Happy Birthday Babyzilla

Hard to believe one year ago little miss Kyler made her debut into this world. Kyler, better known as Babyzilla for her bridezilla like temper, is the third daughter in our house, although the first daughter between both Michael and I. There was a lot of anticipation for Kyler's arrival, but secretly I know majority of people who are not family just wanted to see what she would look like and who she would act like since daughter number 1 is full white and daughter number 2 is full asian. It is safe to say kyler is a full mix! She is built like daddy, but looks like mommy, she has both our tempers, but both our sensitivity as well...she is addicted to all things food and rubs your arm so sweetly when she snuggles just like Kaylee, but she has a drive to do things on her own and the desire to talk about all things just like Kayden. Kyler has brought so much joy to our lives...she is just as much Kaylee's sister as she is Kayden's and just as much Michael's daughter as she is mine. She has brought our blended family together in a way no own else, nor all the time in the world would be able to. Don't bother calling anyone in our home "step" or "half" because our family does not know the meaning of those words and Kyler has shown us that we truly are all connected. WE LOVE YOU BABYZILLA!!!!

To celebrate Kyler's birthday we started a full week in advance singing Happy Birthday to her everyday and teaching her that when someone asks how old she is, she holds up one finger and says "one". Kyler really took to the happy birthday song and loves, loves, loves to sing it...she can sing along with the "happa brba" part and eats up the attention. We also started the week of by getting ready for her shin dig that took place this last Saturday.

Here is the weekend in pictures:

{Some of the decor for the party}

{some of the party guests}

{the cake}

{singing happy birthday}

the 'why the heck am I in my highchair outside on the driveway' look

the 'what is that thing' look

the 'daddy is this for me?' look

the 'oh my gosh it's the Happy Birthday song and all these people are singing to me' grin that lasted the rest of the song

the first dive in

yum, this is good

ok, for real, this is really good

and now I am done

{the end of the party}

This is the note I found on the master bedroom door as I was going to bed. No, I did not tell Kayden to write this, but I thought it was hilarious so I had to take a picture.

{the actual birthday morning}

{birthday lunch with mom and dad}

{opening presents with the fam and nana and papa}

{and more of this cake business}

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY MY SWEET and FEISTY BABYZILLA

Project 3 - Front Room

The room I hated the most is no more. Since I am so tired (we are running on about 3 hours a sleep for 3 nights straight) I think Ill let the pictures speak for themselves right now. It's funny though cause a few of our neighbors have seen the change and they liked the old room better...to each his own I guess.

{before--eek}

{after--ahh}

It didn't take much for the transformation. We started by painting the walls Reflecting Blue by bher (this is a note to self), painted the computer table that had black legs and a goldish top to white legs with a silverish top (we kept the chairs black), took down the blinds and put up some natural colored bamboo, hung drapes, new lights for the computer desk, 3 shelves from Ikea (everything on the shelves was tucked away somewhere in my house), we brought over the foyer table to use as the TV stand and flipped the fan blades over to the lighter shade. We would still like to get a rug, a different TV statnd and some big white fluffy pillows for the couch, but for now we are extrememly happy with the change. It is so very relaxing to be in this room I am typing in at this very minute and rambling cause I am about to fall asleep....goodnight.

Happy Faja's Day

I would like to take this opportunity to extend a big shout out to the father of our house and talk a little about why we love this feller we call daddy:

-He has some killer dance moves that make all the girls go crazy and want a turn to dance with daddy

-He pretty much does anything his wife asks him to do...a very good honeydooer, if you will

-He gets teary-eyed watching his kids at times

-He has been known to let out a girly scream a time or two

-He is my personal calculator (the girls will like this one when they are older)

-He makes a mean steak

-He is firm, but in a good way. Has taught the girls things that mom was just too soft to do (Yea for sleeping in your own bed)

-He can put Kyler to sleep faster then anyone

-He likes to watch chick-flicks

-His favorite place to be is anywhere with his family

-He spent father's day helping mom, rather then doing something for himself

I could really go on and on about all the wonderful things Michael does for our family. When I say he is the best helper, I mean, BEST HELPER. He will do anything I ask and I am one bossy lady so these requests are often (let me give you a taste of what Michael has to put up with daily: make a bottle, the girls need milk, can you pick ____ up from the store, can you change Kyler's bum, put the clothes in the dryer, I need help with ___ ____ and ___ project, can you bring me _____ , and so on. This does not include all the things he does normally either such as: making dinner, mowing the yard, watering the grass, picking the older girls up from school, feeding Kyler in the morning, making sure I am not hungry at night, taking out the trash). We love him so much and even though he can be a tough daddy, the girls feel safe with him home and love when he is around. He loves his girls and wants nothing more for them then to be strong women...the perfect guy to live in a house of girls.

HAPPY FAJA'S DAY!

Man Alive It's HOT (and project 2)

Alright, I realize it is summer time, and obvioulsy summer is hot and even more obvious is the fact that Houston is hot, but seriously my friends this summer is a killer. This could be blammed on the fact that I am six months pregnant; however, rest assured this is not the case. I am willing to bet big bucks that the rest of Houston and surranding areas will agree that we are having some serious heat, pregnant or not. I took my girls swimming last weekend and getting OUT of the pool was a relief, no joke. The water was so hot that getting out of the pool actually felt kind of nice for a moment.

Anyway, it made for a fun evening of playing in the sprinklers.

Since we were outside it also seemed like a nice time to snap a picture of project 2. This may look like any old garage to you, but to me, it is a work of art. A huge thanks to Michael for spending all day saturday putting this baby in place...and a really big thank you to Miss Linda, our 60+ year old next door neighbor, who I know kept checking on him to make sure he was still alive from all the heat (and she was sure to tell me how hard he worked when I got home). Thanks luvust!

(the boxes shown are just trash that will be sent away with the garbage man)

Project One..check

Since we decided to stay in our house and not move I have come up with a serious list of projects. The first project was to officially move Kayden and Kaylee into the same room (since they sleep together every night and pretty much occupy one room anyway). But, more then just moving there stuff around I wanted to make it a place. Not just a room, but a place to call theirs and feel all sorts of girly there.

When we moved into the house 2 years ago we immediatly painted the girls rooms, put up drapes and bought some furniture...that was all fine and dandy for newly move ins, but not acceptable two years later. Here is the transformation:

The room was already lavender and had the drapes, lamp, furniture and bedding. I got a little carried away and forgot to take a picture in it's original condition...I already was in the middle of moving stuff around, but these pictures give the perfect idea of the walls; the pretty, purple, naked walls.








after...


First thing I did was flip the bed around...the headboard used to be against the wall on the left. Then I added there names along the side, painted pale yellow by dad, and some fun mirrors for dance parties!



Next was a simple addition of two vases with yellow flowers on the dresser

(need something round above dresser between vases)

Then we hung up some cute, random, individual shots of the girls. The top row is Kayden and the bottom Kaylee. We also added the fun green rug on the floor and the buckets of, well, junk.

(need to make hook rack to hang below pictures)

Last was the addition of the magazine/book rack and some pictures of there art work. This spot is not quite done as we are short one frame and want to get some over sized pillows for the corner and find another home for the lovely boom box that plays there "soft music" when they go to bed.

(need to make pillows for reading corner)

I wish I had a better camera and took the pictures in the day cause the colors are not quite the same as in person...everything is a little softer in the real world. Perhaps I should just retake some pictures in the day, but these will do for now .

Moving on to project 2...I love em, Michael is learning to like them

The greatest day in the world!!!

June 5, 1982

Earth became all around better on this most blessed day as it is the day of my birth :)...Alright, I am kidding, sort of, no no no I am, but I do love my birthday and you can blame my mother for that. Is it my fault she made our birthday's so fabulous growing up and I still want that sort of treatment now???? I think not.

The day was low key, but so fabulous...

It started off with a surprise of 3 dozen tulips, which are now sadly dying and I did not get a picture of them before this:

UPDATE: michael likes to read my blog after I post and he noted a slight correction...there were 60 tulips :) I really should give credit where credit is due.

Then I went to work (no picture necessary)

After work we were off to my mom's house for a serisouly fantastic meal and the best carrot cake in the entire world...I kid you not it is worth gold and I know a few fan-loving friends who will vouch for this statement

Some good old fashion present opening

And home to work on this...

(see post above)

Swim Lessons

The girls just finished up there first swim lessons and whew...it went so much better then soccer! They both loved it...smiles at the first AND last practice, I think we found ourselves a hit.







**UPDATE (06/08/09): Swim lessons apparently paid off because over the weekend Kayden went to my mom's neighborhood pool and went off the diving bored and down the slide...you can't do those things unless you can swim to the side of the pool by yourself without any flotation devices. Needless to say I am super impressed! I have not had the chance to take Kaylee swimming yet cause she was out of town with her mom for the weekend, but she is 3 (almost 4, but non-the-less 3) and the fact that she will jump in the water, put her head in and blow bubbles, and swim on her own with a life jacket is quite impressive in it's own right. Way to go girlies!

The First of Many (hopefully)

Looking back on my childhood I would have to say some of my most favorite memories were the mini-family vacations. You know the ones....the kind where you hop in the car for a weekend trip to somewhere different, seeing the sites and hating the car ride. Since officially becoming a family in late 2007 we have really slacked on the mini-vacation department and this is largely impart to my bad attitude. You see I grew up in Salt Lake and miss the scenery, that is Utah (and surrounding areas), terribly. I mean come on, you really can't beat weekend trips to Las Vegas, Jackson Hole, Zion's, Bryce, Yellowstone, Vernal, St. George, etc, and taking a weekend trip to Dallas (driving equivalent to some of these places) is not exactly my idea of a fun mini-vacation (I probably should not mention that I moved to Houston when I was 10 and still don't feel like I grew up here, nor do I know the area as well as I do Utah...again, my bad attitude). Well, for my children's sake I decided to take one for the team and cheer up about the environment that surrounds me daily (even though it is ugly...whoops, there is that bad attitude again).

Ok, so where to??? Well, in middle school I had a friend whose family always went to Fredricksburg, TX. No clue why I remember that as I have not talked to this friend since the 8th grade, but it stuck in my head so I googled away to see what this city was about. It looked mini-vacationesque; a small, German Town, slightly southwest of Austin in the Hill Country. I like hills, I mean, I really like mountains, but hills will do...SOLD.

and off we went

I would personally like to thank the creators of personal electronics...we are not really an electronic family, but anything goes in the car that makes kids happy as far as I am concerned

Rockbox Theater...and I can't stop talking about the "funtabulous" time we had

Exotic Resort Zoo...the place we met our friend Omar and learned that "buffalo have really long tongue" (thank you Kaylee for this daily (sometimes twice) reminder.

i realized after posting that all these pictures are of me...I don't suppose that could be because we have some chickens in the family??? I'm just sayin...

Pool...I LOVE to swim and I am happy that my children have taken on my love of the pool.

Bottom line = AWESOME FAMILY FIRST MINI-VACATION. Seriously, we had a great time seeing the main attractions as well as walking around, hitting up the candy store, going to the over-priced festival and riding the over-priced rides, and roasting marshmallows for stale smores courtesy of the hotel and outdoor fireplace.

Thanks fam...time for round two!

Fredricksburg, TX - May 22-24, 2009