comforting about having a little routine that you can look back on over the years and remember where you were at the time and what your life was like.  Its neat to me, as a mom, to think that some of the traditions I start now might be passed down to my future grandkids through my daughters.

My very best friend Stephanie, is Mexican.  I love hearing her stories of their traditions, getting lessons on the mexican culture and most of all getting her grandma's authentic mexican cooking.  She has a daughter that just turned 3 and there is a tradition called a "Presentacion" in her culture.  This is the time where the little girl is presented to the church and a big reception follows.  The families and friends band together and pull out all the stops to make an outrageous party, think quincenera but for 3 year olds.  Yesterday, Stephanie and I made some cupcakes for the party to be given out to all the little girls.  There were 20 "special" girls picked to dress up like fairies for the ceremony.  Of course my girls were 2 of them!  While we were making the cupcakes, Steph's grandma was preparing all of the food.  I got to sample everything, including my favorite - cactus.  Made me really glad I dont have a grandma from Mexico cooking for me everyday or I'd weigh a ton!  Isabella, the birthday girl and Avrie had a great time playing outside while we prepped in the kitchen. 

I love to cook - something my dad instilled in me, and it was so awesome for me to learn how to cook some new dishes from such an awesome cook like her grandma.  Today at the party we had a really good time, it was great to see how all the planning turned out.  I only wish that Stephanie would have been able to sit down and enjoy a little of it.  I hope by now she is.  I wish we could have stayed longer but the music and crowd was just a bit much for Piper.  I 'm so mad at myself that I didn't get a picture of Isabella in her ball gown.  I love traditions and learning about them but I think for these type of parties I will remain a spectator and not a participant.  That is of course unless Avrie or Piper request a party like this.  If they do, I know right where I'm going- to Stephanie and her grandma.

Home Sweet Home

Every day when I leave our house and walk out the back door the first thing I see is our Christmas Tree.  Yes, we are so white trash that our Christmas tree is still in its stand, sitting by the back door waiting for its final destination, which is hopefully in a burn pile somewhere.  The funny thing is, the tree still looks as good as it did when we bought it.  I'm pretty sure we could drag it into the house now and decorate it and it would look just as good as it did on Christmas morning.  Every day I walk past it and I think to myself "Man, we really gotta get rid of that thing." But... thats about as far as it goes.  This Christmas tree pretty much sums up life as a family.  There are lots of things that you "hope to get to" but somehow life just always seems to get in the way.

I LOVE where we live, and I'm not just talking about the house.  I love living in a place where I'm more concerned about chasing a loose sheep than running into a neighbor.  I love looking out the windows and seeing nothing but hills.  I love that this morning it wasn't the sound of traffic, horns, or even kids that woke me up - it was the sound of turkeys gobbling at each other outside the bedroom window.  I don't mind that I have to drive at least 30 minutes to find a box store, I kind of like that. 

Having a family, I realize there are lots of things Morgan and I could be doing in our free time.  Cleaning out closets, washing windows, pulling weeds, putting 3 year old playsets together, getting rid of Christmas trees... But when its all said and done I'm happy that we choose to spend our free time enjoying each others company and being a family.  Our house is truly a home because of this and who cares what the inside or outside looks like, its what it feels like that really matters! And this truly feels like home.

Our casa

Family, Fairies and Cake

Well, we had a great first birthday weekend in Lodi/Valley Springs.  We drove down on Friday and Morgan dropped me off at Auntie Maria's house to help with the prep work for Saturday.  Nana, Brittany, Maria and I got the food ready and made the cupcakes.  On my last day of work before I went on maternity leave for Piper, a lady I worked with made me these awesome Strawberry cupcakes.  This is the same recipe I used for Piper's birthday cupcakes.  We decorated them with sprinkles, flowers and butterflies and I think they turned out ridiculously cute.

Nana and Brittany decorating cupcakes

Piper's Special Cupcake

The morning of the party started out rough - turns out I accidentally bought a size Large sweater instead of a Small to wear to the party. There aren't a lot of shopping options in Valley Springs so I was pretty much stuck with what I had.  After a few rounds in the dryer it shrunk enough to wear - crisis averted.  As I was getting Avrie ready I noticed that the NEW tights I bought for Avrie had been worn.  Yes - some idiot out there put their little girl in tights let her wear them to whatever event and then rolled them up, put them back in the box and returned them.  I still can't get over that.  I mean, I know times are tough but we're talking about $3 here.  I managed to stretch a pair of Piper's frilly socks to fit Avrie, but I was still bummed.  I was worried that this was a little taste of what the day had in store but I couldn't have been more wrong!

Auntie Maria went above and beyond what I expected for this party.  She made party banners out of Erin and Brittany's old sheets, one with "Piper" in the middle, and hung them up all over.  Lots of beautiful flowers, paper lanters hanging from the trees, balloons, games and toys for Avrie , I just couldn't have asked for more.  It was incredible.  Morgan shucked 100 oysters, we bbq'd chicken, had some salads, pb&j sandwhichs and the cutest cupcakes completed the menu. It was so nice to be around family laughing and chatting and making memories of a lifetime.

Morgan shucking Oysters

Possibly the best part of the party was the surprise fairy that danced through the garden.  Avrie really bought it and is still convinced that she met a real live fairy at Piper's party.  Erin I can't thank you enough for putting on that fairy costume and making Avrie's day. You should be so proud that you fit into a costume you had not put on since you were 12, and with a 3 month old baby - geez , I don't think I EVER looked that good.  It's a good thing Brian took all those great pics of the fairy with the girls because mine are so blurry from laughing that none of them came out good.  I can't remember the time I laughed that hard.  Avrie will forever remember that moment and you just cant put a price on things like this.

Magic Fairy Erin , Avrie's favorite part of the party

All in all, the party was better than I could have imagined.  Everyone had fun, we made lots of memories and I know that we will be talking about this party at many Thanksgivings, Easters, Christmas in the future.  I sure missed the family that couldnt be there, but I sure am thankful for the ones that could be.



Cousins - Avrie, Piper & Graeme



Happy Family