Mitchell's Birthday... but who's counting...

A BIRTHDAY MONTH!...
Our month long celebration included 1 Hibachi dinner, 2 pool BBQ's, 2 trips to South Beach, 2 massages, a facial for Mitch and mani/pedi for me, lots of friends, and more meals and desserts than either of us would like to admit to.

Mitch - You are so cool! You had as many kids show up to your birthday party as Anthony did! I guess that makes it appropriate to use one of our favorite lines: "Grow up!" Just kidding of course! I love your birthday, but never want you to grow up! Your youthful spirit and energy is so contagious and addictive to everyone that knows you! We just can't get enough! Thanks for always making me (and many other people) smile all the time! Thanks for your positive attitude and motivating encouragement in all aspects of my life! Thank you for being Anthony's "best friend" and for reminding me that he is 3, not 15, and needs to be given some slack and gently coaxed into doing chores and eating by playing silly games. Thank you for being so loving and sweet. You are always extremely generous and thoughtful! I hope you know I appreciate all you do!
Thank you for being serious and sincere.... Thank you for being easy going, relaxed and silly!.... And thank you for knowing when to be each! I know, it sounds exhausting!
Thank you for being my best friend and biggest fan. Thank you for being my partner and always wanting me to succeed at everything I do and believing I can! Thank you for loving our "family time" and always (ok - usually) wanting to include Anthony in everything we do. Thank you for being almost as proud of him as I am! And thank you for being so tolerant with us both! You are a wonderful and amazing man and we are both lucky to have you in our lives! I love you very much! xoxooo!
I hope you got everything your heart desired (that I can afford)! I wish you a year of happiness, success, health, fun and mostly full of ME! I love you babe! "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" for the last time until next year!

More swimming pictures...

Yes, this is Mitch scrubbing the pool with MY toothbrush and a spraybottle of BLEACH!! What you can't see from this picture is that there are about 10 guests over with all the kids in the pool! Very funny!

Anthony Swims!!! My Little Fish!

After another weekend in the pool with the "Big Kids" who swim, Anthony decided yesterday that it was time he learned to swim too. I've been trying to teach him for months, but he just wants to play and never really tries. He would never put his face under and just plain didn't want to be bothered.
Anyway, so I asked yesterday while we were in the pool by ourselves if he'd like a swimming lesson. He ripped of his mostly deflated (I know, a naughty trick) arm floaties and "dove" in. After about 15 minutes, he had it down and literally wouldn't stop even for a breath or a snack. He listened to everything I said and followed instructions perfectly! He is amazing and loves it! I am so proud of him! He spent the next 3 hours in the pool until I dragged him out. He slept like a rock and woke up ready to swim some more!
I'm so excited that I had to do a little post about it.... I'll get more pictures up soon! And if I can figure it out, perhaps even a video or two!

Delayed Reaction... But we are back...

Ok people, we have some catching up to do... a months worth actually. A lot of things can happen in a month... nothing overly exciting to anyone except me, but this is my blog none the less... So here it goes... Soon to be posted (by tomorrow for sure) are pictures and commentary, (sheerly for the entertainment value)...... I figure since my sister is so clever on her blog, I must be a bit competitive, although typically that's not our nature (with each other anyway) since we are so different and rarely in life have wanted to do the same things, and therefore can not compete. I guess only our childhood friends can appreciate this as we have come a long way and are now best friends. We are also and sort of in the same "motherhood" type of boat and consequently have much more in common... And in fact, she could be winning the competition (for now) of the cutest grandchild (there are only 2) since Warner does a lot of sleeping and all kids are cute when they sleep, and Anthony on the other hand, spends a lot more time being bossy and mouthy (yes, we could still swear he belongs to Abbie) than he does sleeping, and therefore is not always so cute....
Wow! I just got way off subject, sorry! ....as I was saying, this is my blog and you can expect the following updates on us fairly soon:
Fourth of July, Mitchell's Birthday, and a few silly and cute pictures and stories that I have collected.... I hope the suspense doesn't kill anyone...
To Be Continued....
By the way, you are all slackers for not giving me your e-mail addresses to invite! Please comment with your e-mail so I can add you to the "guest list"... we are about to go private... For those of you who did, THANKS!

Happy Birthday "CooCoo" Grandma Smith

Happy Birthday Grandma! I love you so much and miss you endlessly! Thanks for the rainbows and for always be in my Anthony's heart and on his mind. His innocent questions and logical statements somehow help make the void of you more bearable. He is sure Jesus has an oven and is waiting for you to send us some bread! "Throw it on down!" he says! He would also like to know if we are going to be with you again someday, "How about tomorrow?" And he also requests that you take care of our fish, HoHa, and Grammie's kitty, Justin... And do try to keep the rest of your crew up there in line!
Love, "Emy"
Some of my favorite pictures...

4th of July

Well, the first problem with waiting a month to post about an event is that my memory just doesn't work that well. Sorry... I'll try to remember the funny stuff, I do remember laughing at lots of hilarious comments that come out of Anthony's mouth... but that's daily, so I have a hard time keeping track. I do add to the "Anthony's Quotes" on the right though...
Anyway... Our 4th of July went something like this: We (Mitch, Anthony, and Me) took a long (5 minute drive) trip to The Boca Raton Resort & Club
and were checked in by 11am. We met a big group of other couples and kids there (specifically Michael, Robin, Sam & Jesse). Everyone hung out at the pool, kid fountain, and craft projects all day. Lisa and Kennedy came over to hang out with us for a while. After we decided that Anthony was too wound up and having too much fun to be mean and make him nap, he almost fell asleep IN the pool with an ice cream bar in hand! It was so funny, I got him cleaned up, he crawled on Mitch and went to sleep in seconds!
So we propped him in shade and let him be while we continued to soak up the sun and fun. That night everyone met in one of the (huge) rooms for a Chinese food dinner. Due to rain, we eventually ended up watching the fireworks from the room as well. The kids had a great time running wild and playing with glow sticks and bracelets. We could see 3 sets of firework shows from their 24th floor room. We hung out the next day too. Anthony painted a ceramic space ship and we saw (well, Mitch didn't see because he was snoring) a very cool animal show ( with too many pictures to post!), had lunch, ice cream and went home... EXHAUSTED!!
NICE HEART CHEEKS!!!

Now as if that wasn't enough activity for one weekend, we got up the next day (Sunday) and spent about 5 minutes outside before we decided we couldn't take one more day of outdoor heat so we needed an indoor activity. So we jumped in the car, picked up subs and went to Ft. Lauderdale to play at the childrens museum and have a boat ride at Riverfront on Los Olas. It was very nice! Here a few of those pictures:


And that pretty much sums it up.... Watch for the next post about Mitch's birthday!