Monday, November 28, 2011

Mexico!

As it turns out traveling with two children at these ages is a stressful as the general public leads you to believe. :-) But here are some pictures of the fun that was sprinkled in with the stress.

Joe and Tyler at Thanksgiving dinner.


Austin ate every bit of her body weight in ice cream.


The amazing kids place play area.



My parents and Austin at dinner one night.



We have been calling Tyler Thunder Thighs all week, hopefully that name doesn't stick but isn't she just such a little chunk?



Joe and his girls in the pool.



Apparently the open mouth thing is something that both my girls do all the time.



If George was around Tyler was sure to be found sitting on his lap.



Tyler wanted so bad to be in the pool with her big sister.



Austin just about passed out when she realized that they also had a swing set.








Joe singing with his girls on the back porch of our room.


Friday, November 18, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am pretty sure that Joe wishes that we would just skip Mexico this year again due to the business with the thought of leaving everything in the hands of his very young workers. But we are going and leave tomorrow morning, the girls and I (well at least Austin) are extremely excited and can't wait to sit on the beach and explore the place. I read a quote one time that stated that it was easier to grow old as a parent because you are so excited to watch your children experience their firsts. I couldn't agree with this more. This is our 11th trip to Mexico as a family and this is by far the most excited I have ever been...just the thought of Austin building sand castles and running from the ocean's waves has me giddy. It will be truly amazing. I am already completely packed which took FOREVER and a lot of sweat to close those suitcases. Again I am pretty sure if we had one more kid we couldn't make it happen, although I had to pack diapers for both girls this time which was a huge part of the process. Austin does really well at home with potty training as long as there aren't other distractions like you know, Grandma and Uncle Dane like there will be for 8 days. So rather than stress I packed accordingly and just brought the diapers. The only real down side to this Mexico trip is that Tadd won't be with us. I am super bummed about that, he paid for his trip and then got a HUGE promotion at work and can't take the time off. Tadd is now the Finance Manager at the new Used Car Super Store here in town, it is essentially his dream job so I don't think he's even that torn up about not coming. I think Joe and I are more sad than he is. Me because I love to laugh with and at him and Joe because now he is stuck playing golf with Dane...although that does make me laugh pretty hard. Last trip down Tadd let Dane drive his golf cart and I personally watched as Dane drove them off a bridge and then into a tree, the kid just spaces out sometimes and his brain disconnects. Hopefully he gets over that now that he has his learner's permit.

I promise to take a ton of pictures and post way too many of them on here. Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! XOXOXOX

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Why I am glad to have a brother.

Tadd and I ventured out to some storage unit auctions yesterday and we couldn't resist one unit that was so covered in dusk you couldn't tell what color the furniture was. The ideal unit for treasure hunting...because it has every possibility of being really old. The bidding was going no where fast and hanging around under $10 dollars so I jumped in and scored the unit for $50. Tadd actually kicked me at this point because ol' Pretty Boy Tadd HATES to get dirty. When we got back to the unit to unload it first thing we find a giant black widow spider which means the girls were instantly locked in the Lexus so they didn't get near anything. Here starts the hilarity of having a brother like mine...we both looked like idiots as we spent the rest of the 7 hours it took to unload the unit swatting at our bodies just in case a spider had gotten on us. I dropped two microwaves and one TV because the cords hit me in the leg and I was convinced it was something creepy and crawly. Tadd made me laugh so hard that I dropped a couch, a headboard and three sets of drawers. Just when things couldn't get any funnier watching us drop things and swat at make believe spiders...Tadd reached into a shower kit bag, leaned his head to the side...sighed...and threw the bag at me to ask me to look in it and see what I saw. I literally peed my pants a little bit when I looked up and said "well Tadd you just touched someone's sex toys". Nothing could get any funnier than watching ol' Pretty Boy's face at that moment. He just shook his head and said why the HELL do we do this stuff? LOL Just when we had stopped laughing from that, or should I say I had stopped laughing at him, Tadd was struggling...I mean really struggling to get this stupid headboard in the truck while I was helping Austin get more to drink in the car. Tadd yelled over a little help please, and I told Austin I have to go help Uncle Wells...she looked at me and said "Nah he's got it Mom". I was laughing so hard that I couldn't help poor Wells who ended up just standing there for another couple minutes while I composed myself. He claimed that he was just going to light fire to his body last night, I haven't seen him yet today to see how bad the burns are. ;-)

Monday, November 14, 2011

Look what we did this weekend!

Yep we decorated for Christmas! With Mexico this weekend and when we get back we head up to South Dakota to visit Derek and Rachel and their new little baby we knew we needed to get up the tree sooner than later, so we buckled in and put it up this weekend. :-)





J and I also made ornament frames, this is mine and while it's looks simple I can assure you that it took us about 5 hours to complete but was super fun! It's even supposed to be lit but the stupid lights have a short in them so they come on whenever they feel like it, although it does make that moment magical!








Friday, November 11, 2011

Weekend here we come.

I am so glad to hear that other people are having issues with daylight savings time...holy smokes our house is in chaos because of it. The girls wake up wicked early and are nearly too tired to eat dinner at night.

I have always wanted to try one of those Brazilian Straightening systems where they bond keratin to your hair, so there was a Groupon that came around a while back and I bought a severely discounted one. I made the appointment for this last Wednesday thinking that it would be awesome to have straight non-frizzy hair in Mexico (which is coming up next weekend...Yahoo!). Had Joe come home early from work and I headed to my appointment, I think my hair looks much more manageable when I just let it air dry and MUCH less frizzy but Joe thinks it looks about the same. Needless to say that comment alone makes me not want to spend the normal $150 price tag every three months, but it was worth a discounted try. Like I always say, I don't spend much time away from the girls and I can say that Joe has never taken both of them anywhere. In fact most of the time when Joe watches them it is during nap time so I can run to the store if we need a lot of groceries or something like that. So on Wednesday night when I pulled into the driveway just one and a half short hours after I left I was surprised when I was greeted by one of our friends in the driveway that was picking up his dirt bike we had been storing. He was chuckling and said, "Man Joe has his hands full in there!". Hmmm, never what a Mom wants to hear.

I walked in our house to be greeted by Joe looking frantic, the dogs barking insanely, Austin covered in blood and Lil' Bit screaming on the floor. With my best "I'm not panicked voice", I looked at Joe and asked is everything OK? And picked up Lil' Bit, yelled at the dogs and grabbed Austin. Joe then explained that Lil' Bit had been crying since I left, the dogs were going insane due to the guy picking up his dirt bike, Austin got in trouble for shouting at Joe and when she went to run away tripped over a chair and fell on the tile floor only to cut open her lip.

I have a hair cut scheduled for this next Wednesday so I am hoping the girls can take it a little easier on poor Joe.

Oh yeah and our leaf tray finally dried...look at how amazing this thing turned out!!!!!

Friday, November 4, 2011

Happy Friday!


Look at this ridiculously cute Baby Joe! I cannot believe with our two daughters we have one that is completely Joe and one that is completely Crystal. It's like we did the job ourselves each time.