monster hats

These pictures and video are all the way back from March (you can see Stacy in the background even:). I have been putting all my old pictures onto my external hard drive, and realized I never put these on the blog. The boys were really into monsters. They would growl and chase each other. One day, Paul put Matix's pull-up on his head and a diaper on Hawken's head, called them "monster hats" and they ran around growling and having the best time. Remind me to never buy them real toys ever again. :)

The Years That I Love You (The Big 5!!!)

There has been nothing better than all these years with you Jess. I can hardly remember a time when you weren't a part of my life. I love the way you look at me and smile every time I come home with the "next big idea" ... it keeps me grounded in a great way. :) I love looking forward to date night, I had always wanted to date my wife for our entire lives. I could watch you with our boys forever, like for eternity :), you are the sweetest little thing on them and they can't ever get enough of you. How we met was spectacular, something from a movie, and it blows me away every time I think what the chances are that we could of ever met like that, I am always thankful to Heavenly Father for bringing us together (and giving you pink hair that day, it helped encourage me:) ). Your voice sooth's me when I'm emotionally drained, your smile is an instant reminder of all the love you have, your eyes can see who I try to be and helps your kind heart give me more chances. I'm in love with you Jessica Marie and nothing excites me more than tomorrow, which starts another year with the woman I love to love, my little wifey. Love you Pie.

Paul "Hubby"

5 years ago today... to Paul

Today I have been married for 5 years. WHAT?! Sometimes I feel like Paul and I have always been together, but to say 5 years sounds really long! I remember waking up and thinking, I'm getting married today... Weird. :) Until I met Paul, I had planned on not getting married until I was MUCH older, like in my 30's or 40's. That seemed perfect to me. I wanted to go on all these crazy adventures, and honestly, I didn't think I would ever find a guy that could keep up. I never wanted to be bored.

Then I met Paul. My sweet, romantic, crazier than I ever will be, Paul. :) And it all made sense to just get married then and we could go adventuring together. And we have. Each year has brought new challenges, surprises, and excitement. I couldn't imagine going through this life and everything else to come afterward with anyone but him. Paul and I fit together amazingly well. Everything that I struggle with, is a huge strength of his, and vice versa. He totally gets me and calls me out when I need to be. He helps me to see the good in all people, and to laugh more at myself and hard times.

I love him and all his amazing-ness and quirkiness. Every bit of it. The singing in the shower, and at breakfast, lunch and dinner, during movies, and dates and all otherwise romantic occasions. The million ideas he has come up with each day by noon and all his well thought out and detailed plans. His uncanny ability to lose at every game we play, including pure luck games like rock paper scissors. The determination he has, and his ability to really accomplish anything he says he will. His inappropriate jokes to people he doesn't know, that I then have to re-explain what he really meant. The paranoia he now has thanks to all his studies in medicine... the list of daily issues, cancers, viruses, etc that he thinks he has continues to grow. The way he treats our kids, and loves them way more than I thought it possible to love a child. I love everything about him, this wonderful man that I so luckily met and then married back 5 years ago. Happy anniversary hubby. I love you too much to tell you. You are so good to me. :)

The Years That I Love You (Year 4)

Dominica lovin, Ru...Hawken angel boy :), airport fiascos continue, rasta mangos, Dewd’s guy, fire coral, Uptown dates, root beer float Fridays, book reading, Amos Lee dancing, PBL room kissing, long church walking, Indian river hiking, Red Rockin, Number One beachin it, and Wacky Rollers zip-lining.

This year the life was stellar already, became ten times more amazing and so surreal. I have loved you every day of it, and more each time we talk, each time we dance, each time we hold hands.

stuff

We are in the beginning stages of packing for our trip(s)... It is hard to do with 2 very helpful little guys under foot, but manageable. :) They don't know what's going on, although we talk about it all the time. "We are packing our clothes and toys so we can go see Grandma Kim, Papa Chuck, Papa Louie, Auntie Jolie..." Matix has been thanking Heavenly Father for them in his prayers, and asks to watch the Easter egg hunt video of his cousins on youtube almost every day, but he still gets emotional when I am running around packing and cleaning. How do I explain this to a 2 year old...?

Our amazing landlady said we could leave our stuff here while we are gone, and we don't have to pay rent... WHAT?! Yes. I said she was amazing. :) We still are boxing everything up and putting it all in the walk-in closet in case she comes for a visit so she can actually utilize the place. Hooray! We are so grateful to her. Most of the things in the apartment are hers anyway (it came furnished), so this part is only half way tricky. The hard part is that I can't really lift up the heavy boxes once I fill them, so Everyday Paul gets home, he is overwhelmed with a room full of boxes ready for him. :) And I can only pack the things we are not using everyday, so that has been tricky too.

This week so far I have done a million and two things. Since our car is a hybrid, I can't just take it anywhere to get it serviced. That took me 24 phone calls, and happily, just a quick drive down the street. It also has nitrogen filled tires. They were slightly low, but not everyplace does that type of air. That was hard to find too, and even harder to find one we could afford. $80 for air, regardless of what kind of air, is WAY too much for me to pay. I had a doctor's appointment and everything was great with the baby and the pregnancy. The only bad part about that was that we had to wait for almost 2 hours to see the doctor because he was held up at the hospital with an emergency. Matix and Hawken waited as well as they could have, considering by the time we left, it was past their nap time and they missed lunch. I also reserved the hotel rooms for our stays overnight on our way to Wisconsin... am I an adult now or what? This is the first time I have ever reserved a room. Crazy. We also got some of the trip snacks and food purchased... I have a menu, but while we were in the store we were multitasking getting the car's oil changed, and we were out of time so I had to only get half the things I wanted. I will be going back this afternoon after I finish the laundry.

Besides all this craziness, I have been trying to do all the normal stuff we do too for the boys sake mostly. Story time today, however, was so relaxing for me. The boys love it and Matix is really into answering all the teachers rhetorical questions which I always giggle at. We have been going to the playground in the mornings, pool in the afternoon, and all the other playgroup-y things on our calendar. Tomorrow is the zoo. Should be fun. :) And of course I have cute pictures to share. Our afternoon dip in the pool is so refreshing. It has been hot here, and with this right out in the middle courtyard, it's hard not to go.

Also, this is the new thing; getting wrapped up together in a big towel afterward. So cute. Love these boys!

Mother's Day pics (finally)

I forgot to post these. Here are some pics from my Mother's Day weekend. Paul made sure it lasted nice and long for me. First was dinner out on Friday at a cute little burger place called "One Burger" in Coral Gables. It was SO SO yummy. The boys got hats and tried on the burger earmuffs. :) Too fun.

Then off to the park, where I sat and ate, while Paul ran around with the boys. It was wonderful.

Saturday I got beautiful flowers. One sunflower from each little boy and a small bunch of purple daisies from the new baby girl. So sweet. On Sunday, I got a nice breakfast. Paul made pancakes. He even wrote out "MOM" for mine. Hawken took a bite out of mine before I could get a picture though.

It was a lovely weekend. Thank you Paul, Matix, Hawken, and baby girl for everything. :) I love you.

The Years That I Love You (Year 3)

This was the year of purple plus signs, baby belly lovin, 3day mud camping, blurry eyes, contraction fake outs, the earth debut of "the dewds", baby sleeping sneak peakers, and swimmers dewds :) . Man, I just love our life.


Better than just you and me, was adding Matix to make three (this was also the year i kicked my rhyming into high gear, lucky you:) )

big trucks

On my wish list for the boys to have once we live somewhere with our own yard are these big trucks. I also want a big sand box like this too. They have so much fun and are so busy building and working. I love it. And they love it. Hopefully they will still be interested in a million years when we actually have a yard... :)

The Years That I Love You (Years 1 & 2)

More Mexico road tripping, Sedona Rouging, 15 minute forest tent pitching, Polar Bear clubbing, Bonita Palomina(ing), Po-Bass house flopping, condo buying, Osha fixing, Christmas tree planting, and D&M Lopes nerntz chilling.


This is where you and I became our ... our love, our jokes, our adventures, and our life. I keep loving all of those even more, every day.

pool play date

We have been having a great time making new friends. Andrew is one of the kids' favorites, which works out great, because his mom, Megan, is one of my favorites. :) They invited us over the other day to their pool. It was SO fun. Hawken was the most excited. He wore his inner tube like this the whole way from the parking area to the pool.

Here are the 3 little cuties. Hawken was eating (of course) and had his cheeks full of cracker mush, Matix refused to take his car out of his mouth, and Andrew seemed confused about the idea of a posed photo. Sweet things. Andrew is about 21 months old, Hawken is almost 18 months and Matix is just over 2 and 1/2. For some reason this spread of ages is perfect and they love each other. :)

Matix is so brave in his little tube now. He went swimming all by himself, "Mommy, no. You stay here, I big boy. I go by myself!" :) The pool was huge and partly shaded. Lovely.

Hawken got cold after an hour or so and wanted to get dressed and play with his cars. Andrew joined in with him, and then so did Matix.

I love play dates like this, because the kids were mostly entertained by themselves and I was only there to supervise and suggest sharing every once in a while. Perfect. Megan and I talked forever and enjoyed our sweet little boys. It was a great day. We will have to do it again!

Hot

We have been having days in the high 80's and a few times it's been in the low 90's... ALREADY?! I thought it was May. Hmmmm... time for popsicles on the step to cool down after a long morning at the playground.

The Years That I Love You (The Pre-Years)

It began with pink hair, a thousand questions, dipping dots, road trips with Harold, gas station hugs, twin tower smores, cactus spines, and a VW bug. This is where we started, where we started to laugh together, smile together, and walk together.



Later there were Las Vegas pick ups, sleeping in cars, road trips to San Felipe, lost cameras, peeling oranges, twist tie rings, beach talk of forever. This is where we began to jouney, across maps, through emotions, and toward love.

I popped!

Yep! It's official, 22 weeks along and I have popped! :) Check it out! Pregnancy has been so good to me!

Okay, those were fakes. But I have gotten quite a bit bigger in just a few weeks and am loving every little bit of it. A few people at church today asked if I was pregnant, which was great! Finally people are noticing and I am so happy to share our news with anyone who will hear it! Here are the real belly pics for 22 weeks:

National Train Day

We went to the railroad museum on the free day, as usual, but were surprised to find out it was National Train Day...? Never heard of it, but when we arrived we got to do lots of extra special things, like ride the big train for free, get free snacks, free coloring books and little toys for the boys, jump in bounce houses and explore some of the usually closed trains. It was so much fun. This bounce house, by the way, was the perfect size and the kids loved it!

This big train had a medical car on it. I pointed out the big red cross to Matix and told him doctors worked in there. So, then he asked to go in so he could see daddy. :) I think he is now getting it that daddy will be a doctor soon, how exciting!

And of course, if there are quarter rides, my boys will find them. These ones were great because all the buttons worked, even if it wasn't going. So I got to keep all my quarters and let the boys go wild on the stationary rides for 30 minutes. Silly boys.

park

The highlight of our morning at the park was this, discovering that extra sand had been dumped into the volley ball pit. There were mountains, which the boys thought were sand castles, everywhere! So fun.

This was the highlight until the boys remembered the real reason we were there, the playground. Then the playground was the best part.

But then! We spotted a turtle. Matix was too excited for words. He wanted to hold it and bring it home. Even Hawken was excited and tried to feed it rocks... nice thought Hawken.

giving in?

Hawken talks. A lot. When he is awake he is either eating or talking. There is pretty much nothing else he loves to do more. He has recently discovered the power of "please" and now I find myself in a pickle... I can't tell if I am giving in or positively reinforcing him for using it. He will ask for something (usually something to eat, of course), and I am usually doing something else (aren't children good at waiting until you're busy to need something?) so I tell him, "wait just a minute". Then he follows me around saying "tease? tease? tease?" (his own personal version of "please") in the cutest, sweetest, but not so patient voice. So, he will wait the minute (asking please the whole time), and then I will give it to him. I used to say "thank you for saying please, that it so nice!" trying to get him to say that instead of "more! more!" or something else less polite than "please"... but now I don't know what to say. How do you explain to an almost 1 and 1/2 year old to only say something once and then be quiet? And how do I resist such a sweet little thing who is asking with such nice words? Really it wouldn't be a problem if he only said it a few times, but this little guy will really not stop until he gets what he is asking for and hearing "tease?" a million times in a row is head-ache worthy. :)

rainy day

It even rains here, in perfect Miami... This would be a sad thing if my boys didn't love to play in the rain. :) They really need to be outside at least a little while everyday, even if it's pouring. It makes for better naps and happier boys, which in turn means happy mom.

They loved discovering this giant puddle. We were out until I saw all the wrinkly fingertips. Then I decided we had better get back inside to the warm bath. I ran it before we went outside with super hot water, knowing we would be out there a while, and when we returned, it was perfect! I stripped the boys out of their diapers/underpants at the door, and they sprinted to the tub saying "cold cold cold!" How happy they were when they jumped into a warm bath.

What a fun day. Who knew a rainy day could be so fun?