Life is Beautiful!

i had that sweet aha moment today at the park with my 3 little riddles.
My daughter laid down on the blanket under the shade of the mesquite tree, a small breeze ruffled her red hair, and she said

'oh mom this feels good. laying here ont he blanket i just want to go to sleep.'

my son was burying cars in the sand, suddenly he gets up. . . tromps over to me, still laying on the blanket and gives me an unsolicited kiss,

and my baby boy pulls himself to his feet using my hip as his point of balance and says a determined, 'MA'.
SO simple, so sweet, so true and so forever!

thanks to this man who takes beautiful pictures. . . (must come from his beautiful perspective on the world). . . I was reminded to rember this moment.

Winners!. . . & losers. . .

FOR THE WINNERS:
Ok. . . i didn't forget.
I just got way way busy!
After inputing all of my FOUR entrants into the sophisticated hat random integer picker doo dad the LUCKY winner is. . . . .
da da da dum. ..

MY SUPER RAD Sister KAYCIE!

I wish I could say I had enough time to put something together for all ya all. But I am not that sophisticated or organized. Thanks for the hits though!

FOR THE LOSERS:
well loser (singular), which would be ME.
I totally crunched a parked car 2 days ago. Ran right into it and totally gave my car a super big munching.
Any guesses on the lucky number involved in this one?

2500. . . yep

2500 buck-a-roos. And not a scratch on the other car. So i guess that is good.

So here is to a better next couple of days. Hopefully no more stupid hitting-parked-cars-days!

Little-Bit o' Home-Made Goodness

So I WON! Thanks Jessi!. My cousin Jessi hosted a giveaway on her blog and I won! (Well all four entrants won!) And so now not only do I get to wait in anticipation for her homemade goodie, which I am totally interested in getting -- it will be awesome I know-- But now I get to host a give away of my own. Here are the rules:

Peruse through my blog entries. . .go way back to inception if you choose.

Pick your favorite blog entry or picture.

Leave a comment on this post (Little Bit of Home-Made Goodness) telling me your fave.

I will pick a winner on Sunday March 8th at about 5:00pm.

The lucky random winner will then get a home-made treat made by yours truly!

Taco Tuesday

One of our new traditions is something we like to call Taco Tuesday. Thanks to Del Taco's three tacos for 2.09 and our desire to have dinner with Daddy after Mutual, we zip on over to the local Del Taco most Tuesdays for dinner.

I must admit I love this family tradition, unhealthy fast food aside, it is something my kids really look forward to. And often-times, come Saturday or Sunday they are already talking about the upcoming Taco Tuesday.

Alaina and Matt prefer no cheese, no lettuce and soft.

Chuck and I have recently added their Crunchy Fish Taco to our order. And don't forget the Cherry Coke for Chuck. (Don't worry I will be nice to the drive thru employee and you won't have to drink pee again sweetheart. . . to understand check out John Caparulo's Meet Cap for explanation -- long and short, the last person you want to get nasty with is the drive thru guy. . .who knows what he will do to your drink!)

And I think tonight we added to this fun family tradition. . . heads up and out as the kids get to drive down our street with their heads out the sun roof!

Do you have a favorite family tradition? What is it?

Gangsta SPT

Just as a disclaimer. . . this picture is horrid! But Alaina wanted to take a pic of mommy at Josh's wedding, and she loves the gangsta pose. So there you have it. Not very flattering.

The wedding on the other hand, was awesome. It was a beautiful day for December 20th. . . where else but AZ could you have a nice outdoor wedding in the middle of the winter?

Sometime I will get around to putting up some pics of the wedding cake I made for the occassion. Amanda was sweet enough to make me feel like I was capable, and it didn't turn out half so bad! What the heck. . . Here's a pic. . .

It was very very simple. Haven't had the time to work much on my skills. But I am looking forward to the next chance I get to make a cake. I remember the night before after I put the first layer of frosting on the lower cake. I put enough on to keep the pesty crumbs from showing themselves on the white frosting. I put it in the fridge to set the icing before I put the next layer on. When I went back to get the cake out. . . it came tumbling out. . . landed completely upside down on my kitchen floor. Which is where I found myself split seconds later (well not upside down). Chuck quickly snapped me out of my despair and helped me get it up off the floor. He saved my bacon. . . and the cake turned out beautiful and none the worse for it's topple!

Cracked Open

A distress call from the far corner of the family room. . . "Mooooommmmm! I cracked my head open". Snot running freely from the nose in the couple of seconds it took for him to cross the room to my side.

Normally I feed into their distress. This time I decided to try a bit of humor; maybe it would assuage the crisis at hand. His head was cracked open! Well you know, not really.

"Matt, your head is cracked open? What happened to your brains?"

"They fell out mom." "What will you do without your brains Matt?"

"I guess I will put them back in." Good idea Matt! And guess what?
. . . You're not crying anymore.

Love 2 Love

So I stole this idea from 2CleverBlog. But I wanted to share some things I love to love when no one else is looking -- or especially when others are looking.

Warm Jr Mints. . . my kids love them too. I love that they love them.

Peeling skin. . .mine or someone elses. Love to pick it off, peel it off. . . see how big a piece I can get.

Hmm hmm. . . the sound my husband makes when he is about to say something he has been chewing on for a while and isn't quite sure he's ready to share it with me yet. I've gotten so I can call him on it.

Post-it Notes . . . eensie weensie, super big, yellow, blue, pink, purple. But only rectangular or square. Forget those annoying shaped ones. . . hearts, stars, lips. . . that bugs.

Pens. . .I buy them whenever I can. But I am particular. . . FINE POINT always. Love the Pilot Retractable and the Staples Brand retractable. I used to hate writing in blue, I don't know why. Now any other color looks weird; 6 years ago when I started working for my dad he insisted on Blue. . . I have since been converted.

Gees. . .did I really waste 5 1/2 sentences on pens?

Well I think that was 5. I'll save the rest for another day!

You got any? Share them!