if there ever was a need to put a bottle of ketchup on my blog, today's the day. i'm so embarassed that the last time i posted was the 5th? what? this may be the longest i've ever gone without blogging! i've missed it, a lot. but let's face it, it's fundraiser time and on top of it, it's spring time and life is just getting away from me. so, once again, here is my life the last few weeks, mostly in pictures...last last (two weeks) saturday rich let me sleep in (this is not unusual for saturday mornings because i'm married to a saint) but he went a step further and made these for breakfast.
he actually added blueberries to the batter! what the hey? this made me wonder why i am always the one cooking dinner - because seriously, if he's capable of that, he's capable of most of my dinner creations. i finally caught up with lauri the week before last for a girls' lunch. she has been out of town and i have been working on the gift baskets and so i felt like i haven't seen her for months! it was so great to finally catch up with each other.
last week was a major bummer because of two words: croup cough. poor ethan, he spent the entire week laying on the couch with his two favorite blankets, fading in an out of sleep with a pesky fever immune to motrin.
let me just say, i've HAD IT with nemo, in fact, after watching it over and over and over i think that sweet little clown fish from the reef is now a cuss word. this would also be the reason i needed to sleep in last saturday. friday was a phil and lauri weekend, we had a date with them to winger's - our tradition spot that deserves it's own blog entry one day when i remember to take a photo. and then again on saturday evening we got together for a phil special tradition - shrimp fry. we LOVE it when phil does a shrimp fry, it's almost always followed by poker - but it's just play money so it's all in good fun.
taylor took this picture, i swear i've given him lessons on composition, but whatever. the only thing i'm saying here is, wow, it's time for me to go on a diet! sheesh! earlier on saturday i went to megan's shower and i have to say that i was as excited to see all the fun linda-the-caterer-food as i was to see the happyily glowing bride to be!
these lemon cupcakes were worth ever calorie - yum-o! we finally remembered to take a blogger picture this time with megan in the middle.
i'm telling you, this is the first of many showers for this group of moms, kristy pointed out that we have 22 kids between us, patsy's just breaking us in! later that afternoon we saw the jr. high production of annie get your gun. we loved seeing so many of our friends in this play including the cutie hailey who was darling in her cowgirl costume!
it was fantastic and nothing was jr. high about it, i can't believe the level of talent of these kids.
taylor is sold on auditioning for the class for next year. and speaking of auditions, monday was madrigal auditions and he wasn't a bit nervous! what? i was a wreck whenever i did this kind of thing growing up! i love that he played his jack johnson song for the audition on his guitar! his teacher was impressed, so we'll keep you posted. this entry is forever long, sorry, that's what happens when you play ketchup! sunday i photographed lauren and earnest's engagement pictures and had so much fun with them, they are too cute and it's always nice to be around people that are kissing so much.
it made me want to go home and make out with rich for a little while. sorry dad. sunday was also jason's birthday dinner at mom and dad's and the cake was homemade by leah and so so so so good - chocolate chocolate chocolate. yum.
ok, so that brings us to today - yay! play group was more about the shopping and girl time than the kids today. sometimes it just has to be that way because moms need girl time! we met at the mall and i made a few random purchases
just for fun (said like nacho libre). jenny and i bought maching sunglasses and got this self portait.
we we will be too cool at cherry hill this summer in our new shades! if you made it to the end of this entry, bless you! if not, i'm so not offended, i can't believe i had so much to get caught up on!
although it was sort of stressful to hash out concert issues and go over different options (which consequently made me feel more overwhelmed by the minute), it was also really great to spend time with this group of girls that i love so much.
next time we go i'll remember to get a photo of the salad almost all of us ordered. the quesadilla explosion from chili's. have you tried it? ethan was also in very good form, besides hogging all the salsa and trying to "pet" karrie's hair the whole time, he was mostly manageable. 
right before he laid down for a rest on my leg he was joining in the on the laughing even though he had no idea what we were talking about. he is cracking me up lately, such a funny kid.
my office is completely out of control (more than usual if that's possible) loaded with all of the donations for the baskets. it's a good thing rich is working such long hours because his desk is pretty much burried in stuff. last year it was all at kristy's so it's my turn to have a messy space. 
can you believe that in a few weeks we will have all this crap turned into 25 or so beautiful gift baskets? no wonder we were so scared last year! we had no idea what we were doing, at least this year we have some experience. i'm not sweating it quite as much as last year, i only hope we can make as much money, last year was a big $4000 and it will be hard to top that. we spent three days together this week getting things sorted and shopping for things we didn't have donated and picking up business donations. luckily one of our donations was from noddles & co. and so we just had to eat lunch there.
macaroni & cheese - the real stuff - is probably my number one comfort food on the planet and noddles' version is glorious cheesy goodness. although i can never stray from the mac, i have to say that kristy's noodles and asparagus looked divine. friday jenny was nice enough to let ethan play at her house while we ran around to save him from being a prisoner to his carseat and to save me some time. i was shocked how fast i could get through stores without stopping to fuss with a toddler. he has had some separation anxiety lately but jenny said he didn't even cry! yay! he loves drew and joey so he was pretty excited to play. more fundraiser excitement to follow...
i am a huge salad girl and their's are my favroties. as always we had a fantastic time hanging out together talking like girls and laughing - lots of laughing. everyone brought many many cupcakes and by the time the two hours was over we had made four batches of different kinds of buttercream, laughed a lot more and taste tested several different samples. and i had frosting in my hair. we would love to open a cupcake store together but will have to see on that one. 
at one point i was mixing frosting and listening to patsy talk about wedding showers and announcements when it hit me. a little glimpse of blogger lunches of the future when we would each take turns talking about our daughter's wedding plans. i had this feeling that our little cupcake gathering was just the beginning of great times and real friendships. i just love these girls! with all the chaos i lost track of ethan, well not really, i could see him playing in the living room out of the corner of my eye. at one point i looked over at him to see him covered in lemon frosting - eyelashes and all. then i noticed that so was my black wooden bench, and the tv screen, and the ottoman and part of the couch.
my first thought was, "where's my camera!?" would you believe that this is the second blogger lunch in a row that we forgot to take a self portait? we'll do better next month!
i was flattered that he was comfortable enough around me to show some flair! i ended up enjoying the quiet time so much that i stayed up way too late -somewhere in the neighborhood of 3am. the cupcakes turned out super yummy and by the end of three different batches of homemade frosting - three different flavors - my whole kitchen was covered in a thin layer of powdered sugar. mmm, i love it when my kitchen is covered in powdered sugar because it means i'm baking and hopefully something yummy is on it's way to my tummy. i made more lemon cupcakes, because they were so divine at easter, then chocolate fudge with butter cream, and coconut with coconut butter cream frosting that i invented.
i love inventing frosting. they were big hits. the baptism was so great, i have developed a real love for kristy these past few years and it was really wonderful to be part of her family circle that day. the food was incredible! (patsy thought so too!)
the cupcakes were a hit. yay! kristy's boys love ethan and when we got back to their house they immediately turned on nemo for him to watch - they know it's his favorite because they read my blog! :) 
ethan LOVED seeing nemo on the big screen, the three of them were pretty much glued. when we got back home, i quickly grabbed a few shots of ethan in his easter suit since i blew it on easter sunday and missed my opportunity. doesn't the middle shot look a little GQish? sort of walking like a stud?
i just love little boys in easter suits. i closed my eyes for about thirty minutes on the couch before i headed to memory grove to take pictures of this cute couple. they were nervous but playful and luckily the weather was mostly cooperative.
i came home from the shoot just in time - ok late - to change into a skirt and zoom down to the church with allie for her first yw general broadcast. it was fantastic! i loved the talk about driving our "stakes" down deep. i'll blog more about this topic later. as i was sitting with all of those darling yw, i was thinking about how great camp is going to be and how i'm not as nervous as i used to be about it all coming together. i'm especially excited to be there with allie!
i had to talk her into the self portait which we got in one shot! on the way home i tried to take a photo of her "you're ridiculous" look that she was giving me for dancing to the music on the radio. i wanted to be able to show her proof of that look some day when she's my age and claims to have been an angel growing up. instead of proof i just got a flying pony-tail, she must have known it would come back to haunt her some day.
last but not least, rich and i had a yummy dinner at sizzler - i know, but i love that place. if rich were into self portaits i would've taken one but he would've just rolled his eyes. phew! you know, i was wondering why i fell asleep in the rocking chair putting ethan to bed, but now i think i understand.
i don't usually work him like a slave...well, ok, yes i do, but this week he worked particularly hard to earn some money to go to 
i wish i would've taken a picture of the two of them at the show, but whatever. i also wish i would've recorded their seriously nerdy conversation in the back seat of the van on the way to the show. i'm not really sure i even understood most of it, and generally i don't really love not understanding what my kids are talking about. it makes me feel kind of old. mostly scientific stuff, these guys are serious geeks, but cute geeks. when rich picked the boys up from the show, james said, "it was the best night of my life". taylor said, "well, it wasn't the best night of my life, but it was pretty cool." james is officially the bigger nerd. yay taylor! 
he also joined the track team, this week was his first day of practice. here comes the mastercard commercial: new nike running shoes: $30 (found a great sale!) fee to sign up for track: $30. co-pay to get a physical to join track: $20. hearing your son say, "i hate running" on the first day of track practice: priceless. hello? did he know what team he was joining? then he clarified by saying, "i hate long distance running, i'm going to be a sprinter". phew! today's practice as a sprinter was reportedly much more fun. (huh?) it's all just running right? none of it sounds fun to me. he was a ton of fun to take shopping for shoes that day though. he found this cute pink microphone that he really wanted to take home. so much that begged and begged for it, but i said, "no, you're a boy!"
just kidding, he really begged me not to post the photo on my blog, but hey, you pose, you're at risk for super information highway exposure that's what i say. but he really did love this pink microhpone, it lit up and everything. he he he. i love this kid, he's such a goof ball, a geeky goof ball.
thank heavens for dvd players in vans for days like this. why am i not posting a photo of kristy and i? because i'm lame and forgot to take one, we will before the project is over. although the last few days i've really been feeling tested by the two year old getting into everything, and being a genuine PILL while we were trying to get some lunch, i'm grateful for his good natured personality and how easily he can nap anywhere, including in a stroller and on the run. 
i have to admit that i was kind of disappointed in it. it was on the right track, funny characters and wonderful animation and an obviously good message, but there was just something missing. i found it rather short and kind of dull and i kept waiting for to do something big that never happened. the kids of course loved it and they're the experts any way right? so there you have it, our big not so egg-stra special spring breakness.