I want to try to get this all down but am limited on time.

The past 24 hours has been a whirlwind. I’ve got two sick kids now. Hudson=strep. Parker=ear infection. Hudsons perfect attendance dream went right down the toilet after just the 2nd day of school. He came home w/ strep and had to miss school today.

Parker was up all night and after virtually no sleep and a loooong day he was diagnosed w/ yet another ear infection.

BUT the most exciting part of the last 24 hours is that Larissa, our new “daughter” and exchange student from Prattlen, Switzerland arrived today!  With so little sleep last night I woke up with a giant headache and a million things to get done in just 2 hours…because that’s how I roll people. Procrastination.

I popped some Tylonal and after Suzy got her to stay w/ Parker and little strep dude I bolted out the door to pick up a couple final gifts for Larissa before her arrival. I swung by Acadamy to make sure she had a Longhorns tshirt waiting for her. Next stop was James Avery. I wanted to get her something really true to Texas and I loved the idea of starting her a charm bracelet knowing we could add charms to it over the course of the year and when she leaves here next summer she will hopefully have a bracelet full of charms that signify some really outstanding memories here. I picked this Deep in the Heart of Texas charm as her very first.

I rushed home to grab Hudson before we needed to head out to the airport to pick her up. On a whim I decided I should check the status of her flight. Yea, good thing I had that whim….um, her plane was delayed 3 hours. I was so bummed. It had already seemed like I had to wait an eternity for this DAY to get here. 3 hours was going to kill me.

However, it did give me a little time to actually EAT and get a bit of work done while I waited.

I decided since it was practically the end of the school day anyway I would go ahead and get Brooklyn out of school to go along. She was already about to string Hudson up in the middle of the neighborhood and stone him since he was “lucky” enough to get strep throat which consequentially allowed him to be home from school and available to tag along to the airport to pick Larissa up. Brooklyn was thrilled and surprised when we showed up to get her.

Like big giant dorks we totally made a sign for Larissa. the kids fought over who was going to carry it into the airport and hold it the entire drive to the airport. I was about ready to chuck them  the sign out the window before we even got there.

So we made it to the airport. I called Mark to remind him to bring his little point and shoot w/him and the video camera since he was meeting us there and I did NOT even want to lug my giant camera w/ me.  We were about 15 minutes early…again…a freakin’ lifetime when you’ve already waitied forever. More fighting over the sign.

Finally, her flight arrived and we went to wait near the bottom of the escalators entering the baggage claim area.  More waiting…….anothe lifetime…..

Brooklyn started screaming “there she is! there she is! I seeeeeeeee her!” At which point everyone in the airport also saw her…I’m sure she felt not at all self concious.

She was just as beautiful in person as in her photos. She looked so releived when she saw us and realized she’d finally made it.  Her two day travel journey/nightmare was over. She had arrived in Washington DC yesterday and had to stay overnight there….only to get up and head back early this a.m……only to be delayed 3 hours. Welcome to the U.S.

We all drove home.  We chatted a bit but mostly just let her take in the scenary around her. I kept imagining how she must feel and my heart would ache because I knew she was probably so nervous and scared and just didn’t know what the heck to think. I can’t even imagine. At this point I realized we didn’t get a single photo of her arrival. We did get video so I hope to figure out how to post that here soon to share.

At home we unloaded her 3 pieces of luggage, which although seemed to weigh alot, really didn’t when you think she’ll be here for 11 months. We took her upstairs to show her her room. She seemed very happy….totally a releif to me since I have been consumed with preparing it for her for the past week. This is where I should insert a nice lovely photo of how her room looked. You’ll have to wait for that one…and maybea while.

She wanted to shower and unpack so we left her to settle in a bit. i thought brooklyn would climb the walls before she came out of her room again.

We had a nice afternoon. She let us look through her photo album and we talked and tried to get to know each other the best we could w/ 3 screaming kids flocking around. She brought everyone gifts which was so incredibly sweet of her. The kids were so excited.  I finally realized I needed to get my camera out and get a few shots. And I will totally say that normally I wouldn’t even post these here. I have them up on Facebook which seemed to be good enough….but based on this post by Maile yesterday (thanks girl) I knew I wanted this suckers up here.

So w/out more random babbling leading up to the crap-o-la but significant photos……here ya go peeps.

As I sit here on a thursday night i wonder how we got to thursday? the last week and a half has been a blur.

On August 9th some of our best friends returned home from a two week vacation to Greece. We dreaded their return home. Yea, you read that right. We hated to see them come home because we knew it meant in only 10 days they’d be leaving again….and this time for good. They were being relocated to Dallas. And although Dallas is only 5 short hours away, when you see people every single day and spend nearly every single weekend together……dallas might as well be Greece.

In an effort to spend as much time as possible together over the next 10 days we’ve pretty much threw out any sort of “rules” we might usually adhere to in regards to the kids and the amount of time they spent together and what they spent that time doing.  For example, I’m pretty sure all of the kids went close to 4 days without bathing. There simply was not enough time in the day to spend in the shower.  There were several days I’m sure the boys were in their pj’s until dinner.  Running in and out between houses was tolerated and video games and super hero kung foo kicks were encouraged. The girls managed to keep the drama to a minimun too…..nearly unheard of around here. We had more sleepovers in the last 10 days than we did the entire summer. We built “forts” in the living room and a couple in the theater room….yea, even I got in on that action…I am like a serious fort builder now….errr, well according to mark i have no skillz at all but i managed to construct one that made it the entire night so i’m going pro.

We have a total of 4 families we regularly spend time with in the neighborhood. Between the four of us…there are 10 children. So 10 children pretty much ran wild on the street between 4 houses for 10 days, grabbing a handful of chips or an occssional pop tart along the way.  yea, i’m pretty sure child protective services would’ve had a hay day with us.

the adults have had some good fun too. double doses of BBQ fun, lots of laughs, lots of drinks. the girls managed to sneak in a girls night at the melting pot on sunday. the husbands decided we needed to get out more since we were gone for almost 6 hours for dinner.  we were the very last group to leave the restaurant at almost midnight. 

we spent the last four days in denial as we would see the big giant moving truck pull up each day. we just went about the day as if it wasn’t there…..until today…when we could deny it no longer.

today was the day. they rolled out around 3:30 and the tears flowed freely. it was hard, maybe harder than i even expected and i’m not sure that it really has fully set in yet. but tomorrow when we wake up and the house has 4 fewer little feet running in and out of it and this weekend there are 2 more open chairs around the patio fire where the adults usually sit………well, maybe then.

here’s to future roadtrips to dallas and friends that can never be replaced.

here are some favorite shots from the last year.

smooches to kristina, tasos, sofia & christos!

here’s a shot of the four of us on new year’s eve…..pardon mark’s inability to focus…i think it’s probably a good indication that this shot was probably taken WELL after midnight.

Kristina & Tasos…notice the difference in photographic quality cuz mama had the camera!

 

 

 

the kids after our christmas party. little p-diddy isn’t pictured…he must’ve missed out on all the fun.

hudson’s bday party

kids’ at the ranch

the big kids at the ranch.

just a typical saturday afternoon.

the boys w/ Michael Finley.

the kids in mama’s fort.

one last BBQ night

 

drams queens best friends

Apparently great family sessions are in abundance these days because last weekend I got to spend time with another spectacular family. It never ceases to amaze me how mother’s can manage to walk, talk and breathe when they have more than 2 children. I have 3….I don’t know how to do it.  Ethel made it look easy. She has four rock star children and her youngest, Grace, is actually just a month older than Parker but her attention span is LIGHT YEARS ahead of his.  It’s such a hard thing to get a family portrait done but once again, I got a family that made it look pretty effortless. I should also mention that Ehtel was referred in to me from Carrie, who has her own rockstar family! Thanks Carrie and Thanks Ethel, Jim, Jimmy, Ryan, Ty & Grace! It was a true blessing to spend time with you!

 

Last weekend I had another great family session.  Stacy owns the AMAZING event planning company, Bleu Print Events by Design and I’ll be working with her and her supa star partner Michelle on some events and weddings in the coming months and I am beyond excited about that.  I’m even more excited about these two amazing women and what they are doing in San Antonio.  If you are a bride looking for an event planner, get off of your computer right now..( but come back soon!) and call Stacy & Michelle. Seriously, spend about 10 minutes with them and I promise you will be begging them to help coordinate your wedding.

After I had met Michelle but before I actually had a chance to meet Stacy in person she contacted me about doing a family session for her husband’s birthday gift.  We ended up having two different sessions since, as many of you know, children sometimes have their own agenda that doesn’t always conincide with what we have in mind. I know *gasp* can you even imagine? I can’t even get my 7 and 6 year olds to dress before noon, I don’t dare ask them to cooperate when I whip out my camera. Two sessions only meant that I had twice as many favorites to choose from. Here’s a sampling of some of my very favorites.

Thanks Stacy! I am thrilled to have the chance to work w/ Bleu Print and it was a true pleasure to spend time with your beautiful little family!