Mothers Day...creative, loving, fun gifts!!!

I was struggling trying to come up with a fabulous gift for Mother's Day this year for my Mom and Mother-in-law. Then the light bulb lit up right above my head with the most fabulous idea!!!! We have a pottery place in Albany called Surefire Pottery, so we went down one Thursday afternoon to see what we might possible paint for Grandma Jo and Grandma Hotrum. We decided on dinner plates to adorn with the kids hand prints and paint job. So I proceeded to paint Dylan's hand with the blue paint that he picked out, meanwhile Ally was very intensely waiting for her opportunity to get her hand painted. So I lay Dylan's hand down on each of the plates, now onto Ally. Ally picked out purple paint to paint her hand with. So I paint her hand purple, trying to get her to keep her hand flat, she really liked the squishy feeling on her hand. So I get her to lay her hand on each of the plates to make her hand prints. After that I tell her we are all done and she can start to paint and she has an absolute meltdown.....apparently she thinks we are just going to keep painting her hand. Poor baby, I get her calmed down and she gets interested in the painting. I also let the kids paint tiles so while Dylan was painting his tile and Ally was adding more to one of the plates, I added some details to the other plate by outlining their hands and writing their names on their hands. I also added the phrase, "Mothers Day 2008" to each of the plates. So we finish up painting, pay for the items and leave them to be glazed and fired, we get to come back the next day and pick them up! I was a little nervous that it wasn't going to turn out well because the colors seemed so dull on the plate. When we picked them up the next day they were so beautiful and vibrant!! They were absolutely fabulous, I could not wait to give them to the Grandma's!!!

So this last Wednesday Grandma Hotrum came over to visit the kids and we decided to give her her present early. This kids brought her her presents and helped her open them. She loved it!! Yeah! Then on Friday we decided to go and have lunch with Grandma Jo and give her her present. So after eating lunch we let her open her presents and again the kids help, they are VERY good at unwrapping presents!!! Again....she loves it!! Woo hoo for us! I hope that you all have a wonderful Mother's Day, and I will share soon what my wonderful family got me!

The Arrival of Willow Ruby Beebe.....A breathtaking amazing experience!

"Ring, Ring!!" Groggily I reach for my cell phone to check what time it is....11:33pm. "WHAT???" "Who in the world is calling me this late???" "I guess I'd better answer it." "Hello?" This is when I went from groggy to adrenaline filled and rushing around like a madwoman....you see it was Pam Dent, my friend Amy's mom calling to tell me Amy's water had broke and I needed to grab my camera and scoot on over! You see I was being given the absolute honor of being able to photograph those amazing moments immediately after birth! I was given the honor after her first daughters birth as well, oh did I mention....she does home birth! It is probably the most amazing thing I have ever seen, if you are able to I would highly recommend it....it is probably the most peaceful thing I have EVER seen in my life!

So I am madly running around throwing clothes on left and right and grabbing what i need to get me through the night. I run down grab my purse and camera and am off!!! It is really nice driving on the freeway at night it is sooo empty!

I get there and walk in and walk over to peek in her room it looks like she is asleep which I later learn she is not.

It is midnight.

So I am pacing everywhere trying to calm down....Pammy gets there and we decide to clean a little since she is as bad as me! So we proceed to clean up the kitchen and then Carol, her midwife, come out and asks us to start boiling some water, she does her home birth in a large tub and the water was cooling off. So we start boiling water....its amazing just like the "olden days."

Its 12:30.

We sit around watching tv and trying to save our energy for the big moment.

Its 1:00am.

We start talking about how we bet that she is going to have the baby within the hour because she had been checked in the last 15 minutes and she was 9-10 cm and the baby was about halfway descended down the birth canal. So I was going to sit by the door so I could be close and listen to see if I was going to be needed for delivery pictures.

It's 1:05am.

I hear her start to push so I make Pammy come over and stand outside the door with me so we can hear when the baby is born. Four pushes and 9 minutes later Baby Willow makes her appearance at 1:14 am April 26th, 2008. I actually looked in as I heard Amy exclaim that she could feel her head and I saw Sean catch his daughter!! What an amazing sight! After Amy get seated I was able to come in and start taking pictures while Willow was still attached by the umbilical cord. Willow was alert and happy with next to no crying! I cannot believe how amazing a woman giving birth can be! It was so amazing to see that strength! Also to hear and see the comments between Sean and Amy. Sean said, "I cannot believe I have 2 little girls!" You could hear the overwhelming joy in his voice, it brings tears to my eyes. Amy said, "Look what we made!" Also with such joy and love in her voice it brought tears. I finished doing some pictures and waited around until it was time to cut the cord, you see they wait until it stops pulsing. Sean got to cut the cord again and then I left to wait. A couple hours later after Mom and Baby were settled I went back in to take pictures while all the baby's stats were being taken. She weighed in at 7 pounds 10 ounces and was 20" long. I am so thankful to have an amazing friends who would let me have the experience of photographing this miraculous event in their lives!

A trip to the duck park.....an adventure in fun!

One sunny Wednesday in the last weeks or so we decided it would be a nice day to go to the duck park. So Mrs Angela, Grace, Dylan, Ally, and I all loaded into the van with our duck bread and off we went. We get there a mere 3.5 minute drive later, gotta love Albany, unload and make our way over to feed our little duck friends. Well we are feeding and doing well when Mrs Angela asks Grace where the bag is that the bread is in....well it turns out she dropped it in the little crick. So we decide that best thing to do is to try to find a stick to reach the bag and push it to the edge to get it out, so that it would not kill all the little duckies and birdies. So the first one I found was a little too short! Oops sorry Ang! So off I go to hunt down a bigger longer stronger stick! Finally on the other side of the park under a big tree is a loooong stick discarded by the tree...Thanks Mr Tree! I arrive back at the "dock" to the sound of cheers, only to find out Gracie had dropped yet another bag in....don't worry we got them both out, and without falling in! So we finish feeding all our little friends and the obnoxious bread stealing seagulls as well. We decide to go over to the play equipment for a little bit to play. So the kids are playing going up and down to go down the slide and climbing when Dylan yells Mommy come here and catch me....well I was feeling rather lazy and so Mrs Angela jumps up and yells, "I will catch you Dylan!" Now let me just tell you if she EVER says she will catch you don't believe her....she doesn't use her hands to catch we have learned, she prefers to use her head! Ok so after recuperating for awhile we decided to go climb on the little hill and roll down. So first we watch Grace roll down the hill, my kids are NEVER done this before, so we must watch intently. Then Mrs Angela decides to take a roll down! Wow go girl! Mrs Angela tries to get Ally to but the only thing she would do is try to scoot down the hill on her butt! Dylan wanted to do it too but refused to loosen his death grip on his pinecones. Next we made all the kids sit cute and pose for a picture! Didn't turn out too bad either! So there was a tree right by the hill and I told Mrs Angela she needed to get up in the tree so I could get her picture....she couldn't get her leg up she was kinda hanging there like a monkey...too bad I missed that photo op! So next was my turn to climb, and not to brag but I was a dang good tree climber when I was younger, me and my brother lived in the tree in the backyard! So I reach up and pull up and swing my leg over the branch, SUCCESS! I still got it! Next we wanted to burn off some more of the kids energy so I saw a tree on the other side of the park and so we "raced" to the tree and back to Mrs Angela....by the way it is pretty hard to run in rain boots! At one point I was walking to catch my breath and Dylan yells at me, "Mama, keep going!" Ok so off I go again until we get to Ang. Ok so lets go play a little more, then all these preteens started to descend on the park....ok its time to go! Until next time.....

Mama, Mommy, Mom, Mi-cole.....

So something has happened to my sweet adorable precious son....he is growing up! Forever since he has started talking I have been Mama or Mommy. Now this new strange word has entered his vocabulary....MOM. This cannot be! He is too young to be calling me such a grown up name....he is supposed to call me Mommy forever!!!! Needless to say it makes me very sad to see him take such a grown up step, it almost feels like he older than he is! They grow up WAY too fast!


Another thing we have been working on which I feel is very important is the kids learning Mommy and Daddy's proper names. I feel in case they ever happen to become separated from us they hopefully will tell whoever our proper names instead of Mommy or Daddy. So Dylan has a pretty easy time with it and his pronunciation is pretty good. Ally is soooo cute though, she can say Darrin very clearly, and tonight was calling him Darrin, which was kinda funny. But Nicole is a different matter. For some reason my name is hard to pronounce. Ally's take on my name is Mi-Cole. Which in her adorable little girl voice just makes me smile and melt every time. So next time you see her ask her, "What is Mommy's name?" I guarantee it will make you smile too!

Swimming in the Tub

We were looking for something to do today so we decided that the kids would "go for a swim" in the tub. Ally got a new Dora swimsuit and Dylan has swim trunks that have fit him for the last 3 years or so. He loves them! Getting all ready to go "dive in!"

Filling the tub some more, waiting, and humoring mom snapping away on the camera!Floating, Swimming, and Splashing......Being a cutie for mama, she is really good at posing for the camera!

To minimize splashes I thought it would be a good idea to shut the shower curtain, Dylan insisted on hiding behind Brazil.Ally on the other hand wanted to see and be seen!

One last little splash and swim in before its time to get out!