california, the morning surprise

Posted on June 25, 2013 by francescaforsyth

I went to California a week and a half ago for just 3 days, to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday and Father’s Day. It was a surprise for Dad. He knew that Christina and Mina were coming to his house to stay and visit for a few weeks, but he had no idea I was flying in from MI and Aria was driving up from southern CA, so that we could all be there together.

It was heaven for 3 days.

First of all, Dad was totally surprised, which is amazing, since all of us girls kept slipping and mentioning “when we’re all there in June” right in front of him. We’ve been planning this for months (Bethany came up with the idea) and we’re terrible at keeping secrets. But it worked. I flew in late Wednesday night and Aria drove in the same day. We had to keep our presence a secret from Dad, even though we were staying at his house that night. Then Thursday morning we surprised him by waking up before him (we were up at 4:45 am), getting donuts (gain, Beth is awesome) and being all together downstairs waiting for him in the front room when he came down to go for his normal morning walk at 5 am. But it was nuts orchestrating it all. Beth had the hardest time finding a donut shop open at 4:45 am and found herself yelling at a gas station attendant, “But I just need some donuts!” at 5 am …. kind of embarrassing. Then Aria had to wake up all three of her kids and haul them over to Dad’s house at 5 in the morning …. then Dad decided, for once, to not go on his morning walk and to sleep in. So all of us girls were sitting in the front room, drooling over donuts (Mina ate some) and almost falling asleep waiting, until finally we called mom’s phone from downstairs to upstairs in their room and got him up. Here are the pictures from the morning. Every single one of these shots makes me want to cry and laugh out loud at the same time.

Killing time before Dad woke up:

Then he woke up ….

This picture, with Mom absolutely giddy and clutching her hands is my hands down favorite, of the whole weekend. It just describes, in one picture, what we all felt being around each other. Sheer joy. Mommy is so cute.

And the scene. ahhhhhh. This is just beautiful. Donuts. Family. Does it get better than this?

doesn’t exist

Posted on June 10, 2013 by francescaforsyth

Check out the fuzz this humid, sticky rainy day is creating all over my head.

Sticky rain doesn’t exist in California. This whole crappy thing where it’s like 70 degrees (or hotter) and it’s raining and you don’t know what to wear because if you wear a hoody you’re sweating it out, but if you wear shorts and flip flops you just get soaked…. yeah, this doesn’t exist in California. If it’s raining, it’s cold, if it’s sunny it’s hot. Straight forward. Easy to dress for. But the only reason I’m thinking of this specifically today is because …….. wait for it …….. I’m visiting CALIFORNIA ON WEDNESDAY!!!! heck yes! And right now, it’s sticky raining in Michigan. ugh. But who cares, I’m dustin’ this crappiness on Wednesday night – woo hoo!

it’s happening.

Oh man, I can’t wait. It’s gonna be awesome because I’m traveling without the boys. It’s just me. I love flying without kids. I don’t have to pack for 4 people or worry about whether or not the DVD player is charged. At the airport I can just walk through the security line without delay – I get snacks, I buy magazines, I read on the plane, I sleep on the plane, I go to the bathroom whenever I please, ahhhhhhh. It’s awesome.

But then there’s California itself. The whole reason I’m going is to surprise my dad for Father’s Day. It’s Daddy’s 60th birthday this year, in September, but this weekend is the time that all of us girls can get together, so we decided to celebrate Father’s Day with him. I come in Wednesday night and will keep my presence a surprise until Thursday morning when all of us girls will wake up early (like 5 m early) and go get donuts, then come home and when Dad wakes up and comes downstairs we will all be waiting there for him, donuts in hand and tell him, “we don’t know what happened!? We lost control of the car and ended up at the donut shop, so we decided, while we were there, that we might as well get some donuts and bring them home for you. Happy Father’s Day!” (it’s a family joke. My daddy used to do the same thing to us girls when we were little, except it was on Saturday mornings. He’d lose control of the car …. we’d get donuts … we all blame our addiction to sugar on daddy ).

I had a dream about it last night. I dreamed that I was in CA and sleeping in the piano room downstairs and Daddy accidently saw me Wednesday night. He teared up and I cried (happy cried) in the dream. I was so happy in the dream.

The other part of this California trip that is awesome, is that I will be with all my sisters and their babies. AND I will be able to help everyone else out with their kids cuz I don’t have my boys to worry about. I’m calling it now, I will stay up late and talk on the stairs at mom’s house. I will hang around Bethany’s house. We will eat and talk and play and I will feel the sun on my face. We will do a classic Damiano Beach Day on Saturday and there will be licorice. We will all get dressed up on Father’s Day and go to church. It will be a beautiful 4 day weekend for me and I am sooooooo looking forward to it.

So, it’s easy to see past this crappy, sweaty, rainy day in Michigan because I have California in my sights. This day doesn’t exist. It will pass. I will make it pass by trying not to look out my windows and by doing laundry and playing with Liam and Ray inside.

California, here I come!!!!!!

spring so far

Posted on May 12, 2013 by francescaforsyth

Well, Michigan did some good for a week solid and man, we lived it up! It was in the 60’s and 70’s and sunny … wha??!! I know. But this happens every year. I just forget. Michigan is mean and plays dirty tricks. Every spring it gets to be April and I’m pissed that it’s still freezing at 40 degrees, then suddenly, we get a stroke of good weather, for just long enough to think, “huh, maybe spring is here! Maybe winter is over! Maybe we will start warming up!” and then I buy a basil plant! And then it’s the morning of Mother’s Day and Michigan slaps me in the face with 39 degrees and says, “take that!” and I have to bring my basil plant indoors, or watch it wilt and die slowly outside like my hopes and dreams of good, warm weather …. but for a week, it was good.

Ray has four teeth now! And boy did we ever pay for those 4 teeth. Rough stuff. Teething is the pits.

Ray also started standing up in his walker! He’s a speed demon at crawling these days but not really interested in walking just yet. The walker standing up thing just happened.

Then this next picture is for Daniel’s face. It’s his excited face …. wait for it ….

And this next picture is for Ray’s face:

Noah got a jump rope from the “grab jar” for getting his chores done on time. So we spent some time outside with the jump rope.

I love action shots of Noah. They are so real to life. He is in constant motion, always moving forward, making goals. That is my Noah.

general conference april 2013

Posted on April 7, 2013 by francescaforsyth

Every year I try to come up with a new idea of how to distract my kids while we watch 8 hours over 2 days of conference. This year I got inspired the day before. My little sister, Christina, told me about this girl who made an entire “conference center” on a tri-fold poster and I said, “That’s so stupid. I can’t believe she put all that energy into that. And how old are her kids? How many does she have? Just ridiculous” … and then I saw it online and read her blog post about why she made it here.

She wanted to find something that would actually involve her children in conference instead of merely distracting them and I latched onto that thought and then ran with it … until 1:30 am on Friday night. Admittedly, this was a major undertaking, but hopefully I will use it over and over again. Along with the conference center board, I made treat buckets. There were a lot of ideas online to do this, so I don’t know who to credit the idea to, but it’s great. My boys are old enough to know how to listen for words and take treats. I would not recommend this for children 3 and under. They’d just steal the treats or be really mad that they couldn’t just eat buckets of treats for a few hours. I tried to pick a few healthier treats than just jellybeans and M&M’s. I picked: fishies, popcorn, chocolate covered raisins, all natural fruit snacks, some mini cookies (I caved here) and animal crackers.

Here’s the best part – it worked. Like a charm. seriously. My Noah was especially interested in the conference board, even moving the clock hands every 10 minutes to mimic the actual clock in our front room. He kept up with putting topics in our speech bubble and changed every speaker at the podium. He and Liam also LOVED the snacks. Liam mostly just watched when Noah would hear a word and grab a treat from the bucket then follow suit, but hey, it worked. They were quiet, interested and good! And after the Saturday sessions, Noah said, “I wish we had more conference”. I told him we had another whole day and he did a little fist pump in the air and said, “yes!” How cool is it that my boys like conference??!!!

Anyway, it’s almost time for the last session to start, so I’m going to post the pictures and eat something.

The board in action …. funny that Ray is the only one cheesing for the camera.

Ray really loved the board and thought it was pretty tasty too!

This makes it look like Daniel slept through conference … he did not. He got up early this morning and took care of the boys while I slept in ’til 9:45 am. I just had to get a shot of his beautiful and serene face. He looks so handsome when he sleeps.

I made some snacky type foods for in between sessions and the boys loved that. They loaded up their own plates with whatever they wanted! I had put out the food on platters because we were having friends over for the second session and Noah kept saying, “Mommy, this looks sooooo nice! You put everything in lines and it looks so pretty!” …. ahhh, kid after my own OCD heart

Concentrating on peeling an orange. I love my boys. All so gorgeous. Happy conference weekend!

Easter 2013

Posted on April 1, 2013 by francescaforsyth

This year for the boys’ Easter outfits I just got a few things and kept the khaki pants and same hats from last year. I got the vests, shirts and ties at RUUM, a kids’ clothing store that used to be 77kids, a break off from American Eagle. It’s a fun store, cool style and not bad prices when they’re having sales, which they were. I’ll just show our pictures, but give details of the Easter hunt and dinner at our friends’ house later.

Look at my handsome men. Big and small. They are perfect, aren’t they?

It’s sad to say, but all I can see when I see this picture is how much weight I still need to lose since I had Ray. sigh.

And even though Ray has his own post below, I had to throw in this last one. I love his little chin and relaxed mouth … makes him look almost squishy right? He’s so “kinny kinny” as my dad would say. Happy Easter!