Busy

Sorry it's been so long. We miss you. Hopefully one or two of you have missed us. We'll be back soon. It's just that we've been a little busy. We moved. Again.

I know, right? Eight moves in eleven years of marriage!!!! Do we have some sort of syndrome? Maybe.
But we're really hoping this is the last one. We're just a few blocks down the road from our previous home. We're in the same ward of our Church, in fact. In Utah, that's quite an accomplishment.

So here we are now:

When I get a little of my brain back, I'll post lots of cute pics of the kids. But right now I am focusing on my full plate of wife, mommy and teacher with a side of un-packing thrown in. And frankly, even though I would enjoy blogging more, I have to find where I packed the dishes first.

First Day of School 2011!

So, since it is October the 1st, I thought maybe I should get around to posting the first day of school pics. Believe it or not, I still haven't finished posting pics from Daphne's birthday! I figured I better post something before life gets even crazier and I don't have time to post anything!

I had such a hard time letting my kids go back to school this year. Don't get me wrong... I often experience that "Yay! School is starting and maybe they won't kill each other this Summer feeling". But this year was different. We had a great Summer and I just didn't want it to end. Isaac is now in 4th grade! Daphne started 2nd grade and Tori is an official preschooler in my class at Weber State. I cannot believe they are this old.

Here they are holding our traditional 1st day of school cake. The idea is that we make a cake the day before the first day and write their initials alongside what grade they are starting. Then, they get to have a piece of cake after school and tell me all about their day. I love the idea in theory. But when it comes to actually making a cake that looks decent, I regret this choice every year. I'm hoping they will have fond memories of the tradition and eating the cake with me rather than dwelling on the fact that their Mom is no Cake Boss. Or even really a Cake underling for that matter. I'm pretty sure I'd get fired from Cake Making.

And here they are doing the eating!!! I wish I could explain the searing, joyous, sorrowful, incredible feeling of watching them grow up... but I am guessing that a lot of you are pretty familiar with that feeling. I'll settle for just telling you that I adore them. Sure I want to pull my hair out by bedtime every day... but life is going too fast. I cannot get enough of each phase... it always passes too quickly. I love you, sweet babies. Forever and Ever No Matter What.

Wordless Wednesday!

Texas Peeps

Last year, I wrote about my Heart Friends. These women are "my girls"! I cannot believe that we live so far away from one another- we have been incredibly blessed with an enduring friendship. It doesn't matter how long we've been apart, we can pick up without missing a beat.
In the picture below, we are holding a picture of the four of us that was taken our freshman year in College... I believe in the Fall of 1998. We all squealed when we realized we were spontaneoulsy standing in exactly the same positions. And then we all groaned when we remembered that the old photo shows each one of us carrying our "freshman fifteen". Ugh. So I would like to formally replace that photo with one of these two in our FORCE memory book. (Except that we don't really have one).

The evening of Daphne's birthday, Carole generously invited us all over for dinner and fun. We gathered with husbands and kids and acted like silly girls again for a little while. It's incredible to think that these girlfriends I skipped class with are now wives and mothers. I guess we're old, we just don't feel like it yet!

Some of our sweet offspring playing together out back:

My friend Marcy went completely out of her way and came up from Austin for the night. She had been traveling tons and I am certain that they had lots to do, but they made time to come see us and I am so gratful! I can't come to Tejas and not see my Marcy Girl! Marcy and I both had daughters about 5 months apart back in 2004.. here they are now!

Daphne and Aubrey hit it off fabulously... they ran around taking care of little babies and putting on pet fashion shows with ALL of Baby Charlotte's stuffed animals and hair bows. Sorry for the mess, Carole! Prepare yourself for the disaster that is girly imaginative play! Daphne NEVER gets out just one thing. Everything has to be comprehensively integrated to include every single type of doll, dress up, accessory and stuffed animal. My house frequently looks like a Fancy Nancy Book Exploded inside.

Speaking of my Imaginative Girl... we decided to bring some BlueBell to share with everyone that night... she picked Milk Chocolate. Yum! (For those of you keeping a mental tally of Blue Bell consumption during our Texas trip, this is gallon number 3 in 5 days.)

We scooped Blue Bell into cones and sent the kids outside in an effort to protect Carole's house from further destruction.

That plan to keep the ice cream outside worked pretty well except for all the ice cream that ended up on the kids... Tori got a good amount on her sweater and you can see what happened to Amy's little Noah!

These two were born on the same day! And of course, as per usual, the Hunter giant genes persisted with Victoria. She towers over kids her age. Volleyball, here we come!

I had so much fun with you ladies! I wish we lived close enough for us to do that more than once a year. Thank you so much for the company, the food, and the years of friendship. I am a better woman today because I know y'all. (But I've still got a lot of work to do!)

Family Pictures!

As mentioned in my last post, my friend Emily generously took our pictures while we were in Texas. Please stop by her website... Emily Mulkey Photography. Emily is married to my dear friend Matt from High school. Actually... I dated Matt for about 5 minutes our Junior year. Matt and I were good friends and on our first date, we went to his house to watch a movie. Terms of Endearment, if I remember correctly. So, during the movie, I excused myself to the bathroom and when I went to fasten my pants, the zipper on my jeans completely broke.
Like.. my jeans wouldn't fasten.
At all.
Just what you want to have happen on a date.
So... after fumbling around in the bathroom so long that I'm sure he thought I had food poisoning, I finally just came back into the room with my pants undone.
Yep, I did that.
Matt was a complete gentlemen and took me home (laughing hysterically the entire way, of course.) Why am I telling this story? Who knows? Just fastforward about 13 years and Matt and I are still friends and his beautiful wife Emily is taking pictures of me and MY Matt.


Anyway, Emily is incredibly talented.

Ummmmm... Gorgeous. I think I might be wall papering with these.

Victoria, 3 years old. Daphne, 7 years old that day!

I like how I decided to do the pictures at the END of our week in Texas. Matt, Isaac and Daphne look like blonde-headed Mexicans and I'm the white woman in the middle who looks like their step-mom. Whatever... they're mine. Forever.

Isaac, 9 1/2 years.

GiGi!

Feliz Cumpleanos, Daphne!

On Daphne's actual birthday, we woke up bright and early! First thing on our agenda: Family Pictures! One of my dear Texas friends, Emily Mulkey, is an incredible photgrapher. I somehow convinced her to take pictures of us, so we headed over to the Dallas Arboretum:

Emily's pictures are works of art. I can't wait for y'all to see them! Go to her website to find out more about her! Emily Mulkey Photography

I LOVE the Arboretum! I so wanted to go exploring the whole think like my friend Marcy and I used to do back in the day!

You'll notice that most of the pictures are of Isaac and Daph because Tori was sort of done with the photo shoots at this point....

They have so many new exhibits since the last time I was there... like the Beatrix Potter village. Here they are walking into Peter Rabbit's house... we actually saw a little brown bunny hopping around outside! Victoria was ecstatic!

Unfortunately, the kids were way too hot after just a little bit of exploring... we probably only explored 1/3 of the park! Although we had been in Texas all week, the only time we spent outside was in the pool. My kiddos were covered in sweat and we were ready for a break. Since it was Daphne's birthday, we wanted her to choose where we had lunch. The only restaurant she wanted to go to was Cafe Rio... but they don't have those in Texas. So... I suggested we go to my favorite Mexican restaurant in Dallas... Mariano's.

I LOVE Mariano's! I dream about their salsa sometimes.

Ummm... excuse me, I ordered the LARGE bowl of soup....

And tiny tacos....

Sisters snuggling!

After all the yummy fajitas and salsa, it was time for the birthday song, this time in Spanish!

After lunch, we took Tori and the boys back for naptime, while I took Daphne for a birthday treat: Mani-pedi at the nail shop! Daphne's favorite color is blue:

Daphne LOVED getting her nails done... she often asks to go, so this was a fun birthday treat for her! Lots more birthday pics to come!

Herzlichen Gluckwunsch zum Geburtstag, Daphne!

While we were in Texas, we celebrated Daphne's 7th Birthday... a lot!

The night before she turned 7, we went to dinner with my Mom, sister & family, and met our dear friends, Phil and Heidi Graham. Heidi was like a second mother to me through much of my life, so it's always imperative that we visit with her! I was bummed that we didn't get to see either of her sons, OR their grandbaby, but maybe next time!

We met them at a German restaurant near my sister's house called The Bavarian Grill.

If you like German food, or have ever been to Germany or even wanted to go to Germany, this place is really fun! They have created the perfect German ambiance and I definitely had some flashbacks to our Summer in Germany! On the weekends, they have live accordian music and the girls just had to get their groove on:

Matt ordered an entire side of pig:

Okay, it was just a pork shank, but it was HUGE!!

The owners have a little mechanical train that rides around the top of the restaurant (a la Mr. Rogers' trolley), which was very fun for the kids to watch!

Tori did get a little restless waiting for everyone to eat, so we walked around the restaurant. They had pictures plastered everywhere and it was so fun to see all the places we had actually been able to visit! It still seems a little like a dream.

The waiter came over and played handbells to sing Happy Birthday to Daffodil in German... she LOVED it, can you tell?

Here's a video of the girls dancing! (Remember you'll have to actually visit the blog to see the video- just in case you are getting this via email! http://mattlaurahunter.blogspot.com/)