First Collage

Hi to all my collage-expert bloggers buddies. I'm finally trying this. It's pretty fun. Here's Sammi and Nicki hanging out with us as we walked around and enjoyed (as in big sigh of relief that we hired-out to do them...) the new yard projects. Sammi's in the orange shirt....I love the pic of her on the bottom right as it so captures her impish "I'm either into something or thinking about how I can get into something" expression....

Got Tagged!

This my first "tagging"....(thanks, Rony....I feel so part of the "in-crowd" now....). Rony from insanemommy tagged me with this meme a few days ago. Gotta list 7 random things about yourself:

1) I can't stand waking-up or coming home to a messy house so I have to straighten-up before I leave or go to bed. (yep, I do a lot of picking-up...)
2) My husband and I have been together for 24 years. He pretty-much rocks.
3) I was 45 yrs old and a "first-time" Mom when we adopted Sammi and Nicki last year.
4) My food craving is eggrolls. I happen to make the best eggrolls I've ever had.
5) I am in the process of figuring-out how to better balance work-life and Mom-life. I want it both but not the way I have it lined-up now.
6) Mean people make me cry. I'm naturally a really sweet person.
7) I stay "stunned-in-my-tracks" over how uber-rewarding and gratifying it is to be a Mom. I just had no idea it would be this good....

The Uber-Bad to Uber-Good Day

So I had a really bad day at work this week....uber-bad.....uber-disgusting...uber-Dilbert-World. The only thing that could possibly lighten my spirit that day was if the day just completed itself in a nano-second and the next day would auto-magically just show up. Get Me Outta This Day!

But I was wrong. Thankfully so wrong. I came home to this.....and ended-up laughing and playing with Ed and my girls with absolute joy and....well, in fact, it surely was an Uber-Delightful-Day-That-I'd-Never-Want-To-Have-Missed.....

The Capture of an Amazing Moment

When a moment...a really amazing moment...is happening, I try hard to remember to pause, scrunch-up my eyes, take a deep breath and take a deep smell, and let the moment get "captured-up" in my body...in my head and in my nerves and in the fiber of my "me-ness". Then, when the going gets rough and tough and I am in dire need of something to lighten my load, I take the same deep breath and I take the same deep smell and remember.

I had the honor of capturing such a moment yesterday. After their afternoon nap, I held them both in my lap and rocked them in our nursery glider....a big cushy awesome chair. Sammi's head was on my left shoulder and Nicki's on my right. They were facing each other. They were both...at the same time which is a bit rare for them...feeling very cuddly. As they faced each other, Sammi's leg was draped over Nicki's leg and their arms were slung out across each other. Their hair smelled good as I had given them a bath in the morning (to clean-up syrup-baby's hair). They were drifting in and out of sleep but occasionally each would look up and smile at me or at each other and then drift back to sleep. The weight of their bodies in both arms and on my shoulders and across my lap, the smell, the "coo-ing", the whole amazing moment was magic. And it was almost like they, too, knew something very special was happening to the three of us right then and there. At that moment. No one wanted to move....no one wanted to change anything...we just were...

How come I got this lucky? How come I got all of this? My marriage, my babies, our health, our happiness, our amazing joy....Yep, sure, there are a lot of tough moments and lots of adjustment after 20 years of married/no-children....But all of this....all that I have now...Never thought it would or could happen like this...that I'd be this double-lucky...that I would be capturing a lot of these kinds of moments...

S0, I paused, scrunched-up my eyes, took a deep breath and a deep smell, and I let the moment get all "captured-up" in my body...in my head and in my nerves and in the fiber of my "me-ness". It'll be there later when I need it....

Syrup-Hair Baby (or why we had to go to the nursery on Sunday....)

I know there are a lot of stories out there (and really funny stories...) about how the day never just quite went the way you wanted it to b/c the baby(s) got into the house paint or clogged-up the toilet or put vasoline in all their shoes or dug-up the house plant and then ate the dirt or or or...(see, I, too, have been around the block...).

No, this was simpler but still a pain in the...and it's all Colleen's fault. My girls were happily eating waffles with syrup and I was happily talking to Col on the phone. And because she was telling me a good story, I did not realize I left the Aunt Jemima syrup on the table next to Sammi...again, Col's fault, not mine. So I also did not realize that Sammi was proceeding to dump half the contents of syrup on her hair..and the high-chair..and the back of the dog's back..and the plant...and the space between the sliding glass door and the screen door...and, oh my gosh--who's know's where else.

No, Ed, I did not get my mailbox island planted with all the really cool perennials b/c we never got to the nursery b/c the dog has syrup on his back that Nicki is trying valiantly--and succeeding... to lick off.....So, don't ask me again why we have to go together to the nursery on Sunday...."

Of Summer Dresses.....

It's been a tough last few weeks. Everyone was sick...and sick of being sick. Big hassle, isn't it? First Ed got pneumonia and a sinus-thing, then Sammi got pneumonia and an ear infection....then I got pneumonia and bronchitis and strep...and then then...Nicki got pneumonia (of course) and a double ear infection. Just wasn't fair. This means we've met our "being sick" quota for the year, right? Don't we win double points for both of us being sick at the same time? Okay, I'm sick of talking about feeling sick...I'd rather talk about Summer Dresses.

Summer Dresses for little girls....Does it get cuter?I've waited a long time (like practically non-stop for 4 years) for this moment....for the very moment when my little daughters (yep, I always knew we were going to be referred twin toddler girls...ask all my friends...!..,just knew it) would wear summer dresses. When we put the girls in their dresses earlier this week and they twirled and swirled and danced and pranced and flitted and flowed about in their summer dresses, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming...

Here's Sammi first on the deck and then Nicki in front of playhouse























Not sure what they see here....but kinda cute...(Nicki on left)