this past saturday, i was able to attend tim park’s photography workshop and had a great time there.  very unusual for me to have two saturdays in a row without kiddos in tow (ha ha, i made a rhyme!).  but it was really fun and refreshing to be able to focus on something i really enjoy.  yay, me, i actually made it on time to class (even with having to drop off the kids beforehand)! and sitting right up front, like the nerd i am.  🙂 phil had gone out the night before to buy me a notebook to take notes. i love that he got me an old school…

so marcelo flew out to attend the wedding and was also able to join us for church and lunch the following day.  it was definitely nice to get a little extra time to catch up with our good friend.  our kids also enjoyed hanging out with ‘mr. marcelo’ too, though allie had a bit of trouble saying his name and initially was calling him ‘mr. marshmellow’.  i’m pretty sure marcelo wasn’t too keen on the nickname, but it only made my kids like him more since they thought he was named after one of their favorite foods.  🙂 just like old times.  celloooo! lauren especially took a liking to mr. marcelo. kept…

this past saturday, phil had the honor of being a groomsman in james and jami’s wedding.  we were doing a little calculating on the drive over and figured that james and phil were roommates for a little over six years during college and beyond.  they’ve lived together for almost as long as phil and i have!  so yeah, they go way back. anyway, the bridal party was asked to be there four hours before the ceremony so that the pictures could be taken beforehand.  and thanks to some very good friends of ours who agreed to watch our kiddos for pretty much an entire saturday,  i was able to go early too (which…

i let mikey and allie choose what class they wanted to do this winter.  i thought maybe dance again for allie and some kind of sport for mikey.  but they ended up both choosing an art class.  i readily agreed since they both could be in the same class which meant i’d only have to get them to one class once a week.  i’m all over that option any day. though it also meant that lauren and i had to hang out on one side of the room for an hour while mikey and allie happily painted and cut and glued.  though unfortunately for me, lauren wasn’t quite happy just sitting…

loves giving hugs. and kisses. enjoys watching elmo’s world while wearing a pink princess dress. loves doing things for herself. and gets pretty frustrated when she can’t. (sorry for the blurry pic, i was laughing when i took this). has a pretty loud howl. and can turn on the water works at the drop of a hat. but gets over it pretty quickly.  especially when stickers are involved. also loves hamming it up. but will definitely let you know when picture time is over.