Our Dad

"A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty."

"A dad is a son's first hero, and a daughter's first love."

"Children will not remember you for the material things you provided, but for the feeling that you cherished them." I love my own dad a crazy amount, I know he has always done the best he can do, and loves me in the best way he knows how to but to be honest I never truly understood the depth between a father and his child until I watched the man I love become a dad. There are so many traits and qualities that I love about my husband but above all I love the kind of father he is. It comes as natural to him as breathing. He loves with his whole heart and soul and everything he has and is. I truly believe that is the only way he knows how to. I love the warmth of his voice when he consoles them in the middle of the night, I love the way his eyes shine and come alive the minute one of their names is mentioned, I love the way they fit in his big, strong arms. I love that he is their favorite, you'ld think this would bum me out but no, not at all. I love that there is someone out there that loves them as much as I do. My boys are truly the center of his universe, his pride and joy, the reason behind everything he does. He teaches me every single day how to have patience, flexibility and most of all unconditional love. We are so incredibly blessed to have him leading our family. He keeps us tucked close to his side, always protected and safe and oh so loved. We couldn't love anyone more. Happy Fathers Day to the greatest man I have ever known. All my love babe.... your girl

10 on 10

10 pictures taken over 10 hours on the 10th of each month. Enjoy, cause it seriously took me like 2 hours to do this post. Blogger being a piece of crap for anyone but me? It wouldn't align my pictures down the center. I seriously had to copy and paste all the text.....annoying!

Chilly today, but the sun was at least shining.

Quick little pedicure for myself. I usually try to do this after my boys' are in bed. Didn't get that luxury this time, they were all awake and driving me crazy. Had to start over twice cause Lincoln kept bumping me.

Church clothes all ready...

Even had time to straighten out my hair and add a little bit of curl today. Today was all about my grooming. haha.

The world is a safer place when you are holding daddy's hand...

Even better with a Sunday nap.

Home from church and my big boys are listening to their childrens songbook hymns. I don't know about you guys but I can barely tolerate "Scripture Power " played at a reasonable volume one time through, let alone played on repeat, blaring through the house.

Dinner with the inlaws.

We join family to celebrate Lance's birthday. 10 more days and my Carson will join him. Two seven year olds...where have these years gone??

Perfect Sunday.

Insta-Catch up

Hello dear ones.. Happy Friday to ya. Its been a busy week. I'm tired. Ready for a nice, quiet weekend. Got a pizza night planned, some swingset play, a cousin's birthday. Sounds good to me. I worked an extra day this week in order to make up for some time I am taking off this summer and it has kinda kicked my butt. Thiago has been setting up his new soccer team for LaRoca as well and he somehow talked me into being the team manager. What the?? What have I agreed to?? I worked all day Monday and then got to go straight to a 2 1/2 hour meeting for team managers. Then he had his own individual team meeting where I stayed up way too late making treats for. Then you add in all my regular day to day stuff and I am just feeling a little worn out. Anywho, catching you all up via Instagram. I swear I have some stuff coming up that is real camera worthy. I will put away my phone and take some honest to gosh pictures for you...in the meantime, here is our last couple of weeks in a nutshell. Just me and Cars at church today...Thiago had a migraine. First berries of the season from our patch. Rise and shine sleepy head This is why I don't bath them before gardening...dirty! Nice night for a family stroll One of my very favorite things to do is go for an early morning run, then take a few minutes to sit on my front porch and watch the world wake up. Congrats Rose. 2012 Northridge High graduate! Graduation celebratory dinner. Trampoline fun Somebody likes to organize my earings...he's an odd child. Feeling brave. Here goes church with all 3 boys on my own. This could be interesting. I am husband/kid-less tonight....so I talked my sister into Costa Vida! A little practice.... Not ideal weather for our 1st game....he's #7 How he travels through Walmart. Ha! Gearing myself up...errands today...exhausting Shopping wears him right out I love a good cleaning day Today sucked...here's hoping tomorrow is better. It's a new day....lets try that again! And there you have it. And just so you know today was a better day. Yesterday, not great. One of those days where I let simple things bother me and then let it reflect in the way I treated my kids and husband. Not okay. Felt bad, apologized, pondered on how I could do better and then did my best to start out fresh the next day. And I did do better. Tell me I am not the only one that sometimes lets nastiness creep in. I sometimes let it get the best of me, but I fight like you no what to put things back into perspective. Like to think I am getting better. Who knows. All we can do is our best, right?? Well my friends, happy weekend to you. Be back on Sunday for 10 on 10, until then.....happy thoughts!

Mine for the Summertime

Hello friends!! Long time I know, I am so sorry for my lack of blogging lately. I have discovered instagram, and unfortunately my real camera is being neglected. Instagram is just too much fun and so convenient cause my phone is always with me. I promise though, I will never neglect this blog. Too much details and memories have been stored here, it is our life story and means to much to me to ever not keep up with. So here I am today.

As of Friday, this boy is officially mine for the summertime!! Woot-woot!! Love it. I imagine at some point in life when all my kids are in school, and then all of the sudden they are all home together. With long, hot, whiney, fighting days maybe I will cringe at the thought of summertime. But right now, I am HAPPY. So happy. From the day Carson was born he has truly always been my "friend". The kid is an absolute joy to be around and I am CRINGING at the thought of 1st grade. We are talking 8:50-3:25 without my boy. I hate it. HATE IT!! Lets not think about that now okay...we'll think about that in August. For now...

the backpack is hung up and it ain't coming down for three long months.

For now, he gets to join me and this sweet little face.

As well as this slighly crazy little face. To be honest, having Carson around might balance out some of the insane energy that comes from this child (who I love dearly, but is quite the charachter). You want an example of what he has been up to...

this. Seriously, I have never in my life heard of someone breaking the porcelain cover to their toilet. Enter Lincoln. Not sure what was happening here, appearantly he was very interested in the water that fills up the tank and he wanted to get a close up. Crash...toilet broke. Don't you worry that this baby sliced my pinki, gushing blood friends. I stood there in the bathroom, Drake in the tub, Cars at school, Thiago at work, Linc staring at me, can't leave to bandage it up cause the baby's in the tub, couldn't get him out of the tub cause everytime I let up on my pinki, blood started to fill the bath water. It was awesome. Needless, to say Thiago is fixing that in the next few days.

Moving on to the end of year festivities. Cars has a summer birthday but his teacher told him he could celebrate early with the class. It is a big deal people. Huge. Not only do you get to bring birthday treats for the class, you also get to bring a few special items. Such as baby pictures of the birthday kid, a family picture, your favorite toy, etc...

I met him in his classroom the last 30 minutes of the day with Krispy Kreme's and his little bag of treasures. He got to sit in the front of the room with the kids all gathered around him. He tells a little about himself and then the kids all get to ask him questions. It was here that he informed the class, his teacher and myself that his favorite musis is Lady Gaga. Yep, he said it. I think my face turned about 5 shades of red. Lady Gaga?? Seriously??

Second to last day he received his yearbook. Oh, yearbooks. What fun memories. He has seriously studied this thing from cover to cover.

Repeated times. He is fascinated by it. Very sweet.

Last day had him all sorts of excited.

Put together a small thank-you for his teacher. My sweetie pie sister comes up with all the ideas and I just copy her. We did an insulated cup filled with country time lemonade packets and the note said "thank-you for quenching my thirst for knowledge". Then I had Carson write up a little thank-you note as well and slid that in there. Cute and cheap and I think quite useful.

The last day they were going to head over to the pavilions next to his school for a little class picnic. They got to bring whatever they wanted to eat. He chose a lunchable, an apple, a brownie AND a kitkat. Last day, what the heck...I said sure to all of it. Oh, and a capri sun. Surprisingly the brownie and kitkat came home with him. Says he got to full from the apple and the lunchable. Funny boy.

So he's home and me and his brothers are soaking him up. Next year will be interesting. Linc will start preschool and my boy will be a full timer. Crazy. Just me and the babe at home for a few hours together. In the meantime, he is staying busy with T-ball, that just started up . He so far seems to have taken a real interest in it and is pretty decent. It will be fun to watch. They have just had practices up to this point and there first real game is tomorrow. Fun stuff.

Summertime baby!! We are off to enjoy!!