life lately, according to my iphone

My new personal goal: always get my face-painted when we offer it at work. This time, I texted Meg and asked her what I should get, and she came back with the best idea ever: "Narwhal!" I asked for some additional hearts because it was around Valentine's Day, of course. :)

R3 and Emily giggling while he plays his Nintendo DS.

A movie date with the littles! (Meg was invited, but ceremoniously declined... teenagers!) We went to the Alamo Drafthouse to see "The Lego Movie," and it was every bit as awesome as we imagined it would be. (And then there's the Drafthouse popcorn, too, which is amazing!)

Plenty of picture-taking opportunities inside the movie theatre... the girls will never pass that up! 

My cuties cleaning our cars one beautiful Sunday morning. :)

Studying for my first final exam for my license... whiskey was necessary... and I got an A in the class! Grades don't really matter, but they matter to me, plus it's kinda awesome to have the kittens see me study as much as I do and it pay off!

I was really kinda majorly grumpy this weekend (ugh!) and Emily took me aside to have some Emmy time, and she ended up drawing a mustache on my finger to make me giggle. Then I returned the favor (I was going for "French stick mustache") and we took alot of selfies and texted Hilary about it. I LOVE HER.

and then came february!

I know this Wreck It Ralph song is kinda old news (hey, 2012!), but Richard will go out of his way to play this song because it makes him so super happy, so it makes me really super happy now, too. But don't tell anyone, because everyone knows R's all gruff n' tuff n' stuff, right?!

This year is just flying by! I started taking classes two nights a week to get my real estate license, so I'm pretty much exhausted all the time. All I have to do is blink and then it's Monday again! Meggie's gearing up for her last (!) semester of high-school, and on Wednesday I came home to a blue-haired Richard (just another Wednesday, you know!). I got new popsicle molds, so I've been able to make little treats for the kittens (including rainbow popsicles and a banana/chocolate/peanut-butter fudgsicle that just kinda happened!). We're all stoked for The Lego Movie and I finally got my new little car all fixed with new brakes and tires. R & I are doing really well getting all of our other annoying grown-up chores done and drinking our veggie smoothies, too, thanks to alot of love, appreciations, and extra high-fives. Hilary also came to spend a weekend with us, which was simultaneously wonderful and terrible because it made me realize just how much I miss her all the time. CJ bought me a purse reminiscent of Ulyana Sergeenko (!) and curated an entire set of "I Love Lucy" reaction-GIFs (!!!), both of which are completely perfect and amazing (just like him). Obviously, sleep is never plentiful, but Richard and I always manage to squeeze in a fun date-night, aka The Highlight of My Week, no matter how tired we are. ;)

In sum: very busy with lots of blessings. :)

a few moments from 2013, not to be forgotten

As I was going through my iPhone for the past few posts, I realized I had over-looked some pictures/video from last year. :)

Meg and Sadie (who just had to cuddle at.that.moment) at Plucker's.

When Cindy came to spend the night, and Meg dolled the up for a fashion show! Sadie "won" (R, R3 and I were "judges") for Best Dress, Emily won for Best Make-up, and Cindy won for Best Presentation (girl knows how to walk a fake-runway, lemme tell you). And Sadie's "tiger" eye-makeup was just too good to not take a picture.

Emily, who was determined to master the pogo stick one weekend (after Meghan found one on the side of the road--literally!). Today she can jump forever long!

senior picture outtakes

Today we started taking (some of!) Meggie's senior pictures, and while we got more amazing shots than we'll ever need, we got these two gems which just make me giggle so much! I'll share all of her senior pictures in a few months (she wants to take some more after she dyes her hair again), but the outtakes are just too good to sit on. ;) I like to refer to these as "obligatory Facebook profile picture" and "derp!" ;P

holiday round-up

Phew! It took me a few weeks, but I officially finished all the posts from the holiday season. Yay! They're not all on this main page (too many!), so here's are the links to each one of them...

1. The Ice-Pocalypse!
2. Hilary's graduation party
3. Grandpa Jim's 90th birthday party
4. Christmas Day adventures
5. A trip to Six Flags...
6. Second Christmas (with the littles!)
7. New Year's Eve
8. Holiday blessings (the random photographs throughout the season)

So, if you've seen some posts over the past few weeks, I've back-posted more around the date the fun actually happened. Or, you can just keep scrolling. :) Enjoy!

holiday blessings :)

Can you believe it's all over? I feel like the last time checked the calendar it was Halloween, and now we're into the second week of January!

Anywho, here's a few pictures I took throughout the month of December... it's such a hectic time of year, but I try very hard to stop and enjoy the little things when I'm feeling overwhelmed. :)

1 || Sweet Meggie, who was so intent on helping with the present wrapping this year. Girlfriend wrapped about 75% of the gifts once it was said and done, which allowed us more time to relax after work (and R more time to watch "The Hobbit!"). <3 <3 <3

2 || This shirt I just had to get Richard as an early Christmas present! And it came in the same day he bought himself a bottle of Lagavulin (which is what's in the glass in his hand)--coincidence much?! I told you guys, he's Ron Swanson.

3 || Seasonal Oreos from my mommy. :) I was really wanted to have them this year but couldn't find them whenever I looked, so my mom had them shipped to me from Amazon. I mean, really. :)

4 || Chocolate pumpkin pie hot toddies to help combat sickly days. Honestly, they weren't that amazing (I just kinda improvised the recipe), but I was really proud of myself for trying. :)

5 || Going to see Jay-Z in concert with my sweet R-Z. :) He put on such a great show!

... great shot of the crowd during his Nelson Mandela tribute :)...

6 || These lillies! I have no idea what they are called, but they were at work and they were gorgeous. A lily within a lily!

7 || Christmas cookie baking with Meghan after work (while watching "It's A Wonderful Life" and "The Breakfast Club"). I also made 3 great coffee cakes and 2 batches of chocolate chip cookie dough (side note: I ended up completely botching the batches of chocolate chip cookies trying to rush, which lead in a total Christmas Eve "ugh!" moment, but in hindsight I'm proud of myself for having the stamina to do it all after work in the first place! My Holiday Stamina is officially building!)

8 || Getting to hang out with my sister-cuz, Tonya, and her sweet hubby, Stephen, the day after Christmas. They drove up to play with us after we got off work, and it was such a sweet afternoon. :) Stop living in Denver, guys!

9 || This picture of Sadie after her first shot (what an aim!) and the fact that Meghan can take/send pictures to me on her iPhone now. :)

10 || How much R3 enjoyed his pocket-knife gift (the first thing he played with!)

11 || Hanging out with my family and my family on New Year's Day, and playing Apples to Apples and Scrabble. :) (Ok, this one was technically taken in January, but it fits the theme!)

new year's eve 2013

This New Year's Eve was pretty epic, if I do say so myself! We had an amazing little family party that included lots of games and music and munchies, and I can't think of anywhere else I would have rather been.

Meghan making the sacred queso. :)

Emily, who insisted on taking her picture like this.

A fun video we enjoyed watching (a few times!). For the past few years, this guy mashes up the ending-years' top pop songs, which is a pretty accurate representation of what the kittens want to play in the car 90% of the time.

R3 and Sadie put their respective hats on R3's new Christmas toys, which they drove around the house half the night. I was in stitches!

Playing Apples to Apples! I bought this as a family gift, and I didn't really feel the need to get the "kids'  version" since our little dumplings are so smart and hilarious. (As you can tell by the card selection in this picture!)

And this is what Meg and Da look like playing our new dancing game we got for Christmas! This was alot harder than I anticipated, but we had such a fun time playing this together. Richard even managed to get top score of the night, which made him very proud. ;)

Annnd, I managed to pass out on the couch at 11 that night while the family continued to play, but they made sure to wake me up at 11:45 so I could see the Dallas ball drop and get kisses before they all sent me to bed. Awesome family, much? Yeah, I thought so. :)

christmas with tha littles!

This year, we had the littles for their second week of Christmas Break which means another Christmas day in our family! We picked them up on Saturday and had a wonderful "Christmas Eve" at Six Flags, which meant our second big day was on Sunday. :) We woke up very early in the morning and opened presents, which is always so fun with our sweet Sub-4-Foot-ers. Meggie was so darling and passed out each and every present while her very tired parent and step-parent drank their morning elixirs of coffee and tea. :)

Warning: there are many pictures! I know it may be a bit gratuitous to post as many "presents!" pictures as I do, but I just look forward to the days when they're old enough to look back through the blog and say, "Oh yeah, I remember that!" Although, head's up: Sadie isn't in any of the "morning" pictures posted because she's still in her "I don't want to wear clothes while I'm at home!" phase. (Can't wait til she looks back through the blog when she's older! We have plenty of nudie pictures of you, Future Sadie, they're just not "published" on the blog because we love you.)

Emmy, who made this face for everything.

I told you! (plus R3's new Halo game and Em's new pogo-stick)

Some of Sadie's spoils...

(That's Emmy behind R playing the roll of the creeping Creeper...)

And Emmy's new slippers!

The best Family Present I could ever spend money on. Now we have 3 total gaming controllers, meaning the littles don't have to rotate time-sensitive turns to play Minecraft. BEST FAMILY PRESENT EVER. Kinda high-fived myself over that one.

Emmy's "big" this year was a Monster High high school for all her dolls. She fell to the floor!

... but I managed to pull a "real, not hammy!" smile from her afterwards. :)

R3's big were lots of Legos, but he still freaked out over this Cabela's video game we got as a Family Gift. :)

Emmy, getting straight to work with her Legos!

Sadie's "big" this year was her very own pair of roller skates! She's been wanting a pair forever, and she was so excited she actually put on clothes immediately (!) to try them on. Girlfriend was so ready!

Em playing with her Monster High high school...

R and R3 playing "Trouble!"

After the little dumplings got some good play-time in, we all got dressed up in our Second Christmas Best and went over to hang out with Granners and Jack. 

Look, it's all my favorite people!

Tried to get a good shot with Sadie, but she wasn't too smiley that afternoon...

But Emmy was much more willing to oblige. You win some, you loose some!

Trying to get a good shot of my boys. :)

And there you go! Richard thinks R3 kinda looks like his ventriloquist dummy. ;P

After Granners, the family went to hang with their Mema for a few hours which means they came home with even more toys afterwards. These kids always clean up so nicely! We were bummed to not have our littles the day of Christmas, but the silver-lining means it's Christmas for just that much longer. :) You were definitely a great one this year, Second Christmas!