THIRTY FOUR!

In honor of my 34th birthday, (YAY!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!) I thought I'd share with you a few gems about yours truly.  Get excited, this is some good stuff!

Ready?....

Here we go....

Aaaaah, what a coot widdle chubby wubby!

 I'm pretty sure I never did lose a few of those chins.




Seeing as though I entered the world with little to no hair, it's obvious I overcompensated throughout the years.  Let's have a look.

Here we are just a few short years into my life.  It's obvious none of my children:
 A) look like me when I was a child (probably an okay deal)
-and-
B) definitely didn't get my dark brown eyes I had as a wee one

 I think maybe I was entered to win the tightest curls competition.


 Like a lot of little girls, I enjoyed a few years of dance lessons.  This one in particular has to reign supreme among all my dance pictures.  Why's that?  Well, you see, I was certain I would look so very cute with dimples.  Here is my darndest attempt at trying to have a smile with dimples:

Ahha ha haa haa haa!  Seriously classic!  That is dismal dimple failure.  I think someone upstairs took pity on me for this one and blessed me with children who have naturally cute dimples so something like this would  never.  happen.  again.



Moving right along to 5th grade.  I am a product of the 80's!!!!  Hence the neon and the hair.  Jacob captions this with simply,

POOF!

 I think my theory of overcompensation has been proven.  Allie was sad to hear I no longer have those earrings.  Darnit.  And Kenna keeps asking me if I really did that on purpose.  I quote exactly from Kenna, "Mom, did you really know that was happening?  You meant to?!"  I have to be honest.  Yep.  Sure did.




Perhaps I had some post traumatic stress disorder from my fifth grade portrait, because here's what happened in 6th grade:

Puberty is kind to no one.  NO ONE I tell you.  HA!  Love it!


This last pic, however, is a culmination of my thirty four years of life.  I think it's pretty obvious I am one blessed individual.

 So grateful to have these ones by my side to celebrate my day because, well, it just wouldn't be me without them.  The first thirty four years have been awesome (despite a few hair mishaps).  Can't wait for thirty four more!

I looked out the window and what did I see........

.......Well whaddaya know?  It really does look like popcorn! 

I LOVE this tree in our backyard.  No, it's not an apricot tree.  Perhaps the song is a bit biased.  Spring must be here!

...If not for blossoms, at least for the anticipation of Easter.  Here is Ty fresh off the bus from preschool with all his Easter loot.  Oh, excuse me, here is the Easter Bunny fresh off the bus from preschool:

Apparently when you catch the Easter Bunny in a photo he pulls a really crazy face.

Speaking of Ty and crazy, here is what happens when he and Lexi come across a stray marker:

Hence the reason markers stay waaaaaaay up high in the cupboard and require a fairly large amount of begging and pleading for me to get them down.

Speaking of Ty and Lexi, I caught these two snuggling on the couch the other day.  It was one of those sweet little mommy moments that makes my heart just beam:

Of course when I pulled out my camera to sneak a picture Lexi jumped right up, but fortunately I got them to recreate the moment.  I love these moments.  Especially to help counter the moments when Ty thinks Lexi is his WWF opponent.  She is so patient.  And yes she managed to find a binky.  Fortunately she could care less if she loses it.

We had our first full family campout in the camp trailer!  Okay, so it was in the backyard.  Baby steps folks, baby steps. 

 I don't know about you, but it looks as though Kenna is picking her nose.  Maybe our backyard adventure wasn't as fun as we thought it was...



We even watched a movie on the large screen iPad.  Oh yeah.

Good thing it was only in the backyard because one certain little toddler decided she needed to roam the entire trailer while everyone else wanted to sleep.  Needless to say, Lexi and I ended up back in the house for the night.  I can happily report, however, last weekend we had our first official away-from-home campout in the trailer and Lexi did much better-- many thanks to the pack-and-play.  This time we even managed to get 10 miles away from home!  We are big time.  Sorry, no pictures.  But it was really fun!

And one last pic to send you on your way-
Ty has had a fascination with guitars lately, and would find anything he could to pretend to be a guitar.  So he earned enough stickers on his reward chart to go and pick out a guitar.  It's pretty much just a glorified noise-maker, but he's a happy camper with his guitar!  Rock on buddy, rock on.