Just the Lighting

Today was just another ordinary day.  I have absolutely nothing to say about it. But the lighting is this picture....Arizona can be beautiful!

Chop it off

 

This may have been one of the scariest things I have ever done, scarier than a C-section, scarier than getting married, scarier than flying across the pacific ocean with 4 kids under the age of 6 but it had to be done. My hair has been through a lot with two pregnancies in one year.  2012, finally caught up to me.  So I took a deep breath and chopped it off.

 

And you know what I decided? I like it! Why did I not do this earlier? Short hair is sassy! I can do sassy, right?

Springtime surprises

Spring time is beautiful this year. There are surprises springing out all over our yard.  We've started our garden again.  AJ found eggs in a cute little nest in the citrus tree.  And the jasmine. . .I wish I could save that sweet honey scent of jasmine. I'm pretty sure if Heaven has a smell it's jasmine.

I'm Working On It

Papi reminded me last night that I was going to try to update our blog daily. I'm so happy he's finally reading it. :) Today our children were entertained for hours in the blue room looking at our blog books. They were supposed to be cleaning their rooms but I'm not one to break up a party. They were having too much fun. I was reminded again that even though our family may be the only ones who read this stuff, they are the most important. So I am going to recommit again to updating more often. 

The Mean Neighbor

Dear Rude Neighbor,

I'm sorry that your daughter chased our dog into your yard but that doesn't give you an excuse to use the "d word" in front of my children.  That was the first time their innocent virgin ears had ever heard anyone swear in real life.  And it really affected one of my boys.  He cried to me tonight saying, "he felt bad for the rest of the day" because you don't have a big enough vocabulary to express yourself without using ugly words.  Yes, I know that eventually he would have heard it somewhere but I just wanted to let you know that you were the first to dirty a young mind.  Don't you know that speaking like that makes you sound uneducated and scummy? I would call you an a*!@# but even in my limited vocabulary I can come up with a better description of you.  I hope that next time you choose your words you will have some respect for the little ears around you.

Sincerely,
The Mom that sounds overprotective but really just cares about her children

Love This Quote

So I made this picture to put in a frame. 

It's to remind me that I have to live up to what I have promised. 

I want to because I have an angel and I want him with me.

Back Into the Swing

The first week after Spring Break is over.

And while I did get a lot accomplished including one field trip and 48 bottles of meat canned,

I still have loads of catching up to do.

Loads of laundry, loads of dishes, loads of cleaning. . .

it never ends.

But we are getting back into the swing of things and the boys are getting back into their swing.

Lemons

"It's not so much what happens to us but how we deal with what happens to us." -James E. Faust

Life has given us a lot of lemons lately.  

And so has our lemon tree.

So I spent today letting my kids be happy doing what they wanted to do on their day off of school instead of dragging them around doing what I wanted to do.

And I made lemonade.

And the Bees Came Tumbling Down

Want to hear a funny story?

For those of you who don't know, I'm married to an ex-con. He's dangerous.  It's kind of hot.  His big offense?  Killing a pig.  He used to play baseball in the sugar cane fields and one unfortunate day he hit a baseball into a beehive.  The bees got really mad.  They chased the first thing they saw, a pig.  The pig got stung so many times that it died.  Papi ended up in jail for killing the pig.  He's since forsaken his crime and no longer kills pigs with bees.  So you can understand why Papi won't mess with beehives.  That is until we found this one in our lemon tree.

 It couldn't have been more than two days old but we had to get rid of it before anyone met the same fate as the pig and Papi ended up in jail...again.

Hearing about all the buzz going on on Hope street it became a neighborhood affair when it came time to shoot it down.

The whole street came out to watch these two brave (aka crazy but wonderful) guys take care of it.

I'm not sure how our neighbor talked Papi into doing it.

It may have had something to do with $140 for a professional to do it or $15 for them to shoot it with bee spray.

Ready

Aim

Fire

Ker splat!!!!  

I think there were about a meeeellion bees in there...okay, maybe half a million.

Fortunately, there was only one teeny tiny battle scar.

And then the neighborhood went home happy 

and so did all the pigs.

Desert Rain

One thing I do love about Arizona

being able to play in the rain at night in your swimsuit and still be hot.

Memories of Japan

While walking the kids to the bus stop today AJ found this little guy hanging off a tree.

It's the shell of a cicada.  

It reminded me of Japan.

These shells were all over in the parks hanging off the trees, on the slides, on the swings.

The cicadas in Japan were much bigger though and loud.

The Japanese children would pick up the shells and collect them.

The girls would put them in their hair like we do with flowers behind our ears.

Keeping this in mind I convinced myself that I could be brave enough to pick this one up and take it home to get a picture.

So I did and I kept telling myself all the way home, "it's not gross, you can do this".

Although it was hard for me to eat my crunchy cracked wheat for breakfast while editing this post. 

Ahhxygen

Now that I have to wake up early I know I need all the energy I can get.

So I'm increasing the energy in our home.

Say hello to my new friend.

How did he know?

"Mom, I feel bad for someone." - DJ

But I want to sleep in!

While I am very thankful that we have the opportunity to send our children to school I'm really not looking forward to waking up in the mornings.

Angels or Demons

Sometimes,

 I can't tell if these little guys are demons with fire coming out of their heads or angels with halos.

Still trying to figure it out.

The Advantage

They know there is one advantage to having Papi being gone . . . there's a lot more room in my bed.

Although sometimes I am just left with a corner, I love that they all come sleep with me.  Good thing I'm such a heavy sleeper.  I don't notice they're there until I wake up.

Your Majesty

I really think everyone should experience twins.  They are so much fun!  These two make me laugh everyday, even if as their mom I really shouldn't be laughing.  They each have their very distinct personalities in everything.

On Easter Sunday Alexandria came out in her new Easter dress.  When DJ saw her he commented, "You look good in that."  I thought that was sweet of him to even notice.

AJ had a totally different response but the same meaning.  He saw Alexandria, bowed and said, "Your Majesty!"  He knows how to make a girl laugh and feel beautiful all at the same time.  Which brings me to my next subject, girls.

Yes, girls!  It is already starting, at least with AJ.  The other day he came home from school and declared that there were five girls that like him and one of them was a third grader. I asked him, "Do you want the girls to like you?"

He smiled, "Yes."

"What do you do to make them like you?"  I asked.  Then he gave me that look.  Do you remember Joey on Friends how he gets that look when he's trying to hook up with a girl?  I swear to you AJ did that look.  I was expecting him to add, "How you doin?"  Then, he showed me how he walks by the girls when he passes them in the hallway.  If I were five it would melt my heart, I'm almost 35 and it still melts my heart.

I then found out from DJ that DJ has no interest yet in girls.  He goes to school to learn.  He will not look at a girl and he walks straight by them in the hall.  The only girl he loves is his mom.  He is a momma's boy.

I'm so glad these two have each other.  I love that they are so different. I love that they are best friends.  And I am absolutely in love with both of them.

CPK

Remember back in the day when there were no worries and you could pass the time playing with your Pound Puppies, Popples and Cabbage Patch Kids?  Most of of these good things are just memories now, like these guys.  

Meet Rae Caron and Lorenzo Barney.  Twins!

I got them for Christmas when I was nine.

My mom was inspired.

These two little kids got a lot of my attention.  They even had a rocking horse just their size that was just for them.  After a few good years I eventually got too old to play with dolls and these two along with many other stuffed toys got put into storage.  Didn't Disney just do a whole movie about that?

Unfortunately some of my old stuffed friends died in my parent's fire.

But these two guys escaped the devastation and they're back!  Time to let my own girls love them as much as I did.

They came to visit us with their vintage suitcase full of clothes.

And my girls loved it.  

They played for hours. 

Dear Cabbage Patch Kids you still have your charm!

The April Fools Joke That Wasn't

There are so many kids, not just mine but other welcome little visitors as well, that run through this house after school that we spend most of the afternoon with our doors wide open.  So when Isabel told me, "Mommy, there's a bird in the house,"  I didn't believe her especially because it was April 1st.

I faked a laugh and replied, "April Fools!"  She looked confused and ran away to keep playing with her friends.  Turns out there really was a lost birdie in our home.

It was a confused tiny thing, running into the glass over and over again thinking that it could get outside.

 DJ started to cry.  

He has a soft heart for animals.

He was afraid it was going to die from hitting the glass that hard.

 Finally it flew out of the blinds so we could close them and direct it towards the light of the doors.

 At last, the little guy had left the building.  Thinking back, I kind of wonder if that colorful creature wasn't playing an April Fools joke on us.

So we don't have snow . . .

It's right in the middle of winter and I'm so jealous of places with snow.  I want to be in snow.  I love bundling up in warm clothes and blankets while in front of a warm fireplace and looking out the window at a beautiful blanket of white surrounding me. But we don't get that experience here.  So instead, I'm thankful for the things that we do have here in the winter. . . like sugar cane growing in our garden.

And Papi and the kids enjoying every sweet bit of juice they can savor.

And movie nights with friends in the clubhouse underneath the trampoline.  That's just cool!

But I still miss the snow.