Something to remember

I just had to write this down somewhere, I want to remember this one. Meredith turned 4 in January and says some pretty funny stuff, but this is the funniest thing I have ever heard escape her lips. I was seriously rolling! Meredith told me that she saw this really cool thing on tv that makes dogs stop barking. She told me it was called bark-off. Then she proceeded to tell me that we needed to buy "baby cry-off" for baby Nora. Haha! I love my witty little girl!

Spring!

Princess Party

The other day I bought the "Princess and the frog" dvd and thought it would be fun for Meredith to have a movie party. So on Friday, we had a mob of princesses at our place watching the movie, eating popcorn...princess and the frog fruit snacks...and ring pops. It was so fun!

Playing at Atlantis

My niece, Leah, and I took our kids over to Atlantis Park on Friday. It is a really fun place to visit and it has been around for ages. Robert actually remembers going there when he was growing up, so lots of fun memories.

Meredith checking out all of the butterflies that were flying around the park. She really wanted to catch one...but luckily for the butterflies, she didn't have a net. :)

Nora running around trying to get away from momma. Being chased by momma is her favorite game. She is such a little turkey!

Nora and June doing a little bit of exploring.

The girls checking out baby pinecones.

Roy checking out the pine cones, etc...in the sand.

cute little june-bug...look at that face...i love girls with attitude

passing moments

I was just looking at my blog and realizing how sparse my posts have been over the past year. I was looking at the posts I did about my girls last year and remembering all of the things that I loved about them at that period of time. The girls have changed so much in the last little bit and I just thought I should do another post to remember all of the things that I love so much about my girls...right now, today. I just don't want to forget all of these sweet passing moments.

Don't feel like you need to read all of this. I have a tendency to ramble when it comes to how much I love my girls. I wrote this for myself and for my girls. I'm sure when they grow up and read this they will roll their eyes at their pathetically sappy mother. :)

It's true. Meredith is now 4! She turned 4 about a month ago and for a 4 year old, she has a beautiful soul. Meredith, I want you to know that I love your smart, witty little personality and I love that you are so social. I love to watch you play with your friends and I love how willing you are to share with them. You are one of the sweetest little girls I have ever known, when you want to be. I love to listen to you sing and I love to watch you dance. I adore how you LOVE to talk and even though sometimes it may get a tiny bit tiresome...I love that you have endless things to say. I love your endless questions, too. I am amazed at some of the things that come out of your mouth! You have an incredible memory and I love that you are such a little smartie. Thanks to papi...when people ask you: "Meredith, are you smart?"...you respond, "No, I'm a genius!" I love that. Partially because it is cute and partially because I seriously think it may be true! I love to read you books and I love that reading is probably one of your favorite things to do. I love that our bookshelves are stuffed full of books that we read over and over again. If I could build a dreamhome, I would have a children's library with floor to ceiling bookshelves and thousands of books! The room would have lots of windows and the library would be full of beautiful natural light and of course...amazingly comfortable window seats! Reading a book in a comfy window seat sounds so dreamy and I can just picture you spending hours and hours in a place like that! Meredith, there are so many things I love about you, I could go on for days. However, one of the recent things that brings my heart enormous amounts of joy, is watching you with Nora. You don't always get along, but I can see how much you love and adore her and I can't tell you how happy it makes me. I love that Nora wants to hold your hand and lets you drag her around wherever you want. I love how you jump into her crib in the morning and you play together for awhile before I come in each morning. I love how you protect her and act like her mother. I love to watch you read to her and I love to watch you make her laugh. These moments help make all of the bad moments melt away. Thank you for being the wonderful girl you are. Thank you for telling me how much you love me every day. Thank you for smilling and laughing often. Thank you for forgiving me when I fall short as a mother, which is daily. Thank you for all of your hugs and kisses and words of encouragement. How can you be so mature for a little 4 year old? You are an amazing girl and I feel so lucky to be your mother.

Nora turned 18 months old in January and I am amazed by how grown-up she seems lately. I love her little attitude and I love her little dirty looks. I love that she isn't shy about standing up for herself and although I wish she had a little bit more patience with Meredith, it makes me laugh everytime she gets annoyed with her and says in a big voice...NO, NO, NO. Watching you push Meredith around occassionally, makes me happy you can stand up for yourself and I hope that your strong-will helps you get through this life with a bit more ease. I know if you decide to choose the right that no one or nothing will be able to deter you. I can see how this could be a big blessing in your life and that gives me peace. You are the perfect specimen of a baby, I love your chub...not too much and not too little. I love your sweet little voice, your soft little hands, your cute fat feet. I love watching you play with all of your toys and I love watching you figure out how things work. I love that when you are happy, you do this kind-of dance and you strut around while one of your arms moves up and down repeatedly. I love how much you love music and watching you dance makes me so happy. I love that you spin around in circles and giggle as you fall down. I love watching your vocabulary grow. I realize every day that you are a lot smarter than I even realize. You understand everything we say and it seems like your vocabulary has expanded by hundreds of words...just in the past month or so. I still love all of your silly little looks. I love your grumpy face and I really love your silly, happy face...the way you raise your eye-brows and give me a quirky little smirk. I love that you still are so attached to Curious George...I love that you still sleep with him during every nap and each and every night. I wish I could take pictures of you sleeping at night, rolled over on your side and cuddling with George. It is the sweetest thing. I love your strong-will, but I love how you can also be so sweet and how you still love to snuggle with me. The moments that you actually fall asleep on my shoulder are moments that I wish I could record and replay whenever I want. Words can't express how much I love you and how grateful I am that you know how much I love you and feel safe and secure in my arms. You are so special and I can't explain it. There is something about you that I can't put my finger on...I just know that you are special and that you are, and always will be an amazing person. I can't imagine our family without you and I am so grateful for my little Nora. I couldn't possibly love you anymore than I already do. You are my little sugar and I have a feeling that will never change.

Another vacation to Corona

Unlike most people, I get excited about my "vacations" to Corona. Luckily for me, I have a fantastic brother and sister-in-law that live in Corona. They have 4 great kids, a nice house and every time I'm there...I can actually relax a bit. So, for me...Corona = a tiny bit of Heaven. :)

Sometimes Corona can be a bit brown, but with all of the rain lately, the hills are beautiful and green. I had to take a few pictures! Now, I just can't wait for all of the poppy flowers to come out this spring. These green hills will be completely covered with poppies and will be entirely orange! I can't wait!

Anyway, here are a few pics of my cute nieces and my little mere-mere! :)

4 months?

Has it really been almost 4 months since I last blogged. Darn it. Facebook...you are to blame.

I have been a faithful blogger for over 3 years, but somehow I have lost my enthusiasm for blogging. I can think of a few reasons why this unfortunately thing has happened. The first reason is the fact that I'm pretty much half-insane most days thanks to my 2 crazy kids. Secondly, the fact that I can upload mass amounts of pictures to facebook and it only takes a few seconds...compared to the lame, painful uploads that I have to deal with to post a handful of pictures on my blog. Seriously, can't blogger fix that issue? How hard is it to allow you to go and select all the images you want to upload...at once...and then just push a button to start uploading? I hate how you can only upload 4 pics at a time...and then when you upload more, you have to spend the time to fix the layout of the blog and re-arrange pictures. Grr. I think I am going to have to have a talk with my friends at blogger. I seriously think that if they fixed this one problem, I (along with MANY other bloggers) would start to blog more again. Okay, the third reason why I haven't blog in 4 months is that our computer has been having issues for at least that long. We have come to find out that we may have some electrical issues in our home that cause us to have "dirty" electricity. I don't know if that is a technical term or not, but basically our power has surges and other weird things that has caused at least 3 or 4 computers now to die on us. Not fun.

So, not that I should try to justify my blogging lapse, but between the kids, painful uploads and a computer that is functioning sub-par...bye-bye, blog! sniff sniff. I'm so disappointed in myself! However, on a happy note: I am now resolute in continuing my blogging legacy. haha. I would love to go back and fill in all of the gaps in this past year, but that might not happen, let's be realistic here. So, I am just going to start on a fresh note and start blogging again...right now! Here's to new year's resolutions, right? I am definitely adding this to my list!

By the way, Merry Christmas, everyone! I can't believe the big day is on Friday! I love this time of year...and I just wish it lasted a bit longer! We just got our tree and decorations out this past week and I'm not looking forward to putting everything away again. I guess I just need to savor each day and remember why this time of year is so wonderful!

Ducks

Meredith has been asking to feed the ducks for days, so we finally made it to central park for a little duck feeding frenzy. It always sounds like fun to feed the ducks, but whenever we actually arrive at the duck pond I instantly remember all of the things that I don't like about feeding the ducks. For instance: poop and feathers ALL over the ground, aggressive ducks and occassionally there are super-aggressive geese, not to mention the aggressive squirrels that won't leave you alone once they know you have food and to top it off...the worry that my kids may fall into the disgustingly nasty duck pond. :) All that aside, we had a good time. It was Nora's first time feeding the ducks, so I wondered how she would react. Generally, she has been a bit shy around animals, but when we got there I was surprised that she wasn't scared at all. In fact, she was walking around chasing the ducks. It was pretty cute! Meredith, of course, has never been scared of any animal...ever. I swear, she is a little veterinarian in the making...or maybe a marine biologist. We'll see.

After we finished feeding the ducks (and geese and squirrels) TWO bags of hot dog buns...yes, they were hungry little animals, we also had a few minutes to play at this little playground next to the pond. It is cute to watch Nora growing up. Now that she is mobile, she wants to do everything Meredith does. She can't quite keep up yet, but I'm sure soon enough, she will.

she LOVES going down the slide!

trying to keep up with meredith!

Meredith picking up Nora...like she always does...even though it is a BIG no-no. Grrr. This girl has fabulous listening skills...like most 3 year olds. :)

Oops. That's what happens when you try to pick up a baby that weighs almost as

much as you do!

sweet baby!

my crazy girl! she was actually going down the slide like this...she thought it was hilarious!

happy duckies with very full tummies! :)

ahhh. just watching the ducks and relaxing as the sun set. yes, it was a good visit!