This whole weekend was an absolute pile of goodness. I love weekends like this and we’ve been pretty low key for a few weeks, so having a jam-packed weekend seemed to feel just right. On Friday Maggie and I met up with Cole and Caroline to see what the newly remodeled aquatics center was like. It did not disappoint. It was AWESOME and we’ll go back again for sure. Maggie has been in the water quite a bit, but this was the first time that I felt like she was really pumped up about it, it was if she’d turned into a fish.

Saturday we met up with Krista and Lance and had brunch at their house, which for some reason I’ve held onto the wrong address and it took us a while to get there. All in all, it was fun to let the kids play and the adults talk. At one point Krista and I were upstairs with the kids while Lance and Barry stayed downstairs talking. Krista and I are so similar in our loudness and the dudes are way more laid back. We were shrieking, laughing and being not quiet while we played with Will & Mags.

The men, on the other hand, had a quiet calm conversation that we couldn’t hear from the top of the stairs. It was a serious conversation and they both took turns talking, never interrupting one other. So unlike Krista and myself. Girls will be girls. Can that be the excuse.

After we left the Hoffman household, we headed over to Brian and Darcy’s for the evening. I may or may not have eaten too many pieces of shrimp and sipped a bit too much wine while at their house. Sometimes that happens when we’re all together…the shrimp and wine combo is killer.  So much fun though.

We didn’t watch the Super Bowl today, instead we went to the beach. (The above photos are from last week and our attempt at a self-timer portrait…photos from this weekend to come). We thought we were clever by going to the beach, but every other little family that didn’t want to watch the Super Bowl was there too. It was still fun.

And now.

We’re about to enjoy a delicious dessert to cap off our weekend. Pictures to come from the photo challenge, etc.

Ta to the Ta!

I feel so lucky that some of my very best childhood friends also have children that are about the same age as Maggie. When we’re all in town at the same time (aside from Erin who now lives there!!) we try to make a point of it to get together with the kids. Most recently Erin and Lara came out to my parent’s house with Thomas and Maggie and we ended up going to see the cows next door and eating large amounts of popcorn.

Mara is old enough that she understands what it means to go on a walk, but when it comes to Thomas and Maggie, their still a little hopeless when it comes to directions or walking distances without getting distracted.

By the time we made it to the cows, and picked up some pussy willows on the way, it felt like we’d reminded both of them that we were going to see the cows many, many times. The cows weren’t really sure what to do about a bunch of kids staring at them, so they just stared back. Sydney, on the other hand, decided that the best thing to do was to charge at the fence, which made me nervous because there was one cow that looked like it wanted to eat Syd for lunch.

My parents have a collection of toys that stay at their house and it is always fun to see what other kids, besides Maggie, glom onto. Thomas was all over the fruit cutting station, the hammer,  a truck, and also my dad. He kept bringing my dad different things and made sure that my dad noticed it. It was all sorts of cute.

While the kids played with play-dough my mom started to pop some popcorn and by the time the first kernel had hit the bowl, nearly everyone was done playing with playdough. As the adults and kids both huddled around  bowls of popcorn, we started talking about all the different groups of people that have enjoyed popcorn at my parent’s kitchen table. It was a long, long list and it seemed fitting that Maggie would be shoving handfuls into her mouth with two of her buddies by her side.

I only wish I could have understood their conversation as they each reached for handfuls. Mara is pretty quiet, so much of the talk was between Thomas and Maggie. It wasn’t long after that both Erin and Lara had to leave, but lucky for Mags and me, we got to stay and keep eating and chatting around the popcorn bowl.

Traditionally the boys go fishing (really a booze cruise) and the ladies go to a local winery for a tasting. The rest of our time is spent playing board games, cooking, avoiding the mud during Sardines, walking to the nearby park, and lounging around. This might have been one of the first years that we’ve struggled to make it to midnight and some of us didn’t. This also marked the first year that we’ve had babies along for the ride. 

The same stories get told, but new ones get created as well, and we all can chime in on specific ones. On our last night we sat around the dinner table telling stories that pretty much NOBODY else would think to laugh at the right parts, but we were all busting our guts.  We’re definitely all adults, with adult jobs and lives, but it seems that our weekend at The Moosehead lets us all unwind and kick our feet up for a moment our two.  

My December dream came true the other day when Charlyn and I made plans to have our kids make sugar cookies.  Since it didn’t quite work out the last time I decided to call in the reinforcements and it worked out just fine and dandy. All that rolling, patting and marking that Maggie has done sure paid off.

But then she noticed that Cameron was nibbling on a cookie and the girl just went for it! She was practically taking spoonfuls of frosting by the end of it, but at least she had fun. Aside from the fact that Maggie ended up hitting (OMG!) Connor, it sure was a great visit. Both boys are so kind and gentle with Maggie. I noticed that Cameron stopped calling her Baby Maggie and I’m wondering if he now thinks of her as a BIG GIRL.

They got to run off some of their cookie-making steam by running around outside while we cleaned up and shuffled cookies from the oven to the cooling racks. I yelled a few ‘hold onto her hands’ and ‘go help Maggie’ from the doorway, but I think Cameron secretly liked being in “charge” and Mags liked running with the big kids.  I probably could have toned down my order and cut the apron strings, so to speak, but my BABY insisted on wearing her 3 sizes too big cowgirl boots outside and I didn’t want to see her take a nose dive. Such fun and I feel a tradition starting…

In between the Cookie Making Extravaganza and Thomas’ visit, we squeezed in a few visits from Grandpa Miller &  our friend Christina and even went to visit Sue (a.k.a. Ish) and 3G. Phew.  By the time Thomas, Deneva & Lara arrived at our door, Maggie was in full-on excited mode. Days ago we’d wrapped Thomas’ present and she’d been itching to give it to him.

What she wasn’t expecting was for Thomas to take her down WWF style (Barry says it’s WWE now, what do I know?). I tell you, there was something in the air today because as excited as Maggie was, Thomas was right there with her….until she started doing her ultra high-pitched screaming. T-Man does NOT like that and never has.

The gift exchange went off with a bit of confusion (maybe Mags was confused about the WWF/WWE take down?) about what to do with the gifts. Thomas tried to open a gift for my mom, one that I don’t think he would have enjoyed one ounce and Maggie thought the box WAS the gift.

After the gift opening, which lasted all of five minutes, the two little chickens ran wild around the house and Deneva, bless her, kept checking on them when they’d be in another room. I suppose Lara and I are of the ‘if we can hear them they’re alright’ school.  Devo did discover them having a party with the origami balls and glass vase in the kitchen. And by party I mean throwing them everywhere and hauling the glass vase from one place to another.  This year Thomas/Maggie gift exchange was much more crazy than last year, I can only imagine what it’ll be next year!

This past weekend Kara (a.k.a. Elfie) and Ryan hosted a holiday party for our group of friends and it was nothing short of delightful from start to finish. I appreciate my hometown girlfriends and when I think about Maggie making friends and maintaing friendships of her own, I hope she gets a taste of what it truly means to have friends that span all the seasons of life.

Some friends are ‘old’ friends in this group and some are ‘new.’  Kara, for example, I met when I was only months old and she was just new to the world. We don’t even remember meeting. Krista, on the on the other hand, I didn’t meet until 7th grade and she’s  a ‘new’ friend. Everyone else falls in between that and their own ‘meeting’ stories are interwoven and have the overwhelming ‘we’re supposed to be friends’ tone.

We’ve since brought dudes into the mix and they mix and mingle just fine when we all gather. As the night wound down, the girls were in one room and the guys in another. They guys talked tools, the world problems and their jobs. The girls? We talked childbirth. No wonder the men stayed in the kitchen.

Kara and Ryan’s  house was beautifully decorated and full of yummy food and tasty drinks. In fact, Kara even invented a drink called The Dirty Snowman. It was rather intense, but people kept going back for more, so it had to have been good! Kara and I got it in our heads that we wanted to create a make-shift photo booth and snap photos of everybody.

It felt like we were 10 again with some hair-brained idea that we were uber excited about. Like the time that we thought we were going mountain climbing and attached a rope to the a tree on a very, very dangerous rock wall. When an adult finally got wind of what we were doing/had done, we were told not to play in that area again. Or the time that we went to Hawaii in 6th grade and decided to bring our roller blades….that was before they charged you for luggage. Or the time that we decided to go hiking and camping, but ended up spending the night at my grandparent’s house (we were almost in college for that one).

Anyhow, everybody else went along with the idea and even subjected themselves to very hot Christmas lights, which I’m kind of surprised didn’t either catch on fire of burn somebody…now that I think about it. As our excitement grew and we contemplated all the areas in their house to use that would accommodate my lens capabilities – the bathroom shower curtain would have been AWESOME – and have good lighting, we landed on a corner in the living room. Ryan offered, and I accepted, to bring in industrial lighting….and come to think of it, those lights got really, really hot too. It’s a wonder that we all didn’t get burned in some way.

Once we got rolling, it was really fun, or at least I think the girls thought it was fun. Some of the guys had tortured looks on their faces, but since the girls had all reverted back to giggling, loud chatter-boxes, there wasn’t much room to argue. I’m quite pleased with what we got.

By the time we wrapped up the lights and took the last picture, it was time to move onto the gift exchange. Barry and I made out like bandits because we scored a cute dish towel/ hot pad and coasters that Marc and Lara made…SCORE!!  Erin won the award for being the nicest of us all because she “stole” Kara’s gift of toilet paper. Erin also won the award for luckiest because wrapped in the toilet paper were scratch tickets.  I am totally stealing that idea someday.

Great, great night with very sparkly people.

Thanks again Kara & Ryan!

It bothers me knowing that I’ve got a slew of pictures and anecdotes that I haven’t had a chance to sit down and process. Life has gone on and I’m just going to have to let some of those moments go because we’ve got new moments happening right before our eyes. We finally got a chance to meet up with Thomas and Lara to visit, we’ve missed them both so much so it was really nice to finally be able to see each other in person. Lara and I dressed the kiddos up in their respective cowboy costumes and let them wander around outside.

It was quite hilarious because they both wandered around without any obvious plan, but they were interested in each other just enough to stay in close proximity. Tons of babbling and demanding yells from both little cowpokes…and both nearly got distracted by the swing, but that was sure to create chaos with their cowboy hats.  I taught Thomas how to bellow “Yeeee-HAW!” and I’m sure that Marc and Lara are both glad for that. What else are friends for??

Back home on the ranch, at HBHQ, the Merks stopped by to see our new rock wall and give Syd a few pets. Cameron was especially proud to understand what HBHQ means, it was really cute. Beyond that, he was a great friend to Maggie because she’s got an infatuation with walking on the wall in a dangerous way….but we’ve been through that before, remember? He chatted, she listened and Charlyn, Connor and I watched.

Holiday Cheer @ HBHQ

We invested in some lights and have been working to set them up at our house, first testing them out on a tree out side. Side note: we’re not afraid of setting up lights in the dark…..but doing it in the daylight is easier. Plus, we’ve started sipping on hot chocolate almost daily. I haven’t abandoned my tea, but we treat hot chocolate like a new BFF every year and right now we’re in the getting-to-know-you stage. Last weekend we went down to the Edmonds waterfront and used a Groupon at a little coffee shop. Maggie really, really enjoyed my marshmallow flavored hot chocolate. Sounds gross, I know, but it was good.

We’re headed to Camp Janet to eat some turkey and that has meant that we’re busy making our contribution to the yummy meal….and washing dishes……naked.

Strike that.

I’m baking, but MAGGIE is busy washing dishes naked, with her apron on.  She has really been into serving us ‘tea’ from her tea kettle and taking big, fake gulps herself. The girl has a sense of humor and a huge imagination, I love it. I’m working with her to wear clothes on a more regular basis….

That’s all folks!

Caroline turned one a few days ago and we headed to her house to celebrate her first year. Many of our friends were there and it wasn’t until we were walking out the door that I realized I hadn’t taken any pictures, so of course I requested that  Thomas, Maggie and Caroline gather on the couch for a quick couple snaps. (Cue the eye rolling for some people.)

Since Thomas was in full party mode, Maggie was into practicing her jumps and Caroline was lovin’ on her dad, it just seemed like I was trying to capture a picture of some hummingbirds zooming past my lens. It was so much easier when we could plop them down and they’d stay on one place. Long gone are those days. Long gone.

Even before we had Maggie, I always longingly talked about corn mazes and farms and we didn’t always pull the trigger on hunting one down. We’ve had Halloween parties in the past and even pumpkin carving contests, but there is something special about picking your own pumpkin or getting lost with friends in a maze of corn.

As we were given our maps to the maze, it became crystal clear that the advice of the sales lady wasn’t too far fetched when she mentioned that the map didn’t ‘exactly’ match with the real twists and turns in the maze. Luckily Brian was with us and he is a MASTER map reader. Not really, but he sure does laugh a lot, which makes Barry laugh a lot too.  Any time you’ve got two Miller brothers laughing, is a good time. At one point Bri mentioned the time he saw my pregnant butt and I had to put a halt on that story, which only made him laugh more.

As much as I’ve been singing praises for this blustery weather, which I love, I’ve been mourning the loss of nice natural light for my photos. All summer long I fought the glare of the sun and now the cloud cover is here to stay and I’m having to pull out a few tricks to make sure I still get the pictures I desire. I suppose you could say I enjoy a challenge because I still refuse to use my flash. Perhaps I’m stubborn? Nah.

So, the corn maze. It was really fun and Maggie loved it. She also loved all the attention from Darcy and her friends. Lauren, Darcy’s best friend, had black boots that Maggie absolutely fell in love with and they were boot buds, with Maggie pointing endlessly at both their boots, as if wanting to confirm that they both had boots on. Mags also enjoyed being leader of the pack, sometimes deciding for everyone if we were going to take a right or a left. The power of her index finger is still in full throttle.

As we roamed from one end of the maze to another trying to solve the mystery of the secret code, I kept whispering to myself “If you build it, he will come” and waiting for Shoeless Joe to pop out of the corn. Of course, he never did. As it was getting darker and we’d solved the puzzle, it was time to exit the maze. Barry and Maggie somehow got detached from the rest of the group and we were headed to the exit. I was a bit worried (but not REALLY worried) and Brian went back in to find Barry and Maggie. Of course not a minute after Brian turned around did Barry and Maggie appear pleased as little kittens that they’d found the exit. So, there we all were at the exit of the corn maze without Brian, the one who is really good at reading maps, remember?  I don’t think anybody really wanted to go back in to find him, for fear of getting lost, but thankfully he ambled out laughing. So we all laughed too.