5 Years Strong!

This picture was taken much longer than five years ago, so we have officially been together for 11 years now. Legally married for five though...and still it seems like yesterday we were in Kirksville playing Twisted Metal on Playstation at 4 o'clock in the morning. Quite honestly, Josh was the most unexpected thing I stumbled on in that Fall of 1998. Surprisingly underneath that rough and cynical exterior, I found a loving and loyal friend that I cannot live without. He makes me laugh so hard I cry and drives me utterly insane all in the same day, but I love him. Now, with a home, a dog and two beautiful daughters together, I couldn't be happier...well, maybe if he got a new car :-) I think the Jeep is ready to go dear...

All I can hope for is that we live together this same way for many more years to come and have three eggrolls at a time. (Don't worry, you don't have to get that reference, hee hee!)

Happy Third Birthday my Emaline!

Today, my baby is officially three years old. Crazy, I know. I don't believe it either. Since we had her party last weekend (we're going to a wedding tomorrow), today was the day she got to visit one of her favorites right now--Chuck E. Cheese. Her and Kaya go nuts in that place and its just so easy to let them do their thing. We went for lunch and enjoyed a full meal of pizza, all you can eat salad, and breadsticks. Thankfully we had coupons with us! Emaline got an awesome birthday girl crown with shiny new tokens tucked into it. She looked so cute and funny wearing that thing throughout the joint. My hope is that she'll always be silly and continue to wear the inflatable crowns until she's old and gray :-) I really will be sad when she'll think it isn't cool to do such things...*sniff sniff*.

On to the fun though...we had a great time. Josh luckily was off work and got to participate in the fun with his daughters and niece. We played skee ball, video games and always the token sucker: the coin pushing games. We always have a fun time when we go, and come out of CEC with lots of little crap that will get lost somewhere in the shuffle. Then, when she thought it was all over we got back to Nana & Pepere's house and was surprised by a new big girl bike waiting for her from Mom & Dad (after more cake and ice cream, of course)! She couldn't wait to try it out. Now to remind her to always wear her helmet! I'm glad she enjoyed the day! Happy Birthday my Stinkyface! I love you more than anything in the world.

Here's Em escorting Kaya to the car to make sure she gets buckled in safely to go (I love these pictures of them holding hands!):
Here are more fun pictures of our afternoon together:

Em & Kaya ready for fun! and Emaline's famous!

Em and Dad & Piper scoring a ride too!

Emaline's 3rd Birthday Party!

We had Emaline's 3rd birthday party yesterday and I can't believe she is going to be this old already. The time really has flown by...and things have changed. It isn't so easy to just do what I want and have it done. Her input is something we have used throughout this whole party.

Me: "Em, what kind of birthday party do you want this year?"
Em: "I think a princess party Mom. Or maybe a Backyardigans, Dora, Disney Princess Party. Can we do that?"
Me:"Well, let's pick one honey and stick with that. So which is it, Backyardigans, Dora or Disney Princesses?"
Em: "Definitely princesses."

So...we had a princess party. My sister and I also decided to make our own castle cake by doing some research on the Internet. You can find anything on the world wide interweb! So, she came over the night before and we decorated to our little heart's content. My friend Robyn also came for cleaning and moral support...I love them both! They did great jobs helping me out. The party went really well, we had a nacho/taco bar, which my Mom helped out with, thanks Ma! It was awesome and everybody kept saying how good it was. I'm just glad that everyone came back for seconds! I'd venture to say the kids had fun too with the bouncy house we borrowed from The Tinkers (you guys rock!) and making their own crowns and tiaras, which I found quite reasonably at the fabric store. They were just the little foam ones, but it kept them busy for at least 10 minutes! :-) Then we sang Happy Birthday to the birthday girl and everyone had cake and ice cream. After everyone was quite full, I'm sure, we opened gifts and all the kids were really well behaved and patiently waiting for Em to open them all! I was impressed! Finally, as the highlight of her day, she went outside to an awaiting Princess FJ Cruiser from Nana and Pepere. "My car!!!" she roared. She had been perusing the internet with her Pepere and learned of the big wheels very close to her birthday. I'd say, "Em, what do you want for your birthday?" "I'm getting a pink car Mom", she would reply. Oh boy...and so she did and loves it. Its so cute to see her driving around the yard with Kaya in tow. She's really quite good at maneuvering as well! All in all, I thought it was a fantastic afternoon and the weather was perfect! Thanks to everyone who came out and celebrated with us! Here are some choice shots of the afternoon:

A Floatin' We Will Go

About a week & a half ago, Josh and I decided to go camping/floating with our friends Robyn & Cory at a friends place (Mark) in St. Clair by the Meramec River. I was so glad we did. It was a great trip and it was nice to get away for a weekend without the kids. Although, I would love to take the girls when they get older! I don't think we could have asked for better weather, but we did have to get through setting up tents in the rain in order to get it! I'm sure I've never worked so fast to get a tent up in my life! It was pretty funny, but got done and then we hung out under some giant patio umbrellas that Mark had thought to bring drinking our beers :-) Thankfully, the rain subsided and we really got the fire going and enjoyed the cool night. Enjoyed cooking some grub, drinkin' some brew and sittin' under the stars. The next day we got up made breakfast, thanks Robyn! and got on our way. Probably one of the best floats I've ever been on. The river was a little low, but somehow we only got stuck once! Everything else was great, except probably Robyn's mishap with a dead tree...we blame it on Cory :-) Oh and the raccoon eyes. I was just glad that the whole 5 hours we were out there it was just us and no one else. I loved it. Thanks to Mark for letting us use his family's land and for the great weekend and thanks to Robyn & Cory for driving and all the floating gear (thanks Papa Cooper!) because I think we can safely say we had an awesome time. Can't wait to do it again!