MAMA!

OH MY GOODNESS! ELVIS JUST SAID "MAMA"!!!!!!!! Now here I am doing what forced him to call out my name...on the computer not paying him any attention. Gotta go and give my kids bunches of XOXOXO! 

I Wear My Sunglasses at Night

A couple of nights ago Ruby wanted to share her new sunglasses the Easter Bunny brought her with her little brother. Purple Hello Kitty Sunglasses never looked so good as on these two! No big post, I'll let the pix tell the story. xoxo

Toothy McToothersen

Check out that little white rice-like speck! Yes, Elvis James has his first tooth! It broke through about 2 weeks ago (I'm so late blogging about it that his second one is well on its way). Let me tell you, not much compares to breaking that first tooth. You have this perfectly happy baby and then "WHAM!" out of nowhere he starts acting like a total insano! It must hurt like the dickens to make such a chill little guy whine and cry for what seems like no reason to which nothing helps. Tylenol takes too long, Orajel doesn't last long enough, and teething tablets I think are made for parents to make us feel like we are doing SOMETHING (anything!!!) to help. The morning I spotted that little tooth poking through there was a feeling of relief that I couldn't possibly accurately describe in words (for me and little Elvis...heck, for the whole family). He is taking the second much better than the first, but only time will tell. Ruby had classic teething symptoms will ALL of her teeth including a nearly 105 fever with her molars (it didn't bother her much though)!

Ruby, 1 year, with her 105 "molar fever" (the Doc suggested we let her run around mostly naked to cool her off)

Easter Egg Fun

OK. I knew Easter was going to be a BIG HIT with Ruby because of her serious love affair with EGGS! This girl loves eggs prepared in any way. Traditionally at greasy spoon restaurants an entree comes with 2 eggs with 3 or more being a pretty "egg"stravagant choice. Well, this little girl can put away 2, 3, 4 eggs at a sitting....to the point where we  have to cut her off. Needless to say, she loved the different colored eggs that the Easter Bunny left for her breakfast (poor Easter Bunny was totally unprepared this year, all she had was brown eggs that really didn't want to change colors)! She ate her brother's egg (he hasn't moved passed his jarred food, yet) then asked for more! She even ate eggs at Easter brunch (at a restaurant called "The Broken Egg) with Honey. This year's EGG-tastic Easter was only missing one thing: an EGG HUNT. I know, we're horrible for not doing one! Next year I'll make sure we go to the church-wide hunt! It didn't even cross my mind that it would be fun with only one kid looking for them. 

xoxo

Shameless Plug

Go check out the Mother's Day contest at Jayme Austin Photography and Trucks & Tutus Boutique! 

A Gift from the Norse Gods: IKEA

The day was Monday, April 13. The destination was Houston, TX for our biannual trip to the most magical place on earth, IKEA! This trip was especially for our living room. Two weeks before our trip I decided to have a yard sale and sell ALL of our living room furniture so I could fill our house with beautiful new funky furnishings that I had been drooling over since we moved into our house over a year ago (September 07). So we rented a crew cab truck from Enterprise (shhhhhh, don't tell them we went out of state), got the kiddos in the back seat (check out their positioning. . .not so ideal to have them right next to one another on a long drive. . we had to pull over twice for some fairly mild discipline), and headed for the best sight for design sore eyes in the world (that we finally caught sight of after 5 hours of driving). 
Check out those two little angels in their carts (and Alex in the background getting our loot from the help yourself warehouse) About 2 hours into our drive we realized we had forgotten the stroller. . total foul! They did extremely well considering that neither one of them napped after getting out of the car at about 2pm (naptime generally starts then). We only had some minor break downs over wanting to sleep in the beds on the showroom level (those of you who have been to Ikea know what I'm talking about). Ruby really liked going this time around. When we arrived we asked her what we were going to do at Ikea, and she said,  "HAVE FUN!" Oh, yes we did! 
We managed to furnish our entire living room for under $1500 (though I do want to go back and get a second chair to match the one we bought, I had no idea that we could fit so much furniture into our new floor plan). I'm so excited to have grown up furniture that creates an actual "look" instead of having slapped together pieces that were sat together with no thought to design or feel. Our age of the futon has passed and we are now living in a pretty hip pad! I'll post pictures when we finish painting (who knows when that will happen, we are planning for this weekend).

The babes were totally worn out and slept all the way home while Alex and I sang, had totally incoherent conversations, and drank coffee trying to keep ourselves awake.  I honestly (and I hate to admit this), but I don't remember most of the drive. Thank goodness Alex was driving! What is so insane about that, though, is when we got home we put together 2 pieces of furniture and I completely remember that because I was helplessly awake at 2 in the morning when we finally made it home! We stayed up until Alex was supposed to be WAKING UP for work (he went in a little late that day). Since we have put together all but one dining chair (why we neglected that one out of six I can't explain). All in all, a successful voyage to the happiest place on earth (at least for Mommy)! Next up, a trip to the actual "Happiest Place on Earth", we leave for Disney World in 3 weeks!

Remembering Felicity (not the show)

On a recent trip to NOLA for the Big Easy Scooter Rally we took a drive through our old haunts. We drove by our "flood house" in Mid City, our favorite restaurants (looking for somewhere open to eat), our friend Jen's house in the Marigny (there is a coffee shop downstairs that we like), and finally our old church. Felicity will always hold a special place in our hearts. When we first attended it was as a favor to my then boss (we were trying to secure a lease to their parsonage for the children's theater I worked for), but Alex and I fell in love with the 7 person membership. Yes, that's right, there were only seven members most of which were over the age of 70. They fell in love with us, too...a young couple, new blood! "Children make a church" they told us, and they could see that we just might make that leap! If it weren't for Hurricane Katrina, we may have been part of ushering in a new generation at Felicity. That would have been amazing, but the storm delivered the last blow that was needed to close Felicity's doors. Now, the building is on the historic register so it cannot be torn down, but I'm sure a "repurposing" is in it's future. When we passed by there was a big for sale sign attached to the fence. It was like a knife in the heart to see that. A place that I had seen so much potential in is destined to become a hip antique store or high end condos! BLAH! I wish we could have saved it. . .it wasn't for lack of trying! 

Haircut

So in this picture you have to squint to see it, but Elvis was in NEED of a little trim! When he was born he had a head full of jet black hair most of which fell out...except this bunch right at the top. I swear it was at least 4 inches longer than all of his other hair. I had to do something! Ruby is 2 1/2 and has yet to get a haircut (I just cannot find it in myself to part with her baby curls), but Elvis was looking raggedy! I took the plunge into home haircutting and it wasn't too bad (not that it was a REAL haircut or anything, but Alex cuts his hair at home). Yay, for Elvis's first haircut, now I can style him up right! 

Visitor from Lalaland

After 4 years (OMG, has it really been 4 years since we left L.A.???) we got a little time to hang out with one of our favorite friends, Jorge. It was really a trip seeing someone from our kidless days as I'm sure it was pretty surreal for Jorge to see us in our new roles of Mommy and Daddy! To all you peeps that we haven't seen in forever...we still love ya and totally wish we could get some hang out time with you, too! Just give us a call and come visit (we would visit you, but we have no discretionary income & there are 4 of us). We have a comfy couch to sleep on and Ruby will adopt you as her new best friend! xoxo