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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Mommy who??

You know how some people bring nannies on vacation with them. Well forget the nanny, I want to bring a photographer along!
By looking at our vacation pictures you wouldn't even know I was there. Why, because my husband sucks at taking pictures! He never thinks to pick up the camera and capture a moment of me playing with my kids. I, on the other hand, not only take awesome pictures but later make them into books and read them with my kids so they can relive the memories of their vacations...with dad!


Here are some pictures that I took:

Daddy teaching Dylan to ride a bike without training wheels

Daddy napping with Camryn on the beach

Daddy playing football with his son

Daddy roasting marshmallows with his kids

Daddy frolicking in the waves with his kids


And here are the pictures he took of me:


Here's a great shot of me pushing Camryn in the hammock


One of me jumping off a bridge...I'm the big splash in the water


Look the kids and I are having so much fun in this one


And my personal favorite that will evoke so many memories....


So I guess I'll have to make sure our vacations are so much fun that the kids won't need to look at pictures to remember them!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Some more Smore's!


Smore's are a big deal for my kids. Even though they have ice cream for dessert more times than I'll admit in a week, there is something about smore's that gets them excited.

For Camryn it's probably the unlimited amount of chocolate and incredible mess that goes with it.

















But for Dylan it's definitely the marshmallows. I don't even think he has ever eating a smore. He takes pride in roasting the perfect marshmallow. From a little boys perspective, what could be better than eating off a stick and playing with fire without getting in trouble!

His love for marshmallows reminds of a story when he was younger. It was the middle of winter and I thought making rice crispy treats would be a fun project for us. I knew I had bought a new bag of marshmallows for hot chocolate, so when I couldn't find them I was a bit confused. Talking to myself and not really expecting an anwser, I asked: "Dylan, where did those marshmallows go?"

To which he replied: "They're all gone. Every morning while you and dad are asleep, I come down and take one."

Surprised and humored I said: "You do, do you?"

And he said: "But just ONE a day!"

Nose Nonsense

In the car last night, Dylan was doing anything to stay awake. He usually rambles on about nonsense just to keep himself engaged. I try not to answer him and figure that he will eventually doze off. He kept saying something about scratching his nose and I ignored it, hoping for a sleeping kid by the time I pulled into the driveway. Then his nonsense turned into complaints about his nose hurting. I turned around to find him with his finger digging around up there. I told him if he took his finger out maybe his nose would stop hurting.

That's when he informed me that he had put something up there. Still not completely convinced that he really had put something up there, I told him that if he had, he might have to go to the doctor and have him take it out with tweezers. He started to sound concerned about the looming doctor visit and then proceeded to sneeze uncontrollably. That's when I knew he wasn't fibbing. There wasn't much I could do while I was driving so luckily we were almost home.

I unloaded the kids into the house and laid Dylan down on the couch to get a better view of the foreign object. I could see something blocking his nostril, so I dove right in. I gently used my pinkie and successfully got the long dried up piece of string cheese, that he found in his carseat and then thought would be fun to stick up his nose, out!

When asked 2 days later by my sister why he stuck something up his nose, his reply was: "because I thought it would help pull my boogers out!"

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Annoyed!

On this rainy Sunday afternoon, John and I decided to take the kids out to lunch for lack of a better idea. Bobby Flay opened up a new restaurant in the casino, about 25 minutes from our house, so I've been dying to try it. It's a burger joint, so we figured it would be kid-friendly and Dylan could play a few games in the kids zone afterward.

In true Bobby Flay fashion, the food was delicious and the kids were well behaved. In order to get to the kids zone, you have to walk through the casino, without going onto the gaming floor of course.

Just a side note, we are NOT the only people who bring their kids here. There is plenty for families to do, even though it's a casino environment. I actually never thought twice about my decision to take them there.

Until today, when a women in a motor scooter on oxygen, due to obesity, said: "Babies in a casino...that's disgusting."

Now here she was wasting her last breath (and dime probably) judging me for taking my kids out to lunch. Other than this little rant, I was the bigger person and bit my tongue. For no other reason than to show my kids how to be polite!

Umbrellas in the house

According to a popular superstition, opening an umbrella in the house will bring bad luck to all people who reside in that home. Well it's a good thing we aren't superstitious.

On two separate occasions I saw my kids playing with Dylan's umbrella in the house. Camryn was innocently dancing around with it like Mary Poppins. She wasn't hurting anyone and look how happy she was, so I let her be.

Dylan, however was not twirling it about in a "jolly holiday" manner. He was chasing after his sister and the dog. As soon as he would get close to one of them, POP, he would open it right in their face. When I told him not to do that anymore because he could hurt someone. He replied: "It's ok Mom, the old lady shoots Ratatouille with it and he doesn't get hurt." Thank you Disney!