"Sit down Gi-mo, and let me read you a story!"

Addi has become extremely bossy these days when it comes to wanting to "read" other people stories.  Poor Gizmo (Gi-mo in Addi-language) takes one for the team pretty frequently.

Here he is waiting patiently.  Apparently he wasn't close enough for her satisfaction...

"Come sit right here Gi-mo."

The story is riveting...I can assure you.

"Look, look, look Gi-mo!!"

Dude...I'm outta here!

I love this girl!!!

Why I love my husband??

He took this...

And turned it into this...

Now if only we could get the girl to come inside!

Wish you were here...

These are my two entries for Mandy's photo-contest this week. The theme is "Wish you were here".

This first picture was taken in Anchorage. We had just come in to port from an amazing cruise up the inside passage.

This picture was at sunset on the beach in Maui. By far, the most amazing vacation I have ever taken!! Can't wait to go back.

Ice storm...Sleep-over-style!

I have lived in Oklahoma my entire life, and never have I seen a winter quite like this one. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the winter-weather. I HATE to be cold. However, if it is going to insist on being 5 degrees outside, I would prefer it to at least be beautiful and white. Anyway, last month was my friend Mandy's birthday. She was totally bummed because her entire family was supposed to come in to town for a birthday celebration. Of course, Mother Nature seems to hate Mandy's birthday :) so much of her family were unable to make it that weekend.Rich and I both had the day off, so we decided to head over to Matt and Mandy's house to take her a birthday lunch, and play Scategories. For six hours, we played, ate, laughed, and continued to watch the sky fall! It was definitely becoming evident that the snow was NOT stoping anytime soon, so we decided that we should try to make it home and suggested that we move the party to our house. Before we knew it, we had a big Adult-sleep-over planned. I usually am not a very spontaneous person, but this was SO MUCH fun! Everyone got packed and ready to go, and we all headed back to our house.

I wish that I had taken more pictures from that night, but we laughed ALOT, and played Wii until 1am. All the babies went down great. Addi was so excited to have Viv and Vi in the next room! We all got up early the next morning (I say all...not Matt. He got up around noon or so. JK), and i made huevos ran cheros and muffins. We kept sending Viv in to the guest bed to drag Matt out of bed. It was pretty cute. Anyway, once he was finally up and around, he and Rich had the most brilliant idea. "Let's take off our shoes and socks and see if we can run all the way around the back yard". Let me remind you that there was 1 inch of ice and 6 inches of snow on the ground. Pretty ambitious, not very realistic. It was pretty amusing to watch.

Started out pretty cocky. You know, kind of strutting...


Quickly turned in to a run, and a bit of a whimper.

And then a full-out sprint.

Because they failed miserably in proving their masculinity in the snow, they resorted to physical contact. Pretty sure Matt won that one.

Viv and Addi had a blast dancing.

And then headed for bath-time.

Viv being such a good-helper.

After all the precipation finally ended, this is what we were left with.

Pretty, right??

Sat night, we finally were able to go out to celebrate miss Mandy's birthday. We went to Sumo which was YUMMY! Here is the delicious cake that we got for the birthday girl.

Addi very intent on watching the chef.

Matt and Mandy being silly, and trying to sneak in on my picture.

Aidan, Vivian and Addi...dancing and showing off for everyone.

The Birthday-girl hat.

The birthday-girl with her birthday-cake. It was AWESOME. We even had several random people come up to ask us about Katie's cakes. One guy even asked for a bite.

Anyway, that weekend was so much fun and spontaneous. I wish that I did things like this more often, and would encourage all of you to do the same. Hope you guys all had a wonderful February. I have so much more to blog about, but will have to save it for another time.

Photo Contest

So, my friend Mandy is having a Photo-contest, and the theme is Birthdays. Now, I am no photographer, nor do I claim to be one. But everybody has some memorable birthday photos. These three pics are from Addi's first birthday...

Happy Birthday to you...
My first taste of cake.

Feeding the Dad.

So, head on over to Mandy's photo-blog to enter.

Who wants a haircut???

This poor child. She is two and has never had a haircut before. When she was a baby, her hair started growing longer on the sides, than at the nape of her neck. I tried to convince myself that she had a natural "short in the back, drop down on the side" cut. Yeah right.

Anyway, the day finally came. I couldn't take one more day of these bangs.

She sat VERY still...

Had a VERY concerned look the entire time...

And then she got her first Dum-Dum!
And Mom cried just a little.

Hhmmm...

That look like about a cup???

Does this mean I need to bake more often, or what???

Halloween 2009 (I know...this was SO last week!)

I have to be honest. Sometimes I hate blogger. Why does it take so long to upload photos?? And why in the world does it upload them in the reverse order that you wanted??

I digress....

I finally present to you (in reverse order) Addi's first trick-or-treat and MRCC Fall Festival.

She had such a great time. She knew exactly why we were there, and didn't waste any time on small talk!

Daddy and his butterfly. See, wasting no time.

Kissing cousins

Just before the big-event.

Total concentration. She loved this art-project, and was so proud of her final masterpiece

Addi, Jaylen, and Vivian (otherwise known as the "triplets") 23 months

Addi and sister Viv

First time in our costume. We were a little nervous how she would respond to the something covering her head, but she LOVED it!

This was such a fun Halloween! Can't wait until next year!

Pumpkin Patch 2009

I just love the fall! Rich and I met Mandy and her girls at the Pumpkin patch last week. We all had a great time. If you haven't been, I highly recommend it. They had a great little petting zoo and hay-ride. On the way out, you get to pick out your own little pumpkin.

Already telling secrets.

I love this guy!

Such a special friend and mommy.

Always a Daddy's girl

Addi's first time to see or touch farm-animals. We really should get out more.

My favorite kid in the whole-world!

How does a Dinosaur say Goodnight??

This is Addi's favorite book to read before bed. She is so cute!! My favorite part is at the very end. It's hard to tell in the video, but she always leans in to kiss the dino. Sweetest girl ever!

Pitiful

Is this not the most pitiful, hived up face you have ever seen???