My kids have the BEST father, honestly.  The reason why I ended up falling in love with Denton was because I knew he would be a wonderful father.  Now, he doesn’t really like that fact – he’d rather it be that I fell in love with him because of his quick wit, nice booty, and views on life, which those all added to the whole package!  But #1 thing that made me attracted to him… his fathering (and his nice rump!)  Only a girl can understand that…

Happy Father’s Day Big D – we love and miss you!

-Mom, Leo, Fisch and the Rock

After 15 hours of travel, the kids and I made it to Washington – it was so cute to see them run thru the airport into Gran’s arms, made it all worth it.  And considering this was the first time I flew w/3 kids by myself, it wasn’t that bad:

Our first flight left a half hour late, so we missed our second flight by 10 minutes, I COULD NOT believe our bad luck!  We waited in the Cincinatti airport for 3 hours but the kids were able to spend some time at the play area so that helped.  The Delta peeps gave us meal vouchers so I bribed the kids with Happy Meals.  Then they put us on First Class for our 4-hour flight to SLC - it would’ve been awesome except that Rocky screamed most of the flight – I’m sure the business travellers hated us.  Leo was living it up though in her seat with her movie screen, glass of cranberry spritzer, and enough room in her seat to invite some friends to join her.  The kids did great on our third and final flight and only started having breakdowns at the very end, which was around midnight our time.  So we survived.

And you wanna now WHY we survived?  Cuz I PRAYED my face off, cuz Denton gave us all blessings before we left, cuz my mom put our names in the temple, cuz people watched my kids and gave us treats to take on the plane before we left, cuz there were awesome people on the plane who helped carry my car seat and make sure the kids were occupied, because it takes a VILLAGE to get me and may family across country, and it worked.  So THANK YOU to everyone – you saved me. :)

The kids and I leave this Thursday to spend 3 weeks with my family in Washington, one of them being at the Oregon Coast.  And while we’re all SO excited, I’ve already had 17 heart attacks thinking about flying on the plane ALL day by myself with the kids. Here’s a pic of just what’s going in my carry-on!!!

So when I initially purchased my tickets, we had 2 layovers, both of which were a couple hours which was GREAT cuz then the kids could run around in b/t flights.  Then Delta calls and changes all my flights on me — now I’ve got two HALF HOUR layovers and I have to find a way to haul 2 kids, one baby, a car seat, a stroller, a carry on, and myself thru huge airports in less then a half hour!! Does anyone have any muscle relaxers they wanna give me?  Where’s my inhaler…

I know I totally stress myself out, but I have the worst experiences every time I travel.  I’ve had a bag lost and a stroller broken two different times.  And last time I flew it took me 48 hours to get home, Rocky and I were stranded in the Chicago airport with NO diapers (I’m not even gonna tell you how I took care of that!), and I slept maybe 3 hours within that whole time.  I still get a twitch whenever I have to talk about that trip.

BUT, we’ll hopefully survive and definitely have a fun time!!  Denton will flight out for the week at the Oregon Coast – lucky dog gets to fly all by himself!  So if i’m slow on the posting and emailing (Hi GINA!), you know why.

Pray for me… :) 

Leo had her last day of preschool yesterday – I cried a couple times when I thought about how she would NEVER be in preschool again!  She’s so old and growing up way too fast.  Here’s some cute pics of Leo w/her teachers and her friend David who was in her class. 

On June 1 we celebrated our 1-year anniversary of being in our house.  I love, love, LOVE our home!  We bought our house the first day it went on the market.  It was kind of a fluke because I saw pics of the house online, but it was above what we wanted to pay.  I emailed Denton jokingly and told him we should look at it.  We went that day and when we saw the backyard, we KNEW it was the one. And we haven’t regretted it since.

Here’s some pics of the house for those of my friends/family who haven’t been here.  I was going to wait when the house was totally clean to take pics, but that will never happen.  (Denton’s gonna have my hide for posting pics w/toys all over the place!)  I figure, we have 3 kids and I’d rather have a house that looked lived-in then a museum. 

Front of house:  love it, enough said

Living Room:  We didn’t have to do one thing to the house when we moved in, another reason why we bought it.  Denton did paint an accent wall gold and my awesome friend Beth helped us pick out the details for the room.  Granted, we’re not done — still have some artwork to put up and other pieces, but I have to wait until my babies are old enough and won’t pull everything down.

Dining Room:  I’m not a real “formal dining room” kinda of person, I wanted this to be our playroom, but Denton won.  He also painted the bottom half of this room our signature green like we had in our Ohio home.  I do love our dining set though – they have the same set in Pottery Barn but we paid half the amount at a local furniture store. 

Family Room:  This is where we spend most of our time, as you can tell by the disarray.  It’s my favorite room cuz it has a 3-stair step down which makes it cozy and more private.

Backyard:  The best thing to have when you’ve got kids:  a huge, fenced backyard!!!  We had a BBQ w/friends last weekend and I haven’t cleaned up from it yet.  Why should I when my kids swim in the backyard in their little plastic pool every day!  The previous owners did a great job on the landscaping.  We’ve got our square foot garden and hammock back there too. 

Back of the house:  The 2-tiered deck is great to have, the kids eat dinner out on the deck all the time.  There’s a spot for eating and a spot for the BBQ and rocking chairs.  

Rest of house:  I didn’t take pics of the upstairs and kitchen cuz it’s not that exciting, well it is to me but probably not the viewers. We’ve got 4 bedrooms and 2 baths upstairs.  We filled the kids’ rooms up w/Ikea furniture and they all look really cute.  I love that Denton and I have our own bathroom!  The hard part is keeping this house clean.