Earthmonkey Mama

Friday, April 13, 2012

This Moment

Oh, there are so many moments around here... we loose track sometimes.

Here is one of my favorite from the week

Have a great weekend!

I get to go have coffee with a friend tomorrow! Yeah!

What are your plans?

Thursday, April 12, 2012

My girl, Ayla. What a funny, full of life little girl! She always has something funny to say.

"What the heck"

"That is HIGHLY overrated"

"Holy Moley!"

Seriously, this girl is a riot. She is also quite the drama QUEEN.
Loves to dress up in princess costumes (as you can see)

AND paint nails... anyone's, really.

My toenails are painted right now, and they are AWFUL... but my girl was so proud of herself painting them, that of course, they are beautiful. (Right?)

I love her style, and sense of self. She knows what she likes to wear. Yes, sometimes I tell her to go change, but for the most part, I just kind of let it roll.

I love walking down the road with my little Snow White, or Cinderella (Today I asked her a question, leading with Snow White instead of Ayla, she answered back, "UHH, that is not my name... it's my middle name!"
Well, okay then!)

She also loves to accessorize... and why not! A sunflower headband looks completely adorable, no matter she can't stand it to be in the correct place, it has to be kind of awkward looking, but that is ok...

At least she is mess conscious with painting also.

Look at the way she sets down a piece of junk mail, and carefully paints her toes... she usually manages to only get a couple marks of polish on her dress or floor or table... nothing too crazy yet!

Oh, how I love her.

Her fierce concentration (that does not extend to carefully coloring in lines, or putting away her clothes)
her wonderful helpful ways (always helpful, and sometimes too much so!)
and just about everything...

.... except for the temper tantrums... I could do without those.

She is also an excellent photographer.
And a spectacular singer.
And a genius with electronics.

I wonder what she will do with her life. She has so much to offer, and I hope her wonderfulness NEVER gets squashed.

But I think that is a wish every mother has.

I wish her happiness. In that, I think I will be happy.

Whatever she may be or do,

I will always be her mother,

and she will always be my girl.

Always.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Pictures 88-96 (March 28-April 5)

88'365:: Baby doing pushups

89'365:: Dollies

90'365

91'365:: week one of seedlings... LOTS of lettuce due to an oversight on Ayla's part :)

92'365:: Snow white and the forbidden apple ( I just loved the irony!)

93'365

94'365:: cute little strawberries


95'365:: Kellen's exhausted little butt in the middle of a nap.

96'365:: maybe why he was exhausted in previous pic... had a high temp for two days with stomach issues :(

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter weekend

Easter weekend was such a great laid back couple of days.

Saturday, first we dyed eggs... this time we just used food coloring, but I promise next year, I plan on doing natural dyes... I just didn't feel like going to the store :) Then we headed to Tyler's work egg hunt, where the kids made Easter bags, collected hidden eggs, and Ayla even got to ride Shine, a pretty white quarterhorse! The kids had a great time, and it was fun to see their excitement.

Saturday evening, I had procured a babysitter for the night, so Tyler and I could go on our first date night in awhile! We had planned to see The Hunger Games, but the show time that we could go to was sold out! So we finally settled for the raunchy comedy "American Reunion", you know, the finale to the million American Pie movies! Can you believe it! We went on date night to see a less than average movie! Oh well, lesson learned. Don't go to Starbucks and enjoy a coffee before buying movie tickets :)

But at least it was good company.

So, here is a rundown on costs for our date night...

Dessert and coffe at Starbucks:: $12

Movie (that we really didn't want to see):: $17

Babysitter for 4 children whO slept the entire time (minus the 5 or so minutes Soren was awake before we got back) :: $50

Total:: $79

The lack of interruptions:: priceless

When we got home we had a couple screwdrivers (yes, alcoholic beverages, not the Phillips kind) watched some Forest Gump (to make up for what we paid to see!) and then headed to bed!

Sunday, we woke up early to an Easter basket scavenger hunt that the kids LOVED! Tyler made little rhymes that we hid the night before, and I think it will become tradition. Then we had breakfast and had our backyard egg hunt, which was fun to watch. There is something about watching your kids discover an egg filled with candy. I don't exactly know why! Then, we lazily watched home videos all afternoon, which is so great to capture the kids' antics at different time periods! The similarities between these four is amazing! We finished off the night with a long walk to the loved train park, stopping along the path to climb trees and pick beautiful flowers. Such a nice family friendly weekend.

And we still have tomorrow to spend together too! We made plans to meet some friends at the zoo, then Tyler will head to play a round of golf. My family is so fantastic!

What fun traditions do you guys do for the Easter holiday?

Since we are not religiously affiliated, we tend to emphasize family togetherness and fun. Which in my mind, should be celebrated all the time, but it's nice to remember!

<--They don't look related, do they?! I love my boys so much! (And my girl!)

I just love his funny look... he loved laying in the grass.

Ayla riding Shine. She was so excited and got right in line to get on... at first she was nervous, but she went the whole way without needing anyone next to her! I was so proud of her!

Looking for eggs in the backyard... don't you just love their outfits?

This boy has such big blue eyes... he gets comments all the time on how gorgeous they are... I think they are too!

Sharing candy. What a sweetheart; at least when he wants to be!

Saturday, April 7, 2012

My baby is 6 months old!

I cannot believe that Soren in already 6 months old! He is just getting so big. Already he is trying to crawl, it is amazing... but he has almost no interest in sitting up. Well, to each there own, right? He LOVES to eat baby food. So far, I think his favorite might be either carrots or banana yogurt... he finishes jars of food, which none of the previous three EVER did, even when they were older! Kellen had such a gag reflex, that he barely touched baby food until he was much older. But I am making a bit here and there with veggies and fruits we have around the house... so the freezer is getting stocked.

On some other notes::

Our garden is growing like crazy! I will add some pictures soon of that.

Tyler and I are going for our first date night tonight in a long while... maybe since before Soren was born?! Wow that is a long time!

I have decided to take a break from the social media (really, Facebook) because of a plethora of reasons; it is a time waster, do I really need to know what so and so was doing every day?, and it is making me crazy, and I mean seriously crazy. So I will share my blogposts on there so that my family knows when I blog, but other than that, I really plan on NOT being on there for a good long while. If you have comments about the blog, make sure to leave them here, as I will not be checking facebook for comments either.

I have also decided to train for a Tough Mudder! It will be in Austin in October, and I am so excited!!! A couple of my military friends are going to join me, and Tyler will be too! Although I am sure he is going to leave me in the dust!

Here is pictures in Dallas when Tyler ran it last weekend. He is in a picture about halfway through the bunch at the finish line (there is a big black blow up thing in the background saying TOUGH) He said he had a great time, and it looked like a lot of fun!

Thanks, and I hope everyone has a GREAT holiday weekend.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

A container garden

We decided to make a garden this year, right after we found out we were staying part of the summer here. with inspiration from both Pinterest and the Austin getaway, this is what we came up with:: a pallet planter for some greenery and a livestock water tub for our veggies!

Here in military housing, you can not just plant a garden, so we decided to buy the container so it can move with us, hopefully :)

The kids had great fun helping fill the tubs, as you can imagine. The pallet was a little tougher than imagined because the dirt kept falling out. A friend suggested using chicken wire to help with this.... but you first reposition the boards in front to how you want them, then staple landscaping fabric to the back and bottom... I LOVE it!