Ready for the weekend!

Oh my... not the greatest week at our house. :)

Our computer crashed, Selah Grace has another UTI, Zac has been fighting a cold, and Mom needs a root canal.

The computer has been the biggest headache and sooooo expensive and soooo many hours of trying to get all our programs to work. (on a side note, Windows 7 is NOT my idea of anything but a hassle)

Oh. And my tan is fading.

I've been very grouchy.



Some really awesome positives from the week:

1. Selah Grace has started sleeping through the night!! Of all weeks - when she is sick. (?) But she goes to sleep at 7pm, I wake her up at 11 to eat, and she sleeps until 7am. WOW. It's awesome.

2. I had a moment on Sunday when I decided to back up our computer. No reason. In fact, it ended up taking hours on a beautiful sunny day, and I had lots of other things to do. BUT, because of this, we didn't really lose anything when the computer crashed. It's all on our external hard drive, that we just bought a couple weeks ago. Seriously, if we hadn't done this, it would have been a disaster, as ALL of our pictures and extremely important files are on this computer.

3. I found a student dentist to do my root canal. I went this morning for a screening and almost turned around. The downtown clientele was a bit different from my north Dallas dentist's office. I'm pretty sure I was the only one there with insurance. Anyways, the student dentist was awesome and it's about half the price of my yuppie (is that still a word?) dentist office. I did complain about the lack of personal televisions at each chair, just in case they needed some upgrading ideas.

4. I've been transitioning dairy back into my diet and SG is doing very well. Much better than ZZ did at this age. I was very excited to have some pizza this week!

5. Zac had his soccer party this week. The kids were given trophies, and one of the youngest on the team promptly dropped his trophy and it shattered on the ground. That child was hysterical. My sweet sweet sweet little boy offered his trophy to the other player!! Isn't he amazing?!! He has the biggest heart and can be so kind. I was very very very proud of him!!! We are trying to get Zac's replaced, since he doesn't have a trophy right now. And he totally deserves one. :)


That's all. We need a weekend around here.

Phone Photos Ph-riday

I have so many pics on my phone. Carrying my Nikon and a baby just isn't realistic. Because of that, much of our life is documented on my iPhone. :)

And then the pictures get stuck on there!

If I could at least remember to get them off once a week...

So, I thought - I should pick a day to share them. And Phone Photo Ph-riday has a cute ring to it. Granted, today is Saturday, not Friday (or Ph-riday). But who ever accused me of making sense or being consistent?

This is during our first flight. The pilot let Zac spend some time with him. Apparently Zachariah does not fit the terrorist profile.

Something that make me smile about this picture:
The memories of that silly shirt. Zac was with me at Goodwill (not uncommon... I love it there) and found this shirt for 87-cents. I put it in the cart, but spent some time trying to convince him that it was... well, ugly. His little heart was set on it, and he was absolutely thrilled to wear it going and coming home. In fact, if you know him and want to compliment him on his Cabo shirt, he would be so excited.





This is Selah Grace *finally* old enough to play with her Jack-in-the-box. Zachariah spent a lot of time with her Friday afternoon teaching her and telling her all about it, how it works, etc. She was fascinated!

Something that makes me smile about this picture:
I remember taking Zachariah to a consignment sale and he found this for "the baby." This was back when I was so sure SG was going to be a BOY. (ha!) On Friday, he dug it out of her toy shelf and was so excited to finally get to play with her. I love watching my children play together!




This is also from Thursday, when I went to snack on some strawberries and realized that every single strawberry had a BITE OUT OF IT! Zac got a good laugh out of that one. Oh, my. What a little stinker! Good thing he's so cute. AND that I had another package. :)





This is when we went out for pizza before soccer practice on Tuesday. In true Zachariah fashion, he made a friend and was absent for most of dinner. I thought SG looked especially cute on Brian's shoulders. What an itty-bitty-cutie-pie!

This is from the pizza night, too. The short time he spent at our table, he quickly drew this badge. Since being in preschool, he has actually started drawing things! Original things! He has my drawing ability (sorry kid). But I thought this was so funny. "Offisr Zach" And he's got quite a gun. He told me that he was especially proud of the facial expression here. Fierce.

And look who sat in the grocery cart for the first time today (Saturday, 4-24)?!! Doesn't she look like a big girl? My sweet baby Selah Gracie!!

Speaking of photos... have you checked out my photography blog lately? No? Well - go on over there and take a look! :)

http://www.joyfulmoments-photography.blogspot.com/

Stay tuned next PH-riday!!

No more training wheels!

Last week, I was telling him to "ride with no sound" meaning that he was balancing off his training wheels. He did great at that, so we knew it was time to take them off.

On Tuesday of this week, Brian took the trainers off, and OFF HE WENT! There was no practicing - just a Big Boy Riding His Bike. *sniff sniff*

We're so proud. :)

Cabo San Lucas!!

Oh my... it was a blur!

This was where we stayed and I HIGHLY recommend it! Hopefully we can make it back again someday. http://www.dreamsresorts.com/drelc/

We left Friday morning.

One of the highlights of Zac's trip was definitely the Park and Fly shuttle bus. I don't know why, but he felt ultra cool.

After waiting in line FOREVER (thank you Europe volcano) and a little "surprise" at the ticket counter (apparently infants are NOT free when traveling internationally), we were finally shoeless in security.

Selah Grace got to keep her shoes on.

The flight was fairly boring, minus Zac's last minute freak-out about taking off, and SG's 2 minutes (felt like 20) of screeeeeeeeeaming.

Zac was bummed that we didn't have a "tube" to walk through at the Cabo airport. In Mexico, you basically get dropped off on the runway and figure it out from there.

We got to the resort and I could NOT BELIEVE the size of our room.

When we went last summer, we had a large room. And I was expecting our room to be pretty small this time. Like a normal hotel room. This was not a normal hotel room!! I was just about in tears and SO excited. We even had 2 bathrooms, so Selah Grace could have her own room! :)

We immediately got changed into swimsuits and headed to the pool!!

At the pool, we met little A - a 5 year old girl who hit it off with Zac right away. This was her family's 10th time at this hotel, so we took their advice when they recommended the Kid's Club.

The Kid's Club was open every day from 9am-10pm. They had scheduled activities for each hour, including tennis lessons, video games, bungee, seashell collecting, etc etc etc. They gave us a beeper and we hardly saw Zachariah after that!! Every once in a while, we'd see him with the other kids on the way to eat at a restaurant or we'd see him in the pool with his friends and his "teacher."

I'd ask him, "What did you order for lunch/dinner?" And most of the time, he'd answer "nachos." We figured - oh well - it's his vacation, too!

When he was with us, he ordered endless strawberry daiquiris and pina coladas. And nachos.

Selah Grace loved the water. Her favorite was the jacuzzi. It wasn't too hot and she just floated around for hours. My goal was for her not to have a single tan line. Thanks to 60 sunblock, her sunhats, her cover ups, and her floatie with a shade - mission accomplished!

The rest of us got great tan lines. :)

Brian and I drank and ate and tanned and floated and ate some more. We probably ate 6 meals each day.

Both fridges in our room were stocked every day with corona, wine, water, and apple juice. Every restaurant and room service - free. Ricardo was our pool waiter and we loved him. He came to say goodbye to us on our last day! We ate in each restaurant and swam in each pool. Between SG napping and Zac at the kid's club - it was just the two of us most of the time!

The kids did awesome with the time change. Zac stayed up L.A.T.E. because he didn't want to leave the kid's club until his friends left. lol (they closed at 11pm our time.....the child usually crashes at 7pm!!)

Anyways - onto the pics!! The quality isn't great, but I had my phone and my crummy old camera with me most of the time. :)

On the Park and Fly shuttle




I made this shirt because I love those pink gaucho pants so much and needed something to match :)


Zac in Selah Grace's floatie - silly guy!



My boys with their drinks



Family in the jacuzzi



ZZ with A and his Kid's Club "teacher" on their way to look for seashells



Daddy and Selah Grace



Mommy and Selah Gracie!



ZZ and A with their faces painted
(I will add that this is RARE for Zac to get his face painted and it was so cute!)



SG is very unsure about the Spiderman boy



Zachariah on the bungee with the Kid's Club



Mommy with my sweetie pie baby boy


Floating around with ZZ



SG chillin with Mama



SG hangin with Dada (have you noticed how many swimsuits she has?!)



Mama and ZZ



Mom and Dad on the waterslide



Okay - Mommy and Daddy time... night night! :)



We played a LOT of chess



We are matchy matchy before our official beach pics



SG with Daddy!



I need to print this out for Brian's office. :)




We can't wait to go back!!!!

What I live with

eta: I just wrote this all out and watched the videos... and maybe you just had to be there. But I'm posting anyway, cuz it's my blog. :)



If you know my hubs, then you know some very certain facts:

1. He's very very clean. (that could be a whole post in itself!)
2. He's very very forgiving, loving, and kind.
3. He's always doing something. Cleaning, fixing, working... he doesn't sit still.
4. He's extremely patient. (And I mean extremely!! LOL)
5. He's very very funny. Seriously, he has me and Zachariah laughing every single day.


Here he is... just being himself...

(I found them on the balcony dancing and singing their own rendition of "Viva Los Cabos")... then of course raced to get my camera)

(They were playing chess and I was cracking up. I pleaded with them to stop and let me race to the room to get the video camera. Not only is Zac's version of "chess" so completely wrong, he made Brian play by his rules.)

(on a side note, did you hear at the end, "Hi Zachariah" from another kid? Zac knew everyone at the resort. It was pretty funny to walk around with him and hear people say hi to him.)

And last but not least - one of my ALL TIME FAVORITES. Brian was listening to my iPod singing along really loud. He didn't know I was recording him on my iPhone. You can't see him, but you can definitely hear him. And I so wish you could see the dancing. soooooooo funny......

http://blip.tv/file/get/Thompsons08-brianSinging264.m4a

Back from Cabo!

No pictures yet. We came back to a busy schedule and never ending to-do list.

But we had SO. MUCH. FUN. In Zachariah's words, "I wish we could live in Mexico."

We can't wait to share pics of our 2 beautiful babies and all the fun things we did!!

Quick Pics

I have 10 million other things to do right now. The living room is a total mess. But nothing sounds more fun than making Selah Grace some new shirts in the middle of a mess. And I've already drug out her fabric and ribbon trying to create something new and fabulous.

But, instead of cleaning OR sewing... I'm on the computer! So productive...


Here are some pictures from my phone. They are in total random order, but they all occurred within the last week, so I feel like that's good enough. :)




This is when we went to a Wildcats baseball game after Z's soccer practice. Zac got really into the game! Which made Brian so secretly happy, because THIS is the same exact field where he pitched for his high school baseball team. In fact, they still have the same coach!! Brian went out to say hi to him! Our neighborhood is really "small town" in a weird in-the-middle-of-the-city kind of way.

Here is ZZ watching the game. He's on the far right. Next to him is one of his very very best buddies. :)

And my boys in the bleachers... SO CUTE!!

Oh, and this is when we went to Salata. Have you ever been? YUMMO!! I highly recommend it. I feel full, yet very healthy at the same time. This is Selah Grace with the manager, who happens to be one of Brian's childhood friends. He actually bought Zac a BIKE last summer. Isn't he a sweetie? It makes me forget all the stories I hear about them getting in trouble in high school.

This is when we got to go on another DATE NIGHT! Yippee!!! We have now found a way to go twice a month with free babysitting. It ROCKS. Another thing I highly recommend. It's very very good for us to reconnect and we desperately need it at this point in our lives. I count down until these date nights when I get Brian all to myself! Our marriage feels refreshed and calm and peaceful and restored. Even if it's just for one night...ha! Have you had a date night lately? No? GO PLAN ONE!

Oh - and can I just say that PF Changs totally rocks? As you may know, I'm dairy free for Selah Grace. I have a good list of things I can eat, and for the most part it isn't a hassle. Except for restaurants. Eating out is a total hassle. But not here! They just enter "milk" into their computer system and it prints out my very own 5-page menu of all the things I can eat. Cool!

Another refreshing time - girlfriends!!! We had a Tour of Homes with the early childhood pta in our neighborhood. They offered babysitting, but I ended up sharing a babysitter with a friend (1 16-year-old and 5 kids!). Selah Grace got an awesome morning nap and Zac had a total blast with his friends. And me? I had SO.MUCH.FUN. It wasn't wild crazy fun. But it was calm peaceful adult fun with sweet sweet girls! We loved seeing the homes on the tour and dreaming about remodeling our own homes. (ha) Then there was a luncheon and a huge silent auction. Good times! Love these girls and the 13.5 kids we have between us! ;)

Last but not least - here is my baby princess! I woke up early that morning and decided to whip up this little dress before church. Brian got up an hour later and just laughed at me. I believe his exact words were, "Why am I not surprised?" I do this quite often. I've even done it at my inlaws' house. lol! It's just way too much fun to make little girlie dresses. :)

In other news:
*We go on our vacation soon! Yippee!!
*My photography business is insane! I had 6 sessions last weekend. Whew! But I LOVE it. :)
*Brian is playing softball again. I love cheering for my man - GO Disciples!!!
*Zac's soccer team has pretty much won every game. He's pretty good and we are so proud!
*Looks like we are taking the training wheels off Z's bike soon. Cannot believe it - big boy!
*Selah Grace finally swallowed a little banana. And she inhales Cheerios. I guess we should do some veggies soon. ;)

That's all I can think of. Brian's at his game right now. It's the first one I've missed. :( I told him NO homeruns when I wasn't there. He told me NO mess when he got home. He got the better end of that deal.

Oh, want to hear a funny story about Brian's baseball? (can you tell I'm still procrastinating?)

So, when we had just met, Brian played for the church softball league. I had been to other games with my friends, so when he mentioned he was playing, I took him up on watching and I showed up to his game. We were just barely dating, so this was a fun little safe thing where we could meet up.

Now, anyone that knows Brian knows that he is SO humble. He's like the total opposite of an exaggerater. Any story he tells, I have to ADD in some exaggeration to get what probably really happened.

Well, I didn't know this back then, and when he described his softball playing ability, it made me think he was... well... pretty sucky.

So, I get to this softball game and I see some friends, and sit down. And they're asking me if I'm there to see anyone, and I kind of blow off the question.... kind of embarrassed because Brian made himself sound like the worst player on the team.

Anyways, he gets up to bat, and swings, and the bat hits the ball and makes this CRACK sound that reverberates across the field and the ball goes flying (can you tell who exaggerates in our relationship?), and his long legs take off like a cheetah (was that too much?) around the bases. I was shocked! I think he got to 3rd base or something that first time.

And I pick my jaw up off the ground and tell everyone I'm with him. Totally.

Weekend at the cabin

I so wish we had "a cabin."

Or "a lakehouse."

Or something equally as cool.

Maybe someday after we get our house paid off. And we can invite different friends every weekend to enjoy it with us. Doesn't that sound fun?

We were very lucky to have been invited to our cousins' cabin out in east Texas. We had a great time!!! This cabin has SO much to do, tailored to a family just like ours. If we ever have a cabin, I want to have all these things. Plus a trampoline. :)

Em's mom and dad pretty much built this whole thing - minus the foundation and framing. Her dad also built much of the furniture inside. Very cool.

Inside there are two adult bedrooms downstairs, each with a bathroom. Upstairs is a large kids bedroom that sleeps at least 6 - with room on the floor for more!





Downstairs is a big family room with games and puzzles and movies and toys and books - and a big couch to cuddle with baby cousins. :)







The cabin sits on top of a hill, and this rope swings right off the "cliff." We all took some rides on it - and it WAS fun! Look how high and far ZZ flies!!!





In the back, there are sleds to slide down a very steep hill. Yes, this picture is right before Brian and Zac totally busted it right into the dirt, toppling over each other! LOL!





For dinner, we roasted hot dogs at the campfire spot. Then made smores for dessert. Zac just liked lighting sticks on fire. :)





In the morning, there is a pancake tradition where you have to catch your pancakes across the room. (Zac thought this was really cool!)






There were little motorcycle scooter things (probably a better name for these, but I don't know what they're called) to ride around the property. (just realized I messed up this pic... supposed to have another picture, not two of the same. oh well!)






You can walk or ride down to the lake, where you can swim (too cold right now) or fish or boat. It's also a great place to ride a razor scooter or have Daddy swing you around.








The kids mostly fished....









Although Zac spent a lot of time playing in the minnow bucket...







And we only had one kiddo fall in. Thankfully it was in shallow water and ended up being pretty funny. Not for her, though! Bless her sweet little bitty heart!!




The only thing we didn't get to do is shower in the outdoor shower, which looked super cool! Oh, and there was a pingpong table that we didn't play. We did sign the guest book, though. And hopefully we'll get to go back again!!!