Tribute to my favorite dancing cowgirls!

I know you guys are all wondering where you get a pair of striped blue and white pants, like the beauties I have on in this lovely picture. Well let me just tell you those are nothing compared to the flowered ones, or the bright red ones, or the other striped ones, I would often sport as I would dance away all my cares, back in my younger days.

So, the other day we had been "hurricaned" in our house for like a whole week. I started to go a little stir crazy, so while upstairs getting ready I heard a great new song by Kenny Chesney called "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven." Yes, I started to pull out my old line dancing moves and I was really enjoying myself. Matt, ruined all my fun when he yelled upstairs asking if I was ok. I guess I was causing a little earthquake below me. I'm just not as light on my feet as I use to be.....or I should say I'm just not as LIGHT as I once was.

Anyway, this all brought me back to the years when I was between the ages of 15 and 21, where I would go country dancing sometimes up to four times a week!! I always had a job during my young adult life and I can honestly say all my money went to DANCING, WRANGLERS(for dancing), COUNTRY CONCERTS, RODEOS, and of course our late night eat outs to VILLAGE INN!! WOW, what a carefree life!! Dancing consumed me.

Even though I loved the music, the dancing, and yes(I have to admit).... the cowboys as well, but most of all I loved being with my bestest cowgirl friends, friends I will forever be close with. I love everything about these girls. I love Amy, and her sincere love and devotion she showers us all with. I love Alayna, and the way she can crack me up even when she is not trying to be funny. I love Jessi, and the fact that she is the only one who called to see if we were surviving the hurricane:) she is such a caring friend. I love Emily and her honesty and upbeat personality, I love Heather and her generosity and love, and I love my little lindsey....she is my little fiesty friend that doesn't let anyone walk all over her, but is always the first to be there when you need a friend!! I love you guys....everything about you, even the things that would make us all mad at eachother and cause us to fight......we had some great fights:) More important we had the best times ever.

The fact that we could go dancing and be the only sober ones, and yet everyone is pointing at us and talking about how drunk we were, just shows that we really know how to have some fun!!!

Soooooooooooooo, WHEN ARE WE GOING DANCING?????

These are all my old dancing jeans. I was hesitant to let my mom cut these precious pants up. But lets face it, after having twins.......... Wranglers will never again be a part of my wardrobe!!

A Little Piece of Heaven

Daniel and Nathan helping Grandma clean the deck at the cabin. Going on our little hike. Both the babies found their favorite sticks they had to take with them everywhere! Lovin' the ponds.
Duck watching with Grandma. One duck had ten tiny little baby ducklings.....so precious!!
Throwing rocks with Grandma!

Up Ogden canyon, near Pine View Resevoir, in a little town called Huntsville Utah, there is a little cabin that for me is just like heaven. Living in Florida I forgot how much I loved the mountains until this summer when we spent some time there. There are fishing ponds, and trails for beautiful walks, there is wildlife, and beautiful scenery. Once when I was younger I even saw a moose right outside our cabin door. What makes this cabin even better is the running water, soft beds, and electricity!! I am so glad my little boys had the opportunity to enjoy the cabin. They loved chasing the ducks, watching the fish, throwing rocks in the ponds, and finding little treasures like sticks and bugs. I actually got to go on a walk by myself. I sat on the dock of the pond and put my feet in the cold water. I just layed there and breathed the fresh air and welcomed the soft sounds of nature. It really was HEAVEN and I can't wait to go back!!

A Summer with Cousins

I was so excited to go to Utah this summer so the babies could play with their cousins, that they never get to see. It didn't go exactly how I planned ,you'll notice from some of the pics that the babies were not having anything to do with cousins for the first part of the trip. In fact they were really clingy to me for a long time. My favorite comment from family when the babies would cling to me like crazy was...."Marianne you need to leave those boys more often, so they get use to other people." Ya, thanks for the advice...are you willing to take both of them!?! Then they would say NOTHING. I guess I made my point. The pictures are out of order but you will notice things did get better and I think overall they had a lot of fun getting to know their cousins. Playing with my brother Steve's kids at the park.
This is my brother Ryans little boy Mason. He is about the same age as my babies. They had a lot of fun at the Ogden splash park.
Not so happy Daniel!

Not so happy Nathan and Daniel....There cousin Gabe looks like he's not too happy with them either.
This one is hard to see but if you click on it you'll notice mine are the babies screaming and squirming to get out of their cousins arms.
Nathans cousin Hayden wiping Nathans little ice cream hands.
Daniel watching the 24th of July parade with his cousin Hayden.
Thanks all my cute neices and nephews for loving my babies even though they didn't always act like they loved you!!!

Feeling Lonely?

So, in a few days I again will become a single parent(law school starts). Ok, not totally a single parent, Matt is really good at spending all his free time with the kiddo's, but still most everything else parent related is left up to me. So looking back on our fun, crazy, hectic, summer, I realized that I haven't really had a day away to have some fun for myself. So I told Matt that I would be going out for my last hoorah, before we have to get back into the daily grind of real life again. Yes, it would be by myself because I don't know anyone here in Florida who could just take the day off from kids and come play with me.

I love going out to eat and I love going to movies....two things that don't happen very often anymore. So I told Matt that's exactly what I was doing. He laughed and didn't believe that I would do that by myself. I am the type that can't stop thinking about the person all alone in the booth next to us at a restaurant. I never stop feeling sorry for the person alone at the movie, and wonder why they can't find anyone to go with them. But today I was that lonely person.

I went to PF chang's for my favorite Lettuce wraps. I came close to just getting it to go, but my whole point of going was so I could enjoy a meal in peace and not have to inhale it 3o seconds like I do at home. Then I went to a girlie movie. I didn't feel that looserish being alone, what made me really feel dumb was saying to the ticket lady...."one ticket for the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants part 2"(you have to admit that is a really long titled movie.) There were only 19 people in the theatre and four of us were by ourselves. The fact that I know that shows I was maybe a little uncomfortable being there alone.

I have to say, I way would have rather been with Matt or even any of you, but you gotta do what you gotta do, when you have the chance for some free time. As any mother can attest...even though we love our kids TO DEATH!!! We all need a little time to ourselves once in awhile. So was a feeling lonely today?.....I guess I was a little, but honestly if that is how lonely feels, I think I could get really use to it!!

When all my fun was over, I have to say, there was nothing better than seeing my three boys all with big smiles on their faces when I walked through the door. I guess it's true......"absence makes the heart grow fonder!"

Camping?........no thanks!

So, Matt had this great idea for family home evening. He thought it would be fun to set up a tent in our house and we could have a little camp out. I am the party pooper and couldn't see the fun in dealing with tired toddlers who are suppose to be in bed at 7:30pm. Matt thought we should just let them stay up for once. "come on Marianne, live a little!" he says. He could tell by my face expression that I was not quite ready for camping with the little twinkies (even if it is in our own house). So his next best idea...."let's make cookies and let the boys do most of it!" Well, it was a mess and there will forever by flour all over our home, but it was fun and the cookies turned out pretty darn good. Thanks daddy for a very fun family night!

A 4th of July celebration....without any fireworks:(

Watching cousins decorate their float for the parade. I don't know why boys are sooo obsessed with dirt.


Nathan looking very innocent, but what you don't see is everytime Daniel tries to even touch the pole, Nathan is ready for WAR!

Many of you may know that my favorite holiday is the fourth of July. I have always kind of thought of it as a stress free holiday. You don't have to worry about gifts, or expensive dinners, or how much time you spend with each family, etc. etc. I love the carefree day full of lots of barbeque, water fights, outside games, parades, friends, and family. This year however was a little different, and I soon realized that for me, gone are the days of anything being stress free when you have toddler twins. I spent most of the day chasing around my babies as they each spent most of the day either going seperate ways or of course wanting and fighting over doing the exact same thing. I don't recall ever sitting down one time the whole day!! I do recall continously asking family members to keep an eye on one of the babies for me while I went chasing the other one. Things would have been a lot different had Matt been able to come because he is such a big help. Anyway the day was fun but hectic and as it got closer and closer to the babies bed time I started to realize that I could not physically, emotionally, or mentally, handle keeping them up three more hours so that I could again chase them around the park, this time in the dark, while they probably screamed from being frightened by the fireworks, and then screamed some more because they won't let anyone but me hold them, and then screamed even more because they hate when I try to hold them at the same time. So when it turned 7:00pm I started getting them ready for bed and they were out by 7:30 for the rest of the night. I sat down with an aching body and a sigh of relief, and then I just started to cry as guilt flooded over me and I thought of myself as probably the only mother in America that night who deprived her children of the best part of the 4th of July(the fireworks) because of being just too tired to deal with them. I guess looking back now I sound a little dramatic but it really was a very fun, hectic, crazy, and yes little sad, kind of a day. Oh well, there is always next year and hopefully then Matt will be around so we can team up on the little rascals!

AHHHH.......THIS IS THE LIFE!!

First of all I want to thank you all for your fun memory comments. I was brought back to sooo many fun memories and I was often laughing out loud. I can't believe how blessed my life has been because of all of you!! And Matthew I have to say your comment was my favorite, thanks for all of the wonderful memories.

This summer has been good to us. In fact I am really dreading Matt having to go back to school it just a few weeks. We have been having way too much fun. I spent the month of July in Utah with the babies. Matt wasn't able to go and it was really hard without him, but I really wanted the babies to experience a Utah summer with cousins, grandparents, the cabin, the 4th and 24th of July festivities, as well as a lot of ice cream, watermelon, popsicles, and WATER......it seems we were always wet!! It was a wonderful summer the only regret I have is not keeping up with my posts because now I have so much to say and so many pictures to post that I feel overwhelmed. So now that things will be slowing down I will try to do a little post every day or so to let you all know what we have been up too!!