Dandelion Burst

Our camera has this cool function called burst, where you can hold down the button (I believe "picture taking button" is the official name for it) and it takes picture after picture in quick succession until you release it. When you have adorable yet squirmy children, burst is the way to go, since you can usually get at least one good picture out of the thirty that you took.

Having said that, I have been thinking a little about how life seems to happen in bursts, with little (or big!) bursts of activity nestled into some of the more sedate, more uneventful phases of our lives. And how when those bursts do happen, it is often so hard to capture the real emotion behind them just because of the sheer volume and velocity of bursting that you happen to be contending with at that particular time. It's interesting to think about to say the least, and it makes me wonder if sometimes life is supposed to happen so fast that you can't actually process what you are feeling, because if you tried, you would be so weighted down with the sensation of it all that you wouldn't be able to even put one foot in front of the other. Perhaps it's better sometimes to not have the presence of mind to think about how hard, or complicated, or even terrible things seem at the moment. Maybe sometimes all we need to do is burst through what we can and contemplate it later when our full function is restored. Just a thought.

While you chew on that, here are some beautiful pics of little Lex on a windy day with a dandelion. I couldn't pick just one and you might guess why...

That's right: She kind of makes my heart burst.

Horsing Around

Um, does anyone else see the irony in this comment that I found following an article I just read called Are You Eating Horse Meat?

"The mane problem with the horse meat scandal in Britain and Europe is the fraud involved in mislabeling the product as beef..."

Perhaps converting "main" to "mane" was a bit of a Freudian slip of the keyboard.

Whinny if you agree. Neigh if you don't.

Going Green

Well, we're not trying to save the earth, (though I do remember to actually bring my reusable shopping bags inside the store every now and then!) but after hemming and hawing for several months we finally decided on green paint for our living room. I love it so far.

Now, if we could just decide which shade we like...

This Was Not My Idea

I am all about letting the girls have some "sensory experiences,"  (as we call uncommon messes at our house) but I firmly draw the line at styrofoam. Since Craig is the much funner parent, he went ahead and let the girls dig into some blocks of it that came from a recent furniture purchase, with the agreement (for my sake) that he would clean up the results. The girls loved it, and it bought my sweet husband and I about 20 uninterrupted evening minutes together (quite a rare feat these days). I just stayed out of the room so as to avoid a nervous breakdown. (There is just something about Mommies and uncontained messes that don't mix, I tell you.)

Behold, the results.

They were just getting started here...I wasn't actually hyperventilating yet

No, the mess did not stay inside the box...

...but this is one of the cutest packages ever to come inside the house.

Lex had to come inside from the wintry wonderland for a smackerel of...candy corn?

Wait, we still have some of that?

We just about had to shovel the living room after this blizzard.

True to his word, Craig cleaned it all up, minus

 a few flurries that got loose in the rest of the house.

(Though, he got to vacuum, uninterrupted, for 45 minutes, while I put the kids 

to bed by myself...I'm still deciding who got the raw end of the deal on that one...)

To Multi-Purposing

Well, this wasn't exactly what we had in mind when we bought these chairs, but the girls are really good at finding multiple uses for things that they aren't supposed to be playing with...

Wheeee...Guess Who's Three??

Well, it's happened again. One of my babies has turned from baby to toddler to small child in little more than the blink of my mind's eye. Not sure why it keeps happening that way, though Rapunzel gives me a little clarity when she says, "That's the funny thing about birthdays...they're kind of an annual thing."

 My not-so-tiny little Lex turned 3 at the beginning of the month, and on a daily basis, still amazes me with her cuteness, intelligence, and wit. From asking to be addressed as "your majesty," to stashing things away like a squirrel, to (literally) singing her days away, she continues to be a most precious and wonderful gift to our family. I just can't believe she keeps trying to not be a baby anymore. 

Her birthday celebration was a 3-parter: Peter Piper Pizza for lunch, the children's museum in the evening, and an extended family party the next day...so, prepare for awesomeness.

(you're right...there's more cheese on Vanna than on the pizza...)

Lex selflessly used her tokens to score some candy for her sisters

(she also gave Ernie a fatty tip for letting her ride in his firetruck)

counting the winnings

imagine all the booty!

At the Children's Museum, all 3 girls scored shopping carts, a phenomenon never 

before experienced in years of going there. I think it was a birthday miracle

I got in on the fun, too...grocery shopping is much 

less stressful when it's both fake AND free

A Zen moment in the split peas

2 tired customers at the fake pizza restaurant

(She was once a baby, too, but we'll talk about that later)

taking her fake job very seriously

not so serious

awesome present number 1: her VERY OWN shopping cart

(And yes, it has already made the trip to Fry's with us.)

awesome present number 2: bird in a birdcage. 

Maybe a strange request, but she gets daily miles out of these bad boys.

Awesome present number 3: vegetables that you can cut in half. Oh, baby.

On Saturday, she got to help (i.e. lick) while I made the frosting for her bday cake.

The fabulous beginnings... 

(Daddy is awesome for baking these!)

And the fabulous ending!
(Thanks to awesome Daddy again.)

This says it all

Taste the rainbow, people.

It was a wonderful birthday for a wonderful girl.

Happy Birthday, Princess Lex!

P.S.

(just for the record, about two seconds ago, she looked like this...)

Since I'm Already Cold...

I am not one for the cold. (Which is why Phoenix really is a good place for me, though sweating buckets in the summertime is not necessarily appealing...it's just the price I am willing to pay to not have to live somewhere that's frigid for half the year.) Anyway, since we are getting an actual winter this year (as proven by our astronomical gas bill last month) and I am actually cold for the first time in a long time, I figured some snowy pictures were appropriate. After seeing my breath in the car yesterday and wishing I had an ice scraper for the windshield, it seems fitting.

Since we were in Utah over New Year's, Craig took full advantage of the snow and and took the kids sledding with my brother-in-law, LaVerl. I, on the other hand, remained inside as much as humanly possible.

Drina, Vanna, and Z

Drina, Van, and Z with LaVerl

Lex got an early case of snow blindness

Cute Snow Bunnies

My mother-in-law Linda even joined in on the fun!

Lincoln deciding if he is having any fun

Z and Van

Does this make anyone else want some hot chocolate? I'll go warm up the kettle for us.

New Trick

I should probably be worried...