need ritalin for this post.

There's a mod podge of pictures with no semblance to the order, but strung together equal a lot of fun. I keep waiting for life to slow down, but then when I think about it, this is like the college days when everyone tells you it'll be the best time of your life and you look back on those days with such adoration and great memories wondering how you ever made it through the all nighters studying for a test and you remember only the good times. I can see that being true about our long years (but short in reality) time with Lily and Grady. It'll be this beautiful blip on our radar of life. Everyone tells us it happens in a flash and you wake up and they're off to college. Trying to capitalize on this time with them is awesome and an overwhelming task all at once. So we push through, focusing on the positives and ignoring the tantrums along the way savoring every sweet bit that comes our way.

Lily acting like one of the big kids...

Grady hanging back with his sweet, wonderful, amazing godmommy...

this makes me laugh because Abbey could take lily down in seconds flat, but is gentle as a newborn kitten. we were dog sitting for Jen's sweet pups, but my mom may have misplaced 1 for a couple of hours. Dog's name rhymes with Snabby. I wont tell you where she found her.
Little ms wants to be independent, but not sure she's ready for it, insisted on sitting at the bar away from her family while she 'consatwated' (ala concentrated) on what to order.

another beautiful sunet - i could do this 7 nights a week. minus the rain.

and this boy doesn't stop moving. i never understood why they sold toilet locks and locks on doors. Lily never tested any of that; it was all nonsense to her, but I could buy stock in the locks now because he's on the move and suuuuuuuuuper fast! He tries to splash in toilet water, clears tables of any nicknacks and takes toys from lily like a bank robber and zips off in flash. It's like he's playing a contstant game of hide and go seek, but doesn't tell us to close our eyes and count. I swear he's going to be on the track team in a few years. his hands slap the tile so loud you can hear it around the block. This boy is on a mission when he goes places. Smiling the whole way there.


I had my hair in 5-6 buns to lighten the roots in the sun. I took them out and this is what happened. This is how I feel most days internally so might as well my hair shows it too. Some days are like a well oiled machine, while others I feel like I'm on the next episode of Punk'd. Hence the hair.

if Grady's not on the track team, he'll be fighting fires...

and miracle Reed born at 2 lbs, 3 months early turned 3. Seeing him blow out those sweet little candles made my heart melt.

Taylor Swift concert this summer that blew my expectations out of the water. I went so I could watch Katie and her friends going nutzo until I realized I was one of the people going nutzo too. It was incredible!!

an old video, but these smiles and giggles brighten our everyday so much...


here


vroom, vroom, off to the races to see what tomorrow brings. All the while looking for Ashton Kutcher around the corner...


life is good.

Gretta and Zoo

Met up with my cool college pal and her fam when she was in town and it was one of those haven't-seen-you-in-forever-but-was-just-like-yesterday-we-were-at-fazoli's-pizza-laughing-until-spaghetti-almost-came-out-of-our-noses. She's one of the funniest people I've ever met and I full expect to see her at Charlie Sheen's roast tonight doing an act.

and her four kids and hubby Micah are adorable too...good ole cracker barrel is like synonymous with good friends....

and if I wasn't present during the ivf treatments, I'd think there was some funny business going on in the lab because Grady looked scarily similar to Gretta's kids. Micah looked like he had 2 wives and 6 kids.

Grady was the photo prop everyone wanted to hold...

then we switch gears to the famous giraffes at our zoo....when I was a kid, my mom said it was her favorite animal so I remember drawing them almost daily as a gift to her. Crazy the random things you remember from your childhood. I can do the whole LeePress On commercial verbatim with the same tone and intonation used 25 years ago in the 30 second commercial. Insert a quarter and I'll do it for you too...people rent me out at parties.


oh, this boy. No words. Can't describe the sweetness that oozes from his every pore.


and the smile that never stops. since this picture he now has 8-9 teeth...I think he's ready for braces.

these 2 are so sweet together. I remember the day Katie was born like it was yesterday and she is now officially a teenager as of yesterday. Not only is she the most incredible, thoughtful, kind, sweet, loving, beautiful, and FUN niece, but she's just as special as a cousin. What a gift that keeps on giving that my kids (and molly's too) get to benefit from her heart too.

ok, maybe this is from June, but at least it was posted. Ironically, I just took his 11 month picture a week ago! I'll probably post that in February.

I think Lily wants to be a mini-teenager like Katie because she gabs on the phone, pretends to text and email her buds at school and wants her "pwi-va-si" (privacy) when she's doing these tween things. Thank God she's not mentioning facebook yet, but I bet she'll want an account at 7! Thought it was hilarious the way she was lounging, but the even funnier part was when I saw this picture on the computer and saw the horrific sliders! It's like someone finger painted on our windows. I used to cry to the angels in heaven for fingerprints on my windows. Boy, did that prayer come true!


life is good.

giggles and dustpans

gigglepuss. Seriously this boy does not have a serious bone in his body. he's. just. too. much. a highlight is when lily comes out with an announcement around the minute mark from the bathroom finishing up bath time.



can't see it, click here

a guessing game before a trip to the water park - hilarious that she has no idea she looks like a ghost while giving me clues. Have I ever mentioned she's obsessed with cleaning and anything domestic? Believe me, it's not from our modeling. I don't know my ass from my elbow these days and our house looks like there's a sale at Toys R Us most days.

She walks around the house making sure every light is turned off to save "wektisity", hates if i leave the water running too long (in her opinion), closes all doors, hides toilet paper rolls from grady, wipes counters down like she's in a contest, asks for the sponge in the bath to scrub the tub, puts every possible toy she can find up high away from Grady, puts all waste baskets on the 3rd step so he can't get in them(yet), begs for a disinfectant wipe at the checkout at publix and proceeds to wipe the entire checkout down, the wheels on the cart and surrounding walls. I have to put a limit on how manywipes because she'd go through a whole tub if she could. I asked her what she wanted to do for a job when she grew up...she replied "I wanna cook dinner for my job".



or click here to view
She craves order and clean and is hilarious about it. She's like a Mother Hen and especially since Grady has been on the move. But, watch out if something isn't orderly or clean (in her opinion) Let the sparks fly. Ooftah! Well, that's a whole 'nother post in itself.

Water Park Junkie

So I'm borderline obsessed with water parks. Okay, I'm obsessed. I could go to them every day and I'm sure Lily would too if she could. I've passed on this addiction to her and soon Grady will figure it out too. Growing up, I used to go to Six Flags, but it was 30+ minutes away so when we went it was such a treasured gift. We're lucky to have one just down the road from us that we frequent at every opportunity, but my dad said we could go with him for a soccer tournament he was reffing. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. So did the girls. Lily was calling all the shots and the big girls were doing all they could to keep her happy to avoid a 3 year old public meltdown. She had a lot of say how things went down at this water park. Yo.
When I asked her, Lily was a stubborn one refusing the green slide because it was too dawk and fwast, but once Katie works her magic, she was whipping down that like a true water park junkie.

this ginormous bucket would unload it's fury every 70 seconds alerting everyone with a bell.

I had to bring out the inner child in me....

don't worry, we made sure we were safe in the hot sun.



someone who's really sweet and smiley is about to turn 11 months next week, but look at the cuteness spilling from his heart a few weeks ago on his 10 month birthday. Usually, taking this monthly shot is a 2-party deal; David sets him up, runs away quickly so i can snap in a nanosecond before he crawls off the cliff at the end of the chair. David was in the pool with Lily so I thought I'd try it by myself. Never. Again!! A half a millisecond after his picture, he lunged forward and I caught him mid-air. Not only is he a true crawler now, he can lap you if you're walking around the house. He's super quick and into everything investigating like a private detective. He places no expectations on anyone around him and is happy just to be alive. He inspires me daily with his heart. I can't believe he's real.

I think I had mistakenly stereotyped boys before I had Gradycakes. I truly never, ever, ever (insert 387 more "evers") thought they could be this sweet. For realz! I heard it from every mother who had a son about that special love from a son, but after having a girl I never dreamed it could be that good again. He happily proves me wrong everyday! This is the boy we get to be with everyday and I still can't believe lightning struck twice in our house.



and this little Lily who won our hearts back in 2008 is turning into a funny little girl. She loves to be on the go at. all. times. asking where we're going if we're home for longer than 5 minutes. I love to be out and about so it's a match made in heaven. She was playing with her imaginary friends at the restaurant (exusing herself from the table, walking over the empty table to report back what they talked about) so naturally I asked to be her friend. "Will you be my friend Lily? "She looked shocked and almost annoyed at the question. She thought about it for a good 7 solid seconds looking for an out and replies "Ummmmm, well we can be just pwetend fwends bekaz, uhhhmmm, my reel fwends are at skool. okay mommy? okay." letting me down gently. Just like that I was rejected and sent packing by an adorable 3 year old. I put my head down laughing and she asked why I was sleeping at the restaurant. She has strong opinions and can turn her emotional switch on and off like a lightbulb; where she's wailing like her life is about to end one minute, then 30 seconds later asking me where her pink baby doll is nonchalantly like she wasn't shrieking the world is ending seconds prior. She may not wanna be my actual non-pretend friend, but she's got a serious fan club groupie in me then. With the tantrum stress, she brings way more love into our lives and heart than I ever thought possible. She's adjusting (alongwith me) now that David is not home as much as we're used to. When she misses us, she asks us to kiss her hand like in the book Aunt Jeffer read her weeks ago she still talks about. She loves to boss Grady around suddenly now that he's crawling for whatever reason. She still talks about a nightmare she had 4-5 months ago with a lollipop that said boo. every nap and every night asking us to make sure the lollipop doesn't say boo when in actuality she's asking if she's safe. She is diligent about making sure every light is off that needs to be. She gets major heartburn when Grady unrolls the toilet paper or eats cat food because she doesn't want him to meow like cat. She thinks that David and I hung the moon and if it'd make her happy, we'd die trying. She feels every emotion with all of her heart from her head to her toes and we're just along for the ride watching her from the sidelines cheering her on like the groupies we are. I now know what my mom and dad wanted for us when they'd simply say they wanted us to be happy. It seemed too simple, but now I get it. I really get it. Sometimes I feel like I'm actually inside our kids' body feeling everything they are feeling times a gabillion.

"Yuk, mommy, i'm widing my twicycle in the rain". I felt like I was on the back step riding along with her watching her feel so happy. Nothing better.


life is good.