Cloudy mornings and the sister's 26th birthday

It's one good Monday when it's cloudy out, the laundry has been started, the floors have been swiffered, carpets have been vacuumed before 10:30 am and when your big Kindergartener is the Star Student of the week! Woo! That, and drum roll please, I HAVE COMPLETED THE FOREVER LONG PHOTO PROJECT I'VE BEEN WORKING ON! Yes! Yes! Yes! 2006 - 2015 has been fully documented and are now flippable. Just about 200 more pictures to fill up the 2015 album and it's on to well designed photo books for us. Double woo!

Pret-ty stoked.

Last night was the sister's 26th birthday celebration at her house. I'll tell you what, it sure is an asset to have a professionally trained chef in the family. Delicious food, wine and hey! The bro-in-law and I even got into a nice, loud debate on what the definition of "feminism" is! Intellectual family time at it's best! Anyhoo, I can't believe the sister is 26. It sounds so young but that was just us last year! Sheesh, the decade of your 20's, family life and parenthood sure do create a weird sort of time warp!

Also, these pictures are from my niece's 7th birthday party a few weeks ago. SEVEN - are you kidding me? How has this happened? Next thing you know my sister and I will be competing to take care of my brother's kids because our darn broods will be ignoring our late night text messages of "where are you? Get home, you've passed your curfew." Insanity!

Once again, this whole kitchen computer set up is coming in clutch. It's just so accessible! If it wasn't so ugly here, I would keep it. Well that, and I'm scared something is going to spill on it. The kitchen counter isn't exactly the most practical place for the ol' computair.

What shall I pack in Carter's lunch box.... Hmmmmm.

Okay, I'm going to get my forever-undie-donning children in some clothes. It's 10:54, so we should probably get moving. But here's the real question: now that the photo project is done, what are Kota and I going to do after we drop off Carter? A quick trip to Walgreens for prints is unnecessary at the moment. Withdrawals are going to happen, it's inevitable. But anyhoo, I just love cloudy days! Later on we have dance and hockey - oh Mondays!

To remember when they're old

Pret-ty stoked about this temporary computer location right now. It's set up in the kitchen, hidden behind the fridge, a cringe-worthy placement, really, but badass when it comes to moments like these. Currently:

* Carter is reenacting Power Rangers, the volume of which is ear-shattering, but hey, he's happy and it's cute.

* Snow just barked at me from atop the kitchen table, trying to communicate his need for a walk. It's gloriously cold out and buddy, it's just not happening today. I hope this won't hinder your desire to cuddle later on, you 50 pound 7 month old!

* Kota is watching a Kandee Johnson make up video in the "white room." She loves those things, which I love. It always makes me want to go do my make up in an outrageous sort of way.

* I just cut up a bunch of veggies and threw them in a bag. I'm SO unmotivated at the moment! Exercising? Why?! Eating right? Eh. But it's like I'm this happy, lazy glutton! Healthy living is a marathon, not a sprint, and isn't feeling like a jolly, jiggly santa mom what it's all about? At least that's what I'm telling myself during this time of taking too much joy in lying on the couch opening my babes' Milky Ways.

* Chad just left the barber shop! That dude and his love of grooming, it's hilarious and I love it.

* It's literally 68 degrees right now. SIXTY EIGHT DEGREES. So glorious, oh so glorious.

* It's the first week of November. Do you know what this freakin' means?! Carter will be 6 in a few short weeks and Kota will be 4 a mere 8 days later. It is pure crazy talk.

* Our old go-to advice to most newlyweds was to not have sex in March because it will produce December children and you will bang your head against a wall, but I freakin' love my Decembers. They're packed down with the best events in the world! Who spread the rumor that having children near Christmas sucks? I'm here to debunk that myth.

* Carter is running after Snow in the freezing backyard and it is the best thing ever.

Okay, enough sickeningly positive thoughts. These are just the posts I enjoy looking back on the most, so hey, let them be plentiful.

Wedding album

2014 has been fully printed! Now those precious prints are awaiting a trip to Costco for us to pick up a pack of 4x6 picture albums, I just picked up the first batch of 2015 as well as clicked "submit order" to a nice "January - July 2015" album on Shutterfly (because one can never have too many pictures of a single year, apparently. That, and I get two 8x8 books free, so I'm currently working on an "August - December 2015" book to compliment the so-far 400 pictures that will be printed of this year alone), and finally, true to word, the wedding album has been COMPLETED and has officially been ORDERED. Do you, as a human being, know what this means????? It means that my wedding photos will see the light of day! Tears all around!

When I went to upload the pictures to FB years and years ago, each file was so big that it took forever. I just stopped due to impatience, so there's a nice album in my profile titled "Our Wedding" with not one shred of beautifulness in it. One of the main reasons we even had a humongo wedding after our precious court house marriage sweetness was for the pictures - so hey, printing up years later is better late than never, I say!

A little timeline here, for reference and to fully appreciate how overdue this whole thing is: we got married on May 29th, 2009, had our big family and friends wedding on June 19th, 2010 and I'm just now ordering an actual, physical book of loveliness on November 4th, 2015. 

Also, 2016 shall see 4 Shutterfly books. "January - March," "April - June," "July - September" and then "October - December." People, it's happened. IT'S HAPPENED. The photo beast has BEEN TAMED.

But ho ho, you! Tonight Chadly is going to transfer over all videos to a nice little USB drive, which I shall bring to Walgreens or Costco to officially convert into DVD's or Blu Ray discs. Tears! It's... just... so... wonderful...

Now we can relive the solid year when Kota referred to Carter strictly as "Batman!" Carter can see what a little goof ball he was while splashing around in the bath when he was 1.5! Oh, the freakin' joy!

^^^A completely unrelated picture because I'm too lazy to scourge through everything for a wedding pic! That, and we are about 5 minutes away from leaving C town to go visit the seestor in L town, so I must tornado through the house to clean the kids' rooms and get these damn dishes in the washer! Ta-ta!

Halloween and October festivities

October, October! Such a fun month. Besides the fact that my camera's lens was smudged for a few pictures, the documentation was on point with ol' big bertha, aka Canon T2i, another side effect of developing thousands of cell phone pictures and legit camera pics - what a difference in clarity! Anyhoo, tons of fun was had!

^^^Parental fun for Chadwick and I! 80's workout people. This was the best costume ever. Talk about comfort! Leading up to this, I kept repeating to Chad that all I cared about was extreme comfort. A onesie was my #1 choice for the night, which struck Chad as hilarious given the first Halloween we ever spent together. I would say that in 2007, comfort was the last thing on my mind, skin-baring uncomfortableness being the first. Anyhoo! Spandex amazingness? YAS.

Next was the kids' yearly Halloween party at the Novini's! Wooooo!

 ^^^What a bunch'a cuties.

Then my dad gave me a humongous bag of our old Halloween costumes, which the kids are now obsessed with.

 ^^^Kota even wore Gina's fairy costume to her Halloween dance class!

And then on actual H Day, we left the timeshare to join in on the extreme festivities at the SIL and BIL's house. They had ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED EIGHT trick or treaters. 1,208 candy seekers!!!! It sure beat the 30 we had last year in our sad Halloween neighborhood! Absolutely nuts!

It was a great Halloween this year. Pret-ty stoked on the kids' ages, a statement that's pretty moot given the fact that every age is my new favorite. Let the holidays continue on!

Palm Desert timeshare!

* (Really quick though...) I'M ALMOST 100% CAUGHT UP ON PRINTING FAMILY PHOTOS! This is the biggest deal in the history of mankind. Right before leaving for the Palm Desert timeshare, I swung through Walgreens to pick up the rest of 2014 - I KNOW, I'M FREAKING OUT, I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS DAY HAS COME. So now I just have the last two albums to print up from 2015, one of which I'm still adding to: Beginning of 2015 and End of 2015. IT.IS.A.MIRACLE. Then maybe 2016 will be the start of Shutterfly books? THE OPTIONS ARE ENDLESS.

* But anyhoo, I've hooked up the computer for the day to have a broader access to the world wide internets than just my phone's screen. Eventually we'll permanently hook this big beast up, but only whenever we've found the perfect spot. I really think we are going to have an electrician come out and wire an outlet into one of the closets, then we'll set up a mini desk/office space behind closed doors. There is just no space for a computer! Of course we could just bear through the ugliness and place it in our bedroom, but I feel like I'm done with the days of forcing something ugly and trying to be okay with it. Done with it, I say! If I'm not obsessed with the way something looks in our house, it's not flying. So yes! Glad to have come to that conclusion in life! It shall save me lots of convincing of my own self in the future! Woo! But first post of the day... I just may hit up the ol' blog more than once on this glorious cold November 2nd, the Palm Desert timeshare!!

Ain't nothin' better in the world than those timeshare weeks. After learning from the Newport week of this year, we decided against enjoying the wonderfulness in the beginning of the allotted time, opting instead for Carter missing school on Friday (versus Monday. Newport timeshare screwed up our lives for a short time!). So after we picked up Kota from school at 4:15 Thursday afternoon, we took off!

 ^^^She was so excited to be with Grandpa that she stripped down and started rolling on the floor with her blankies while screaming "YES! YES! YES!" Just normal Kota stuff.

 ^^^Give them all the chocolate.

 ^^^This is how she rolls when watching TV. In fact, she's doing it right now watching Sofia the First.

 ^^^It was so fun being in the desert Halloween weekend!

 ^^^She has perfected the art of completely ignoring me whenever the words "smile for me!" come out of my mouth.

 ^^^P carving on Friday night!

 ^^^Traditional "Chad's cooking at the timeshare" picture.

 ^^^People. Since I've been printing up 40,000,000 pictures of 2006-2014, I've realized the importance of getting some good old fashioned "posed" pictures with family members. Candidness is a great thing, but telling the kids to go sit next to Grandpa and take a picture really equates to a big deal in the long run. Example: I have a few pictures of Chad's grandma and I'm so glad that those were taken! I didn't know her long enough to be particularly close with her, but those pictures are invaluable to say, Ernie! There really is value there!

Thursday night Maggie, Justin and doggy Maya came for dinner and fun. Friday OH MY GOSH. Chad and the FIL took the kids put put golfing, so I went to READ BY THE POOL. I know... After chillin' there for awhile, I decided to move my reading party to the patio of the room. Then I realized I was going on 2.5 hours of alone time and was rarin' to do something, so I briefly debated taking the Zumba class that was going to start in 15 minutes. Then rationalized myself OUT of working up a sweat by telling myself "eh, better not start working out today. You don't want to be sore for Halloween, afterall." Totally logical, if you ask me. Then the kids, Chad and FIL came back and we all headed to the big pool for family fun. Cannon balls were executed by all, so I would say it was a success. Next Maggie and Justin came back over, books were read to the kids, pumpkins were carved and all was merry! Saturday morning we packed up and headed out to our second destination: the SIL and BIL's house!

This trip was great. I just love the desert, thanks to this timeshare. Newport is fab, of course, but the desert makes me think of GREAT food, GREAT sleep and lots of pool fun. It's just so relaxing! Anyhoo, we left on Saturday morning (Halloween day!) and went to Auntie Maggie and Uncle Justin's house for H Day festivities, trick or treating and to continue the fun! It was so wonderful!!!! Fo sho doing the H Day post a little later because recordation is the best! (New favorite word: recordation.)