End of the World

Payden was the joyful recipient of a snuggly pillow pet type of animal that my mom found at Costco, when you open it up there is a blanket inside...well let me just show you a picture...

Wow they look alike here!

She has affectionetely named him? her? I can't remember the assigned gender, Tiigee, yes that is Tiigee with two i's. She even has a little song that goes along with the spelling and will proudly sing it for you if you ask.

Well, the other day the unspeakable happened, Tiigee was missing. And I was getting ready to go see West Side Story with my mom and I heard all 4 kids wandering the house searching and calling "Tiigee, where are you". I thought it was a game they were playing until my tearful eldest came into my room "mom, I really can't find Tiigee and we've looked everywhere". SO we searched, and couldn't find him. And then I went back to getting ready. And thats when I heard it...her searching song. I love my daughter so much, she is so articulate and loves so deeply, even if it is her new stuffed animal.

Tiigee was found by Aunt Amy while I was gone, and he was on a shelf in my closet. As soon as they found him Payden remembered putting him there in the morning...we have been welcomed into the world of a 'lovie', and I'm contemplating seeing if Costco still has them for that 'just in case' possibility.

Miss Creative

The other day I walked out of the kitchen to see where Taylor was because she had disappeared for a little bit and this is how I found her...

 It was quite creative, but I didn't want her to follow in Hailey's footsteps and suffer some dramatic injury, so I only paused long enough to take these two pictures and then I got her down. She is obsessed with UnoMoo. It's a game my Aunt (NeeNee) got the kids when she was visiting a while ago and Taylor asks for UnoMoo every diaper change!

Silhouette Canvases

I feel a little paralyzed as how to start back up again with this little blog here. I got a little overwhelmed with life for a little while there, and that just meant my discipline across the board was lacking...I felt like I was kind of in survival mode.

So I'll just jump in with what I did today.

I crafted a lot for Christmas gifts and I had so much fun (little did I know it would add to my stress load). But with all that crafting came supplies I don't normally have on hand, and who can complain about that? SO since our walls are freshly bare after the Christmas decor came down, I decided I needed to add something to the wall in the dining room.

I started by taking pictures of these cuties...

It took a few takes to get enough of their profile to make it work...I don't even think all of these are the ones I used....

 Oh then there's this crazy Mrs Thang

 I traced those mugs onto some wax paper, simply just laying it over the computer screen and getting it to the size I wanted...it's hard to see in the picture

 And gathered my simple supplies! Canvas, acrylic paint, a brush and scissors

 So I traced their distinct features onto the canvases and got to painting! Here is the finished product with my ragamuffins!

It just makes me so very happy!

My Phone/The Golden Gate Bridge

After I posted on facebook that my phone did not come home with me I got a bunch of people asking about what happened, so I figured I'd start with that story first. We were on our way out of town and the last stop was the Golden Gate Bridge. Most of us decided to walk across to meet the car with the non-walkers on the other side. What we didn't notice at the beginning of the bridge was the sign that said 'sidewalk closed', which meant we made it nearly all the way across with no idea we couldn't make it to the car. We turned around, some bladders very full and started the long walk back across the bridge. Feeling pretty good I agreed to running back for a change of pace and muscle usage, as we'd been walking all over the city since our arrival. I handed over my camera and water bottle to Jer and started jogging in my flip flops. After a few minutes I felt it. A wiggle. Rolling down my leg. Yep my phone was in my very shallow pocket well actually it was bouncing on the sidewalk and then falling through a very small slit and I watched it go all the way down into the water! After laughing, and staring in disbelief Amy and I took off running. I was so mad. Mainly because we just bought the phone and I hate spending money. But at least I can say my phone fell into the water beneath the Golden Gate Bridge while running across!

Before all of that, it was the perfect weather and the only time there was no fog whatsoever!

So very bright

Walking across the first time

 A sign in the middle of the bridge that reads "Emergency phone and crisis counseling"

The other cool thing that we saw while walking across were some dolphins and one shark. I had this really awesome picture that I took on my phone of the shadow of the bridge on the water with three dolphins swimming around, but that is now gone forever. I'm still really glad we spent the time to do it, hindsight is just that I would have handed Jer my phone too.

Heart Overflowing

It was one of those trips where you couldn't have asking for things to come together any better. Well maybe not having dropped my phone off the Golden Gate bridge, but that's the only thing I can think of.

Back in the swing of things, school, little kids, laundry, coffee, errands, cleaning, feeding, and all that jazz. But...there are stories to be told and my camera got full of memories so don't worry, those posts are coming.

Right now my heart is overflowing!

Adding some greens

I meant to post this right when it happened.

These are my new friends...

And I will try not to kill them!

Poor Lincoln!

It's unfortunate for Lincoln, but his strong emotional reactions to life are blogging gold.

I walked downstairs just now and Linc was blubbering laying on the floor while Payden was rubbing his head, consoling him. It took a minute for me to figure out what was going on but my always informative oldest child is ever eager to fill in the gaps when she holds all the pieces to the puzzle in her well articulated head. They popped in a dvd of Planet Earth, they haven't watched it in a while and love animals a lot! Well Lincoln is still crying about the scene where the wolf catches and kills the baby deer. He is just distraught! "It was my favorite baby" Payden tells me that 'I feel bad for Lincoln, I mean I'm kind of sad too that the baby deer thing got killed but I'm sad for Lincoln cause he is just really sad because he doesn't like it when the babies die' No one does sweet heart, no one does. Payden has now been running in to inform us of how he's doing, and Hailey is the alerter for when he need his big sister to comfort him.

Oh I love these kids, and how different they all are!

I pinned it, I did it

I don't even know what blog it was that I saw this on but I thought it was clever and since I've been crafting away at some things, I thought I'd add that here. Have you discovered Pinterest? Who am I talking to when I do that? Jammi, have you? Gina, have you? April? It's super addicting, but it's got my creative juices flowing. As I complete some clever little crafts I'll give credit where credit is due and say, I really didn't come up with this on my own.
This was part of the inspiration for the wreath I made a couple weeks ago...here's the pin


and here is my finished wreath of my very own

I love it! And I love that I can change it up from season to season.

Smart kids

The constant asking was getting old and I was curious what they would pick so I let each kid pick any candy from their trick or treating loot and wouldn't you guess this is what they picked...

Eye's wide with excitement for one of his regular...not fun size...cookies and cream candy bar.

Taylor of all things picked a  regular Hershey's bar

And Payden and Hailey picked Reese's Peanut Butter Cups...regular size of course

No fun size for these little smarties...when given the choice they go for the big stuff!

The New 'Do

I almost forgot to document the occasion. Taylor was being so cute, she wanted me to hold her hand or just close enough so she could lean on me the whole time...she was a little nervous. But the smile wouldn't show it!

Getting there, that one snip sure made us go short...

Trying to distract her with some video's...it didn't really work

Pile of hair

Short haired girl

And she's still cute as ever!