9 Lego Candles on a Baseball Cake

The rain woke me up this morning... or I awoke to the rain. Either makes me happy that I can: not only see but feel the serenity in that. I put my sundress on, even for a gloomy day. It was a brightly colored one. I shuffled through my candle box and chose a birthday cake scent. I lit it and decided to write about Benny's Birthday.

These are two of my favorite pictures of him as a toddler:

 He loves his chocolate and has my pigment. The two make quite the mix for a picture mommy holds dear in her memory. His happiness in this indulgent moment tells all with those baby blue eyes I irrevocably admire. Every time I see this I want to loudly and obnoxiously kiss those big cheeks to taste the morsels.

This one below makes me think of the days I was privileged to stay at home with my babies to capture the important and in depth play we have. We would have the darnedest of times... I was able to see my muffins' minds develop and help them grow as I nurtured it to be it's very best. We used to make tinker-toy cars and race them all over the house and up/down the stairs. My Benny is the best sharer I know, and still is. He teaches me many things. Here that Benny is, in a playing moment... happy and careless at heart, just the way he should be. Pure and wholesome...

 

Then we slide on down to age 9 and water slides at a Waterpark to celebrate this memorable birthday with friends and our family.

 

I swear these parties are getting more fun every year. We spent the day sliding and surfing under the Arizona sun. The Sergeant even checked days before to see what the weather was going to be like, so we wouldn't run into any issues. It was a great day of playing hard and ending it with singing, presents, balloons and this totally awesome baseball ice-cream cake (that mom ate the last of last night). With Lego candles!!

 

Benny is really into WWE Wrestling right now. The Sergeant knew just what action figure he wanted to get for his special brother. Stink and I went on a date and we traveled to 3 different stores with some Mongolian grill food between until he got the perfect "The Miz" wrestler.

 

Benny also loves Baseball. We were shopping one day in a store of the subject when he eyed these gloves and I never forgot the look on his face when he tried them on. So I remembered, went back and got those very Baseball Gloves for my boy. Benny also received some clothes by his favorite brand in his favorite colors from Mom.

Happy Birthday to my oh-so-dear son of mine. You can be so sweet, one of the sweetest I know. You can also be the opposite as you are sensitive, emotional and always like to keep the peace and equality drizzled into every situation. You can make me laugh so hard. I am over proud to call you mine... and I hope you had the best Birthday yet, baby cakes.



 

Dog Day

The first day back to school marks the birthday of our sweet poochy. Last year this is the time I had laid fallen eyes on her, brought her home and wrapped her in a red bow for the boys to devour their new pet crave when they arrived through the doors of our cozy place. So I decided that every year we would have a party after the first day to celebrate.

Beezsh/Letty/Letty B./Baby Girl/Beee!/Frees are her many nicknames that have (out of love) transformed from her real name, Scarlet. She understands and responds to them all without confusion. I tell her all the time that her sole purpose in life is to love and to be loved. What magnificent jobs. She is a cuddler and puts her paws around your neck to wait for the signal representing it's okay for the kiss. She respects altering emotions. Her eyes are soft and gentle ones with a gloss. Beezsh follows me around and whenever the boys and I have rounds of rough-house she takes my team. She likes to try and sleep with the Sergeant at night and gives me a stare at length when I tell her to go to her house for bed. She likes to lick every millimeter of Benny's face. Letty B. is energetic to wake up the boys with digs and sniffs and welcomes them home with twirls of her body and wags of her tail. She sees them out of our door with a gentle lick. Baby girl always waits as patient as she can until I come home from work. Beee is understanding the simple commands of sit-stay-lay down-no bites. Her chews of choice are monkey toys and things that squeak. She likes friends and playing with the big dogs... if I had the house for it I would certainly get her one. Frees loves socks, getting them off and nibbling on tootsies. She is also fond of her treats...

Scarlet's party cake consisted of her favorite snack with her family: popcorn. It was surrounded by a sludge of peanut butter to hold the 'one' candle. Pieces of bacon swam about the ensemble. We sang, she had balloons and presents. Balloons scare her I found out, so as we work on this I had only a few.

Before Letty's party we got her ready by washing the still confused hair in her lemongrass and patchouli scented doggy soap. She goes wild after her baths.

It was a remembrance in her honor of celebration... and a wonderful setting for sharing back to school stories!

Cherished Notes, Cherished Pace

It truly is bittersweet... My boys going back to school...

The bitter. The pace of those delightful 7 weeks are as light as the dry air. We color our white canvas with whatever we choose whenever we choose during this time. Our play is expanded and it doesn't end with bedtime restrictions. I can snuggle those muffins for as long as I want at waking and fall asleep with them at night... and I do. I can make pancakes late in the morning at 10 dressed in bedtime attire as my house is loud and messy with the folly play of my children. We can take a lengthy chunk of uninterrupted time out to dive into each other's individuality. I will miss it until next time...

The sweet. My children are back in their routine, which brings a different sort of evolvement. There is beauty in this as they grow. New classes bring forth new personalities and friendships as well as learning a fresh leader in their teachers. Old friendships are revived and summer stories are shared. With all of these, lifetime memories are made. Mom gets to clean the crevices from the toll summer takes particularly on the walls and floors of my house. And yes, I did clean what I think was a  booger off of a wall. I get a few needed moments to myself. We all learn more in the art of time management with each busy schedule under one roof.

I was going through backpacks in preparation... and taking my sweet summer paced time at it, might I add. One day I found these and played with them...

Maybe mood disorders were taught in the 3rd grade.

Then I ran into a few things that melted my soul, which doesn't take much from my two boys.

A page in Benny's backpack:

And these, stumbled upon in a drawer in Stink's room:

It's a stash of all the sweet notes I lovingly place into lunch boxes after packing them. My Sergeant looks at me and says, "I keep all of them Mom, all 181 of them!" I could have cried in the silent pause that took place as I starred at him for one appreciative moment. Now there really isn't 181 of them because I don't have them the whole school year and I have caught a few in the wash left in pockets... but I got the darling message here.

Good luck to my little men this year... Mom will be rooting for you the whole way through until our next 7 weeker!!

Sick of It

I caught myself saying that phrase too many times that I had to do something about it over the summer. I'm referring to the TV. It annoys me when it's on at length... like fingernails on a chalk board. It's great every once in a while and we all need some down time... plus it is a nice go to, at the proper moments. However... it will not be the first thing that gets turned on when we come home or wake up to here. There is SO much more to do.

This little thing used to house Nutter Butter cookies and is now dressed to be our TV token box. It could have been prettier and I sense a makeover in the near future... but I needed a fix, quick. Each son of mine receives 3 tokens at the start of the day. I can take them away just as easy as I can give them out. Each token represents 30 minutes of TV time. It is genius. The boys choose when they want to use them and just simply place them in the token box. Family movie time is excluded from this and holidays are free days.

They are saving their tokens and not really watching much TV at all because they have found more joy in other things. The shows that are being watched are now thoughtfully decided on. The same episode of "Jessie" isn't being watched 3 times. Instead...

-We have swam outside more
-Made creative snacks
-Dug deep into the toy chests
-Designed games with imagination
-Used craft supplies to make a wrestling belt
-Bike Rides
-Played more with Letty
-Increased our face to face convos

Which all... are more important to me and encompass play that I want my children to balance with.

Texas

A hot and humid place where your always at your skinniest because your water weight is displayed on the outside rather than inside. To add any life to your hair, you must use a thing called a tortoise tail to tease it Texas style big. A place where my original friend Chelly Beans lives... and where we took our family vacation this summer.

It was off to a rough start... but we were much enthused. I didn't know that ahead of me the 15 minutes of snoozing which occurred on my couch before our transportation shuttle arrived was going to be the only sleep of mine in 28 hours. We had a major flight delay and what was supposed to be a fun and quick night flight had turned into a lengthy overnight and morning at the airport. We arrived and this sort of sick fun continued on. These troubles I sewed seamless to the boys so thankfully it was all grand to them. The rental car upgrade was a jolly break in this phase of the trip. Then we were back to that fun as soon as we hit Texas roads... which are terrible. Everything goes in circles and I think I test drove on all of them... a time or two. Now I was cranky... and hungry. I spent most of my energy and sacrificed my body plus any possible rest to ensure that my babies were comfortable enough to get a good night's sleep up to this point.  It was raining and my vision was brightly spotty with a migraine aura in the midst on these lovely roads. It was time to stop and eat something, drink something. As soon as we arrived to Chelly Bean's house my son could tell what I needed. He snuggled me like I did him, for my turn at rest. As soon as I fell asleep he wiggled out of my arms to go play and I woke up hours later. Then... the kind of fun I like began.

We all love thrill seeking rides whether it be gliding down a steep and curvy water slide or falling on chain cranking coasters.

We first set our tootsies on the grounds of Six Flags. Mom has serious theme park stamina and I get as excited if not more so than the boys. We were there from about open to closing time. It was a bit muggy out but the lines weren't too bad. Texas weather is as fickle as Arizona during monsoon season... it could rain at any given or non-given moment. It started to sprinkle and the park cried closed for 30 minutes. During this time half of the crowd left and we decided to play some games. I gave the boys a certain amount of money that they could either play games with or spend in the gift shops. Benny chose games where receiving a prize was absolute and walked away with a superman cape and a stuffed Dalmatian. My Sergeant on the other hand took a chance at a basketball game to try and win a ball of his own. He was crushed when he was out of money, out of chances, and out of a souvenir. Some sweet Texan watched my son's play that left him in a mopey trance, walked up and gave him his ball that he had won. True kindness that touched my spirit and brightened the face of my boy. Benny spotted that the rides were back open so we hauled it to the high demand areas where there was no wait times, not even for front rows!














Front rows are very important to Stink... he would wait at length to get the hot seats. Benny is a little more cautious with the speed, dips and loops on things and properly analyzes his choices. Then mom encourages him to go for it. There was one particular backwards speed roller coaster that Ben-Ben was on the fence about. I sat with him for added comfort and just before taking off he said he wanted out and changed his mind. Both he and I heard the click to secure all riders in their seats and we knew that wasn't happening... he had 2 seconds to cry, and did... then the ride was over and he wanted to do it all again. The boys left the park that day tuckered out with two big Slurpee's in cups they were able to refill the rest of our trip. Every time were out on another Texas mission we stopped for a brief sugar buzz if we spotted a 7/11.

Mom is a planner. I make the most of everything. I like to plan the big things prior to trips because I find it is less hassle and allows me to thoroughly enjoy all the merry moments that much more. It eliminates those annoyances that may "come up" and makes room to handle things that just do. Plus those planned excursions happen to lead into unplanned trip filler... which I enjoy just as much!

I booked a room at what I now call the best family resort that I have been to with my children... Great Wolf Lodge. I reserved a special room. The last time we were visiting Chelly Beans in Texas we spotted a water slide tube coming out of a building and figured out it was some water park treasury exclusive to resort members and determined at that time it would be incredibly amazing and that we would go their our next visit. The boys had a Wolf Den Suite where they nested in bunk beds in their own secluded area located in front of all the snacks they wanted from mom's packed goodies to replenish from serious water park play. It was just amazing. When we weren't playing on slides or with each other in the water we were at the arcade or hunting for clues in our Magiquest. Magiquest came in handy too as a nice alternative to watching mom get ready, pack and unpack. It was a game played with a special wand that when activated and set to target would reveal clues in hidden pictures and objects located throughout the resort on all floors needed to complete each mission. The boys enjoyed that so much we had to return as non-guests to complete all the quests.

We had a memorable time exploring Lake Grapevine before our resort portion of the trip. I rented a boat for our family and the company of Chelsea and her family. Grandma Leslie was so sweet to bring all the treats and cut up fruit for our fun in the sun plus rented a tube to haul all of the kiddos in. I first had to feel comfortable and master driving a boat before I towed any child behind, which I have never done before. It was incredibly easy and so much darn fun. I lost my most favorite hat with a short and omnidirectional gust of wind along this way. We all saw it a while later and even had our kids jump in after it to find out that my hat was a big, lake stained men's hat... that wasn't mine. My forehead scorch was worth it.











It was a perfect day with loving people. The sky was clear with a damp breeze in the air coasting on clean water with my babies. Who had an unforgettable time. Stink liked getting air in the tube rides and I (at his request) loved driving him going super fast for this air. Benny was a calmed rider on the tube desiring a different speed, relaxing and taking every ounce along the way in. When we got off the boat the boys each caught freshwater mussells that we cracked in hopes of finding a shiny pearl inside. No pearls, but what a day.

When we weren't active in mom's planned events we were with wonderful people bowling, skating, Baseball Gaming, BBQing, swimming, laughing and having good talks. Of course squeezed in some movies and then fireworks for the near holiday. We stayed in a small place but a home with a lot of love and everything we need plus each other... so it felt like home. My favorite in all of this was the peaceful blanket I felt over us and the uninterrupted quality time spent with one another.

And thanks to Chelly Beans for having the heart, hospitality and patience the size of her state she lives in. I love you. I love your company, your sillies and our sillies we make together. I will never forget running in the rain with you when we were little. I won't forget running through a splash pad with you as adults. And I will now, never forget you biffing it at the end.

It was yet another amazing Family trip...