Raising Beach Beauties

SOPHIA SOPHIA SOPHIA!!!

I know it's been over a week since I blogged and that millions of fans are having M&M withdrawl...I'll try to get better about that, I promise but I really haven't taken any pictures since Halloween (and you should see how much they have grown!). I'm hoping to get a ton of pictures this week as SOPHIA IS IN TOWN!!!

The girls were INSANELY happy to see each other! Diana and I weren't sure if there was going to be a "Santa Claus Situation" after not having seen each other in 8 months. You know, all excited to go see Santa and sit on his lap but then the moment comes and a huge terror induced meltdown occurs the moment they see the fat guy with the funny red hat? We weren't expecting terror induced meltdowns, but we thought there could be a "wait, who is this kid again and why is she playing with my stuff?". No reason to fear, the girls were over the moon excited to see each other and played and played and played and played...Soph is here until Friday and we're hoping to see as much of her as possible (and her lovely parents too). I'm really not quite sure I'm going to let them leave with Sophia, I may try to hide her somewhere on Friday and then you know, pretend to help look for her and be all like, well you better go or you'll miss your flights, we'll keep looking and let you know if we find her....do you think that will work??

Happy Halloween!

We had a very ambitious day yesterday - and exhausting, as proven today by Maya's 4.5 hour nap and the fact that Marley went to bed at 4pm today. The weekend started with Marley being invited to spend the night at Ms. Phalen's house. Ms. Phalen is the afternoon camp director at her school who has four daughters - the youngest is probably 7 or 8 and they all adore Marley. Every time I run into one of her kids, they stop me to tell me just how hilarious Marley is.

And I have to throw this out there for anyone who currently has one child and is thinking of adding another...whoa. Totally forgot how much easier it is with ONE kid. Friday night was so...peaceful at our house...Saturday morning we actually went out for breakfast...sooooo nice.

We met up with Marley at the Montessori Fall Festival, threw on her Halloween costume and had a great time...

Or at least, most of us had a great time. Is it just me or do I have a spaced out Stepford Wife look on my face?

They had cupcake decorating station.

Face painting...

Which she rubbed off about 10 minutes after it dried.

She loved being a butterfly princess. Although, Stu and I referred to her as a "German beer serving, butterfly wench" when out of earshot of the princess and other parents. It did have a certain Lederhosen feel to it and she looked like she belonged in a German beer hall, no?

 

Maya loved running around the campus.

But it was pretty hot and we were all pretty tired. We headed home for naps. Marley fell asleep in the car but woke up when we attempted "the transfer" into her bed. Attempts to get her back to sleep failed and this was the general attitude of the afternoon:

 
Stu had to head to a wedding and I was left to ponder whether or not trick or treating was a good idea or not. I had to admit, it was more for me than it was for the girls, but the island very rarely has such fun activities to do and I hated to waste the opportunity. After some smooth talking, I was finally able to turn that frown upside down and convince Marley that trick or treating would be fun. She found her old costume from last year and wanted to wear that..she told me she was a good witch, but when Maya went to hug her, she warned her, "I'm a BAD witch Maya, don't touch me!" and then proceeded to give me bad witch voodoo...

Before we got in the car, she insisted on putting her butterfly outfit back on. She was all about gathering up the candy once we got to Yacht Haven. She didn't quite get the whole "say trick or treat" thing yet though. She did great at the first store and when we went to the second store, I reminded her what to say - to which she scolded me, "I said it ALREADY". But you have to say it again, "I already said it MOM!". K (insert Stepford wife smile here).

You ready to see Maya's outfit?

Keep in mind, it was the hat that really pulled the whole outfit together and the one item she completely objected to.

This purple fairy was determined to help me get a picture with the hat on. Thanks purple fairy for helping me torture my kids!

Love this picture of Marley & Aiden. We'll blow this up and have it displayed at their wedding reception.

Maya is cursing me out with her eyes. "I swear it woman, I will finger paint my crib with the goods in my diaper tomorrow morning if you try to put this @#$&% hat on my head one more time!"

 

I hope everyone had a very fun & safe Halloween! And Amber, in reference to your comment about etsy - I totally got busted by Stu last night - after the girls passed out from candy overload  went to bed, I was searching "Thanksgiving t-shirts". Stu slapped the computer out of my hand and informed me I had lost my mind. Ah well, no gobble gobble t-shirts for us this year. =)

All Hallows Eve

So excited to kick off Halloween this year! Maya slept in today which allowed me time with Marley this morning. We got her Halloween dress on and snapped a few pictures before daddy took her off to preschool. The big event for her school is tomorrow, but I wanted her to wear her dress today, as tomorrow she'll be in her costume. You have no idea the ulcers I'm forming today, worried that she is going to get orange and black paint all over this dress. I coached her to say, "please do not get paint on my dress" before they left this morning. Can you find the skeleton tattoos on her?

After they left, I took some pictures of my pumpkins while waiting for my real little pumpkin to wake up.

Little Maya needed her sleep - she has a big day today. Nanu's is taking the kids downtown to do some trick or treating. Her Halloween costume is a bit too warm to wear during the day, so I'm sending her to school in this little skeleton onsie. I'm also packing Marley's old witch costume from last year, in case they are ambitious enough to change her.

 Exciting stuff! Probably a close tie to my favorite day of the entire year (Christmas Eve being a big runner up) - I always love the day before - enjoying all the anticipation!!

H1N1....we're ready for you.

Took both girls to the UVI campus this morning and got them the H1N1 vaccine. A very limited supply was available to a select group of people - our girls fell into the children ages 6 months to 24 years (love how a 24 year old can be considered a child, because you know, it was only 6 years ago that I was a child and that wasn't all that long ago. That would make me like a teenager now, right? I did stay up late last night searching YouTube for New Moon trailers so that sounds about right....).

Stu asked last night why I couldn't just take them on my own, did I really need his help?

Um, yes. Had Stu not gone with me, I would have totally walked out after the first 1.5 hours. This is why I don't travel by myself with both girls anymore...I can't just quit during the layover and leave one or both girls in the Charlotte Airport. Waited in the line to the far back right of the picture for 45 minutes. Then the middle line for 30 minutes, then the far left, front (where I was standing when I took the picture) for about 1 hour, 45 minutes (I had nothing other to do than time this event, chase after Maya and slowly lose my mind). Let's just say this was NOT the general attitude of mom & dad all morning...Stu was smiling for the camera and the camera only.

Marley got the nasal mist. We didn't have a choice in what kind of vaccine they gave us - we were told Marley would get the mist and Maya would get the shot.

Maya wanted to know what kind of crap was that? Did Marley get a sucker too? What'd she get, a stupid band-aid?

 I agree with Maya - the whole morning was just sucky. But I'll take a free H1N1 vaccine & three hours of my precious time instead of a bankruptcy inducing hospital bill any day.

Now go call your congressman and let them know you support affordable health insurance for small business owners today!

I'm not a very good (dog) mom.

I feel really, really bad that Casey did not get to go to Barktoberfest on Sunday. We were getting ready to head out the door and Stu asks, "do we really have to take Casey?". I was a bit surprised, since Casey is his dog and I figured he was the one that really wanted to take him. But logistically, if Casey went, that means I would be the one wrestling with Marley and Maya while Stu wrestled with Casey. I said no, he doesn't have to go and then the entire 8 minute drive to the new Humane Society Campus, Marley asks over and over again WHY Casey didn't get to go to the DOG PARTY that was for HIM???? Because I am a horrible dog mom, that's why! We did have good intentions though - see, the day before I even dressed him up as a cross-dresser, had it all planned out to enter him into the doggie costume contest.

(I'm sure he's glad he didn't go now that he knows he was going to have to strut his tutu in front of all the other doggies)

A big huge THANK YOU to the Humane Society for an awesome Barktoberfest this year! It was so family oriented and such a fun trip for the girls. In years past, it is normally held at Bolongo Bay Beach and it's just HOT down there plus a huge binge drinking festival. We didn't go last year - too hot for a newborn and just didn't seem like a huge amount of fun with two small kids. This year they held it at their new campus (yet to be opened) and had a fun little haunted hiking trail and a pumpkin patch for the kids where they could decorate and take home their own pumpkins (we were thrilled when Marley decided she wanted a small pumpkin instead of a big pumpkin - the pumpkin decorating area was at the END of the trail and well, we didn't want to lug a big pumpkin back to the car).

Scary spider.

 
Marley's reaction to scary spider.

Maya checking out the pumpkins.

 
Marley decorating her pumpkin.

I think her eyes are starting to turn more green (how is that even possible if Stu and I both have blue eyes?). There are flecks of yellow in there as well which always reminds me of Days of Our Lives when I was in high school. Remember when Marlena was possessed by a demon and you always knew when it was the demon because her eyes would be yellow and not their normal color?

I think of that often when she is having a meltdown.

Marley is at this great age where I can manipulate her into taking a nice photo for me. All I had to do was tell her I would give her some candy if she would stand by the pumpkins and smile for me.

She got the idea somewhere though that she needed to frame her face with her hands to truly model for the camera. I think she thought this would = more candy. It didn't.

It was a very fun event with a ton of dogs there (sorry Casey, I really am!). As I was waiting in line for our food order (don't want to think about where the meat may have come from), this woman was waiting in line holding her dog. I tried to very discretely get a photo of this dog. See his eyes? It's not the flash from the camera - they really glowed white like that!!! Freakiest dog at the ball, that's for sure. I tried not to stare but I mean, come on!

Definitely not as handsome as this little guy - definitely my favorite of the day (besides you Casey, but you know, my favorite of the doggies who have GOOD moms that take them to Barktoberfest).

 

We ran into our friends Ursula, Phil and their little one Aiden and new baby Mowgli (their four month old puppy) and invited them back to our house for dinner. Marley stopped at the potty as we were leaving and when she was done, ran outside asking, "where's Aiden, where's Aiden??" - she knew he was coming over to our house to play and was so scared that he left without her. I think she really misses having Ella and Sophia around to come over and play and she was pumped to finally have a friend over again. Look at this look of concern on her face as she was running to the parking lot to find her friend!

And Maya - not really caring about anything other than stealing her sisters pumpkin and getting away from the camera (candy bribes don't work with her yet).

 

And if you look closely, Maya's onsie actually matches Marley's dress but that was not intentional at all. They both came from different vendors on etsy.com and I didn't realize that they matched until they came in the mail. And you know how excited that made me!! Stu just rolled his eyes but I know time with matchy matchy outfits are limited. Marley is already voicing a strong opinion on her clothing. Then I'll just be left to embarrass them with my own sense of style.

Maybe Casey and I can start wearing matching outfits. Might up my standing in the "good dog mom" category.

10 more days...

Until my favorite holiday and 7 more days until ALL of my October weddings are done. The countdown has begun! While I'm happy to be busy with work, I feel like Halloween is creeping up on me fast and I don't have enough done. The girls have tried on their costumes (Marley asked me if Maya was a moko jumbie...she's not, but maybe that gives you a hint to what her costume it?) and we're looking forward to the fall festival next weekend. I'm REALLY looking forward to Oct 28th being over & done with so I can really focus on having fun with the girls. And hopefully then we will have a lot of photos to share!

And speaking of photos, we have schedule a family photo session for next week that I am so excited about, I could seriously wet my pants. When I told Stu I scheduled it, he complained, "seriously?? How often do we have to do this?". Um...we've had TWO family photo sessions since we have had children - one about a month before we found out we were pregnant with Maya and another just a week before Maya was born. Maya has never had a professional photographer shoot her (Olin Mills at Mejier doesn't count, mom) or been in a family photo session. I told him to suck it up and smile for the camera - if he can get through even 1 hour with the photographer without complaining, he can consider it my Christmas present. How can a man with such pretty blue eyes hate having his photo taken??

Pumpkin Carving

These photos are actually a week old but I just got around to editing them today. Last weekend was definitely wet out - that was the weekend of Maya's jaunt in the rain from the previous post, so you'll see I wasn't kidding about how gross it was outside. It's fall here which means it's a little rainy but unlike the mainland where fall & rain = chilly, here it is just a bit damp & muggy and icky. Marley was still in her pajamas, Maya had already soaked her first change of clothes of the day in the rain, and no one was truly feeling up to pumpkin carving but we did and it and we had fun - at least that is what I will tell them years from now when we look back at the photos.

The aww of all the grossness inside said pumpkin.

Fishing out the seeds.

Obama overseeing the removal of seeds.

You may be interested in see the final carved product but unfortunately, the finished gorde was just not very good looking and really didn't reflect the kids own creativity, otherwise of course I would be showing it off. The poor thing molded and got thrown out before I got a picture of it (I wasn't in any rush) so unfortunately, you'll just have to imagine it in your heads. Perhaps I'll spend another $10 on a pumpkin flown in from the mainland as we get closer to Halloween, if there are any left at the grocery store by then. Otherwise, we'll just have to hope for better luck next year on the good ol' pumpkin carving tradition!

I used to let Marley do this...

but she wasn't as crazy as her little sister.

Maya loves water - she is a bit obnoxious about it. Grandma Kat and Papa Joel took the girls to the beach in Connecticut and they couldn't get over how she would just bolt for the water, absolutely no fear at all. I had a meeting with a client last week that Maya had to tag along with...as we walked to the pool deck of the reception venue, I immediately regretted taking her up there and not just letting the clients check it out on their own. She saw the pool and darted for it. I spent the next 20 minutes trying to explain to the clients how we would set up the ceremony around the pool while trying to keep my daughter out of it (I finally let her lay on her belly and put her hands in but that only satisfied her for so long). She thinks she can swim and really wants us to let her go so she can do it. I've dunked her a few times to show her that hey - you'll sink - but she just comes up laughing. She really is her father's daughter - at age two, he could swim the width of the pool underwater. We really are doing a huge injustice to her by not having her already enrolled in swim classes yet.

Anyway - Sunday was a big lazy day for us. We had a huge wedding day on Saturday so I was looking forward to a day with my girls, going to the beach, park, wherever but Mother Nature had other plans and pretty much rained all day. I try to keep the doors shut when the deck is wet - to keep the girls dry and to prevent them from slipping on wet tile and cracking their heads. But after so many  hours, we all go a bit stir crazy - so we brought out the pool, opened the doors and let them have it. Marley? She was fine staying inside. Maya? Water? Pool? Danger? Count her in!

This is her body language for "it's raining!"

Love me some rain momma!

 
 

You like my beans, momma?

I had a very busy wedding day yesterday so Marley & Maya went to Nanu's house for the afternoon and evening. Marley would not let me do her hair before we left, and I knew it wasn't a huge deal, because Nanu has a special magic with that kid that I do not have. How she gets her to sit still for this, I will never know.

Even Ms. Maya got a little stylin'.

If you can't guess by the title already...Mars calls them her "beans" instead of "beads".

It's October!

I love October! Can't wait for Halloween, dressing up the kids (Marley has the most amazing Halloween dress this year!!), eatings lots of candy (not much different than any other month though) and enjoying the cooler temps (even in the Caribbean).

We had a great time in Indiana - I did get to see a few yellow and red leaves on the trees - but not many. Really wish I could go back this month. I thought about taking Maya to a pumpkin farm for the traditional pumpkin photos but really ran out of motivation time. My mom was kind enough to run across the street and steal the pumpkin from the neighbors front porch so that I could do a little photo shoot with Maya in the back yard.

Mom stealing the pumpkin...run Barb, run!

And Maya seeing her first ever pumpkin:

This is the face she makes often - it has many meanings, not sure what she is trying to communicate to the pumpkin though.

Grandma got out a little holiday decor to enhance our photo session:

Not sure her springy outfit really went with the theme.

Got some pictures by the pond.

 

I think that grass is going to eat my baby!