This Guy's In Love With You!

In two weeks, my in-laws will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Yes, you read that right! FORTY years together. Pretty amazing, huh? Want to know the really amazing part? They are still head-over-heels in-love with each other, even after forty years. We were in the kitchen on Saturday, when Hubster's dad walked in, put his arms around his wife and said, "Girls, I hope you'll each be lucky enough to be this beautiful when you're 60 years old!" We all heartily agreed.

The three of us girls have been plotting their celebration for a few months. We thought about throwing them a huge shindig, or even inviting all the aunts, uncles and cousins and miscellaneous relatives to come PART-AY with us, but instead Hubster's parents wanted a small party with just their own kids and grandkids. Our small party filled up the whole house this weekend; to the point where there were usually three people trying to step into the same space at once.

On Saturday afternoon, we descended on visited a local park and brought ourselves a barbeque picnic dinner. My father-in-law is a professional when it comes to BBQ. After we ate, the adults polished off a scrumptious chocolate cake and the kids played on the playground. (For those of you wondering which category I fit into, the answers is ... both. I had my cake and played on the playground too!)

It was really special to be together as a family, even amid all the chaos of grandkids and strangers.
This little guy, wanted to hunt for some treasure this weekend, like his hero Indiana Jones. I wanted to make that happen so badly, but we left the GPS at home, and discovered that the park was way to full of people and way too big to comb over without some satellite navigational guidance.
Bridoodle had tons of fun watching her older cousins play. She was a champ, even though it was hot and muggy, with lots of insects buzzing around. This adorable hat was a gift from her aunt. It's reversible! The other side is just as cute, too!

Doesn't this picture just melt your heart? I could look at this picture all day! Makes me think that forty years, will be way too short, for me and Hubster. I'm so glad that I get to spend the rest of my life with him.

Boy Trouble

Baby *Bri has three older cousins and we're in the middle of a wild family visit. Tonight, her oldest cousin *Indiana Jones (6 years old) played a little joke on his younger brother, *Percy (2 years old). After all four kiddos had been put to bed, Indy decided it would be funny to make Percy wet his pants. So he stuck a sippy cup down his brother's pajama pants while Percy was standing in the pack n' play. All of the adults were downstairs talking about boring things while this occurred.

Indy's excited squeals of laughter, instantly brought his Daddy running up to the kids' room. He frantically called his wife to come upstairs and survey the damage. Percy's sheets were soaked and his pants were dripping wet. Both boys just thought this was hilarious! Of course, with three play pens in use around this zoo house, there's a shortage of clean sheets immediately available. The adults downstairs exchanged worried glances, as we listened to the scene unfolding.

My sister-in-law sleuthed out that the sippy cup had caused the accident, but could not find it in the play yard. We were relieved to hear her laughter, echoing down the hallway, when she finally discovered the Holy Grail tucked in Percy's PJ's! "How did Percy's cup get down his pants?" she giggled from the doorway. Little Indy just flashed her a sly grin.

It seems that the kiddos are on a constant crusade for fun around here. It's an adventure just to be around them!



PS: * In case you haven't noticed, I don't do real names on this site. My sister-in-law would never let her husband name her child Indiana Jones. Or Hans Solo. Or Darth Vader. Although, my brother-in-law just might have asked her at one point or another. He is a big fan of George Lucas.

Playing in the Park

After school today, I came home and the Hubster and I went out for ice cream before we went to pick up the Brimeister from daycare. It was like a little mini-date and we really enjoyed strolling in the nice weather together.

Then we picked up baby Bri and on a whim decided to stop by a local park to play. She was just adorable, swinging on the baby swing for the first time. She giggled the whole time and her hair blew in the breeze of the swing's motion. Hubbsy took her down the spiral slide, but neither of them seemed very impressed by it. So we tried the teeter-totter as a family. Bri and I together balanced out the muscle-y Officer Hubster. She squealed with delight at each sinking sensation from riding down and then she giggled again at her Daddy's silly faces from across the see-saw.

Later, we grabbed a picnic dinner and took Bri to another nearby park. She had a cute gangster lean going while she ate her supper!


We brought a bib but it was unusable, so we just tried to keep her neat. Obviously that didn't happen! All of the pictures in this post were taken after dinner, hence the squash stains!

Conversations with the Hubster

This afternoon, we had a few errands to run as a family. As a result, we spent a little longer than usual in the car, and had some interesting conversations.
This first one took place as we were driving out of the McDonald's parking lot. We'd swooped through the drive through to get beverages, since we were parched.

Hubs: I think McDonald's Coke tastes better than regular Coke. But I wonder if that's just because I associate it with their fries, which really are better than everybody else's fries.
Me: You really think that you can taste the difference between McDonald's Coke and Coke from somewhere else?
Hubs: Oh yeah! I mean, it's easy to tell the difference between canned Coke, 2 liter Coke and fountain drinks.
Me: Right, but could you tell the difference between, mmm... say ... a gas station's fountain drink and a McDonald's fountain drink?
Hubs: As long as it was Coke. Yeah. I think so.
Me: Hmm! We should do an experiment. We could drive around and get Cokes from three different gas stations and then go get Cokes from three different McDonald's and then we could test you to see if you could consistently tell the difference, while you were blindfolded or something.
Hubs:Yeah that would be fun.

(Short pause. Then we both looked at each other and started howling with laughter.)

Hubs: When would we ever have that much free time? We'd have to be bored out of our minds!
Me:I know, right?
Hubs:But if we'd thought of that back when we were kids, we probably would have done it. It would have been fun too!
Me: Well, at least we don't see any boring times up ahead in our future.

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Later on, after we'd run our errands, we headed over to have a nice dinner at one of the local chain restaurants with our recently engaged friends. As we pulled in the parking lot, we both noticed an unusual quietness coming from the back seat.

Me: I think the baby fell asleep.
Hubs: Oh no! She's going to cry when we wake her up!
Me: I know.
Hubs: Can we just eat out here? Please?
Me: In the parking lot?
Hubs: Yeah, why not? Hey, we can get take out!

Sleeping Beauties

This morning, I startled awake at 6:22 am because my alarm clock did not turn the radio on. I rushed into the nursery where Hubster had already whisked the Brimeister out of her crib to change her diaper. Glancing around, I realized that I could still make it to school on time since he was helping. When I explained all of this to him, as I headed backwards towards the bathroom, he started chuckling.
"You do realize that it's Saturday, right?" he said with wonder. Cheesy! I thought to myself. So it is.
We enjoyed watching the sun come up as a family and everyone had breakfast. Then we plopped down in the living room. Bridoodle is on a blanket on the floor. She's almost ready to start scooting around. She's fascinated by the Cheeto's bag. She likes to crumple it. So I put it close to her but just out of her reach. She was adorable, trying to swim towards the bag. I can tell that she's been watching the older babies crawl around at daycare, because she moves her arms and legs in a flurry of excitement and then gets frustrated when she doesn't actually move.
Hubby laid down on the couch to watch, and slowly his breathing became rhythmic. Then the dog curled up by my side and dozed off. Now Bri, has fallen asleep as well on her blanket. Such a sweet peaceful Saturday morning. I'm so thankful that it's not a school day!