A little treat!

While Sofia was here, she claimed to love Indian food, we couldn't of been more excited to go with her on a little adventure eating at an Indian restaurant. So, the four of us, mickie, sofia, teresa and her two little girls all piled into a table at the Indian restaurant. I'll bet everyone there was so excited to see us with four little ones... but i will say the girls did absolutely great... i'll bet there wasn't any complaints around those parts!!!!

The crazy thing about these pictures is that I often think that elly m. resembles my family and that ruthie resembles jonathan's family!!! I have yet to see myself in ruthie that often, maybe some of her mannerisms and strong personality, and elly m. the same with jonathan... elly m. is often called little mickie.. up in the clouds kind of personality sometimes and ruthie is often called mormor and not just by jonathan and me, but someone who knows her at church whispered in my ear this last weekend... "do you know who ruthie reminds me of???"... i did wonder to myself and vicki said... "MorMor!"... i couldn't agree more!

A special Swede...

Sofia has come and gone, but we really enjoyed our time with her. She even made the nightly prayer list for elly m. one evening.. you know you made family then! We took sofia many places... to see the ducks, to the zoo, beale street, the mall, the big backyard, the botanical gardens to see the humungo fish, ben and jerry's and i can't remember everywhere else. We had a busy few weeks with her and we miss her dearly. We wish that she wasn't allergic to cats so that she could of stayed with us, but it might of been nicer for her to get some alone time, because everyone with small children, knows alone time is few and far between!!!!! Sofia, if you are reading this, we enjoyed your presence tremendously and we miss you even more!! As mickie and i dropped her off at the airport, i just remember the feeling of dropping family off there and just how hard it is to live across the world from family!!! sorry, for the lack of posts in october, what a jerk i am to the grandparents of our children!!!! they need to be seen... they are growing up fast!

lovin' my girls!!!

I love my little ones!! They bring joy to my heart and i am so happy that they will actually see me in some pictures someday when they are older!!! thank you sofia for taking some pics while you were here. i was so happy to steal some of your pictures because i often don't get in pics with my kids.. i might be to blame i guess.. i don't enjoy my picture being taken, but i do love my girls.

Happy 29th birthday to me.....

I celebrated my 29th birthday of life yesterday!! We started the day with a happy birthday song from the whole family... even little miss ruthie can chime in singing that song.. she is starting to talk and sing so much and laugh and grow!!! amazing. anyways... then i gave ruthie a breathing treatment for her wheezing body, which is always stressful and time consuming.. then i spent the rest of the day baking pizzas and this fabulous cake..... i found this cake on my favorite mommy blog to read called www.mycharmingkids.net. i spend a lot of time reading things there and getting recipes and ideas of how to be a better mommy and wife... so after the breathing treatment... our wonderful friend irma called and invited us to a potluck dinner, not knowing it was my birthday... and i am so glad that she did... we had a lot of fun celebrating with a bunch of friends. then we came home and gave the girls a bath... but before that...jonathan and elly m. bought me some great presents.. a new razor to shave my legs with and a game called snorta.. we are really looking forward to when our girls can play games with us.. i have a feeling they might be a little bit competitive like us. so then i vacuumed my floor with my new vacuum... it was fantastic by the way grandma... thank you... i got a bissell for about 35 dollars at wal mart... great vacuum.... lovin' it. so we ended the day singing just like we came in... i don't really feel 29 nor old enough to be married and have two children.. but here i am ... doing it anyways...

baking brownies together!!!

I had so much fun baking brownies with my girls. It was such a great time.. i put off my frustrated face at them getting things everywhere and getting very very messy!!! So we had fun.... ruthie grimaced, elly m. laughed and ate and ate and ate...we had a jolly old time and it makes me look forward to our many baking times ahead... and they too like to bake... okay maybe to eat it cooked or uncooked, but who is keeping up with the details of life like that.

baking....together.

camping.....

camping.....

did you say.... CAMPING???

I did ruthie.. i did.. and you and elly m. are invited to go with us.. and that we did. we all went camping as a little family for one night with unknown adventures ahead of us. I don't even remember where we went, it wasn't too far away, but just far enough that i couldn't decide in the middle of the night to pack things up and go home... so the evening began so filled with peace and love and light... and mickie and jonathan put up the tent and i said.. who needs a rain cover.. it for sure wouldn't rain on "OUR"first camping trip... then night time comes.... so cozy by the fire.. ruthie falls asleep in the tent so happily.. elly m. enjoys picking up buckeyes and filling her pockets til her little buttcrack shows and jonathan turns into super man keeping the fire going with whole trees practically. and then... the middle of the night around oh midnight.. jonathan and i wake up to some rustling over by the campfire where we left a lot of stuff out because of my lack of flashlight packing...and because i put two children to sleep... have a very full bladder and need to use the bathroom am the chosen one to check out what is going on at the campsite... i find a bunch of raccoons taking off with our food... uh...oh...

so an hour later... i hear "MOMMA" and little ruthie had popped her head up wide awake ready for some play time and then little elly m. wakes up and needs to go potty.. so here we are at one in the morning walking to the bathroom all four of us... waking up the whole campsite to sit on the toilet and not do anything.. so we finally get the girls back to sleep and about an hour later... i hear drip............drip.......drip.... drip....drip..dripdripdripdrip... you got it.. rain.. hmm..... all i can think is jonathan is not going to be happy with me... and then he pops up and goes outside and puts the rain cover on.. it must of been three at this point.. who knows though... we didn't bring a clock of any kind. so we go back to sleep about an hour later to hear that it is pouring out rain. .. miserable for a small family to be trapped in a tent with nothing to do... bummer.. so our first camping trip was a learning experience and put a good enough taste in our mouths for another one..... next time i think i will look at the forecast before we leave.

blueberry morning...

I am so glad that i have children that love fruit!!! They love it.. just love it.. especially little ruthie... they both love it so much they wear it.