Strawberryless Strawberry Patch

This was our second trip to the "Strawberry Patch" (last weekend). It is such a cool place! You walk into a little Mom & Pop market in the middle of a old strip mall and you go out the back door to this amazingly huge property full of gardens, animal, birds, picnic areas... that you would never know existed. It's like Alison's Wonderland (I think- although I don't actually remember the movie)! Again, there were no strawberries to pick (out of season), but we didn't mind. We enjoyed the sun and the shade and the extremely hot, but beautiful out doors. Mitch and Anthony reconnected with the parrots they fell in love with before. Anthony conned Mitch into a big cookie and some magnet rocks and I conned him into a heart shaped lucky bamboo. We are so spoiled! But we do appreciate it! Thanks love!

Anthony (Anfony) and Julia...

Anthony (or as Julia calls him, Anfony) and Julia always play so well together. And how cute are they??!!! Emily, Gene and Julia came over to Mitch's on Sunday. After the kids swam we had a little BBQ dinner outside and then we walked over to the playground. Mitch's home is almost to the end of this dead end street. Its so nice that there is very little traffic and lots of kids playing & riding bikes in the street.

It is still the the high 80's here, but Anthony insisted on wearing his sweats so that he could go faster down the slide. As for the swings picture, I'm pretty sure by this point the kids had stopped saying "higher!", and were holding on for dear life as Mitch and Gene pushed their limits... I think they had just as much fun.

Splash Adventure Water Park

On Saturday we went to this great little water park right down the street from our house. We met my friend Tiffany and her husband Aaron and there two little girls, Mila and Ellie there. My friend Candace also came (who I just reunited with after about 7 years when I ran into her at Anthony's school with her little 3 year old boy, Kevin). And then Emily, Gene and Julia met us as well, so it was quite a party... I should also mention that while we were splashin' and slidin', Mitch was removing mulch and bushes and laying a pallet of new sod in his yard. It looks so nice and gives us much more soccer/baseball/football space. Yay! Thanks Bubbs!

First, the never ending "Mean Mother" sunscreen battle... and we're off!

This is Candace, Kevin and Anthony in the first picture and Aaron, Mila and Ellie in the second. Oh, and by the way, Candace is 8.5 months pregnant and such a good sport! I had no intention of going down any slides since Anthony is big enough to go on his own, but since Candace did, I really had no excuses... Thanks a lot! Oh well, it was fun anyway... even if I did look like a big fool!

Round ONE:

"Ride Em' Cowgirl!"... Yes, this would be the foolishness I was referring to...

Anthony was just plain crazy and would do anything to make it a bit more daring!

The clouds rolled by for a minute, but no rain on our parade! Julia took a little rest to soak up the rays..

And that's a wrap... It was a great day with lots of fun friends!!

ROCK ON!!!

Two Great Concerts and 5 amazing artists!

Two weekends ago, which happened to be the wettest, rainiest day of the entire year, we went to an outdoor amphitheater with Joyce, Paul, Nicole and friends, to see COUNTING CROWS, MAROON 5, & AUGUSTANNA!
We had hope that the weather would clear up since we had lawn seats under the stars, but we came in our "ready to be drenched clothes and ponchos"... and boy were we ever drenched!! We were able to upgrade our tickets to be under the awning since so many people didn't show up. So that was nice, but it is very open so the rain still blew in. We didn't care! It was so warm that it really didn't matter that we were soaked. We had such a great time and all three performances were absolutely amazing!! What a talented group!!

Last weekend Mitch and I went to the Mary J. Blige & Robin Thicke concert. My camera was dead, so sorry no pictures. We saw her last year and she is always unbelievable! It was an extra special treat to be able to see Robin Thicke at the same show! We had great seats on the floor and felt like we were really part of the show! I have been playing Robin Thicke in my car and Anthony really likes him too. He always want to hear "The Magic Cup (Touch)" song. We both love being able to play my ipod in the car and he loves to make requests... mostly for Garth Brooks, or Bob Marley, or Alicia Keys, or Rhianna... and his new favorite, Jordin Sparks! Now he always asks "Who sings this song?" and "Did you see them at the concert?" Too cute!

Warner Update - 6 Months Old

My sweet and funny adorable nephew, Warner, is 6 months old! I can't believe it! He looks a lot like his Mommy (my sister - Abbie) and a little like his Dad (Brandon), a little like Anthony, (who also looked like Abbie), and a lot like Grandma Smith, which makes us want to squeeze him all the more! I'm dying to get my hands on him at Christmas! I saw him when the day after he was born (in April) and again at the beginning of June. But he will have grown so much by the time I kiss his cute face in December. I'm so glad he likes to listen to Anthony and me talk and sing on the phone. His belly laugh melts my heart! Anthony talks about him everyday and always has a stash of things to send to "Baby Warner". We sure love you and miss you little fat guy!








Happy Half-Birthday Warner!!!

Halloween Excitement...

We always get excited for Halloween to roll around. This year we just couldn't stand the wait anymore, I suckered in and bought Anthony the costume he wanted since he has been pretty consistent on what he wanted to be.... A SKELETON! He loves the costume so much, that he has hardly taken it off in a week. He will either be sick of it by Halloween, or it will be filthy! My fear is the next best thing to be is Tinkerbell!! He's been slightly obsessed with fairies since we went to a little girls birthday party on Saturday and Tinkerbell was there making balloons, painting faces and playing Neverland games. She was great! Anthony kept touching her wings and asking if she could fly. Of course she told him yes, if she thinks happy thoughts and uses her pixy dust. He came home from Nunu's the other day with a pair of beautiful fairy wings. She said of all the swords and toys in the store, all he wanted was the wings. The whole ride home was a discussion about why he couldn't fly, but fairies and birds and airplanes could.... tough to explain to a 3 year old, but he insists on logical answers. He's so cute and very thoughtful. The moral of this story is: Everyone pray the the skeleton costume holds up so I don't have to take Tinkerbell trick-or-treating!!!

Look how cute he looks! The sad thing is, that is a pretty good representation of what his legs look like! Hopefully they will straighten out more as he grows!

Just to give you an idea of how much we like Halloween, here are a few pictures from
HALLOWEEN'S PAST:

Two spiders and a Hula Girl, who transformed into a crazy Doctor.



Superwoman and Elmo... with Mia and Grace as a Ladybug and a Pumpkin! How cute are they!!



And finally, Pocahontas and the Alligator with Kyler as a Horse! So funny!


Hope we can keep up this year!

A much needed nap!

Last Sunday afternoon at some point, as I was drawing letters with Anthony, my head started to nod and I could not keep my eyes open... Mitch and Anthony started reading and playing and I passed out cold. I woke up a while (a long while) later to the beautiful sound of NOTHING... oh, and a little rain and thunder... Where could they be??? I went to the garage to see if the car was here and this is what I found...

Mitch and Anthony (in their matching workout clothes) painting beautiful rocks!... Apparently, they had made a race car with some sort of mold and clay and were waiting for it to dry so they could paint it... and of course paint can't just sit around not being used, so that is where the rocks came in.

It looked like so much fun that I even got in on the action and Anthony took over as photographer... Not bad, huh?... Look at him sweating!! Is it fall yet???

He took some nice shots of us, of "Mitch's poor car in the rain", of himself, and of Mitch with my new car while instructing him to "Bend down and give it a kiss, and say I love you car!" So funny!


Here are a few other pictures he asked me to take the other day. He found these shoes at Target and refused to leave without them because they were "just like Mitchell's". He was so excited to wear them that he cried when I wouldn't let him sleep in them. So he wore them to school with his "cool jeans" in the blazing heat! By the way, he is covering his ears in our driveway because he was watching a tractor dig up the road where a water main broke. It was pretty hard to pull him away from that!!!


And off to school he goes... We love DinoMight!
I wish I had a picture of Mitch and Anthony eating ice cream after school last week. Mitch beat me to his school (his gym is right next door), so he picked him up and walked him over to the ice cream store while they waited for me. *Note the earlier post that car seats don't fit in Mitch's "practice car"...
Anthony was excited to have Mitch come to his school and obviously excited for ice cream! I, on the other hand, was just excited not to have to pay the $5 late fee! Thanks Mitch! You are very good to us both!

What we are up to and MY NEW BUSINESS!

Hi all!
I just want to apologize for my "POSTING DELINQUENCIES". I will catch you all up soon. For now I have been loving my new car, swamped at work, and busy playing with Anthony and Mitch. I had a little ear infection and Anthony has had a little cold. Besides that, I have been filling my very small amount of spare time with growing my new online business. This has been very exciting for me and I hope to soon be bringing in the big bucks! If I haven't had a chance to speak to you about it yet, expect a little e-mail explanation soon, or feel free to ask. It is a perfect way to bring in some easy (and decent) income with no overhead, inventory or products to sell! Why couldn't I have found it sooner??!!

I'll leave you with a few Anthony quotes:

"I love myself... And I just want to fart on somebody!" This was at the dinner table.

"Mom!!, I'm frigging out!! I just found another Dolphins new jersey in my closet!!" For the record - "frigging" is NOT an acceptable word and I don't know where it came from, however, it is still pretty funny! I've never heard him say that before... and there was so much dramatic enthusiasm it was very hard not to laugh, but rest assured he didn't see it! What he found was the same jersey (or as he says, "new jersey" ha ha!) that I keep putting away in different locations because I'm tired of seeing it on the floor.