musings

carson: "oh, no! the window [in the car, which sometimes doesn't work] must be having a mechanical failure!"

layla: [singing to the tune of the "cheer up, charlie" song from the original willy wonka & the chocolate factory movie] "stir up, charlieeeee" with great emotion and spontaneity as she stirred her soup.

carson requested top ramen for his birthday dinner. no lie.

layla's speech and body language is adopting habits that seem like a tween's. sometimes cute, sometimes exasperating. pretty much always hilarious, at least a few moments after the fact.

carson, when asked how his last day of summer school was: "it...was TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!"

carson loves to ride his bike. our block is too big for me to feel comfortable letting him go around by himself, but he's designated a corner destination that i can see from our driveway and goes to and from many times a day. he got this huge green "plasma blaster" gun for his b-day, which happens to hook into his bike between the handles, and he alternates shooting the gun and honking both--that's right, two of 'em--honkie-squeezie horns as he blazes along. oh, and sometimes, i can only guess it's during those moments when he just can't contain his happiness at being alive and being a 5-year-old boy speeding around on a bike, he'll let go of the handlebars with both hands, extend his arms straight out to the side, and keep pedaling. this brave pose lasts for less than a millisecond, despite the fact that his training wheels would save any significant balance failure.

(oh, and we were riding bikes to his school today through the university campus, when carson saw some guy walking on the sidewalk ahead of him. carson honks both horns, strikes his cocky arms-out pose, shoots the guy a check-me-out Look, grabs for the handlebars, and pedals furiously past all in a matter of seriously 1 second. the guy couldn't help but burst out laughing. i could only find it in me to shrug my shoulders and grin sheepishly.)

addie yaps nonstop. at first, a few weeks ago, we got all excited when she said "na-na," seemingly referring to a banana (which she loves). since then, i've decided that she thinks that everything good in life (mom, dad, carson, layla, bananas, milk-in-a-bottle but NOT milk-in-a-sippy, her blankie) is titled "na-na."

addie's toothed grin makes my heart happy. she loves to laugh and is one very goofy kid; i'm thoroughly enjoying watching her funny personality emerge even more as she grows, which she's doing too fast for my liking.

layla's into hitting people when she gets ticked. hitting and screaming at them. how do i know whether to ignore this behavior (i think she's mainly doing it for attention) or punish it? and how do i effectively respond to countless tattles from both layla and her brother?

ahhh, motherhood. how do i need a comprehensive instruction manual for thee? let me count the ways...

we're back home

so, we slept in our house last night. the fridge is in the living room, we don't have a stove, workers are coming and going over the next week or two, and we're doing our best to avoid the piles of sacks and boxes decorating every corner of every room. regardless, it's good to be home.


a million billion trillion thanks to larry and joyce for their patience in having some rambunctious living companions over the past 3-1/2 months. that's right. months. whew.

cutest thing ever

i was gone for about an hour and a half, and layla had been watching a movie on the bed (don't worry, C.P.S., gramma was babysitting). i came into the room to say hi, and i saw sweet little lays, propped against the bed pillow with 2 of her beloved dolls, snuggled under her soft pink blanket. on the other bed pillow? a carefully placed framed 8x10 paul smart family photo also facing the screen, so that we were all "watching" together. a self-created Family Movie Night. can a 3-year-old GET any cuter?

i wish i had cameras built-in on my fingertips, because she hopped off the bed before my heart could finish "awwww"ing.

seriously. the cutest thing ever. which, unfortunately, just happens to NOT be documented by photo. which means that, really, i could embellish this story any whichway, and none of you would know the difference. let's see....her hair was done, her clothes matched and weren't wrinkled, her blanket was clean, and her doll's eyelashes hadn't been recently pulled out to resemble a "chuckie" casting potential.

there. cutest thing ever. really.

i hate wind.

i hate wind.

i hate running into the wind.

i hate crouch-running into the early-morning blast-from-the-canyon wind.

i hate setting my alarm way too early on saturday to roll out of bed and stumble into my sneakers to go crouch-running into and get gravel-blasted by the early-morning blast-from-the-canyon wind.

i hate wind.


(p.s. katrina...wish you were here.)

growing up too fast

yesterday, carson: wow, mom, addie's bath water is DANG warm!

today, layla (to carson): tarsey, you're hot. [carson: nuh-uh] layla (all flirty-like): oh, yes, you are. you. are. HOT.

weird. (fine, and funny.) especially the flirtiness of layla with her brother (ew), but...dang?!?? hot?!?!?! sheesh. they're too young for expressions like this.

i don't THINK of my kids as morbid...

today in the car, layla exclaimed, "my stab (scab) died!!!! yayyyy!!!"
me: you mean, your scab healed?
layla: no, it died. it's don (gone).

since when are "dead" and "healed" synonymous? oh, since now, i guess.

happy 4th of july

fruit pizza in the form of a flag, made with love by carson and layla and myself.

i loved bbq-ing last night with lots of family and chowing down on waaaaay too much good food and laughing and watching the fireworks with carson on my lap and layla on paul's lap next to me and listening to neil diamond's "coming to america" blasting over someone's car stereo simultaneously with layla's quiet but heartfelt singing of "twinkle twinkle little star" during the fireworks show because, let's face it, fireworks do resemble an extraordinary display of star-like bursts.

what a great country. what a great life.

summertiiiiiiiiime...

and the livin' is easy.

hawaii

kind of out of order, but here goes.

below is our last day (sunday) in kauai, hawaii. we just relaxed outside the marriott and watched the surfers and families and the ocean. our last photo (to paul's great relief) was the big one on the tree, below.
below (except for the top right pic) is hanalei bay, voted the #1 beach in the world, or something like that (although...how can you choose the #1? i mean, really). we caught a beautiful sunset the night before we flew out. oh, and although it's not documented here, i also tried shaved ice over macademia nut ice cream on this night. hawaii really is paradise.

great, i'm already forgetting the names of these places. paul (or tonya) will have to help me. but it was awesome. i love how there are waterfalls everywhere, and little pools, and geyser-like wave explosions on the lava rocks, and the ocean, and and and...

sunset from queen's bath, one of my favorite places on kauai. honestly, it does not get more beautiful than this. we took a cheesy photo shoot of all the couples in the sunset...and then got some shots of perfect strangers, because they thought it was such a great idea. regardless of the cheesiness (which paul is having a hard time stomaching, looking at these), just check out that sunset. enough said.

i love this man. bring on eternity!

we took a helicopter ride with tonya & jeremy around the island. these photos from above don't even do it justice. breathtaking. our pilot, mike, was sooooo chill -- the epitome of hang loose. a typical comment: you gotta do it, it's smokin', yeah? oh, and we had a 6-year-old with his dad on our flight as well, who pretty much screamed into the mic in a shrill little soprano voice, "I SEE PEOPLE! I SEE CARS! I SEE A HOUSE!" maybe you had to be there, but it was so funny, slash, painful on the ears.

queen's bath, during the daytime (our first discovery of the place). it was awesome. by the way, i'm the large white thing in these shots...the other girl is beautiful tan tonya. lest you be confused and excited for me about my new look.... (love you, tonya!)
boogie boarding (that's a leg workout, seriously. i was beat after not very long. but LOVED it...one of my favorite beach things to do). and sunset sail, where we went up around the napali coast and back. it was sooooo relaxing and beautiful. am i sounding like a broken record here? sorry.
i noticed that, for the first few days, i felt a little incomplete, leaving without 10 diapers, a few meals' worth of snacks, and a couple changes of little clothes. by the end of my week, i was kind of like, "wait, how many kids do we have again?" i love my kids, don't get me wrong. but i surprised myself at how easy it was to slip back into just being paul & me, as far as responsibility goes. a million thanks to john & jenn and jordan & katrina for carefully watching our little fam. i can't even say. notice the sign, below, that says "don't feed the feral cats or chickens" and the girl blatantly disregarding that. there were a MILLION chickens and roosters, who were not ashamed to be cockadoodling the entire island from 3 a.m. until nightfall.
a hike and some more beach time.
happy to be back, love being with my kids, i can't believe how much addie's changed (honestly) in just a week. makes me realize i wouldn't change motherhood with these 3 for a hundred vacations to hawaii...but paul and i did discuss the possibility of moving there, living in a shack, and working at bubba's burgers for the rest of our lives. things could be worse...

the end.

michelle & shay wedding day

so, of course it was michelle and shay's day (or, as carson efficiently calls them, "mishay"), who both looked so very happy and beautiful on june 19th. here are just a few shots of my fam on that day as well.