Blog Blitzkrieg

Making up for lost time in the blog posting department.
My apologies for bombarding you with posts... ;)

Speaking of Buddy...

A couple of favs from April/May...

Learning about plumbing and sprinklers from Daddy.

Mohawk Man.

My two favorite guys. In their tie-dyed matchy-ness.

I had my back turned for less than thirty seconds, I swear, and this is what I came back to.
(He was just SO PLEASED with himself.)
Lesson learned: Always use the straps.

The Great Outdoors

Our little guy is a HUGE outdoors enthusiast. (I guess that's part of being a boy. :))
Needless to say, the backyard is his favorite spot.
Here he is in his element...






Here's to many more years of a boy playing in dirt!

Easter

We had a busy Easter Sunday around the Hughes Zoo.
Sunrise service at church.
Home for a quick egg hunt in our new backyard!
Brunch gathering for Easter with our Sunday School class. (and Egg Hunt #2 for the kids)
Home for a quick nap.
Lunch with family. (and Egg Hunt #3 for the kids)

Extreme Couponing

I took this picture WEEKS ago with the intent to post my own little 'bragging lounge'.
I'm afraid it has lost its proverbial punch in the interim as I can no longer remember the details of the transaction. :)

4 boxes of cereal
1 pack of Pull-ups
1 pack of diapers
1 box of Lipton tea
4 boxes of band-aids
1 bag of cough drops
1 bag of jelly beans
1 bottle of eye make-up remover
1 package of Claritin


I do know that it cost a total of $23. TWENTY-THREE dollars.

And the Claritin has a retail value of almost $20 (or more!) all by itself. Not that I would ever pay $20 for it, but...

Yay for coupons!

Home Improvement-- Backyard

For Valentine's Day this year, I only asked for one thing:
A usable backyard.
Yes, I am that romantic.

We knew it would take a lot of work to get it cleaned up, so we both planned to spend our upcoming Spring Break working out in the yard and getting it ready to go.

As it turned out, we hired contractors to save Bill's back.
(Best. Money. Ever. Spent.)
Bill did a ton of work on the sprinklers, and we spent most of yesterday laying the sod ourselves.... but we let the hired help do all the heavy lifting, so to speak. ;)

Here are a few slide shows that show the before, after and work-in-progress shots:

yard- view A - slideshow maker

yard view B - slideshows

yard view C - slideshows

yard view D - slideshows

Glue and Gum

Two funny Lexy stories from the past week:

First...

One day after school last week, Lexy casually mentions to me "I told Brooke she needed to take a bath tonight." I had that internal shudder-of-fear for what might come next. We often joke around the Hughes Zoo that someone needs to take a bath because they are a 'stinky, dirty bird.'
Thankfully, she continued by saying, "She had glue all over her hair, Mom. ALL OVER." I breathed a sigh of relief. And silently chuckled to think that Lexy has become a little mother hen of her friends.

Fast forward to Monday morning. I am waiting at the kindergarten drop off gate before school when Brooke's mom approaches me... She says,

"So, apparently Lexy decided that she needed to let me know what was going on with Brooke's hair. She sent me a note-- stuffed in Brooke's pocket. She drew a picture of a girl with long hair, pointed an arrow towards it and labeled it 'Brooke'. Then she drew another arrow to her hair and wrote 'Glue In Hair'. I asked Brooke about it, and she said, 'yeah, she wanted to make sure you knew what happened.'"

Oh My Word.
Mother Hen to to the nth degree.
And so cute. :)

Second,...

The kids and I surprised Daddy on Valentine's Day by bringing him lunch during his work day. We happened to arrive on campus at the end of the brunch passing period. As we were pulling into the parking place, I looked around and realized we were totally witnessing Valentine's Day gift exchanges between young loves... And all the other things that hormonally-charged teenagers are wont to do. But no matter; we were not deterred. The girls took the food to Daddy's classroom, Daddy was equally surprised and delighted, and we went on our way.

Later that night, as we were all going through the bedtime routine, Lexy says to Bill, "Daddy, today at your school, I saw this boy and girl... and they were kissing. I think they were switching gum, or something. I don't know. I think they were maybe boyfriend and girlfriend. I don't know though, don't ask me." Bill and I both had to bite our lips to keep from laughing.

"Switching Gum."

I love it.

And thankfully, it sparked a great conversation about kissing-- who kisses, when it's appropriate to kiss, etc.

Teachable Moments!

Button Up Buddy

Our children have many nicknames.
And, generally, Bill is the one who creates them.

When Lexy arrived on the scene, he started calling her "My Only Daughter!" in a very exasperated voice with a hint of a Spanish accent. Really, it was a movie quote. Which, if you know Bill, should come as no surprise. (It's from "Fools Rush In")

Lexy was also dubbed "Lexy Lou" from early on.... And sometimes just "Lou".... and sometimes just 'L'. And sometimes L-Dawg.

You get the picture.

Tori was born and immediately became "My Second Daughter!" as Lexy morphed into "My First Daughter!" said with the same flare. And then came a flurry of other nicknames for Tori-- "T Bone", "Tori Toops", "Toops", "T" and "LB" (for Little Bill, or the abbreviation for pound, which she was a lot of :) ) just to name a few.

So, it did not surprise me in the least when I started hearing Bill call Liam "Button Up Buddy." I had no idea what the origin of that nickname was, but I went with it, never questioning its meaning. I thought perhaps it had something to do with his little sleepers that had to be buttoned up from his toes to his neck every time we changed his diapers (read: a lot).

I carried on calling him Button Up Buddy for probably a good month or two until one afternoon when Bill overheard me and began a little internet search. Next thing I knew, I had an iTouch in my hands that displayed the following:

Apparently, "Button Up Buddy" was really "Bud, not Buddy."
Who knew?

Bill had that title stored somewhere back in the deep dark corners of his brain from his time as a middle school teacher in south central Los Angeles.

I had been referring to Liam as "Buddy" quite a bit, so (naturally?) Bill had made the progression to "Bud, not Buddy".

I guess I should get my ears checked.


Since then, I have actually read the book--and it is really good!
(Turns out those Newbery Medal & Honors people know what they're doing.)
We now own a copy for our own little Bud, Not Buddy's personal library.

Snow!

About every 20 years or so, there is a weather anomaly that happens and it snows in our normally sunny, southern California town. The last time it happened was in 1989, when I was in junior high. I distinctly remember making a glorious snowman at the local elementary school yard, and later driving across town with my dad through snow flurries because I *had* to have a new padlock for my gym locker at school. (For any of you local readers, we were driving to the then **NEW** Target shopping center, which at the time, was a good 2 miles north of any other development here in town. In other words, way out in the middle of nowhere. Funny how things change.)

So, flash forward to January 2, 2011, and the magic happened again. SNOW.

And we weren't even home to see it. :)

But...

We were up in the mountains enjoying the fluffy white stuff. Lots more of it, actually.

still shot before they head down the hill

These pictures were all taken in the morning, before it started snowing. The storm that brought 1 inch (or so) of snow to our hometown brought about 12 inches of snow to the mountains that afternoon and evening. It was a winter wonderland. And I didn't take any more pictures. But it was gorgeous. :) And we were thankful to make it home, fearing we might be snowed in. Neither Bill nor I were raised in snow, so clearly our perspective is a bit skewed, but it seemed like it was DUMPING snow us as we were driving home. With chains. CRAZY.

Such a fun weekend, and so thankful that our kids get to experience the fun of snow!

Florida Recap

Christmas Morning Sunrise
Pompano Beach, FL

Well, despite my commitment to finishing out the month of November with a 'thankful' post each day.... I fell short. Didn't finish the last 5 days, but that doesn't mean I wasn't thankful. :) Just busy.

No matter... I'm back, and more thankful than ever!

So, I missed the whole month of December in between--
recap: Bill had a birthday, we traveled to Florida for Grandmother Hughes' 90th bday (Dec 24th), and, of course, Christmas! (more on that later)

Our trip in Florida started out like this.

Southernmost Point of the Continental Unite States
Key West, FL

And then we did a lot of this.

Beach time with Daddy

And this.

Swimming in a warm hotel pool.

And this.

Liam's first east coast beach outing.

And this. (Lexy's favorite part, actually)

"Meeting New Cousins."
(or, meeting 2nd cousins for the first time)

And this.

Snuggling with GPa.

And this.

Celebrating Grandmother Hughes.

At Grandmother's Birthday Party
Christmas Eve 2010

And on Christmas Morning in the hotel, we had a very small celebration of Christmas. The girls have been asking for "Space Buddies" for the past 2 yrs, and despite our efforts, we could not produce. It is 'out of print,' so to speak. But, we were fortunate to have been given a used copy by some friends who were cleaning out their DVDs, and we knew we'd have some THRILLED little ladies because of it. So we captured their reactions....
I'll count that as a Christmas Success!