Daddy Day

Lincoln got to go to Talia's preschool for Daddy Day. They had a fun time together. Talia made many fabulous meals for him in the play kitchen. She got to paint his hand for a fun project, and they wrote in her journal about the great time spent together. They had fruit kabobs for snack time. Talia almost fell asleep at the table during snack! My tired girl, afternoon preschool is not a good fit for her.

She adores her Daddy and loved spending the day with him.

Well, I do now..

While I was staying at my Mother in law's home I took a ton of photographs. I love this part of my vacation and I am sure my nieces and nephews have come to expect getting their photographs taken. One morning my sister in law, Penny, had to run to her home because the basement had flooded. I got her permission to bathe her two youngest boys, to get them ready for picture day.

My other sister in law, Mari, was going to help me get them into the tub. I ran upstairs to start the water, but their big sister was in their shower. I ran to "our" bathroom and started getting things ready. I ran back down the stairs and Mari said, "The boys want to take a bath downstairs." Great, that is fine. I ran around a bit more....making sure I had the right pants, shirt, sweater vest, hat, and shoes for each boy. Then I ran down the stairs.

I could hear the water running. I then I heard my little nephew scream, "I can't do it, you do it, I CAN'T DO IT!" My mother's instinct pictured the worst. Those two little boys had crawled into the tub, and were being scalded by hot water and couldn't turn it off. With Simone on my hip I ran into the bathroom and threw open the shower curtain to rescue my small nephews. Only, it was a man.

The curtain was quickly replaced. "I am sorry, I thought you were the kids." He yelled something at me. I do not remember what it was. " Hey?"-- "What are you doing?"--"What the---?" I don't remember.

I left the room with a bright red face. I truly did not see anything, but how embarrassing --AND who was it? After quizzing a few people upstairs about who was home, we all decided it was a friend of the family. Oh, even more embarrassing.

The children were in the room next to the bathroom trying to climb the ladder on the bunk bed.

Every time someone asks, "What is your most embarrassing moment?", I never have an answer. Well, I do now.

What? Did you say my hair is long?

Cute little girl.

In high school my sister used to say, "What? Oh, you think my hair is long?", and variations of the same thing all the time. You would ask her to do the dishes...this was her reply. Ask her to help you find something....this was her reply. She would always grab her hair and show it to you. I saw this picture of Simone and immediately thought of my sister. I thought (and still do) think she hung the moon! I can only imagine what a pain I was to her then. I was always asking to borrow her clothes! I was in elementary school still. I did get to borrow her armadillo sweatshirt and black earrings when I did a report on Texas. I am sure I paired it will black stirrup pants and a big bow! Got to love the 80's.

Anyway.

Simone is getting more hair. She has triple the amount Talia had at this age. So, yes sweetie- it does look long. =)

just a minute....

I have got to run and get Talia from Preshool, but I have a few minutes to blog.

Yesterday: I held photography group at my house. It was good, not a huge turn out, but it was good! After everyone left Talia and I watched the inauguration, and took naps! Did you read that? A nap! That, my friend, is more monumental than Obama becoming president. Do you know what else took place yesterday? Simone started crawling. The hands and knees stuff. She is so cute I could just smooch her!

lovely dancer

One of the highlights from my trip was seeing my niece Brianna dance. I got to see her do her solo for the first time, and she was in this gorgeous gold costume. She was simply beautiful. She is so talented. In my head saw her dancing in the snow....and then I made her do it. What a good sport. Then I made her brother Conner do the same thing....only with his saxophone. =) I will post one of those soon.

Hi Jeri,

"I am just calling to tell you that you are so scatter brained. We all know it. Three families are actually mad at you because of it. You are not good at organizing your own life, I am going to make you pay $100 because you are so dumb."

This was an "actual" phone call I received today. Well, kind of. I forgot it was my weekend to help clean the preschool. Geez. I feel horrible. I really did get a $100 fine. I got home from my trip thinking I had the watch all the co-op kids on Friday, and had a photo session Saturday morning. I was so TRILLED, when I was mistaken and that all that stuff is NEXT weekend. That left my calendar "open" and we all went to IKEA. Woo hoo!

This was going to be a post about my new years resolutions. I made a short list, and so did Lincoln. My list had two things on it. 1. Get organized. One thing/place at a time. 2. Be more creative.

Lincoln said "Be creative?...that is not a resolution."

Yes it is.

I want to be more creative with meals.
I want to be more creative with my business.
I want to be more creative, and decorate my home with things that I LOVE.
I want to be more creative with my sharing times.
I want to be more creative with the kids-and do fun crafts with them and make kid friendly recipes with them.
This list can go on and on.

It may be my best resolution to date.

I am so uber not creative. You should see my beige living room. My white blog. My white photography site. My blank walls. My white dishes. The color found most often in my closet=white. I am seeing a trend here....maybe, I love white.

This post doesn't derserve a photo. =)

Oh...

You don't eat bows? I thought that was the present.

Didn't you get my letter?

I said this to my little nieces and nephews. After they sat there puzzled I would say,


"Dear ______,

Please don't grow up. Do not get any bigger.

Love, Aunt Jeri

---You didn't get that letter?"

"No."

"I am so sad that you didn't get it. It must have been lost. Now look, you grew!" Then I always got a smile or a hug...but my own son rolled his eyes at me when I tried it on him. Funny!


I am downloading many many many pictures right now. I can't wait to get my eyes on them!

We are so happy to be home....mostly because there is no snow. =) We miss our families. It was such a nice visit (except- the snow!). Even though we were gone for 21 days...it was still too short.

Just a quick funny thing....

I bought a 3d puzzle for Wyatt to keep him busy on the plane for a minute. One of those puzzles where you have to side squares around until you create the picture correctly....in this case a 3d fish. Well...it was so hard. Wyatt messed with it for a while. Lincoln solved it. I almost solved it. My brother Dan solved it. Natalia messed with it, and I think my Mom did too. Simone solved it.

Yes, you read that right. My 10 month old daughter is a genius. I handed it to her on the plane ride home. It kept her busy. She slid (wacked and chewed) the squares around for a few minutes.I looked down and there was that silly orange fish. She did it! I couldn't believe my eyes. =)