When you combine potty training and Great Lent..

Johnny, yelling to me from the bathroom the other day,
"Mama, I went poo poo on the potty and Jesus died on the cross!!!"

I include this picture because if you look closely you see his chonies peeking out. Yep, he's potty trained. Hurray!
Also, it's his first time bowling and pretty darn cute.

8 years

This picture always makes me laugh. Why are we sitting so far apart? I suppose it's because we had only been dating a few months and Evan was meeting my parents for the first time. One of them took the picture. We were so young!
Eight years ago I married Evan. I was twenty and he was twenty-two. We had no idea what life had in store for us. We weren't orthodox yet, he had not finished college, I had never lived on my own and got my drivers license only weeks before our wedding. We were definitely young and maybe a little stupid but I think things turned out pretty well. Between a sassy toddler, a teething baby and loads of laundry I haven't had a chance to get terribly sentimental and gush over our love but I did dig up a these old pictures and they make me happy. I love this man and he loves me. May God grant us many more years!

Sweet x2

I love these pictures of Pearl and her pal, Jonas. Jonas belongs to my dear friend, Shae. We got to be pregnant together for the second time with these cuties. Jonas is exactly a month older than Pearl and we love watching them interact. Pearl, who is very excitable, mostly just slaps and smiles at him, while Jonas, who is more quiet and sweet, stares back at her with a "what the heck" sort of expression. They are very cute!

Where we've been, what we've done....

My parents, who live in England, were in California for couple weeks visiting their newest grand baby, Elinor. The wonderful thing was that it worked out for my whole family (brother and his wife and baby, sister, her husband and two kids) to meet up at Disneyland. We went to Disneyland the first day and the Disney California park the next. I hadn't been since right before Evan and I got married eight years ago. It was really different being back with my own children. We made the mistake of riding Pirates of the Caribbean first. Johnny was terrified. He's just never seen anything like it and it was all too overwhelming. It took him awhile to warm up to other rides after that but by midday he was having fun. I was just enjoying being with my siblings an their kids as well as some extended family that joined us on the first day. We were also able to celebrate my Dad's 60th birthday together. It's rare that I get to spend time with my whole family and it's made me miss them all more and wish we all lived closer.
I have a ticket that allows me one more visit to either park until the end of the month. Anyone want to meet me there? I know some of you have passes. Let me know!