Today was my Sugar Booger's 4th birthday!  I took the day off and took her, Danslen, and Mawmaw to the zoo.  It was great fun and we stayed ALL DAY LONG so I'm whooped!  Happy Birthday Sugar Booger.  (I hereby announce I have the cutest kids ever....just look at them!  I can't quit staring at LD she is so cute!!)  ;-)

Family Party. 

This year I separated the family from the friends.  The parties are always so hectic I feel like the family doesn't get to have personal time with her and I feel rude because I haven't gotten to socialize with the friends.  This was so much better!

I love my family and it's always a real hoot when me, my sister, and my brother get together.  When the "grown ups" go home, the good times roll!  I wish we all lived next door to each other.  JUST KIDDING.  I mean, we DO want to continue liking each other.  ;-)

I love this next picture of Daniley.  See that man in the red just to her right (your left!)?  That would be my Dad, aka Pawpaw.  She looks just like him!  This picture really shows it!

Daniley got some cash for her birthday this year (first time).  She opened the envelope and exclaimed, "MONEY!!"  haha.  I will get that deposited or converted into stock ASAP.

So Ms. Judy, Daniley's adopted grandmother, gave her this Cinderella dress.  We had to pause the party so she could put it on.  She LOVES playing dress up.  She's not particularly the "princess type" but she still loves dressing up. 

 

We had a wonderful time with our family today!  This is what life is all about!!  Thank you all for coming and thank you for the wonderful gifts!!  She loves them all!!!!!

Saturday was Daniley's swimming party at Crissy's and we had a lot of fun!  Thank you so much to those that came.  We also thank you for the birthday presents.  She loved it ALL!  By Sunday morning, half of her consumables were gone.  She stayed up til almost midnight wearing it out!

Turning 4!

Turning 4 is a lot of fun.  We've been partying since Friday.  Friday afternoon we had cupcakes at Daniley's school.  I stayed and played with the kids for a while and it was a lot of fun.  The BEST part about this day, and just about in my life so far, is when Daniley gave a lecture to her class about what a great and wonderful Mom she had, who had been at home all day baking her favorite cupcakes with her favorite sprinkles (which I bought, not baked, haha) and how this was just the best day of her "whole entire life!"  She really lays it on thick.  And it worked.  I sure do love that kid!

Have you ever gone into a restaurant and been invited to sit with someone you didn't really know?  This only has happened to me once before (which I declined) but this Friday night I felt adventurous so Daniley and I had dinner with Ms. Irene, who happens to be the meal director/cook at BeKare.  I can only say, I was REALLY impressed with what she does at BeKare.  Of course I love BeKare anyway, she just put the cherry on top!  We had a fun evening and made new friends!  (Ms. Irene offered Daniley a crouton.  She asked her if she knew what that was.  Daniley simply replied, "Yes, Rocks."  LOL) 

Danslen + Daniley = The Destroyers

Danslen + Bentley = The Pet Coons

They're into everything!!

But just look how cute they are!!!  Danslen would get her a bite, then give Bentley a bite. 



A couple weeks ago I was busy as a bee, and walked into the living room and Lil' Darlin' had opened her up a drawer in the coffee table and climbed in for a rest.  LOL.  She is so hilarious.  She loves the climb and she loves playing with the rocks that live in this drawer.  She's a little stinker.  I should rename her.  She's learned the words "no" and "mine" and I think she's going to be a little more rebellious than Daniley.  But she's still sweet and I love her to death!



MAKING KRAUT!

We made kraut last weekend and I got to looking for Lil' Darlin'.  It had been quiet for way too long.  Mawmaw and I were on one side of the bar and when we got to looking, we found her just right under our noses, on the other side of the bar, PULLING THE KRAUT OUT OF THE CHURN and putting it on the floor.  Now that was funny.  But what was REALLY funny was watching my grandmother lose total control of herself laughing!  Those are fun times.  :-)  (AND CAN'T WAIT TO EAT THE KRAUT!)



I have so much to be thankful for!!

This picture totally made me laugh out loud.  :-D

Funny conversations involving Daniley never cease to amaze me.  Here is one that got a little extra laugh.
Mom:  "Daniley, I got that stain out of your shirt."
Daniley:  With excitement, "DID YOU USE OXY-CLEAN STAIN FIGHTER?"
Mom:  Rolling on the floor laughing. 

So we got out the slide again.  We used this when Daniley was little.  We inherited from my Uncle Michael.  It is at least 30 years old.  Daniley played on it like she had never seen it before (although she clearly remembered it because when I mentioned "the slide" she asked her Daddy to go get the "slide with the green sides and squares and circles on the sides."  That was way more than I remembered.  LOL.  Anyway, Lil' Darlin' climbed right up that thing and she loved it.  Here she is on her first trip down.  Then after bath time they went right back to playing.  Fun times!  Love my kids TO DEATH.  It was such a lovely weekend!!

One of the beauties of having girls is all the fun things we do in the kitchen together.  Daniley loves to help me cook.  I can promise you she doesn't get that from me, but I suspect from my grandmother Nina, also known as MawMaw.  Rolling out homemade biscuits is part of our Sunday morning ritual, but here she is trying to help me with dinner.  I hope she washed those potatoes good, because I did not go behind her.  :-)

Thursday night, Lil' Darlin' stayed up waaaay late, like 10:30.  She was just in the bed restless, climbing on us, pulling pranks, and laughing.  She FINALLY got to sleep....and my reward came the next morning.  She slept until 10:15am!!  (VERY unusual.  We're all early birds.)  That was great, because I had all the upstairs computer work completed by the time of her awakening.  We had a BIG day planned so I had been awaiting her.  I thought, how can I quickly give her a bath?  MOST efficiently?  Well since this is something we do every day, you'd think I would have asked myself this question before.  But I hadn't.  (Shows how we can be more innovative if we stop and THINK.)  Here's what I came up with.

Yes yes, it was fast and easy, and she liked it, and so did I.  I didn't have to get on my knees (one of which still isn't comfortable  to sit on due to surgery back in March).  Anyway, after this we were on our way out to town.  I had a to-do list a mile long, so we were out running errands for....NINE HOURS.  Yes, me and a 1 year old out for NINE HOURS.  I don't ever remember being so tired and exhausted.  I had to take Tylenol when I got home.  Here's one reason I needed Tylenol:  I was carrying her while she was asleep in Costco, and I had to pick up a 40 lb. bag of dogfood and put it in the buggy while keeping her comfortably balanced on my shoulder.  I'm not talking about putting the dog food on the bottom of the buggy either.  (no room there!)  I had to lift is all the way in.  It's amazing what you can do when you have to.  Got everything on the list completed though, happy and proud to say!! 

Click the pictures to enlarge.  This one cracked me right up because apparently, Daniley is trying to suffocate Dan.  LOL.

And when I saw this picture, the look on Dan's face just cracked me right up!  She is giving him a pillow so he'll be comfortable....right before she body-slams herself right onto his midsection.  LOL more.

This weekend we went to a swimming party hosted by Lisa and Chris and their sweet daughters.  It was VERY fun and I'd love to have a pool in my backyard so I could have my own swim parties.  Here are some pictures!  Thank you for inviting us ya'll.  We had a really fun time!!

Saturday was swimming with Cwissy and Shane.  WHY did we not take a group photo???!!!???  We had SUCH a wonderful time.  Thank you so much for inviting us over.  We can't wait to come back.  So hurry up and invite us again.  :-P

Daniley never meets a stranger.  By the time she left 3 entire families knew her life history!

This past Saturday was Liberty Day.  It was H.O.T. but also very fun.  I found some patriotic fabric at a yard sale a while back (several yards, different patterns, all for $2!!) so Mom took it and had Daniley and herself a clown suit made.  Well Daniley's clown suit was about 3 sizes too small (??) so it got handed to Lil' Darlin' and Mom had about 3 days to have another one made.  They were all clowns in the parade, and if I must say so myself, they were very CUTE clowns.  After that, Brooke invited us to the fireworks.  We had a REALLY good time.  The kids ran around all night long.  It was hot and sticky, yes, and they had grocery store feet, yes, but it was awesome.  The band was good, the music was rockin', it was just an all-around great weekend. (Please pardon the pictures running backwards.  I don't know how to stop that without renaming all my photos.  (hardly worth it).)

Lil' Darlin' finally went in for her first haircut.  She LOVED it.  I could not even believe how that child sat up in that chair.  She didn't even hesitate.  Now this is her LeLe doing the job, which I'm sure helped the situation.  Nonetheless, she was still and happy.  Who could ask for more?

 This is a little pet coon.  Here she is climbing at the Barber Shop, getting into everything.  I, for one, need a haircut every once in a while too, so while I was shackled she was on the loose!  I tell you what, if this wasn't my mother doing the job, I'd get me a grandmother on duty to go have my haircut! 

This was a great weekend!  Saturday night Dan and I did get to go out for his birthday.  (Thank you SO MUCH Honey and GPaw!!)  We didn't do anything elaborate but just to have some quiet time and remember we are married to each other was good.  Then Sunday I took the girls to the Splash Adventure.  I bought Dan a very nice waterproof camera (with video) for his birthday and today it served me well.  It's a pretty swanky device.  Here are some pictures from the pool.  Lil' Darlin' LOVES the slides and she giggles all the way down.  I love holding her because those giggles are the sweetest sound to a mother.  The first file is a video, so make sure you hit the play button.  I self videoed on the way down so it looks like a straight line but we were whipping and turning.  She loves it!!  Also Daniley can swim across the pool by herself (I'm not saying she's going to the Olympics or anything) but I think for her age this is pretty good.  Here she is floating.  I promise she isn't laying on the bottom.  I love that kid!!  And Lil' Darlin....maybe she DOES look just a TAD like her Dad.  :-)

Wow!  It has been a little while since I have posted on here.   My main excuse is that I have had some computer trouble (ok, like it was smoking!), and that particular computer is the one that has the camera card reader.  I don't think that my life is so interesting that anybody would care to read about it if I didn't have a picture to throw on here.  It's the pictures that make this interesting.  Well, that AND the 3 year old.  :-)
Things have been hectic lately.  I've been a bit overwhelmed.  Danslen is really clingy right now and I swear I can't get a minute to myself.  I'm either working at work or working at home; either way you slice it, it's work.  We all had the stomach virus last week, thank God, one parent at a time.  Beyond that, Dan had taken on an extensive project in the basement which left me alone upstairs for a couple weeks pulling my hair out!  Speaking of Dan, who is that?  I barely remember him.  Our last date night was in early 2011.  (Quite ridiculous!)  We will go out this weekend for Dan's birthday--I don't care if I have to run an ad in the newspaper to find someone to watch the girls.  This no-time-for-us crap is getting kind of old.  And just to be fair, if I wasn't so cheap I would hire a babysitter....but I would be so miserable spending that much money for a date that I honestly wouldn't enjoy it.  (I mean let's just be honest here, I'm cheap.  It's part of my success story.  You don't get ahead spending every penny you make.  DUH.)  And while I'm ranting....I've been doing some soul-searching lately.  Seems to me I have some friends who always have time for us as long as I'm doing the inviting.  News flash:  I'm out!  I'm on a quest to find some relationships that are a little more give-and-take, not just take-and-take.  Well I guess Maxine is a little moody right now....that's what happens when you get no rest..... I'm not usually moody, so please, just write this one off as well-deserved.  :-)

On a brighter note, Dan has promised me a motorcycle ride tomorrow evening.  My leg is doing great; I have a new motorcycle; and I DEFINITELY need some wind blowing through my hair!! I should feel blessed that we do get a couple hours on Monday evenings to ourselves while our kids visit Mawmaw.  However if she finds out I'm riding my motorcycle she might rescind the offer.  ;-)