meg is 17!

This year, our sweet Meggie turned 17. It kinda happened with "a bang and a whimper" as lots of changes were happening around our household at the same time. But girlfriend did clear her birthday with a Macbook (my old one that I revamped for her when I got a new one) annnd we tuned up my old car for when she gets her driver's license. So, a computer and a car! Can't complain too much on that one, right? Oh, and a berry chantilly cake from work, because that's just mandatory. ;)

Meghan is turning into such a wonderful little lady (though it seems some days like she's trying really hard not to! ;P). She seems to be everyone's Big Sister, not just to the littles!, and always likes to help us out with dinner -- there are some weeks I don't know how we'd make it without her helping in the kitchen so much! She's working on getting her driver's license and deciding exactly what she wants to do with her schooling/career/life after that happens, but she obviously has to get through styling our family's Halloween first, you know. ;) She never slows down when it comes to learning new things about hair color, make-up, and special effects, and she seems to have enough product to style an entire season of RuPaul's Drag Race! She always manages to make me laugh with the most random sound effects (at the most random times!) and does the cutest little shoulder-shake when she hears a song that she likes. Her Da was really excited when she liked "The Professional" when he showed it to her this year, but we couldn't get her to watch "The Lego Movie" with us to save our lives because she's way too cool for that, right? #teenagers She has me listed in her phone as "Wendy Bird," which almost made me cry the other day!, and will voluntarily eat salads now. I mean, woah. :D

It took the two of us a hot minute to decide what we wanted to do for our Meggie Birthday Date this year, but we finally settled on Adventure Landing! We played a few rounds of mini-golf (some holes-in-one were had!) and eventually made it inside to the arcade, which was a blaaast. We discovered our mutual love of air-hockey and skee-ball (YAS) and played a few other games before ending up at Monster Yogurt. Boy, they had a green apple sorbet that is YUMMM. It was so much fun!

She got a hole-in-one on this one!

I, MYSELF, got a hole-in-one on this bumpy guy!

The mighty air-hockey table... I'd almost forgotten about you! (Meg beat me both games we played, but it was really close!)

300 tickets worth of spoils, ya'll. 

Thanks forever for being you, sweet girl. We love you so much and appreciate every little thing you do for our family. ;) This year has been so exciting, and next year is going to be even crazier exciting! But if one thing's certain, you can always count on being able to come home to us so we can watch stupid things with you and eat Cheez-Its and cookies, because honestly what's better than that?

life lately

Career changes, new haircuts, Halloween costume designs (a very serious undertaking here)... just a normal week at the Moore household!

Always trying to stay glam (St. Dita would be proud!)

One evening after dinner, where Meggie's room was the place to be!

Trying out Haystack before a movie. Their crispy onion rings are amazing! My favorite was the little "hay-maker" drink on the left, which was a frozen lemonade/whisky mix, yummy.

A few movies R & I have super enjoyed recently. :)

Emily, who decided "face to bowl" was the best way to get through her salad one night. ;)

A sweet, hilarious, amazing Eddie Izzard card Shaleah made me one terrible, no good, very bad day. (reference hurr)

Stopped by Dimassi one day to give it a go, and it was damn tasty! After a few rounds of it, I decided that tabouleh is officially one of my new favorite things. :D

Celebrating the end of a week with flowers, rose, and jordan almonds.

happy list

- Being friends with the wine-buyer at work and always coming home with the perfect bottle of something
- Heels on my day off
- Freshly trimmed hair
- Being a grown-up and waiting 1.5 hours at the Social Security office to start making my married name-change official... and not getting towed when I parked somewhere completely precarious!
- Divine!
- Getting that much closer to finishing my real estate classes (!)
- Stupid fights that thankfully end with hugs
- Our lawn -- Richard does such a beautiful job at taking care of everything because I sure don't care to do any work on it!
- Morning cookies at work (not a perverse euphemism, I promise!)
- White-Cheddar Cheez-its

bits and pieces

Date night look: for Torchy's and "Guardians of the Galaxy!"

A little pre-birthday party for Ceej! We ate some killer home-made fish tacos and then went to see "The Dark Side of the Rainbow," which is "The Wizard of Oz" with Pink Floyd music over it. ;) We left half-way through (you get the idea after so long!) but it was a great excuse to try absinthe for the first time (and while I didn't get hungover per se, it sure did throw off my swagger for the rest of the weekend!).

Two handsome boys after our movie... in front of a quinceanera store! Who can resist?

Our sweet neighbors brought us baked goods one evening this week -- homemade madeleines! They were so wonderful ("French," "butter," and "cookies" all in the same description!). Meghan made cream cheese blueberry muffins and rice-crispy treats to repay the favor, and I think this is the start of a beautiful baking trade. ;)

At one point this afternoon, Sadie and R3 came running frantically into our bedroom saying "Ms. Kylie! You have to see this! We made the biggest bubbles ever!" ;P They really were, which warranted a small video... Sadie's obviously still working on her really erratic "hosting" skills (her joke at the end is "I made you a pie!" "Oh boy, what flavor!" "Pie flavor!"), and I promise R3 has boxers on underneath that big t-shirt! 

So, I got a lot of blogging done today. All in a day's work!

honeymoon day :)

The day after our wedding, Richard and I took some time for our first date in a long time, which we dubbed our "honeymoon day!" We had been so busy with wedding planning, school, settling into our new house and starting our 2014 Kitten Month that this was just a fun little excuse to have some time to ourselves for a hot-minute. (We're still in the process of planning our big honeymoon, as going anywhere right after our wedding just obviously wasn't an option!) I got a new dress from Anthropolgie (legit excuse!) and we went for my first trip to the Dallas Arboretum and had lunch, before driving to Darrah's and having dinner with her, the boys, and Midge. It was such a nice day... before we jumped right back into the rest of July! ;P

richard is 10

You know how we didn't get much of Emily's birthday on video? Well, I seemed to have gone over-board on R3's birthday this year! ;P He had the first birthday in our new dwellings, and Meghan made him an awesome Minecraft-inspired cake. For our birthday date, we went the aquarium and had such a great time together. (Even though he said I looked like a farmer in my overalls... whatever, dude!) Then, homeboy got to go fishing with his dad as a part birthday present, part Father's Day present. What a birthday!

R3 is still so much like his daddy. (He drives me bonkers but it the sweetest [young] man! ;P) He is always the first to fall asleep and can bow-out of a ridiculous argument faster than anyone (super great most times, super obnoxious sometimes!) He's still one of the biggest kids for his age, which isn't stopping any time soon, and is so adorable self-confident in many of his thoughts/opinions. I can't get that kid to stop talking with his mouth full to safe my life but he does know how to functionally operate a lawn-mower which is more than I can say for myself! He's so much fun to snuggle-watch TV with (especially when I let him watch an episode of "South Park" once in a blue moon) and can always be counted on to make his bed in stellar fashion.

On the way to the aquarium, he started talking about girlfriends. "Why would anyone have a girlfriend? You have to buy them all this stuff!" When I said, "I don't make your dad buy me lots of stuff...!" to which he replied, "Yes, but you are the fabulous Ms. Kylie." ;P

That's a shark behind him!

With his souvenir... I swear, that penguin ("Pen-gie!") didn't leave his arms for about a month after our trip.

I gotta admit, the flamingos were my favorite...

Not that I expect anyone but me and Richard to look at these videos (I took a lot!), but he was so excited the entire time. He has the cutest little excited voice!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that we went to Steak and Shake after the aquarium. You would think he died and gone to heaven!

We love you so much, little HoJu. Thanks for always making me laugh. :)

emmy is 11

Her birthday flowers^

Unfortunately, we didn't get too much of Emily's birthday on camera this year! #school However, girlfriend cleaned up pretty well with a Nintendo DS, Cindy sleeping over, and going to see "Maleficent" with me in the theatre for our birthday date. :)

Emmy's going through a lot of changes this year -- from hating the drama at school (kids are so mean and weird at school, aren't they!) to the point of tears and becoming a salmon-eating fiend, to sprouting the longest legs and learning that dresses aren't so bad sometimes. She continually says the most hilarious things (thank goodness for my Twitter feed) and can always get down in any social situation (from sitting by herself on a plane and making her seat-mates fall in love with her to sitting down with a bunch of grown-ups at Shaleah's party). She's still a fan of the outlandish and making a big creative statement (her green miner's hat from Colorado was the must-have souvenir during our vacation) and is the biggest Ponytail Advocate I know.

We love you so much, little beastie. Or should I say "Mee moe mah moe moe mee mah moe!" (Probably not publically, but I'll forever hold onto that for us!)

trains & mines (and old stuff!)

Our last full-day in Colorado, we drove to Cripple Creek to get a few last tourist-y things under our belt. The weather was gorgeous and the views were continually incredible as we rode through one of the mining town's oldest railways with our little dumplings. Afterwards, we went on an official gold-mine tour (1000 feet underground!) and thankfully had a much better time than on our lantern tour a few days earlier (even though Emily was still very nervous the entire time!). It was such a great way to wind down before heading to Tonya & Stephen's for the night (and gave us lots to talk about while sitting in traffic for a million years!).

Useful butt shot! ;P

Views from the train.

And R3 was enjoying every damn minute of it.

We had to wait a hot minute for our gold-mine tour to begin, and fortunately there was a lot of old crap to look at! ;P

When we finally got underground, we had such a wonderful young tour guide. He was probably 24 years old and gave tours of the mine during his "time off" from his real job (as a miner!). He was so enthusiastic and knowledgable, and was so sweet to R3 and Sadie who asked 90% of the questions during the tour. ;) This used to be a functioning mine, so there was lots of history and demonstrations to give you the full experience.

Sadie, playing with the "dust on the wall!" We then found out it's a pretty powerful laxative, which thankfully freaked her out. ;P 

The green streaks are copper!

Took a small ride while we were there.

Views from below, where miners used to climb up and do their thing.

See those purple streaks? Follow that, and you have gold. :)

Emily may have been glued to her Da's hips the entire time, but she was very excited to her very old gold ore piece!

Rose gold flats in a gold mine!

Pretty psyched I got pictures of all of us 1000ft below the surface! ;P

You may think you know what this is...

Something for Da to mess around with! ;P