To Mousse, or not to Mousse?

Hey everyone,

Today I got this brilliant idea... you know the little boys you see all around town with the messed-up hair gel look? Well, I had some spray mousse laying around and thought... what the heck? I'll give it a shot. 2 lessons were learned from this exercise.

1. Little boys with hardly any hair might want to avoid the mousse/gel look.

2. Apparently I'm an evil, malicious mommy who likes to laugh at her kiddo.

So, what do you think? Keep in mind that this picture was taken several hours after the inital mousse application and that his hair had calmed down alot by this point!

~S.

P.S. Art came home and thought he was pretty stylin'.

My two Hams

Hi everyone!

Well, I'm not going to have time to write too much, but here are a couple of pictures I took the other day. Serayah's pretty good about sitting still for a minute and saying the ever-popular "Cheese!" so I can try and snap a picture. I'd just taken a few of Serayah, then Cam figured out what was going on, so he came running over yelling "CHEEE!!! CHEEE!!!". Evidently, he's quite the photo-diva... who knew? He posed, and posed, and sat and loved every minute of it. I don't know how long this phase will last, but it's great, 'cause I was even able to get a couple of them together!! Anyway, hope everyone is well, & I'll try to write again later... no promises!

~S.

Easter Bunny Pics March 26

Hey Everyone!

Well, as promised, I was able to get the pictures of the kids sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap. Let me tell you, Miss Serayah will not stop going on about seeing the Easter Bunny, finding Easter Eggs, or the like. It doesn't matter where we are, she tells literally EVERYONE that she saw the Easter Bunny, she hunted eggs, the whole rundown. She keeps wanting to go back to Costco to see the Easter Bunny again. We've been trying to explain that he's back in his hole (nest?) with his little bunny family, but she doesn't really care about that. She can't understand why he doesn't want to come back to visit her.... but of course, who wouldn't?

Oh, a funny thing happened last night when we were out in the car. Cam LOVES a song called "Moon, moon, moon", by Laurie Berkner. I've got to sing it to him at least 20 times a day. As soon as I stop, I hear an enraged little voice yelling "MOO, MOO, MAMA!!"... and that keeps up until I start it all over again. Sigh. Anyhoo, I had sung it for him 5 or 6 times in a row, and then Serayah requested "Twinkle, Twinkle", so I started in on that (Whitney, Mariah Carey, eat your hearts out). Right away, the enraged "MOO, MOO, MAMA" pipes up from the back seat. All of a sudden, we hear Serayah say "NO, NO Camden! Mama's singing Twinkle Twinkle so be quiet and listen, or Time Out!". Okey Dokey... Let the power struggles begin.

On a much different note, I took Serayah in to see the optometrist today, because she always squints with her right eye closed in the sun. Also, my old optometrist in Roseburg, Bonnie Gauer (who is EXCELLENT, by the way), had seen pictures of Serayah and thought that she was really favoring her left eye (how on earth she could tell that from pictures is beyond me, but that is what contributes to part of her excellence, I guess). We honestly didn't think her eyes were bad, because she can see things really far away, and close up like a champ. Well, we were wrong. Unfortunately, my bad-eye genes got passed on to her, and her right eye is REALLY bad, and her left eye isn't so hot either. The good news is that we caught it early, and her eyes haven't started crossing, and with her being only 3, she should be able to adapt to her glasses really easily, and her right eye might be able to strengthen itself with correction alone, not patching. We'll find that out in 6 months. Anyway, we found some really adorable little pinkish/purple Disney Princess frames, and we'll pick them up next week. At this point, she's really excited about getting to wear glasses everyday like her mommy... hopefully that enthusiasm will continue. I'll keep you updated.

Well, I'd better be heading off to bed. I hope you all enjoy seeing the pictures, & I'd love to hear from any of you who read this (so I know I'm not writing to fill up cyberspace alone!)

Love to all,

S.

Easter Greetings

Happy Easter!

I was informed that having a blog meant that I was supposed to write in it on occasion... Huh... so that's how it works!

Well lets see....hmm...

Friday was Artimus's birthday, so just like any good birthday boy, he got to go to the BOUNCE HOUSE! He was so excited. He got to run around and jump and slide down the big slides... Serayah and Cam got to go and have fun too. After that we had a tasty lunch at Sizzler (Art's motto in life "If you've got Cheese Toast...bring it on!"). Serayah and I made a beautiful cake. Cherry Chip out of the box w/ Cherry Frosting out of a can (yuck...but it's Art's favorite, so whatever). She was the official Taste/Stir master. We have matching aprons, so it's always fun to bake together. She was also in charge of the Sprinkle additions at the end. Honestly, there were so many sprinkles that the top of the cake was crunchy. So Art got bouncing, cheese toast and cake. Life at 34 is starting out great!

Art has to work today, so we did the whole Easter thing yesterday. We colored Easter Eggs on Friday. Serayah was a terrific help. Fortunately (unfortunately?) last year I learned that when coloring easter eggs w/ a toddler, newspaper alone doesn't necessarily make the best barrier, so with the table covered in a garbage bag, we went at it. We were very wise to pick out the egg kit w/ the stickers too, so Serayah was in Sticker and Dye heaven. I think we even managed to get some dye on the eggs!

The kids woke up yesterday to find that the Easter bunny had come bearing baskets, and had left some eggs to find in the house (The wussy bunny didn't want to brave freezing temps to put out eggs in the yard early in the morning... humph!). Cam was too busy checking out the loot from his basket to really care about the wierd little eggs, but Serayah has got this egg hunting thing down this year. Once she realized there were eggs around, the couch cushions went flying, books came out of the bookshelf, chaos ensued! I think it took us 10 minutes to convince her that she really had found all of the eggs, and that the methodical destruction of the house could cease. She eyed us for a bit, not sure if she could trust our knowledge in the amount of eggs the Big Bunny brought, but she finally gave up. Then she figured out that the eggs had stuff in them! Wow... that was exciting. Best of all, the Bunny left some eggs that had play-doh in them. Play-doh is a BIG part of her life right now, so those (and the plaid sandals) were by far the best stuff he brought.

We thought about taking the kids to the big park in town for the big easter-egg hunt, but seriously, there are SO many kids here that it's just a mad-house. Maybe next year when Cam's a bit bigger... So in lieu of the egg hunt, we went to one of Serayah's favorite places. Costco! (For any of you who don't know, Serayah LOVES Costco). Costco was a big hit, and lo and behold, we found out that the Easter Bunny was at there! Serayah was very, very excited to see him, and get her picture taken with him, and give him a big hug. I waited with Cam, letting Serayah get a solo shot before trying to pass off the crabby 19 month old to the giant rabbit.. I was pretty sure some screaming would be eminent, but amazingly Cam sat on the Easter Bunny's knee, and looked at me like "Dude, what's up with the giant bunny w/ the wierd bow tie?", but we got a picture of the two of them together. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a digital copy to post.

After we came home, it was much warmer and as I was unloading the car, the Bunny hid some more eggs in the front yard. Serayah was thrilled to have a go at more eggs. Cam didn't really care, he was just down with being outside in the glorious sunshine!

All in all it was a great day.

On a very sad note, My Duke Bluedevils lost in the second round of the tournament. I don't want to talk about it. I would also like to thank each and every one of you who felt the need to call and tell me about the loss. You know who you are.

So like I said, Art had to go to work this morning, so we're all just kicking back. I'm going to bake a ham and fix all the stuff to go with it this afternoon, so I'd better quit typing and get too it. I'm posting a couple of pictures of the kids looking for eggs yesterday. They're not great, and I'll post more of them in their Easter attire when we get them taken. (Cam took yet another header while out w/ Art the other day, so I'm not sure if my Photoshoping prowress can take out the big 'ol bruise on his noggin, so we're waiting till it gets a bit better before pictures).

Hope everyone has a great Easter. Love you all..

~S.

Oh, I'm posting a pic I took of Serayah before dance class the other day too. Enjoy!

The age of the Blog

Howdy... Greetings from Utah, and happy St. Patricks day! I decided to start one of these blog thingys so my friends (all of whom I miss dearly) can check out my comings and goings and random thoughts while I'm so far away. Also, I thought I could post some pictures as things come up, and give some commentary about them... (We'll see how well I do at posting pictures!).

Lets see.. It's Monday morning, and I've managed to get the kids up, dressed and fed. I've started giving Time-Outs to Cam to try and curb his more obnoxious behavior, so he's had 2 TO's from me this morning, and 1 from Serayah. We've tried to explain to her that it's not her job to give him Time-Outs, but she still considers it to be her big-sister duty to make sure he's following the straight and narrow.

We've finally got all of the snow out of our yard, so we're all pretty excited that we can start playing outside w/o slush and mud interference. Serayah's got Tumbling class today, and the weather is so nice (a balmy 46º) that we'll probably walk.

Art has his review at work today, and hopefully we'll see if he has to go to Japan so we can start planning where we'll be while (if) he's away. He's going to try go in April if he has to go at all, so when Erik, Shiela and the kiddos come in May he'll be here to enjoy everyone.

So I guess that's my first blog entry... pretty boring, but you know, that's my life!

Love to all, and I'll attach a couple of more recent pictures of the kids for anyone who hasn't seen them lately!

~Summer