SNA's

Once again, a blog spurred by a good friend of mine, who posted about her Saturday Night Dances...

Back in Cali, growing up, our church did Saturday Night Activities (SNA's) not sure why they were called that since they were always a dance... Anyway- I can honestly trace most of my fondest memories of high school back to those dances.

I remember my first ever dance, when my older cousin kept trying to dance me right off the dance floor because according to him, I was too young to be there. I remember hoping a specific someone would ask me to dance... The same specific someone the whole 4 years of going to those dances. I also keenly remember that he never did ask me to dance. I remember convincing Richard that Julie was older than me. :) I remember making friends that would continue being friends long after I was too old to go to those dances. I met Steve, Carter, and Anthony there- dated them all, stayed friends with one of them. Then there is Lindsay and Autumn, and Charae (Did I spell that right Ju?). I remember dancing until I was just too warm to think straight then walking around the outside of the building to cool off. Good times!

But the one thing I will never be able to forget is the songs. Certain songs will forever be tied back to SNA's. I am stealing a majority of these from my friend's blog, but here are some of them:

Man! I Feel Like a Woman - Shania Twain
Any Man of Mine - Shania Twain
Boot Scootin' Boogie - Brooks & Dunn
Cotton Eyed Joe -
Tub Thumping - Chumbawumba
I'll Never Break Your Heart - Backstreet Boys
Love Shack - B52's
I Don't Want to Miss a Thing - Aerosmith
Living La Vida Loca - Ricky Martin
I Knew I loved You - Savage Garden
Genie in a Bottle - Christina Aguilera
Mambo No. 5 - Lou Bega
Want You Back - NSYNC
Bye Bye Bye - NSYNC
Gonna Be (I Would Walk 500 Miles)- The Proclaimers
Mmmmm Bop- Hanson
I Swear- Boyz II Men
How Do I Live- Leann Rimes
Zoot Suit Riot- Cherry Poppin Daddies (remember Ju, "Throw back a bottle of ROOTBEER")
Quit Playin' Games- Backstreet Boys
One Week- Bare Naked Ladies
(Everything I Do) Do It For You- Bryan Adams (remember how this one has a super long pause, then keeps playing- totally awkward, you think its over so you stop dancing, then it starts again so you scramble to find your dance partner and keep dancing...)

Ah, the memories!

A pic of me and my favorite person ever (besides Joe of course) back in our dance goin' days...

The Name Game

Joseph Brent
Named after his Grandfather (Joseph) and father (Brent). Pretty standard...



Pamela Renee
While my mom was pregnant with me, it was decided that I was going to be named Blair whether I was a boy or girl. LUCKY FOR ME my mother was on a bus a few weeks before I was born and she saw a personalized license plate that read "Pamela." And she fell in love with it. As for my middle name, all of my siblings have middle names that are family names. But not me. "Renae just fit" SO- to sum up, all my siblings were named after family- I was named after a licence plate.



Lilia
First off, my girls will not have middle names. They will eventually be able to use their maiden names as middle names... When I was pregnant with Lil she was gonna be Renee. From day one I was going to name her after my middle name (I had wanted a Renee since I was in grade school and decided my parents screwed my name up and should have named me Renee). Well, Joe really wanted to name one kid of ours a slovic name since he served a mission in Bulgaria. I was fine with that... as long as it wasn't a girl cause her name was gonna be Renee. Well, we found out it was a girl, and Joe was totally fine with Renee. BUT- he was showing me pictures of people from his mission one day and showed me a picture of a woman named Lilia, and I instantly KNEW that was my daughters name. So Joe got his wish, and I dropped Renee all together.



Lacey
The day we found out baby #2 was a girl, I found the name Audrey, and that was gonna be her name. But, Joe was not feelin' it. He didn't hate it, but he also didn't love it either. A few months before she was born I was watching the first episode of last season's "So You Think You Can Dance" and one of the competitors was Lacey (sister to the previous season's winner). I loved the name instantly. Joe still wasn't for sure. When I went into labor, he was online looking up names. He finally found one he liked. Sophie. We decided to see what she looked like when she was born. A few minutes after her birth, once she started breathing, he looked at her, looked at me and said, " She is NOT a Sophie, definitely a Lacey."

It's Easter already?!

Easter was really uneventful for us this year. It really became apparent that I need to be better at forming family traditions of my own for Easter. On Saturday we did do a neighborhood easter egg hunt. It was less of a hunt and more of an Easter Egg RUN. Its a wide open field that has tons and tons of eggs spread across it. They have it sectioned off into age groups. Lil was in the youngest kids group for the last time. Next year she moves up to the next age group... Well, they have a fire truck there that blares its siren, which is the starting signal. As soon as the siren goes off the kids make a mad dash at the eggs in their section... Lil did really well! I didn't get pictures cause I wasn't there, Joe took her while I put the baby down for her nap. Anyway- thats the only egg hunt Lil had this year. We then came home and did a little bit of nothing besides decorating eggs (which I was too dumb to take pictures of).

Sunday morning the girls woke up to Easter baskets and new church dresses. Lacey's basket was really just her dress, a small toy and a couple eggs we decorated the day before. Lil had a more bounteous basket... Lots of chocolate, candy, a couple little kid nail polishes, and some soap paint for the bathtub, as well as her new dress. I got the girls dressed in their new dresses (which were super cute and matching, but I couldn't find the camera, so once again, no pictures) and we went to church. The Easter program was wonderful, and the kids were pretty well behaved, but by the time church was out, Lil had made a mess out of her dress so no pictures then either! Man! I totally suck at this picture taking thing! Well, Sunday night we went to dinner at my MIL's house, but she is boycotting Easter cause there are no flowers in bloom yet, so she is gonna be doing an egg hunt sometime in the next few weeks... So yeah, we saw family, we ate candy, we got the girls new dresses, but otherwise, a pretty uneventful Easter. It IS nice to see the family though!

SO- Because I failed to take pictures of my kids, here are a few pictures from Easter of TWO YEARS AGO- when Lil was only 1 1/2...

Love that child! (Part Deux)

What happens while mom is preoccupied with the older child's hair...

That would be banana plum baby food...

Love that child!

Lil is a great kid. Really. She is. I am so proud of her most of the time, and she is such a funny girl nearly all of the time... Then there are those few times a week/day/month when I just wanna rip my hair out with frustration... This morning was one of those times. It seems that yesterday my lovely daughter got hold of some safety scissors at preschool. And what did she do with those scissors? She gave herself a discrete haircut! Now sadly, I didn't hear about this from the teachers. I found out myself yesterday afternoon when she woke up from her nap and some of the freshly cut hair was standing straight up. Luckily it was easily hide-able... All was well. No serious damage, we had the "we don't cut our own hair" talk and all was well. Until this morning when I was doing her hair and noticed a WHOLE LOT MORE missing. I know she didn't do it since our talk, so obviously I didn't look close enough the first time, and she had cut herself a decent amount of hair. LUCKILY it was still salvageable, though her hair is much much shorter now. I was sad to take her in for her first big girl haircut, but really, it turned out quite cute.

Before the haircut- this picture was taken last week...

After... from the front. Complete with Ice cream on the face for being a good girl during the cut

And from behind...

Have you ever...

Have you ever wanted so badly to have something interesting to say, yet you really can't seem to find anything noteworthy, though you still feel the need to say SOMETHING, so you find yourself saying (or in this case typing) a bunch of nothing instead? Yeah- thats this post. I can't help but wonder if it would be wiser to not type anything at all, rather than a bunch of nonsense that is totally useless.

I have actually sat here for a good 3 minutes trying to come up with something noteworthy to talk about, and yet I am drawing a blank. Yeah- thats sad. Nothing to say. Yet if you were to call me I am sure I could talk your ear clean off! Wonder why that is... is it because there are just some things better talked about and not written down? Or could it be that it is easier to talk than to write so something newsworthy by mouth is not necessarily worth writing about? Or maybe I am in need of something to spark conversation? Yeah- that MUST be it. Gimme a topic and away I go! Lets just hope I can keep up with my mouth!

(Okay- so this is Lacey's mouth, but you get the point...)

Milestones-R-Us

My baby is growing up. It makes me a bit sad. I am so very very excited to see her hit these major milestones, but it also means saying goodbye to a window of her babyhood that I am truly gonna miss. In the last week my little 7 1/2 month old wonder child hit some pretty major milestones. She is crawling. She is starting to talk. She plays Pat-a-cake. She can pull herself up to standing, and the biggest one? SHE HAS HER FIRST TOOTH.

For about 2 weeks now whenever Joe gets home from work, or when Lacey wakes up from a nap and sees her daddy for the first time, she will smile and say "da da da da..." now I at first thought it was coincidence, but I am beginning to believe that she is doing it on purpose! It makes her daddy so proud to hear her call him "dadda." She also says ma ma ma... if coached enough. :)

When we play pat-a-cake with her I usually hold her hands and clap for her and do all the proper motions. BUT- when I let go and keep singing she starts clapping her little hands together all by herself. And though she can't "roll it" or "mark it with a B" she DOES throw her hands in the air at the end. So. Darn. Cute.

Lacey has finally started crawling. She still only crawls out of necessity, but its only a matter of time before she sees the benefit of being on all 4. She is so funny! She gets so mad when she finally manages to catch up with me, only for me to walk away from her...

She has been struggling with a couple ear infections this last week, and I have credited them with keeping her from sleeping through the night, and she has also lost a lot of her appetite, I assumed, because it hurt to swallow.... turns out not only are her ears bothering her, but her first tooth just broke through last night! This morning I woke up, got her out of her crib, and sho nuff she has a little tooth poking through. Poor girl! No wonder she has been so miserable, it hurts not just in her ears, but also in her little mouth! But-as sad as I am to loose the toothless grin, the single tooth grin is just as cute.

My baby girl is growing up so quickly. It is so neat watching her learn, but at the same time, I am so sad to see her leaving her babyhood behind, and rushing to become a toddler. I sure love this kid though!

Last night

Last night totally sucked eggs. Joe and I recently started a rather intense and very expensive work out program, and I am really enjoying it. Granted I hurt almost non-stop, and I am way way tired every night when I collapse in bed, but otherwise I am really enjoying the workouts. Well- last night I managed to push myself just a little bit too hard. I think. I still don't know for sure if it was over exertion or if it was dinner, but when I finished working out (it was like 11:30pm) I went upstairs to the kitchen to get myself a banana. By the time I got to the kitchen I decided adding food to my belly would cause me to throw up. Sure enough, an hour later, I bolted from my bed giving myself just enough time to pull my hair into a ponytail, then I tossed my cookies... or more precisely- my hamburger and strawberry soda. That sucked. So next week when it comes time to repeat last nights work out, I will NOT be eating a large greasy burger for dinner. Uck.

So back to the story- I, then, of course I headed back to bed around 12:45 and what happens? Lacey wakes up at 1. Joe, being the great guy that he is, got up and tried to pacify her, but to no avail. She is suffering from a double ear infection, and wanted her momma. Sooooo- I got up, and got her back to sleep. Didn't really get good sleep until around 3 am, and Lil and Lace woke me up at 7:30. Mean kids. Don't they know that Saturday is sleeping in day?!

The real sucky thing about it all? I usually LOVE strawberry soda (dunno why- must date back to being deprived of it during my childhood or something like that). BUT- after last nights episode I think I will be steering clear of it for a while. :S I will miss you sweet soda!

(A picture Joe took of me stuffing my face on a cruise we took a few years back...)

IT'S ME!!

SO I have finally done it. I have joined the blogging world. I might as well start by introducing myself. At least a little. I have two daughters. Lilia (3 years) and Lacey (7 1/2 months). No- the L's are not a theme. The names we liked best just happen to start with L. In fact, if we had gone with our original names our girls would be Renae and Audrey. Or Renae and Sophie. But Lilia's name came to my husband and won me over almost instantly. Then Lacey got her name while I was in labor. Even then, she was either Lacey or Sophie, but when we took one look at her blue little face and body, we both said, "Lacey." No worries- she pinked up fine- eventually...

I also happen to have a husband. Yeah- he is pretty awesome. Named Joe. I like him bunches. Thats a technical term for lots and lots.

I am a domestic engineer. And lemme tell ya, thats one heck of a hard job! It's totally my job to make sure these children become somewhat normal functioning adults, who don't totally hate me.

Speaking of hating me, the baby is currently screaming at me in what I can only assume is the Adamic language that she is wanting attention and possibly some food. To be continued...