It's Noon....and I'm still in bed.

Guess where I am right now. You already know I'm in bed from the title of this post so I'll give you that one. But guess where the bed is that I am in........Give up? It's in a Marriot hotel. Downtown. On the 14th floor. Do you know what that means? It means that I woke up this morning when my body told me to, not when I heard a toddler crying for a sippy or cracked my sleep deprived eyes open to see a face six inches away from mine requesting pancakes, to which I always groggily answer, "Go eat some Goldfish Crackers, I'll be down in a little while." I know...Mother. Of. The. Year. Anyway, this morning I woke up around 10:30, ate some donuts, in my bed under the down comforter, then licked my sticky fingers and turned on my iPhone to read my Kindle book without interruption for the next hour or so. Then it occurred to me, this is an experience worth writing about! So here I am shamelessly bragging about being in bed, at noon on a Saturday, without anyone needing anything from me, besides maybe the peanut M&M's in the fridge who clearly need me to devour them...hold on. Ok, I'm back! Frozen chocolate and peanuts will only serve to inspire my writing so let's say, really, I'm eating them for you. If I'm inspired this will be more interesting for you to read so I'm consuming frozen, crunchy bits of heaven in an unselfish effort to entertain my readers (are you out there?) more fully...you're welcome.

So this whole blogging-in-bed-at-noon all started almost 6 years ago when our beloved babysitter Nikki came for the first time. That night started a tradition of her coming to stay with our kids every Friday night while we went out on our weekly date. We started talking way back then about how when she turned 18 she would stay with our kids while we went on a vacation. Fast forward to the past few months. We knew she was leaving. We knew it would be in September so we've been thinking about where we could go so that our kids could have their parentless weekend that they have been eager about for years (Nikki's WAY more fun than us!). Then, about a month ago, Nikki broke the news to us that she has to leave on July 23 for a family reunion and then head straight to college to begin an Anatomy class that she has to fit in and it starts at the beginning of August. She's getting a degree in Nursing and I tried to explain that we are WAY more important than knowing where someone's body parts are, but unfortunately she didn't buy it and we've been grieving ever since. Well as you can see that little announcement put our long awaited "weekend getaway" at the top of our priority list and we decided all we really needed was a comfortable bed in a decent hotel, some good books, good restaurants, and a movie theater and we would have what we really wanted...complete relaxation! Yesterday we packed our bags, kissed the munchkins goodbye and drove away a little bit giddy at our new found extended freedom. We ate, we shopped, we napped, we went to the store at 10:30 at night and filled a cart with an embarrassing amount of junk food that we wouldn't have to share and we ate it in bed while watching a movie. Really, it was like another honeymoon...well, with stretch marks and cellulite that didn't accompany my 19 year old body back on our first honeymoon.

So that brings us to this morning. Blogging in bed. I have no worries about what's going on back at home. Nikki loves my kids as much as I do. Yesterday she took them to a local beach, today she was making them strawberry and whipped cream waffles with who knows what adventures to follow. I love my kids but time apart from each other makes us all that much happier (and saner) to be reunited. Today Matt and I will read, nap, maybe go see a movie, find a really good steak house, break out the Double Stuff Oreos and remember what it was like to just be us...delicious! Tomorrow we go home to most likely lake induced sun-kissed noses, abundant hugs and non-stop jabbering about the adventures had in our absence.

We will also go home to the realization that this was it. This was our last regular Friday night with our beloved Nikki. Sure she'll come back, and I text her all the time, and we've already contemplated a Hawaiian vacation that includes her, seeing as she is part of the family and all...but it won't be the same now. She'll become a nurse, no doubt one of the best, and she'll marry her missionary when he returns and she'll have her own kids and will make THE MOST amazing mom! But we will ALWAYS remember when she was my kids' "other mom", back when they were little, and we'll thank our lucky stars that she was (and hopefully always will be) part of our family!

And now I'm going to go drown my sorrows in another donut, in bed, because calories don't count on vacations!

Playing in PhotoShop...

So I started playing in PhotoShop and made an announcement for Robyn and am posting it here so she can check it out. Let me know what ya'll think so that I know what to do (or not to do) in the future for others!

More Newborn Pics for Robyn...

(Playing with overlays....kinda fun right?)

Newborn Shoot...

I did a newborn shoot for my sister's sister-in-law yesterday and oh the bliss! What a tiny little guy! My babies were never that small (7lbs.) so it's always fun to get to hold a really tiny baby. I know she is excited to see how the pictures turned out so I figured I would put some on here for a sneak peek...

Thanks Robyn for letting me play with your baby and trusting me to capture every square inch of his preciousness!  Hope you like em...

4th of July Weekend...

This past weekend we were busy busy busy! The weekend started on Friday with the last day of school (more on that later). Later that afternoon we went swimming with Matt's sister and her kids. The kids all had so much fun splashing around with each other. Even Emilia enjoyed it which surprised me because she is not a fan of cold water (remember the fountain?) but after getting over the initial shock of it and figuring out that Matt had a secure hold on her she LOVED it!

The kids ran back and forth from the pool to the hot tub for quite a while before we hauled their pruney little bodies back to the cars so that we could meet back at Matt's sister's house for a BBQ and fireworks. We ate way too much, played games, talked and waited for darkness to descend. When it did we lit a fire in the fire pit and watched a fantastic firework display put on by The Hubster, who was assisted by Thomas and his cousin Jordan, after which we roasted 'shmallows to a golden brown and sandwiched them between cookies to make gooey s'mores...YUM! After a while the kids got bored and went in to watch a movie and us adults talked around the fire until Madison informed us, around midnight, that they were tired and ready to go home. Nothin' like your kid calling curfew!

The next morning we slept in and got a slow start to the day. Matt went out to mow the lawn and the next thing I know I go outside and this is what I see...

We've had a problem with water pooling in our yard up top and he decided he had had enough and needed to put in a french drain! It turned into an all day project that expanded to multiple trips to Home Depot and planting flowers in our various front yard gardens. Madison helped plant flowers and it was so fun to watch Matt patiently teach her how to get the plants safely out of the pots and into the ground.

When it was all done the yard looked beautiful with it's newly planted red, white and purple flowers and Matt coordinated well with it...sporting a bright red sunburn!

Sunday was perhaps the longest day of Thomas's life as he was SO excited for our annual 4th of July cul-de-sac BBQ to get underway! He starts asking around December when the 4th of July is and by June he's counting days and then gets down to counting hours. We always get together with our neighbors and everyone brings their own meat and drinks, something to share and we combine our fireworks for a two-hour long show. This year was fun because almost everyone in the circle came. Of course, I was too busy chatting and eating to remember to take pictures but I did get one of Em and Thomas chillin' down in front and one of Madison as she ran with a smoke bomb hissing behind her.

It really was such a fun weekend and I'm a little sad that it is over. Of course, the worst part about the festivities coming to an end is that soon I will have to start answering the question, "When will it be the 4th of July again?" over....and over....and over....again!