Random thoughts for today

1. I really like my new owl ring. Yes, i know i'm obsessed with owls but this was $8 and I don't see this obsession lessening anytime soon.

2. Rehearsal dinner tonight immediately after work, getting ready for wedding tomorrow early and ceremony at 1:30 tomorrow followed by reception. HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO WORK PUMPING INTO THIS SCHEDULE.

3. the boys are staying with my inlaws this weekend until we pick them up on Sunday. I packed for them last night but I have no idea if I remembered anything. It just occured to me that this is Noah's first overnighter. Ahhh. :) We're so freakin lucky to have such amazing family close-by who love our boys and will babysit every chance they get.

4. there are a couple teachers in Connor's class who are obsessed with him...in an almost creepy way. One of them is way worse than the other. She's very sweet and I know he'll always get plenty of attention but my god...if my kid ever turns up missing remember I wrote this. :) When he leaves for the day she tells him that she loves him and shouts out 'huge & kisses' to him. Too much, right? right. she tells me everyday that he's her favorite and that she tells her mom and boyfriend about him all night and looks forward to Mondays over the weekend. Strike one - who looks forward to Monday? Should I call the authorities now or later?

5. Next weekend is ASU's Sorority Recruitment. Super excited. I liked rush as a collegiate but love it as an alum. We don't get to dress up cute and meet potential Sisters but I still really like it. Plus, once it's over a huge, huge part of my job is done and I can relax a bit - just a little bit.

6. i'm torn on whether i want it to rain tomorrow. part of me says yes so that it will be a bit cooler in my MOH dress, ugh. part of me says no since our friends are getting married and that would suck - for them. fine. i don't want it to rain as i desperately want to look sweaty in photos. oh, the wedding isn't about me you say? gotcha.

7. I am so swamped at work. overwhelmed more like it actually. there are two big parts of my job that I do...statements and ledgers. when i took on this job i was getting 10 statement requests a day and now i get 30. i was getting 5-6 ledgers a week and now i'm getting 10-15 a day! That's more than a 300% increase, right? If one more person tells me that means job security i may get violent. probably not, but it's possible.

8. it just started raining at my office and seriously there are four of us standing at the door watching it. watching rain. that's how you spot an AZ native folks.

9. I was reminded today about the amazing prize I won at the Dbacks Xmas party last year. I won two spa treatments at the Westin Kierland Spa. I still haven't used them which is so typical of me. I love gift certificates, but I hoard them. I can't say why I just do. Maybe I'm saving them in case one day we have zero money and I'll pull out my barnes & noble, target, dsw and spa certificates and i'll think, "we're gonna be just fine". yep, that's rational.

10. Noah turns 3 months old tomorrow. Can you believe it? I can't. I love this age because he's developing more and more personality. He smiles for real reasons now and he smiles a lot! He likes having his picture taken and hates when I blow in his face. He loves when we kiss him all over and hates waking up in the carseat. Loves 'standing' and hates if we're even 2 minutes late to feed him. we call him Noah Bear or Bear because he's so big and super long. :)

Have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend everyone!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Lots of family stuff this week to post. My SIL and BIL Megan & Ryan hosted a game night this past weekend. We love games. There were 9 adults and 6 kiddos, including one very tall teenager. Connor, Kaden & Jacob played wii for hours while we played Apples to Apples.

Kaden, Connor and Jacob playing Mario Kart.


Noah is bored...he's not really a Mario Kart fan

Our nephew Jalen is amazing. He's a freshman at Mountain Pointe and is already on the Varsity football team. There will be plenty of bragging about him in the future, so for now I'll just post a few photos from the scrimmage we went to against Corona.

again, not thrilled

however, connor loves it :)

the lone girl of her generation, Madison...poor thing is outnumbered with 6 boy cousins!

Connor, Papa Barnes and Kaden - showing off the Mountain Pointe shirt

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

chillin in the swing

love the bath letters!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday. He's 68...I'm thinking he doesn't care that I mention his age since he's not a lady like that :) 68, holy crap. My dad hasn't acted 68, or his age for that matter since I've been adult enough to know him!

My dad is an amazing papa. He loves his boys so much and they adore him. I'm so happy that my boys will get to grow up with their grandparents nearby. Mine lived in other states and visits were somewhat few and far between. I think it's wonderful that my parents and inlaws are so present in their lives. My dad is there for all the big, important stuff and all the little minutia too. It's so incredible. He's a wonderful babysitter when we ask him, he's there for all swim lessons and he's never been a helicopter grandparent if you know what I mean...if you don't it's probably because I'm saying it wrong :) I mean that he never hovers over me telling me that I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I am...but my point is that he doesn't point it out which is huge!

Anyone who knows the two of us well enough, knows that I'm my father's daughter. Very much so - I get my tendency to go grey early, my sharp tongue and love of cursing, my tendency to lean right politically, my inability to tolerate idiots, high tolerance for alcohol, and staggering good looks from him. Thanks for everything dad and happy birthday!

papa and noah - just a few hours old

papa & tashi with connor - Easter 2010

Papa & Tashi - his bday last year

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

B is for Boy, and Baseball

we go to lots of games, especially this season for some reason. probably because connor is just as baseball obsessed as always and we like to get both boys out of the house as much as possible. i get crazy if stuck in the house for too long and unfortunately it seems I passed that along to atleast one of my boys.

I think this was Noah's 3rd or 4th game. Everytime we go connor begs to play in Future's Field where they have the batting cage. We've never let him because the line is Out Of Control but we planned it out this time and got to the game really early. It was Gonzo's retirement night so it was still bat s&%t crazy but we managed. He LOVED it which is probably pretty obvious. This is a kid who runs around target pretending to run the bases and then sliding into home.

waiting his turn nicely

hey batta batta

SAFE!

told jeff to take a pic of me and the boys since i'm always the one taking the pics. I am still not sure why we took our pic with Augie. Maybe because he's closer to the size of the 3 of us. Not sure. Random. Blame the photographer in this one :)

my boys, happy sigh

jeffrey intently watching the game...noah intently waiting for his next meal

i'm 100% sure this is the type of smile we'll get tomorrow on picture day. positive.

checking out the group behind us. loves the attention. shocker.

we told connor that if a foul ball came over it was his job to protect noah. he took his job serious. i think we ruined the game for him by giving him a job. we suck at parenting.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Boy hair is so different than girl hair. I never understood why it was truly necessary for Jeff to get a haircut every 4-5 weeks when i manged to go 4-5 months--which i'm fully aware is too long. I just don't make the time for it and it's not like an infant and 3 year old will sit nicely reading people magazine while I get my hair did!

Anyway, I didn't get it with Jeff but now I get it. When their hair grows even a bit you've got a junior mullet and over the ear hair showing up, which is no bueno. Connor's hair grows fast like mine and Jeff's so he's there pretty often as well, though we let him go a bit longer since his looks cute a bit shaggy. I've always wondered how he'd look with longish hair, like kingston or levi :) but I just don't think I would be able to handle the growing out period. we like to spike it up sometimes so there needs to be a bit of lenght on top. Wow, this is boring, i'll just post the before and after pic now!

It got a little shorter than i'd like but I don't understand the number system used for boy haircuts. It's like converting to the metric system...I understand 'take 3 inches off please', not 'use a #4 here and blend to a #2 here'. Moms of boys, you know what i'm saying, right?

Well, school pics are next wednesday so here's hoping that it grows out just a tad :)

Happy Friday Everyone!!

keep your eyes on the road

Things with the boys are constantly happening that I immediately think are hilarious and want to blog about so that I remember them forever. Unfortunately, those things tend to happen while I’m driving, or while we’re grocery shopping or sometime that I can’t easily stop what I’m doing and immortalize the story. Then, by the time I am at a computer I have completely forgotten about the whole damn thing. I’m going to try and be better about that. Maybe I can keep a ‘dream journal’ type notebook in my bag for just such occasions :) But...probably not.

Yesterday, when I was driving the boys home from school I didn’t realize how quiet Connor was. It was nice actually since I tear out of a crazy day at work to get them, deal with the chaos of a million 3 year olds swarming around me showing me their art project, offering up their plastic hamburger to me or telling me that they have a dog named Sam…all to get in the car and head home. That’s supposed to be time to decompress, right? Well, yesterday he was oddly quiet in the car. I didn’t even notice until he speaks up halfway home saying, “do we go left or right now mama?”. I looked in the mirror and see him with his hands at 10 and 2 (well done driver) pretending to drive the car along with me. So cute. The rest of the way home we talked about which way we were going to turn and I even took the long way home so we’d have more twists and turns to handle.

When we got home I realized where his sudden interest in driving came from…


We broke into an impromptu art project and made him his own little steering wheel for the car! He loves it.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

i got my haircut today. really wanted to go with something different but number one, i'm boring. number two, i'm in a wedding in two weeks and I need to be able to do whatever the bride wants :)

this is my new favorite photo. clearly, he's hungry. this is during our daily lunch date when i bring noah over to my office to feed him. it's a nice break :)

we took the boys to a game this weekend. Gonzo's number was being retired and i'm glad we got to be there. i'll be posting a few more pics of the game later this week.

this kid and the new creepy smile. i give up. it's like i broke him with too many photos. this concerns me with picture day at school less than a week away. sigh.