{embracing} Birthdays

 Today I'm {embracing}birthdays Yesterday was my birthday 4 years ago today my brother made this day extra special by marrying a beautiful girl who just happened to have my exact same birthday!  

We were born around the same time, but she was born in Florida and with the time zones, that makes her about an hour older then I am.

It is very cool to have someone to share your birthday with.

Make sure you head over to Emily's blog and see what the {embrace} is all about

What She Wore Wednesday

Well today I think that her dad dressed her

 

in her RUN DMC shirt from Old Navy and she probably added the kitty ear headband.

Photo courtesy of Josiah V.

you may notice I have two new buttons there on the right side of my blog, but as cute as they may be, they don't work yet, so I'll have to fix that.

Birthday presents!

Day 89

Two Things Tuesday

My two things today are opposites.

1. Something that has been making me want to cry. Math. I'm taking a short (8 week) Algebra class, in case you didn't know short means same amount of work squeezed into less time.. so it feels like more time spent on it, for me anyway. I've been a bit behind in this class too, so I keep feeling like I need to catch up. It has been all that I've been doing today.

2. Something that I can't stop smiling about. My pictures sneak peak is in over at my friend Bethany's blog. I love them all. She did such a good job on them. I know I have my favorites. I want you to tell me which one is your favorite.
Spring Pictures

Day 88

Not my usual Monday

As you know my Mondays are usually rather boring, full of mundane tasks like laundry.

But this Monday was different. This Monday began my birthday week, and what better way to do that then with some kid free shopping (ok it was only grocery shopping..but if you are a mom.. you get it)

Some starbucks, I'm not a coffee drinker so you know this was a treat.

And an early birthday present from my sister, who is just at the beginning stages of her new journey called Motherhood.
She sent me this, I love it, and have to find somewhere to hang it now.

Day 87

Family Date Day

After church today we went out with our friends the Bakers, they have 6 wonderful children with one more on the way. As you might imagine when we get together with our 5 and their 6 fun is bound to happen. Somehow I didn't get any pictures this time.

After a short nap time we took the older three to go see "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules" with my VBF and her family. Ryan, Judah, D, Josiah and I had read all the books, so we were very excited to see this one.

After the movie we went to Braums for dinner and ice cream.

These poor boys didn't get the kind of ice cream they wanted so they were bummed.

and of course whenever I get together with my VBF silliness insues and this time we involved our hubbies.

Day 86

Saturday's Orff Festival

Today was a big day for Judah.

He took part in the Orff Festival.

Don't know what that is?

You are in good company.

Carl Orff was a German composer, he wrote a lot of children's songs.

The festival invited all the 4th graders from the surrounding schools in our area.

Judah had to try out and out of all the fourth graders in his school there were only 15 that made it from his school.



I'm so proud of him he worked so hard. He had to go in early to school one day a week and give up a couple of his recesses during the day too. He never once complained and he did such a great job.



And he had so many supporters there for him. 3 sets of grandparents, 1 great-grandparent, 2 uncles, 1 aunt, 3 cousins, mom and dad and 4 siblings!

Day 85

**for some reason the pictures aren't showing up..hopefully this will be fixed tomorrow**

Finally Friday

Today I was able to go to Pre-K with my girl.

They have been learning about Dr. Suess all week since this is his birthday Month.
 

So for their snack they got donuts shaped like Cat in the Hat Hats and Pink Sunny D for their "pink ink" from "Red Fish, Blue Fish"

I'm not going to be home tonight for dinner, we are having Crockpot Chicken Chili, and it is making my house smell really good. Hopefully they will leave me some.

And have you ever seen a pepper do this before?

Day 84

{embracing} me

  Today I'm {embracing} myself. Sound strange? Self centered? Conceited? No that is what {embrace the camera} is all about. In case you never have been over to Emily's blog and read about it, it is about getting in the pictures.  Because my kids will one day want to see what I looked like when they were little.  And that is why I get over all my self image issues and get in the pictures every week. 

This morning the sun was out and shining, but don't let the sunshine and that t-shirt fool you, I was freezing! 

This one Micah took. I love that it is all blurry.

Day 83

What She Wore Wednesday.

Ok so now my daughter has a favorite outfit to wear on Wednesdays, which is annoying because she usually is very creative with her outfit choices and the last couple weeks on Wednesday she has been wearing the same thing.

At least this week she jazzed it up a bit

It is ALL about the Hello Kitty Socks.

And this is my neighbor's tree, I love it when it is blooming like this. Pretty, right?

Day 82

Two Things Tuesday

Today my two things are questions.

1. Aren't these super cute shoes?

2. Are super cute shoes really worth blisters on two of my favorite toes?

Day 81

I apologize if you have an aversion to toes or feet.

Something to Cry Over

They say not to cry over spilled milk...but what about spilled laundry detergent. More about that in a minute.

You know usually I enjoy Mondays, everybody is back in school and Mr. Vargas is back at work, and I have the house to myself for a bit. Call me weird but I also like to do laundry. I love the way that neatness and order just comes out of the chaos. It may not work that way for everyone, and I know my way doesn't fit for some people but for me I do all my clothes laundry- keep in mind that is 7 people with at least 7 outfits- in one day. I have figured out the math. Most of my mom friends tell me they do about 2-3 loads a day to stay on top of things. but that is like 12-21 loads of laundry.
But when I do it all in one day, I do between 7-10 loads.
I know this probably only works for me because I am a stay at home mom, but all I do on my laundry day is laundry. As soon as the dryer buzzes (mine actually it sings to me) I go right in and get it and fold it and put it away.

So by the end of every Monday the only dirty clothes in the house are what we are wearing. This makes me happy. Order out of Chaos.
So I usually heart Mondays.

Today--Not so much..

I could list for you all the ways that today went horribly wrong. but I won't, I'll just tell you one thing, it was really the icing on the Monday cake- so to speak.

So I'm sitting in the living room folding laundry and I hear this big crash come from my laundry room, and since I was the only person home and the dogs were outside.. I had a sneaking feeling I knew exactly what it was.

During the spin cycle the washer had shaken the detergent right off of it and onto the floor, and since you have to loosen the lid so that the nozzle will work right, well when it hits the floor that lid just pops right off.

I'd say over half that bottle ended up under/in front of/ between my washer and dryer and all over the vacuum which is stored between the two.

Oh did I mention it was a brand new, little over a gallon, $20 detergent. Yeah that is more than gas.

But my day did get better. The cowboys came in first place on this leg of the Amazing Race, so there ya go.

Day 80

Sunday Sunday

Almost every Sunday we go over to my mom's house for lunch.

We always have a lot of fun.

This week the little guys (I'm trying to transfer from calling them "the babies") played very well together, they made up a game with these balls where one would put a couple in the lid and then the other would dump them in the big bottle, once it was full they would dump them out.

They even got some exercise on grandma's gazelle.

Day 79

This week I'm looking forward to a little down time. How about you, what do you have going on this week?

Picture Day

Today Mr. Vargas had to go to Stilwell, Oklahoma for some reason. I don't know where that is, but I guess it is like a billion hours away, just kidding I think it's like an hour and half, and I'm not totally clear on why he was going, but he was getting paid, so that made it ok.

Avrah and I had a little girlie time and I gave her a pedicure and did our fingernails so we would feel pretty for our photo shoot this afternoon.

Last week when I was looking at the weather forecast, knowing that we would be taking pictures outside today, it said that it would be 75 and Sunny, great picture taking weather right? This morning I checked it and it said 68 with a 40% chance of rain...but my fearless photographer assured me that even if it was raining we would adapt and overcome and get the shot.

Back to Mr. Vargas being gone, he was supposed to be home at 2:00 so we could all be ready to go and meet Miss Bethany down town for our 3:30 appointment. I put the little guys down for a nap right after lunch at like 12:15 (usually they don't go down til 2:30) and luckily they went right to sleep and had wonderful naps, the older three had rest time at around 1:00. I decided to get myself all ready and then start working on the kids as they woke up. Well 2:00 rolls around and no Mr. V in sight, but my wonderful MIL showed up, just to say hi, and I put her to work showering and dressing babies. Soon everyone was all dressed and ready to go and it was hectic let me tell you. He finally made it home at 2:30 and he still had to change and get himself ready. We ended up only being a couple of minutes late, but I HATE being late.

The good news is that by the time we made it down town it had stopped raining and we had a GREAT photo shoot! Miss Bethany (that is what we had the kids call her) did a wonderful job interacting with the kiddos and they of course loved her so much that while we were walking around the little guys wanted to hold her hand, so sweet.

If you happen to live in or around the Kansas City area you should definitely look her up. http://www.bethanygoodphotography.com/

I can not wait to get the photo's back!

While we were in the downtown area we went ahead and had a yummy dinner at Joe Mama's pizza and then came home and made the kids some dessert treats for being so good during the pictures.

Strawberry's on vanilla pudding inside a little short cake. YUM!

Day 78

Long day = long blog, it's only 8:30 but I'm going to bed. Night y'all!

Friday

Today was full of shopping with my VBF. Luckily it was mostly kid-free shopping which makes this mama VERY happy, and just a little bit less stressed.

Some of you  may not know, I don't like to shop. Shocking right a girl that doesn't like to shop. I like the idea of shopping, but the actual act of it, not so much. I don't mind trying clothes on, I've always liked that, well when I'm content with my weight anyway. It is the actual choosing and purchasing where I get to the part I don't like.
I don't like spending money, and especially not on clothes, for me.
For my kids I don't mind so much.

We are having family pictures taken on Saturday afternoon *please don't rain!*
and I am so excited because my friend Bethany is taking, and I have just loved all of her work so I know that she will get some good ones for us. You can check out some of her work here and I love her blog too

After shopping I spent a good portion of the day trying to get caught up on my Math homework, surgery put me a bit behind because I didn't work on it at all that week, and trying to do 2 weeks worth of MATH in 3 days is just silly. But I did have a nice conversation with a FB friend and a little distraction from one of my little men which made the time pass nicely.

For dinner we had a family date night with my VBF and her family at Top That Pizza, and as usual it was great. If you haven't heard of it, think Subway but pizza style, or go check it out for yourself at http://www.topthatpizza.com/

Hope you had a great Friday


And yes I know this is a day late, but that just means you get to read two blogs from me today.. Lucky you.

Day 77

Their shirts say "I am not my brother" they are by far my favorite shirts, and they were made for them personally by my good friend Ashlee, you should check out her shop here

{embrace} The Green

 Today we {embrace} St. Patrick's Day One little 

Two little 

Three little lep-re-chaun-s 

Five little leprechaun kids 

Me with my five leprechauns they are part Irish after all (not sure which part though) and as always go read about what the {embrace} is all about and join us by linking up at Emily's page

and here they are "pretending" to pinch Leia for not wearing green 

Day 76

 

Not WSWW

So it's Wednesday and usually it's what she wore Wednesday, but it's spring break, and what my she wore was a re-run, and I didn't want to bore you with that. I had my 1 week post-op check up today, and everything looks good.

We are having family pictures taken on Saturday, i can not tell you how excited I am about these, I am trying to find clothes for everyone to wear, that will look good in pictures. So that is what today's P.O.T.D. is.

Day 75

Two Things Tuesday

1) Went to my first scentsy party tonight, my nose is worn out, but soon my house will smell really good.

2) When these two are getting along there is nothing sweeter in the world. Now to figure out how to make that happen more often.

Day 74

Two Princesses

Aren't these two little princesses so cute?!

This is my daughter and my cousin's daughter.

One of them is 8 months older than the other.

Can you guess which one is older?

They are both beautiful, but I don't think they could be more opposite.

Day 72

So tomorrow starts Spring Break.

We don't have a whole lot planned.

What are you all doing?