Girls day out

Today Ella and I had a girls day out. While Wes was sleeping and Jon was playing computer we went to the mall and hung out. First we went shopping at Belk. I had a $20 gift card from my b-day. We managed to find 2 cute skirts to buy and only spent $1 over the gift card. Next we headed to the food court but got stopped by the "mall bounce". Ella has wanted to do this 4-eva and I decided that today was the day. So off she went and she sure did jump HIGH! She loved it. She tried, but she wasn't able to do a flip, maybe when she is older. After the bouncy, we went to the bookstore and bought some books. They are going out of business and their books were on sale. The hardbacks were $3 and the paper backs were $2. We each picked out 3 books. But we still weren't done yet, next we stopped at the Great American Cookie and each picked out a cookie and shared a drink. Finally our time was up and we headed back home for a short nap. What a nice Mem day we had together.

Sunday dinner...and a movie

Since tomorrow is Memorial day, we didn't have to rush home after dinner to make the 8 o'clock deadline. Dad decided that we should watch an old Marx brothers film. I am not sure which one we watched, but Dad and Jon are the only ones who watched the whole was through. I think they enjoyed it. I chatted with mom and helped her clear the table. Tomorrow they are leaving for orlando for a conference. We will miss them while they are gone. I am excited to have an extra day off tomorrow, hopefully it will be relaxing.

Goodbye Grandma Roggio!

Today is Grandma Roggio's last day with us. Tomorrow she flies off to Florida to see my aunt and then to DE to visit other family. Finally, after that, she is heading back home to Idaho. It was nice to have her here and let her get to know my kids and Kristy's kids. Today, Dad took us all out for a nice good-bye lunch. We ate at a Chinese buffet. It was yummy. Grandma brought Wes some mandarin oranges and when she set them in front of him he got a huge smile on his face and let out a joyful laugh. He gobbled them all up and laughed the whole time. He was delighted to have his favorite food at the buffet.
We also went out to see a movie this afternoon with Mom and Dad. The kids stayed home with our friend Hannah. She is AWESOME with the kids and they just love her. We saw prince of persia, which was pretty good, if predictable.

Amy's house

Today we spent the morning with our friend Amy and her kids. Ella and her middle child are the same age, and her youngest is a few months younger than Wesley. She also has an amazing older son who is great with the kids. They played outside on the new playground, played inside, played candyland and had lunch. We had a great morning!

Photo Class

This morning I taught a intro to photography class for my Mommy's group. It was a lot of fun. 2 of the 3 ladies who came are actually past clients of mine! So I knew them at least. It was a nice way to spend the morning, I hope they learned something!

I love to see the temple...

My sister was in need of a spiritual renewal so I suggested she go to the temple and get her battery recharged. Since the Atlanta temple is closed for the time being, Her temple is the same as mine, Birmingham. B-ham is only an hour and 15 min from me, so I volunteered to watch her kids while she and Mom did a session. We met at a local chick-fil-a and had lunch. Then I stayed with the kids while they went over to the temple for the session. The kids played in the C-F-A playground for almost 3.5 hours!! I finally had to drag them kicking and screaming (not literally) from the playground at 2:30 to go meet Kristy and Mom at the temple. We got there a few min early and the kids had a BLAST playing in the grass and on the steep hill behind the temple. I brought a shaded lawn chair and enjoyed watching them play while drinking my ice cold large Dr. Pepper. Jon had also attended the temple with them, so we got to see daddy early today. After they were done in the temple, Kristy headed back to Atlanta and we drove home to HSV. It was nice to see them for a short time, and it was good to do a service for my sister.

Dirty and clean

This morning I left Wes alone with his breakfast while I did some photography stuff upstairs. When I came back down, I discovered that instead of eating his banana, he smeared it all in his hair. YUCK! Into the bath with him, but still, totally gross, it was a sticky and looked like snot. *barf*

Later in the morning we headed over to Bridgestreet and played in the fountains. Both kids had fun for a while before acting really tired. So i brought them home and they were both sound asleep in their beds by 12:40. I was shocked, as that is a good 45min-hour early. Ella slept for 2.5 hours, and Wes is still sleeping now at 3:20. I don't know what tired them out so much, we didn't do anything much today.

Splish-Splash

Today we were invited to a friend's place for a water playdate. They have a small aboveground pool, a playground and water toys. They live kinda far away, (Meridianville) so we don't get to see them very often. I had a blast, and so did the kids.

Are YOU afraid of the dark?

Ella, like most kids can sometimes be scared of the dark or have nightmares. Kids usually call for help and with their mom and dad, come up with a plan that helps them keep away the fearful things. Ella has had trouble with "Goku'em" for a while now. They are apparently some form of Goblin, but very small and they are scary. A while back, In a moment of sleep-deprived desperation told her that her ride-on dino EATS Goku'ems. That Rexie's favorite snack was Goku'ems and that she shouldn't worry, cuz with Rexie in the room, no Goku'ems could get her. This worked. (yea me!) Now Rexie resides at the end of her bed each evening at the ladder, alert and prepared to gobble any stray Goku'ems that wander into her room.

Later, she decided she was scared of Ghosts, so I (in another stroke of brilliance!) told her that Kitzel(our cat) EATS ghosts,(notice a theme here?) and so since Kitzel sleeps with her no ghosts could get her. She bought that. It is so nice that little kids are so trusting and ready to believe their mommies.

Finally, one night, she had a bad dream. I never was able to figure out what was wrong, but the girl just had one request, a sword, to protect herself. We have at least 5 play swords in the house, so I handed one up and she went quietly back to sleep. She has slept with one of her swords ever since.

It makes me happy that she has so many things to protect her, she sleeps well, and hardly ever has bad dreams lately. Everyone should have their own team of protectors to watch over them while they sleep.

L-O-N-G day

Today I started my day photographing the new recruits for the Young Marines of North Alabama. I took some studio shots of the recruits and then some shots of the graduation ceremony. I also took a group picture for them. The whole thing lasted from 9am-1:30pm. Once I was finally finished, I had to run some chores on that side of town, so European market, Sams club, and Walmart later I got to go home and unload. I then went out to get a haircut. My hair was getting too long and unmanageable. I like it much better after my cut. This evening we went to the park to play. It was a good, but very very long day.

Bowling with friends

Tonight we had a family date with our friends the Ash's. We love D and G, they are so much fun! We had decided to go bowling together on the Arsenal. The first game we bowled regular, and the second, we all added bumpers and tried to get the lowest score possible. I think G won, with a score in the low 50's. We had pizza for dinner, and a blast hanging out. The kids were super well behaved, and we ended up getting home just in time for bedtime. It was great, I can't wait to hang out with them again.
Wesley was awesome. This his first "real" time bowling. He LOVED it. He would race to the ramp when it was his turn and push the ball real hard. Then he would dance in place and giggle as he watched his ball go down the lane. He would shout "GO!!!!" as it hit the pins. He was so excited, it was fun to watch.