A Thorn Among Roses

holy cow... it is happening despite all the times i have sworn it wouldn't...she's graduating!  it's official bc the school is planning a graduation service! i was partially aware...don't get me wrong, but i thought we'd just enjoy all the senior nights up to now, eat some cake and she'd still be hanging tight next year. but she's graduating! see, there's a small problem...i love having p around.  she's actually fun to be with.  i love kids when they get to be teens...you all can have the diaper years!  give me a teenager and that's some good, old fashion fun! but i regress...we must continue on my meltdown...it's our final senior night coming up.  baccalaureate is planned.  graduation is planned.  and we are organizing the open house. when i was taking her senior pics, you would think that would have been a clue.  nope.  just another senior shoot. but the last college visit...and the "finding a roommate...

it happened today...she got her license.  and guess who she wanted to take on her first drive? yeps...sofia daisy. so off they went...without me...to get a poster board and stickers for a school project. {my credit card, of course}. and that officially means i am old... the upside to all this?  i have another driver to tote around the kiddos if i need it! {do you see the smile on sofia's face??}

we travel all the time by car...from 2 to 8 hours one way for softball...all the time. and how do we do it? cheap for one... lots of pillows...red boxes are a life saver...snacks...and secret "special stops" for ice cream. and of course... sofia crying...jada gazing...brooke resting...paige iPod'ing and chilling. altogether, boringly...but we get the job done!

i was informed by the dr. sofia daisy that my baby, "kayla", needed some really serious help.  she had just seen her in her office and she discovered the following: kayla had a bad attitude kayla had spent quite a bit of time not listening and choosing to do the wrong things even when she knew the right thing to do kayla, worst of all, did not get any bubbles at the end of the appointment because of the choices she had made. sofia told me that she had things i needed to work on before our next appointment...and can you see that stinking list!?! she handed me "kayla", my cell phone, the notes and my bill. i then was met by the secretary, jada, who required my money before i was allowed to leave. she gave me a bill...(i love love love that the first word is "cost"). so in the end, i'm thinking that all the time we have spent at doctors, psychiatrists and counselors has changed us all.  and it has shown itself...maybe not in the ways you wo...

oh yes...i'm still here, but there are a few things that have kept me away. my terrible cold...and my bed. my "helpful husband" who did all this cleaning up on the day i stayed in my bed with my terrible cold... school, softball, kids and well, honestly, crap everywhere. i just wonder whether anyone else is suffering from the "mom didn't do this and it didn't get done syndrome"?

i think we might be weird...in the winter we tend to go through good fresh fruit withdrawal. we eat us some fruit every week...like $40 worth. it's crazy expensive to eat good fresh organic fruit in the midwest during the winter... but... the girlies got a huge surprise via costco's monster ehaus fam size fruit! wooo hooo! we stopped and got a quick bite to hold us over...on the way home, brooke asked, can we have some strawberries and blueberries when we get home?! when i said yes...a huge screamy shrill of excitement came from the back of the hooptie. i think their faces tell the story... who knew fruit was what i needed to get real and fresh smiles? forget lollipops, i'm buying blueberries for photo sessions!

i'm not a huge fan of winter...but i do love the kids playing in the snow. i think it's adorable! and it sometimes brings out the best in my girlies... i mean, really, sofia! can you get any stinking cuter? even a little sisterly love caught on film! fortunately, when you have a small brood of kids, they can all play together and you can just take pictures and drink coffee!

what we've been up to...a lot this week in no particular order: smiling plotting playing fighting sneaking and lots of just good old fashioned fun. happy new year to you and yours...

i get a lot of great pics as a photographer of my kiddos...but there's a whole lot of hilarious outtakes that don't make the wall in the house, let's just say..but are def worth remembering every now and then. so this is my entry this week for the i heart faces "hilarious outtakes" week...it was during our fam photo shoot in early november... sofia is screaming her head of about something...maybe not being able to run around like a maniac or something. as you can also see, jada is terrified of something...maybe the screaming tears of sofia. brooke is being her normal "helpful" self, which means not looking at the camera and trying to soothe sof. cute, but doesn't make for the best pics. and paige, doing all that she can as the eldest...straightening collars and holding sof and well, just anything to get the darn shoot over with getting one good pic. ...which we did, by the way. but this is a hilarious outtake...at least i think so.

like any lover of the camera, there's never a place we go without our friend... today after church, as we were walking out, the fam just was being normal and i had to capture this glimpse of what normal is for us.... yes, that's hubs...and yes, that is paige's coat. she's 100 pounds soaking wet, so you can see that it's not the best fit. and sofia was obsessed with the fresh snow...again. but look at those sweet eyes. look closer...there's hair!!!! and paige was cracking up...at many things...but mostly at hubs being silly. b and jk decided they wanted to play on the playground...we barely stopped them before sliding down the snow covered slide. we have a 40 minute drive home...wet pants all the home spells whining! and even with the best of parenting, it turns out that leaving a super fun parking lot in front of the church {every single sunday} can bring any of the kiddos to tears. today, it was sofia. happy sunday...

when i was a kid, my bro, jeremy, and i were perfect in december because we always had the threat of santa seeing us being bad and not getting gifts. we had an angel as our tree topper...the angel was the one who reported to santa. if santa got a bad report, the angel flew away...and if the angel wasn't on the tree, thn santa wouldn't make the stop at our house. we would sit at the tree and beg the angel to not report our arguing...i c an even remember jeremy crying, and beign a great big sister, i was laughing! turns out that hubs thinks that's a little harsh and grumpy...and so i'm not allowed to do the whole "threat" thing. nana {my mom} apparently 'talked to santa' so he penned a letter to all 4 of my girls. the letters all started with a reminder of some bad behaviors he'd been told and ended with a "don't fight and i'll see you on christmas eve". seemed like a super fun idea...right? look at the excitement on their faces.....

around these parts, the apples don't fall far from the tree when it comes to the dessert snackage... my little chef, jada, and my helper, sofia, and i got our baking on while ryan and the other girls were hanging out. the new discovery...licking the s patula. and she got every single spec she could get off that thing! i'm more of a sofia kinda girl...why lick the spatula? especially when there's an entire pan of batter? why waste time on the small stuff! i like the way that girls thinks! and i would have a picture of the brownies, but yeah, we ate them very, very quick. and they were soooo delicious...and fun to make too!

we woke up yesterday to our deer {go with me, will you?} frolicking in our first snow of the year. i growled. the kids screamed with joy...and then began the dance... sofia was jealous of java bc she got to play in the snow... {i think maybe java was jealous of sofia too} i used the old "play in the snow time" to get brooke working fast and ready before school, so she went outside to check things out. and again, poor sofia watched...notice she did get on her snow boots to entice me to take her out. well, that stinking winter has begun...and i flipping HATE the cold! tonight the low is 13! that should be illegal...seriously! i need the beach...does anyone have any spare beach? no go and make a difference... read about how you can help out fellow bloggers who really need!