SeeHere Photo Sharing

SeeHere Photo Sharing

Camp

So Marissa left today for her first overnight camping experience!!! She decided this year for the first time to go to sleep away camp. In past years when Alexis has gone she wanted nothing to do with it. She hardly ever sleeps away from home.

Last year she went about 45 minutes from here to stay with a friend from school that had moved out of the district and at about 2am I got a call that she was scared and wanted to come home...so I drug myself out of bed and Ed and I drove up to get her... by the time I got to her friend's house she was dead asleep on the couch!! Could have killed her!

The camp is about an hour from here so I'm hoping she makes it through and stays until Friday as planned! Crossing my fingers!

I told her a million times that once I signed her up and paid for her spot that she would have to go and stay there the whole 5 days. When we were having these discussions a few months ago she was completely fine with it, but as the day got closer and closer she seemed a little hesitant. There were only a few tears when I left her today so I'm hopeful!

We miss her already!

I took my camera today hoping to get some pictures before we left her there, but as we were pulling up tpt he camp I went to set up my camera and realized that the memory card was still at home in the computer! :( (Ed's fault) LOL So needless to say the piture avove is an old one!

Marissa's Tournament

By the time we got a new camera tournament was just about over so these are all of the pictures I got this year :(

It wasn't our best season anyway. Alexis was not drafted this year and Marissa's team lost every single game.

They all played their hardest, but we came in last place which was kind of surprising to me because last year we only got beat once and in the end we finished in second place. Guess that's just how it goes!

Marissa was catcher this whole season and absolutely loves the spot. Guess she is following in Alexis' foot steps!

The highlight of the season for Marissa was during our first tournament game. A girl from the other team was coming in to home when Marissa noticed that the girls foot never touched home. So she turned to the umpire and told him. According to tournament rules the umpire is not allow to assist in telling her what to do so all he said was "what are you going to do about it?" Marissa remembered from one of Alexis' games a few years ago that you could "challenge the play" She told the pitcher to toss her the ball then she tagged home plate and the girl was out, no run scored!

Marissa was so proud of her self and so was her coach. I think she has learned alot over the past few years watching the older girls play! Good for her!

Hope we do better next year!

Finally

We finally got a new camera!!!! Just wanted to throw a few pictures up of Jillian since she is 16 months and I have not been able to take any for so long. I missed all of her being 15 moths!

I can't believe how old she looks in this one just hanging out watchin a little coos coos as she calls it ( blue's clue's) and in these pictures she looks like a total redhead. Sometimes in a brighter place it looks blonde. Hard to tell since she still doesn't have very much!

Looks super red here to.....hmmm maybe she is a red head! I called that as soon as I found out I was pregnant.. both Ed and I have red heads in our family..neither of us have red hair so I figured she would. I always heard it skips a generation.

She is finally starting to talk... some of her words are cacka (cracker with no "r" sound), alessis (alexis), wissa (marissa), up, and sometimes you can get her to say peas (please). and of course coos coos for her favorite show at the moment!

We are also trying to take the bottle away right now which hasn't been going very smooth. the first morning that I tried to put her milk in to her cup, she threw it at me and screamed! So we are only giving her the bottle once a day first thing int he morning. None at daycare and none before bed anymore. That morning one is going to be tough. I think ti would be like someone telling me I couldn't have coffee in the morning anymore... so I feel her pain! LOL

She's Going

So after a few weeks of back and forth on trying to decide IF I would be able to let Alexis stay with my Aunt for the month of August and fly back here on her own...we have come to a decision!

She will be going, but I changed her ticket to a flight where there is a stop but no change of planes. When I call the airline customer service to change her flight I started talking to the rep asking if they had a lot of unaccompanied minors that fly. She said a ton and was surprised that I was this worried about a 12 year old doing it. Kids only have to be 5.. yes 5 to fly alone!! WHAT?!?? Are you kidding me? I could NEVER do it.. i would be a nervous wreck the whole time putting a 5 yr old on a plane alone!

So needless to say Alexis is thrilled!! And shocked i think that I finally said yes. Let's say a little prayer that all goes well and I don't have a heart attack when she flies back here ALONE next month!

Parenting Dilemma

So Alexis has been invited to stay with my Aunt in August ( we will all be flying in for a week and then going home). Alexis has been invited to stay for an extra 3 weeks and then fly home a few days before school starts. She would be staying to help take care of her cousin for a few weeks ( she is 5 and Alexis is 12).
Alexis and I have talked about this for the past few weeks and I really am leaning towards not letting her stay and just fly home with us as originally planned, but she is not letting up.

My reasons for not wanting her to stay are because I'm scared to death to let her fly back on her own. My aunt lives about 3,000 miles from here and there is a change of planes during the trip. I know Alexis is responsible enough to get from one plane to the next, but everytime I start to consider letting this happen I get physically ill in my stomach. All I can think about is 911 and the "what if's". i know me being on the plane with her would not stop any of this stuff from happening, but at least she would have someone with her IF it did. I know the chances are very slim of anything like this happening, but I'm terrified!!!!

Alexis was calmly asking me today if there was anything she could do to change my mind so after some talking we agreed to blog about it and see what other people think.. parents or not. So please comment and let me know what you would do if it were your kid ( even if you don;t have one yet).

This doesn't mean that I'm going to go with the most popular vote but I think ti will be interesting to see how many people think like me and how many think I'm way to over protective

BTW I have already called the air line and kids 12 and older are allowed to fly with a change of planes, but there is no escort to and from the gates! SCARRY!!!!!

... Alexis would like everyone to know that she is highly responsible and that the war is totally under control and that Barack Obama is ending this thing as we speak so NOTHING is going to happen! (her words)

Our Anniversary (3 Years)

Wednesday was our 3rd wedding anniversary. We have a million pictures that one of Ed's friend's took loaded on to our computer so I decided to post some of them.
All of the professional ones are stuck in my wedding album and I'm not sure how I would go about scanning them! Maybe next year.




In some ways the last 3 years have totally flown by, but in other ways it seems like Ed and I have been together for a lifetime!

I still feel like I was so lucky to find him! I truly believe that he is the one person in this whole world that completely understands me, all of my moods, my ups , my downs and my in betweens!






I always tell him that I love our boring little life together. I don't mean that we are not busy or that we don't have fun together, I just mean that it is so nice not to have a ton of drama or issues in our marriage. That's something I have had a lot of and am glad that it has been left in my past!

I'm so happy to have gotten a second chance and got to see what it was like to be 100% in love with someone and have them feel the same exact way back!

I have yet to find something that Ed will not do for me or a time when he has not taken my side.

Since I STILL don't have a functioning camera ( did I mention that not only did my camera break, now my old one isn't working right either) I wasn't able to get any of us this year on our anniversary date night!

The biggest disagreement we had in all of the planning was over what our wedding song would be. I love country and he is obsessed with 80's rock bands! We ended up picking you had me from hello, but I so so badly wanted it to be bless the broken road by Rascal Flatts. Everything about that song reminds me of our dating days! Oh well, since he would not agree to use it I had my cousin sing it during our reception.

The entire day went perfect.

This picture cracks me up because leading up to the wedding I told Ed that he had better not shove cake in my face after I spent hours getting ready. Then he made me promise I wouldn't do it to him... HA HA HA.... I guess back then he didn't know any better! I was shoving such a huge amount in that it looks like his lower jaw is practically unhinged from his face!

Some of Ed's buddies trashing our car. You would not believe the stuff that was written on our windows.. I'll keep those pictures to myself. This is a family blog!

14 months

First let me just say that all of these pictures were taken by my friend Michelle. I just totally stole them off of her site. As soon as I get back the ones I buy I will post them to!
www.michelleevansphotography.blogspot.com
www.michelleevansphotography.com

Jillian at this age looks EXACTLY like Ed. We can not go anywhere without at least one person saying... OMG she looks just like you! WHATEVER! I guess I just don't have any dominant genes because none of my kids look like me. Poor Marissa has been asked several times if she was adopted!

Hopefully she doesn't kill me!





Jillian turned 14 months yesterday and these pictures were taken last weekend. I love every single one of them and am so thankful to know someone as talented as Michelle.

I'm in love with her smile in this picture. Jillian is pretty shy compared to the other two at this age. She's kind of quiet (like ed) and takes a while to loosen up!

Jillian, I want you to stay small forever. Right now I worry that since you are so far behind in age from Alexis and Marissa that you won't have any one to grow up with. For this reason only your dad and I are seriously considering having a 4th child (gulp!) If that never happens I have begged Alexis and Marissa to make sure that they are always always close with you! Your laugh lights up my day and your dancing cracks me up every time I see your little feet stomp around!

NY Trip - Shrek

Two weekend's ago we finally made it to NY to see Shrek the musical for Alexis 12th birthday. We decided rather than have a party we would head up to NY for the day. Her birthday was back in March but we wanted to go when the weather was a little warmer.



Since my mom bailed out on us last minute, Alexis got to bring a friend of her choice. I was so so so glad when she chose to bring Amy along! Love this girl!

We took a bus trip up with Grandma Smith, one of her fiends and Ed's cousin Janice. I didn't get a ton of pictures because unfortunately our camera is STILL broken and I hate the old one.

The girls were thrilled about this sign and joked that Alexis's friend Amy owned it. They just had to run in and buy something!

We got there at about 9am so we had a ton of time before the show started at 2. Luckily about 2 blocks from where we got dropped off there was a huge huge food festival. Tons of food and little craft tables set up. The girls wanted to head to Times Square, but we spent so much time at the food festival that we didn't get time.

When we bought the tickets for Shrek I really didn't think I was going to like it all that much, but to my surprise it was hilarious! We were all cracking up at the guy who played the donkey! To to funny!

After the show we went for dinner at a place called the Stardust dinner. It's a little place where all of the servers dress in 50's clothing and sing. Our waiter was telling us that everyone that works there is trying to make it broad way and just doing this until they get their big break! It was cute, but my old crappy camera would not get any shots in the restaurant..they were all way to dark.

We had such a fun day!

Mother's Day

I know I'm really late getting this posted but hey I have been busy! Mother's day this year was so awesome. I got to sleep in til noon, watch whatever I wanted to on t.v all day while enjoying my very favorite... Starbucks Mocha! All three of the girls made me "home made" gifts ( the best kind). Alexis wrote me an awesome poem that read..

Stacie

Mother of Alexis, Marissa and Jillian

Loving, Helpful, encouraging and ecstatic

Says, "I'm not your maid", likes coming to our games, and facebook

Loves her family, spending time with us and Max

Smith

I loved this idea... and the card just about made me cry. Not sure why but I guess just because she took the time to actually think about what I like!

Marissa made me two cards and a drawing of she and I together.

Jillian's school sent home a little heart with her tiny little hand prints on it ( got to love that!)

And then Ed, gave me a gift certificate for a massage and manicure to a day spa right near our house. I can not wait to use that! We finished it all off with a huge family style dinner at Maggiano's with Grandma Smith. Almost forgot I also got a gift card from Grandma Smith to Starbuck's!!

I could not have dreamed up a better day if I tried!

Alexis and the Art Show

Last month Alexis had two pieces of her artwork selected for her school districts art show that was held in our local library. I was completely surprises since I have zero artistic ability.

These were the last few pictures I took before my camera decided to break!











This picture of the lady bugs is my absolute favorite. It was inspired by the room decor in Jillian's room. Jillian's room is themed with lady bugs and flowers. I plan on framing this one to hang in Jillian's room.

Alexis was getting so embarrassed because I kept making her pose in front of her work.... but she did it anyway!

In Case You Were Wondering!

Yes I know it has been weeks since my last post. My freakin camera is broken. I took it a few weeks ago to an art show at the library that Alexis had a few pieces of art work in and when I got home and went to turn it on to show Ed her work... the dumb thing would not even open. It kept coming up "lens error" UUGGHHH! SO annoying. I think I have an old camera around here somewhere, but I just need to find it or better yet.. get Ed to look for it since he is the one that probably put it away somewhere!

Anyway.. lots has been happening and I'm missing it all! LOL Tons of softball games. Jillian turned 13 months. Ed and I had a date night to see....
Dane Cook! That was awesome.. loved it!

Anyway hopefully I will get the camera fixed, find the old one or buy a new one in the near future. In the meantime you will just have to read my boring words with no pictures or just ignore my posts until the pictures are back!

Easter

The night before Easter we put Jillian to bed and then the older girls dyed Easter eggs. I figured she was to little this year, but hopefully next year she will be ready for it. This was her right before she went to bed.. all smiles as usual! Her face in this picture absolutely cracks me up! She reminds me of a little mouse! ( well really a rat with her nose all scrunched up and her two big front teeth showing!)

Alexis and Marissa are so artistic! LOL

Easter morning all of the kids came downstairs and hunted for their baskets then Alexis and Marissa got ready to go to church with Grandma Smith. They were both so excited about helping her usher this week and about having the Easter egg hunt at the church.

Alexis looks so much older to me in this picture!

Later in the afternoon we headed over to Ed's cousins house for Easter dinner and yet another hunt.

Jillian had fun playing with all of the eggs before they were hidden....

and then later she discovered that they had candy in them!

Alexis, Marissa and Ed's cousin Rachel counting up all of their eggs!

All of the "kids" after the big hunt. I put kids in quotations because Lauren really isn't a kid.. she will be going off to college this fall!

It was a fun day, we walked over to a little park that is near their house and let the kids play for a while. Then later we had a contest.. everyone had to decorate a hat and bring it to be judged. We left before the judging was finished, but everyone was really creative!

I still need to put Jillian's first Easter Bunny picture up, but I will have to scan it first because at our mall.. taking your own pictures with the bunny is highly discouraged!!!

Max is 4

On Friday Max turned 4! The first two pictures are from a few weeks after we got him 4 years ago. He was such a little ball of fluff back then. My moms two dogs had a few litters and after the passing up a puppy the first time around I just had to have one.

At the time Ed and I did not live together but were engaged. I lived in an apartment that didn't allow dogs so I had to beg and plead with Ed for weeks to get Max and then for Ed to keep Max at his place for the next 3 months until we were planning on moving in together. And let me tell you.. it really took some pleading. Ed wanted no part of a little dog messing all over his bachelor pad!!! Finally he gave in and I went to my moms house to try to decide which of the 4 puppies I wanted to take home. As soon as I sat down on the floor next tot he puppies Max immediately ran over to me and I knew he was the one for me!


I have NEVER in my life loved an animal as much as Max! He was great for the girls and even though Ed completely hated him in the beginning, they are the best of friends now! I often remind Ed that HE didn't want a dog! LOL

I know I'm a little bias but isn;t he just the cutest thing you have ever seen?!!?!

We celebrated his birthday with a doggie peanut butter cookie and a meat stick.. He loved it. As you can see he was very excited for Marissa to give him a piece of the cookie!

I know the cookie was a New Years theme, but the birthday one was HUGE and way to much for such a little dog to eat!

Now if I could just get Max to love Jillian as much as he does the rest of the family we would be set. He is not a fan of her. Any suggestions on getting him to like her are welcomed!!

Nancy's Wedding and Baltimore

Last Saturday Ed and I headed down to Maryland for my friend Nancy's wedding. Nancy is a friend of mine that I met in tech school for the Air Force. As I was talking with some of the people at the wedding most of which I have not seen in atleast 10 years it dawned on me that I have known Nancy for almost 14 years... it seems like yesterday that she lived just down the hall from me. CRAZY how time goes by. Anyway last weekend she and her fiance Keith were married.






She looked absolutely beautiful! It was a perfect day for a wedding. The reception was outside on a balcony over looking the water.











Tori was so happy the whole time. It was great. I thought back to my wedding when Ed and I got married and Marissa (who then was about the same age as Tori) cried her eyes out for about 15 minutes becasusefor some reason in her little head she thought that once I married Ed that meant that I would be leaving to be with him and she would not be a part of that. As soona as she caught up with me out side of the church and was reassured that we were all staying together.. it was smiles all night LOL


I think Tori looks like a mini Nancy!










Here is the happy couple just after being pronounced man and wife!





Rick also announced this weekend that he is engaged. We still have not met Sarah, seems like every time we get together she unfortunately has plans. Last weekend she was in Nebraska, her hometown visiting for a long Easter break :(

While Nancy and Keith were having their first dance as a new couple I thought it was so sweet that Tori came right up and joined in!

Since we were so close to the Inner Harbor we decided to meet back up with Rick for lunch at Ed's very favorite place ESPN Zone.. he can not get enough of their nachos and the only other one that is even semi close to us is in NY.

We had a nice little mini-vacation without the kids. Thanks goodness for grandma's!