Glamour Shots

Grace went to a birthday party last weekend that promised "glamour shots" for each little girl. Oddly enough, they didn't follow through with it but Grace (and Ella) are still fascinated by the idea of glamour shots.

"Mom, what are glamour shots?", they asked.

"They're when you get dressed up really fancy and take pictures.", I answered.

How else do you explain that gaudy 90's phenomenon?

The girls decided to do glamour shots of their own.

Ella asked me yesterday, "Mom, did you blog those pictures of me and Grace yet?"
I answered, "No, do you not want me to put them on the blog?"

"No, we want you to hurry up.",

Ella replied.

So here are our girls dressed up "fancy".

They completely did this themselves.

I wasn't even home when all this fabulousness was going on.

Do you love their "glamour shots"?

Aren't they fancy?

Our girls are completely hilarious and oh so glamorous.

Concentration

Adam has an iPod Touch that our kids love, love, love.

Joe especially likes to "pway on daddy's chuch"

(Its ridiculously cute to hear him say it.)

Joseph gets to concentrating pretty hard.

Out comes the tongue
I'm told that grandpa Hutchinson (Steve's dad) was a tongue-sticker-outer.
I just think its hee-ha-larious!

Disney on Ice

We went to the opening night of Disney on Ice last week.

(Opening Night sounds all cool but actually was the least expensive night.)

Our kids were

CRAZY EXCITED

Did you know its perfectly fine to attend Disney on Ice dressed as a princess?

There were even some adults in costume. It was . . . special

(you have to say "special" in the Church Lady voice, like it is in my head.)

I was curious how they were going to pull off "Cars" on ice.

Like this.

There was some fancy driving and Joe LOVED it.Then came the Little Mermaid which was pretty cool.

The kids were still pretty excited at this point.

The way they did waves was very cool. This isn't it but it was still cool.

The Lion King was the last thing before intermission. Whew!

The kids (and adults) welcomed intermission.
This is all the cousins (minus Olivia)
counterclockwise from left: Heidi, Isabelle, Ella, Grace, Abby and Joseph in the center

Then came Tinker Bell, lots and lots of Tinker Bell.
An entire second half of Tinker Bell.
I wish I'd gotten a picture of Ella dozing off during the endless Tinker Bell. It was hilarious!

Overall the kids had fun and we are thankful that Angie spotted those great tickets for all of us.

p.s. I've about decided that all things Disney are overrated. Granted I've never been to Disneyland or Disney World but seeing this show made me want to take the kids there even less. I just don't get the big deal with all things Disney.
(Feel free to boo and hiss and throw rotten tomatoes at your computer screen.)

Yesterday

Yesterday was a truly lovely day.

Sunday it snowed and was wretched, Monday was all melty and soggy but that made

Tuesday all the more wonderful.

After taking Grace to school, Joe wanted to stay outside. I really needed to run but I can't say,

"Sorry kid, no playing outside on the first nice day in forever. I've got to run."

So we cleaned the junk and garbage out the of the van, playing basketball on the patio and spied some bees doing their thing.

Joseph was game for taking pictures of the bees.

Kind of.

He's actually terrified of any and all flying bugs (including house flies).

So I tried getting some pics of the busy bees.

Then Joe wanted a turn.

So after securing the strap around his wrist so he couldn't drop it (breathe Adam, breathe)

I let him at it.

He took a pic of his "skeches"

(his favorite shoes are Sketchers that he refuses to call tennis shoes, only "skeches"

What was left of Sunday's snow.
Me, of course. (In my defense, I was waiting to run that afternoon so why take a shower and get fixed if you still need to run that day.) I spend too many days like this, waiting to run. Like today, but I never got to run b/c I forgot Adam was working OT. I was C-U-T-E!
And this one, which is my favorite of the bunch.
He also took pics of the sky, our snow shovels and the ground.
We had a fun time, just the two of us, hanging out and doing what he wanted to do.
I hope I can remember to do this more often with all my kids.
It was a happy mom day!

Imperfections

So here's the deal. Its been a month, yes a full month, since I posted. I sat down tonight determined to do a post and get back into the habit. As usual I go to my pictures first to choose something to post about.

I like to include pics. Its a weakness.

I've looked over this month's pictures, last month's and January and . . . nothin' but crap

(mom, you're no longer allowed to ground me for saying "crap").

The backgrounds look awful, the kids look a mess (heaven forbid I get a pic BEFORE they destroy the mom-made cuteness) and someone is ALWAYS picking their nose (Joe), flashing underwear (Grace) or running around half naked (Ella). Ugh!

I've come to terms with these imperfections and have decided to post, for the sake of far away family, pictures with the least amount of nose picking, underwear and nudity. When I look at many of the pictures to come I see the imperfections in myself and hate to show them to the world. But let's be honest, the world's not reading this blog. I doubt ten people are reading this blog. So, forgive my absence and my awful pictures. They're the best I've got (oh, that's sad)!

Lucky Me

I have this brother,

Ben

And I have this other brother,

Sam

They are both really great brothers and awesome uncles. We like 'em a little bit.

A while back Ben married this super cool chic,

Meggan.

Then a while later Sam married Meggan's also cool little sister,

Cortney.

So now my little brothers are married to sisters. When I gained sisters, I gained sisters who were already sisters. Pretty cool!

These two cool sisters have another cool sister, Lindsay, who isn't married to a Boston but is married to a really great guy named Adam (but not my Adam, of course). Sorry, no pics of Adam and Lindsay.

I feel like, in getting to have Meggan and Cortney as sister, I get Lindsay too. I think that's awesome. Lindsay is funny, loving and honest.
I was just checking comments on my last post and found that all three of those sisters had chimed in and I love it.
I hope that someday we can all live so much closer so we can hang out, craft, scrap, babysit, chat and laugh.
Sure love those Kennedy girls!

What I'm Talking About

While talking to my sister the other day, she reminded me that she has no idea what our place looks like. She says she just can't "picture it".

So, family of mine, here it is.

Our living room

Pictures of our cutie kids hung behind the couch.

I have tried and tried to hang them EXACTLY straight but have failed.

Help!

On the huge wall in the walkway from the living room to the entry way and kitchen

Our retro kitchen
(its BIG and works, so I love it)

and the LONG hallway that leads to everything else
(on the left is our kid's art gallery and on the right are the kids' hooks)

My dear sister, now you can "picture it". Picture me sitting on the kitchen counter top by the sink talking to you, or hollering down this hallway for my kids to remember to flush and wash their hands, or snuggling onto the couch to watch a movie with my little family.

I am thankful to live here. We love the area, the neighborhood, the school, the ward.
Everything!