The Ocotillo Excitement

So, the President came to our neighborhood. Yeah, the President of the USA. Cool, right? I mean, I don't really care who the President is, if he comes to your neighborhood, that's cool. My kids thought so, too. So when they got home from school, we walked down about a block to Dobson Road to watch the President arrive at Intel where he was giving a speech. There were a lot of lovers/haters there. I told the kids to be quiet, and not disturb anyone's (mostly stupid) signs. It was a good experience for them. I felt a little patriotic, honestly.
Here's his car in the midst of all the police.

Newest Pinterest Project

This one was so fun! I had about 10 church friends over doing it with me, and they all brought pinterest recipes for lunch. Now, that's LOVE! (By the way, the Pinterest recipe I tried was Carmelitas. Holy Moly, yum. Words cannot quite describe.)

Just one guess..

...who got lil' miss dressed this morning. Mariah tried to offer subtle hints to him, but to no avail.
And, do you see the wound on her head? Ouch. I guess I shouldn't let Jackson supervise her out back anymore...

Cell phone sunset

When this is your view while you're eating dinner, does the food really matter? If I lived here, would I take this for granted or would I remember to take a decent camara with me everywhere I went? Also, should it be against the law to order a chicken dish while eating at a beachfront resturant? Ben says yes.

A room with a view

It's been a while since I've blogged. It's been even longer since I've sat on the patio of a hotel gazing endlessly at the waves coming in. COMPLETELY alone. Without a single place to go for the whole day. Without a single little kiddo fighting with his brother. Without a single diaper in my purse. Ben had to come to CA for a training seminar, and he asked me to tag along. So he's gone for the whole day, and I'm here:
on Laguna Beach, with a day full of possibilities. I think my camara and I have a date with that beach down there. And I have a date with the little pastry shop down the street for lunch. And all the little shops and stores are calling my name. What a day it's going to be. I've never been so excited to spend an entire day with... myself.
I'll blog about Christmas when I get home. Maybe.

Her favorite ride...

...is still Chandler. (And I LOVE this picture. Pure joy.)

The truth. The madness. The hilarity.

It's hilarious, really. The things I do. I sometimes wonder if there's anyone out there as crazy as me. When I was pregnant with Gabby, I never slept. I know, big surprise. But insomnia is bad enough, but when you're pregnant with insomnia, you can just consider yourself on the brink of death. I was. I was desperate for some good sleep. I decided that it was the mattress. The really fancy, expensive mattress that we had just recently bought that I now hate. Too soft. I thought I liked soft. I don't. So I stole the only mattress in the house that I thought was comfortable from Chandler, gave him a different one, and put his on the floor next to my huge fancy mattress. I laid my big belly down, and slept like a baby. So guess where I slept for the duration on my pregnancy?
I had Gabby, and knew something needed to be done about my sleeping arrangements. I decided I'd put the beloved mattress on TOP of the huge fancy squishy mattress so that my bed would officially be too tall to climb in without a ladder. But maybe I'd sleep fine up there. One night of that, and I knew it wouldn't work. I could feel the squish of the fancy matress under me. Too soft. So I went to Home Depot and got a board. Seriously. Put that under my mattress on top of my mattress so as not to feel the softness of fancy mattress. Oh, no. Too hard. So I added a matress topper, doubled over, and voila. Perfection. Imagine the look on Ben's face when he saw this scene for the first time. Priceless. I'm sure he was thinking, "Wow. What did I get myself into, exactly?" He just laughed. Out loud. Then said, "Hon. You're crazy. Not kidding" And he puts up with the board giving him the occasional splinter. Ha ha. Not really.
At night, it's a production. I start by drinking just the right amount of water to wake me up once- not twice, and early enough that I'll be able to go back to sleep. I get ready for bed, and climb in. I must read a book before going to sleep. I has to be interesting, but not interesting enough to keep me awake, and almost always nonfiction. (Right now it's "Leadership and Self-Deception". I highly recommend.) I read until I am falling asleep. Sometimes it's 5 minutes, sometimes it's 2 hours. I sleep with one hard and one soft pillow under my head, and one pillow on each side of me. I have a t-shirt that is perfectly folded that I put on my head. I have a ceiling fan to cool, and another fan for white noise blowing at all times. When the lights go out, if I don't immediately fall asleep, I get back up and read. We repeat that sometimes several times. When I get up in the middle of the night, I can almost always tell if I'm going to fall back to sleep or not. If not, it's more reading until I fall back to sleep. Sometimes that doesn't happen.
So there. How's that for crazy?! So when you see me and are tempted to ask, "Are you tired?" Just assume the answer is yeah. I am. Exhausted. But it's a happy exhaustion.