My American girl

Natalie is 7 today. I can't believe that it was 7 years today that I have birth to my first child. It's amazing!! That was such an exciting night! All the anticipation and love for her! 

Although she may have come out with a small grudge to me... She is the sweetest most loving, silliest, most beautiful little girl. 

Last week while mom was here we went to American girl for dinner and to get the girls dolls ears pierced! It was a much fun! They give you a cake and everything! It was delishious and the girls, and the adults had a blast!

Bad luck bears

This was my first playoff game... Brian's 5th and you know what? The rangers have lost every one of them. I think it's a sign that Brian is bad luck. 

It was a super fun game anyway and really exciting hoping and wishing up until the last pitch of the last inning. I sure live the rangers. 

Sorry boys, better luck next year. 

State fair 2013

The fan headed on down to the state fair of Texas on Saturday. It was a rainy overcast day and although humid, it was still hot and sticky. The crowds were small so that was good. 

We told the kids one ride(fun house), and one game, and some food for mommy... I shared don't worry! Corn dogs, hand dipped blue bell ice cream, cotton candy, fried cheesecake, and some French fries. To die. Went to the car show to sit in all the cool new cars, We saw big tex and ran through the rain some.

As the rain was coming down, we headed into the little animal petting area where we saw not only cows and pigs and goats, but zebras, kangaroos, a camel and even a giraffe!!  

It was a fun day, glad it's over and we probably won't go back for another few years, but it was fun to do as a family- also I LOVE the state fair! 

Sunday Funday

We had our "monthly" Rawlins Family dinner on Sunday. We haven't done one in several months so it was fun to get everyone together to celebrate the September birthdays! Cam turned 10, Garrett turned 24, Courtney turned 3, Natalie turned 20, and me 30.
We had Greek food. I should have taken some pictures cause it was so good. Brian made meat skewers and veggie skewers, I made Naan bread, rice, and tzatziki sauce. We had a Greek salad, hummus, and pita chips. Top it all off with a DQ ice cream cake and I am a happy woman!! It was so fun and low key. I am not sure why it seemed less stressful than most gatherings, maybe it was the cooler weather and our deck to enjoy.
These kiddos are so lucky to have their cousins around and fun all the time. Happy Birthday people!

Thirty Flirty and Thriving

Today me and Courtney got together for a little birthday picture. I sure love this girl and love that we almost share a birthday. She is 3 and I am 30! I sure love ya babe!!

One of my favorite movies is 30 going on 13. It is so cute. Well all I could think of this year while I was turning 30 was thirty flirty and thriving. haha 

I am proud of myself as this last year of my life, I have been very busy. Not only did we move into a new house, which I am still in love with.. and yes still decorating and filling up, but I also went back to school. I took all the classes and hours that I needed, and then I took the final exam. I have gotten a sponsor from a Broker, fingerprinted, and now it is official. I am a Realtor! I am really excited to start this new endeavor  in my life and am really proud of myself for getting to this point. 

I also still am very flirty with my hubby... so there you have it...

I AM THIRTY, FLIRTY, AND THRIVING!! 

Party Time

I was feeling gross yesterday... Libby took me out shopping and then to get my nails Done and I was greasy and hair nappy... I didn't dress up or anything because Brian told me he was taking me out for my birthday that night to a fancy restaurant. I knew that he was planning some sort of party for me because we talked about it on my 29th... ALSO I love my birthday... A LOT. I want to celebrate all month long! I don't need gifts, that's not what I love (although IT IS A perk) but I just love to get together with my friends and family and have fun. 

Well I came home to change and get ready to go out and SURPRISE! Brian had thrown together a 30th birthday party for me. My friends were over, although he forgot and missed a few...he felt bad when I called him out... and we did catered Uncle Julios, cake from the Cakery YUM, and some reverse charades which is one of my favorite games. I love games so anything would have been great, but this was INSANELY great! 

It was a lot of fun and I was definitely surprised! I love you Brian (AND LIBBY) thank you so much for thinking about me. AND NOW... I should be welcomed to the club. I am 30! It feels really strange to be 30. I am not in my 20's anymore which is crazy, because I still feel 17! I am 30! I am not sad or angry to age, I am excited to grow up and age... but it is just kinda hard to adjust to that thought or I am 30! 

Court babe

Courtney has been a sweet blessing in our lives from day 1. She has brought so much joy and happiness and laughter that we never thought possible. She is hilarious every day and keeps us on our toes. She is so smart and is always talking. ALWAYS.

She had her birthday this week and turned 3. I cant believe that my baby is 3! She is growing up entirely too fast. We went out to lunch and then just had a little party that night at the house with just the 5 of us, with Papa and Uncle John in town for the night. She got a purse with tick tacks inside, which she loved, and a pretend ice cream set. She loves it! She is such a happy go lucky girl, that she loves anything! We love you Courtney Cakes.

She fills our home with love and laughter. She is cute and cuddly. She loves to play "family" and especially loves to play with her brother. She loves to tag along with me wherever I am, no matter the time of day. She loves to hang out with the adults and chat it up. She loves to sing and has memorized many songs. Her favorite food is hot dogs, her favorite song is a child's prayer.  Her favorite toy right now are her baby dolls with her stroller or grocery cart. She loves to watch Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. She loves Slurpee's and she loves to be involved. She loves to say family prayer and is our best scripture "reader". She is such an angel and we love her, sassy tantrums and all.

Tough Ladies

A whole bunch of ladies from our new ward got together to do a tough mudder. A 5km Mud run. It took us JUST under an hour to do it and it was tougher than I thought it was going to be. Last year, Libby and I did one and it wasn't super tough. I am sore today in my calves, but other than that I feel great. My hair feels funny and hasn't gone back soft and smooth. The mud was more like a clay and we got it EV-RE-WHERE so I am not sure how long it will take to get the residual out of everything! It was so much fun though, Fun ladies Fun times! 

Sweet Moments

Since school has been in now for 2 weeks, I have had the opportunity to chat with the kids each day after school about their days. When school started I did a Family Home Evening lesson on not bullying and being kind to people at school. I always wonder what sinks in...

Well Boots came home from school the other day and he was excited to tell me about recess that day. He told me how he went out onto the play ground and found a boy who was playing alone. He chose to stay and play with him since he was alone. I love the thought of my son on the playground with over a hundred other kindergartners... and him finding the one who is alone. He played with him and said that he had fun. I like that he did that. He is so caring and sweet and thoughtful.

In regards to Natalie... The other principal that we have been teaching them about that we would hope to sink in... is that of prayer. She always complains when it is time for personal prayers at night, but she will jump to the opportunity to say the family prayer. It is odd. Well she came home her first day of school and told me that she had said 2 prayers that day. She got a pencil case that uses a key, like a Diary, to open it. Well she had locked it and of course forgotten where the key was. She said that she said a prayer to help her either find the key or get the box open. She did it!
So I asked her in she prayed to thank Heavenly Father for helping her out... her response was this "MOM! That was my second prayer!!" How could I be so silly.

THEN, She was wearing my shoes around the other day and so when I went to go find them, they were out of place. The family was getting in the car, so I called her back in to help me find them. I sent her up to look in her room. After a minute, I went up to check out all the rooms. When I walked in her room, I saw her on the floor and I immediately shouted for her to get up and "what are you doing on the floor?! you are supposed to be finding my shoes! GET UP!"
I find the shoes after some searching, and I walked out to the car. When I got in, Natalie proceeded to tell me that she had found my shoes. I argued. She said, "No mom, when you came in my room and told me to get up off the floor, I was saying a prayer that we could find them!"
I am a bad mom. I decided then and there that I am horrible and can't believe I was scolding her in the middle of a prayer!! I told her to tell me next time that I am  interrupting a prayer and that I would NOT have gotten mad about it! What a great little girl I have.

I am so grateful for their happiness and grateful little spirits who are trying to be good and trying to return to our Father in Heaven. I hope they continue to learn from me... and I will continue to learn from their lessons of Love I see as well.

mahalo

In another post to follow will be the sailing adventure of Brian across the Pacific... until then is our fabulous holiday at his destination. We, the kids and I with my mum, flew out to Hawaii to await the arrival of our sailors.

We went to the Big Island of Hawaii and stayed in a house in Kona. We traveled over to Hilo to meet up with them the day they arrived. We beached and traveled the island to see all the sights we could while we were there. It was Brian's first time to Hawaii so I wanted him to experience all that he could. He did NOT like the driving around the island, and he did not LOVE the locals life... but He did love the beaches and the time that we had to explore together as a family.

 

One day we traveled to see the Volcano National park, and then up to Akaka Falls and Waipio Valley. We ended up doing the whole island that day!

Natalie had to stop on the side of the road for her Coconut. She had been asking me for it the whole trip. I am not sure where she saw that she could drink out of a coconut, but she insisted that she had to do it while in Hawaii. The kids all tried it and none of them liked it. It was short lived, but at least they did it!

We beached it a lot. The first beach we tried to find was a doozie. We got dropped off by Dad who had an errand to run and we ended up having to walk 1.5 miles with all of our beach gear, all 3 kids, and Nana across hot sand, and lava rocks. It was not a well beaten path and it was hot that day. We got a good work out in and saw many sea turtles up on the sand that day. Needless to say, after that we stuck to the state beaches that had easy access!

The house we stayed in was up on the hill, which was great because it was away from a lot of the bustle of town. It was about 15 minutes from Kona and from the beach. We were able to swim since we had our own pool, and Courtney was able to nap almost daily...otherwise she would look like this:

Lots of lizards and gecko's for the kids to chase. Nat ended up catching about 5 and loved to hold them and "play" with them. The babies were the easiest to catch and apparently the easiest to kill... She accidentally killed about 3/4 of them. She brought one over and said, look mom he is sun tanning, totally innocent that she had killed the poor guy. She later layed him down and told me he was sleeping. I moved him and tossed him out. I didn't want her to be sad when she realized she had killed the thing.

The night we went over to Hilo to stay and wait for the boys in the morning, we ended up staying at the most beautiful bed and breakfast. The reservation was made online through Expedia and they messed it up. This place only allows 3 people per room and we were shocked when we arrived to one king bed and nothing else. I went to ask where the couch was that we were told they had... The owners were not happy about having 5 people in a room. They would have been even more upset had they learned that Courtney peed on a pillow and in the bed. We cleaned that one up and I just hoped they wouldn't catch it. Regardless, it was amazingly beautiful and if breakfast wasn't 40$ per person, we would have eaten the banana pancakes in the morning.

This picture below is so sweet to me. We had gone out on this rock wall to wait for the sailors to come into this bay. We spotted them coming from across the bay and this was the kids pointing to where they were. They kept hugging each other because they were so excited to see Dad!

We stopped at a few little shops and deli's/bakeries along the way around the island and each time, they were surprisingly Delicious! Brian got a hot pastrami everywhere we went and fell in love.

We also stopped at the lava tubes while we were at the Volcano National park. This was probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It was beautiful and amazing. On the way in, I was holding boots hand and tripped and fell, breaking my sandal...and pulling Boots down with me. I was fine, he scraped up his knees pretty bad. I wasn't allowed to hold any more hands that day. Sorry buddy! Momma is clumsy!

It was such a  fun family vacation and I am so glad that we got to experience it as a family and with my  Mom and Dad. They only changes I would have made would have been doing more! 2 weeks is a long time, but it went so so fast and it felt like we weren't able to do everything we wanted. We did end up going in ALMOST every day for a snow cone aka shave ice. They were Delicious. Brian now has dreams of opening up a Hawaiian Shave ice place here in Dallas. We shall see right? Seriously though, they were incredible.

Cant wait to go back to another Island so Brian can see more beauty of Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii was pretty, but it is not the prettiest island at all. Lava rock is only cool for about 1 minute... then you get over it and want to see Maui or something! I am not complaining, It was wonderful and amazing!