happenin's

pdubs had really been wanting to go fishing. so we piled in the car and drove to the lake on an early summer evening. i was a bit hesitant, but i'm really glad we went because we ended up having a wonderful time playing in the water and fishing.

it's a good thing paully had that awesome fishing hat on, because we ended up catching a huge fish!!
i'm pretty sure it ended up in the trash after P finally realized it wasn't going to feed 8 people.

the kids got some fish from camp papagoo (grandparent's house). L insisted her fish was preggo. well one morning we awoke to 22 new baby fishies! So now we had a total of 26 fish.

we are down to 1 as of now. total.

we had a garage sale and this little one had about the cutest lemonade stand ever. she had such a great experience that the next day, the girls wanted to have another one. this time they marked the prices quite a bit higher. $.75 a cup. well they really got some business. i told them the prices were way too high. they said " but people are paying it! why should we lower it?" they made about $20. i then made them come inside and watch the documentary inside job.
i got a groupon for primp and blow. it's a salon that washes, styles and applies makeup. my friend and i headed up there and pampered ourselves. the real find was later that day at last chance. we stumbled upon the cosmetic grab bags, it was better than christmas and halloween i tell ya.
the next day, i played primp and blow with my mommy. it was fun.
we were also watching baby C. he didn't like the sound of the blow dryer. he did like the balls tho.
when i was in chicago with my sibs, we ate at gino's downtown. it was A.MA.Z.I.N.G. i found this little gem at whole foods. it was not as good as the real deal, but still pretty good.
i am pretty excited for my grammie to make me some coco wheats when we get to indy. i saw this package at the duce in downtown phoenix. i never see coco wheats here. only in the midwest baby.
baby boy got some new keens. he really needed them. for all his heavy duty all-terrain hiking that he does.
thank you Y. i love it :)
all the little cherubs are confidently swimming now. with exception of baby R.
he likes his new "playpen".
my friend (M) who is amazing. and her mom, who is equally as amazing, which is prolly where she learned all the amazing skillz, told me about this "store" she used to have while on childhood road trips. so, i stole the idea for our own road trip across the really really long u.s.

i put together this treasure chest.
i made some money. i plan to pay the children as a reward for good behavior and take away money for "undesirable" behavior.
they each start out with $40 (random #). when we stop for various reasons, i will open up the "store" and they can use their money to buy things. the items are marked with prices that the kids will need to save up for. there are also less expensive items in there. they have not seen inside the treasure box, so hopefully the excitement and mystery of it all will have them on their best behavior. hopefully my little children will love this as much as my friend did when she was a wee child. if they have any money left.
here's a sneak peek............................................................

operation drive mom crazy is a go.

we really breezed thru most of june. the kids were in a week long vbs in the morning and then had play practice 3 afternoons a week for 3 hours. it was bliss. now the play is over, it was cute and fun and great.... but that also means rehearsals are over. now they are home all day getting into things, breaking things, fighting.... etc. now, i may be a little pre-menstrual, so i may be making it sound worse than it is, but i need to make some plans quick or i'll blow.

unfortunately we had to leave our local resort because i mistakenly said if you do "whatever it was that time" again, we will pack up and go home. well, guess what. they did it again.

big bummer.

i wanted to sit by the pool and sip margaritas all day. ok, well i probably wouldn't have done that while watching 5 kids by myself swim, but it sounds fun anyway.

so i packed 3 up, 2 got to stay and swim with daddy, and we drove home.

i was thinking to myself what i could do when i got home to decompress. i thought, i'll lock myself in the bathroom and shape my eyebrows, but then i remembered that they locked the bathroom door from the inside and we are locked out for now, it's very hard to get it back open because they also lost all the keys to pick the locks. cute.

well then i thought, i'll just do some editing on my computer. but no. they also got to that. it won't turn on, the keyboard and mouse are not responding. i'll have to put some time into getting it worked out.

so i decided i would get on the computer in the kitchen and browse around. well, guess what... they got into that too. they pushed some setting, that i can not for the life of me figure out how to turn off, that reads aloud every. single. thing. that the mouse scrolls over. it is unbelievably annoying. so i just turned the volume all the way down.

so, then.... i thought to myself, i think i'll log into my blog and just jot these memories down so that i can see the humor in them in the future. well, it took a few extra minutes because my darling husband, for some reason, has a habit of changing my settings on just about everything i do. don't get me wrong, he always helps me out and knows how to fix things and definitely doesn't change them on purpose to drive me crazy (at least i hope so) but alas.... it seems to happen often. so even to log into my own blog, i have to type in the codes that he set.

well, it's been great getting this off my chest. now all i need to feel all the way better is a cupcake, a corona lite with lime and to loose 10-15 lbs. not too much to ask for.

i have to get back to being a slave driver now. laundry, windows, dusting.... this may be fun after all.

post edit:

thought i would just throw in a few more little sweet tidbits:

1. baby R acts like he going to kiss the girls and then bites them really hard on the cheek or whatever he can get a good grip on.

2. he won't relax and fall asleep unless i rock him for a few minutes while he tries to pinch my nipple really hard.

3. we are thinking of driving across the country with all the kids. what is wrong with me?

4. my face is breaking out as i type.

5. on a good note, paul found my favorite blue anthro shirt that has been lost for about a year. things are looking brighter.

L's sacrament weekend...

my sweet little L just made her first communion and confirmation this sunday. it was very special because it was on pentecost. she was so excited for this day to finally come. she had been preparing all year.

she asked our friend Audrey to be her sponsor and by divine intervention, Audrey happened to be flying into town that weekend. it was a pentecost miracle.

the girls were very excited for L, and very hyped up. we had our whole family there to watch her!
a failed attempt for a family photo... D refused to be in the picture, you can see her hiding behind P. S kept running away...then just cried when P picked her up. sweetness.
at least L was agreeing to some photographs. i knew she was feeling very special. she said her favorite part of the whole day was at church.
yes, i see that typo. beautiful. but i'm too lazy to go back into photoshop and change it :)

she was lucky enough to have auntie sarah make her a beautiful cake.
she wore her dress all day. and i mean all day. she came in all sweaty at one point and said her veil had fallen off. i said i would hang it up. she said can i still wear it? will you pin it back in?
we found a dress in the jcrew catalogue that inspired us to make her dress. it had a beautiful big flower on the front, but i just couldn't figure it out. we opted for the simple look. it was really hard to find cotton organdy. but we finally did and it definitely gave it a vintage look and feel.
i had bought her veil for her maybe 1.5 years ago as a dress up toy. i didn't realize that she had never played with it, she was storing it in her closet for this specific day. and for her wedding day she says. she's quite the romantic.


great job L! we are so proud of you. you are a beautiful, sweet, graceful, sensitive and holy little girl!! we love you!!!!

wait, what?

pscrubs and i recently stumbled upon a weekend sans kids. we couldn't believe it. we dream of weekends without kids and all the quick trips we would take, things we would do... get things done without having to load all the kids in the car and drive them around all day. actually be able to finish conversations... yada yada yada. we LOVE being with our kids, but sometimes it would just be nice to spend a few days alone together.

anyway, when it came down to it, here we were with an entire weekend to ourselves and we could not decide what to do. we tossed around several ideas. up until the day before we dropped off the kids, it had been narrowed down to 3 choices. a staycation, las vegas or seattle.

we ended up choosing to have a weekend.............

...........

.........

oooohh...... can you stand it?????......

a staycation.

i know, not that exciting, but we ended up having an awesome weekend. we went to a birthday party that ended up being a blast. we stayed in the hotel that we had our wedding reception in 13 years ago. paul told them that info and they upgraded us to a honeymoon suite... for free :) always a plus. we had a great time at the party and then walked back to our hotel room. we woke up the next morning at..... 11am. we couldn't believe we had slept in that late. we raced down to the restaurant to get breakfast. luckily they still made it for us. i really needed my coffee.

we drove around aimlessly for the rest of the day. running in to stores i always want to go to but never do, went to 2 fun restaurants... the chicago hamburger co. (i had a groupon) and the duce. so fun and retro.

we saw midnight in paris. such a cute movie. i totally recommend it, but again i love anything about paris, so there you have it.

we loved being so carefree and just making plans as we went about our day. we finally decided to go to aj's and make our own dinner at home. it was delicious. shrimp, scallops and veggies. we listened to old paris tunes from the movie :)

the next morning i had to go get my baby. i didn't sleep as well as i had hoped i would. i really didn't like the house being so empty at night. i just kept thinking of their empty beds. no likey. i decided i really like the idea of my kiddos being tucked into their own beds, sleeping soundly and then i can finally relax.

note to self: always get a hotel room for a staycation.

we finally picked up the chilren. got them home and tucked them in.

reunited and it feels so good.

however, i am making plans for the next time the stars align and we have another weekend together. i'm thinking seattle...

a while back....

a few things happened that i want to remember.

this little baby turned 1!

we went on a train ride with some of my favorite friends :)

my beloved white toyota 4runner flipped to this...

my eldest and i went on a pedi-thai date.
pdubs went "hunting".
my sis and i took some amazing pictures at the top of the john hancock building in chicago. we got in trouble for snapping pics of the pics....
this little one lost her other front tooth. and was pretty excited about it.
we discovered "family night" at big bass pro shop. the girls apparently love archery.
my dear friend surprised me with this beautiful birthday cake.
paul is on a mission to make the world's best homemade hamburger.
these girls went to camp all by themselves. L for 3 days to california camp surf and S to cottonwood gulch camp in new mexico. S was gone for 5 nights! and didn't take 1 shower. let's just say we had a "spa" day when she returned and soaked her in the tub for several hours.
poor josefina was attacked by baxter in the backyard. since josefina had already been to the doll hospital, we decided it would be less expensive to just buy another new josefina. since that was not going to happen.... lucky for us 2 new girls joined our family. kit and samantha. thx craigslist :) we had a home surgery on josefina and with a little tlc, she is recovering just fine.

D's gradu"lation"

that's what she called it anyway. she was VERY excited about graduating and "flying up" to first grade. me, not so much. i want her to stay little. i asked her teachers to hold her back, but they would not comply.

here she is working hard on one of her last days in kindergarten. she is a very neat and concise student. she likes to do things right.

a.d.o.r.a.b.l.e.
they all had to go up individually, introduce themselves and say what their favorite work was. they also joined together and sang a song. it was quite the performance.

thirsty after all that singing.
ok. ok. enough pictures mom.

hanging with her friends, opening the gifts from their teachers. she looked a little disappointed when it turned out to be a journal. i think she thought it was going to be a fabulous new barbie or something.

she just shrugged it off and started making lists of goals for this summer.