Raising Beach Beauties

It's Carnival Time...

And this year, we have a daughter in a Carnival Troope! You just know there will be a ton of pictures to share of that next week! Here are some pictures from Marley's troope practice last week.

Steel pan players practicing:

    

Practicing her moves.

One very bored little sister. She entertained herself with finding an empty beer bottle and smashing in on the ground. Nice...

Tons more Carnival pictures to come...if I can ever find parking down there (took the girls to Food Fair today, drove around for 45 minutes looking for parking and Marley complaining the whole time about her ear hurting...said 'screw it" to Food Fair, went to the doctor and dropped $95 on a visit & antibiotics instead of conch pate & stewed pigs tail).

Week of the Young Child

This past week was "Week of the Young Child". I think this is Marley's last year to participate but I could be wrong, I'm not sure what age they are no longer considered "young". Every year we buy the t-shirts though and since Maya still has some "young" years left in her, Marley will continue to get a shirt (I don't even want to imagine the drama if we were to leave her out and only Maya got one).

Marley really didn't want to go and have her photo taken. She's not a morning person and wasn't in the mood to sit and smile for the camera. I whispered in her ear "if you go outside and take some nice pictures for me, I will.....FART on Maya!". She was totally in for that and did an awesome job smiling for me. I love this picture, it is total anticipation on her part, looking at her sister like "you are about to get farted on and you don't even know it!". I'm not above bathroom humor to get what I want.

Poor Maya, sitting there, clueless to her fate. How cute is she in her jeans though? Other than being in the states, this is the first time she's worn jeans. And honestly, I'm not sure she ever wore jeans in the states? I don't think she wore jeans last time we were there in the winter months. This is an old pair of Marleys...actually, I think this the only other pair of jeans Marley owns (she's wearing the other pair in the photos above). Jeans really are something I miss - when we were in Amsterdam and Vegas I loved nothing more than slipping on a pair of comfortable jeans. But by time both girls got home from school yesterday, they were both ready to pull those sweaty things off!

Easter Sunday!

Three Ms...

Hunting goodies...

It was a good hunt.

Then it was Easter egg dying time. When I said this, Maya asked me, "we're going to kill the Easter eggs?" and I said, "um, no, we're going to dye...um, no, we're going to COLOR them!". That was received much better.

They did a pretty awesome job!

We had a bit of an Easter tragedy/surprise. Stu told me he found a ton of chicken feathers on the deck in the morning...but no chicken. And there were about 10 baby chicks peep peep peeping all over our yard with no momma.

I don't know if it was out of annoyance for all the noise or compassion for the orphans, but Stu decided to try and catch as many as he could.

And before we knew it, we had 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and then finally 8 little babies.

And one very interested spectator.

Stu was canvassing the yard, looking for chicks, so we quickly put Maya in Buddha's chick outfit and told him we found a big one for him to catch.

Catch her he did.

Best picture I could get of me and the kids.

Tending to our chickies.

And little chicks that were much happier to be held then the real deal.

You know I wasn't going to pass up this opportunity, right?

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Saturday

Saturday was loooong. I had to take the kids with me on errands in the morning (always a pleasure) and then we headed to the Yacht Haven Grande Easter Egg Hunt. It was madness. Kids running around everywhere. We got there about 10 minutes early and kids were already on the hunt, so my girls dove right in.

Marley is quiet the egg gatherer. Before I knew it, she started dumping eggs in my camera bag to make room in her basket.

I started rehiding them for the other kids. Until I noticed that other parents were watching me, then going and picking up the eggs as soon as I dropped them. Mind you, they weren't pointing them out to their kids for their kids to find. They were just picking them up and putting them in their own baskets. OMG is right. I was very proud of Maya who started dumping some of her excess eggs for the other kids as well. Little worried for her safety when a mob started to follow her. =-/

Maya found one of the coveted "golden eggs".

The golden eggs had little tickets in them that you were to take to the welcome center to claim a prize. YHG is a high end shopping center so I had visions of Coach bags, Cartier bracelets and Tiffany sunglasses dancing in my head. Turned out to be a small Hershey's chocolate bunny instead. No diamonds for the eyes. The guy next to me laughed and said I was better off with the plastic egg. The girls were definitely thrilled with the egg and Marley has told everyone today that she found the golden egg to which I say, "who found it?" and she replied "Maya and me". Um, ok.

They were scared at all of the Easter Bunny.

After that chaos, we went to pick up Mikayla for a sleepover. We had a girly lunch, gossiping over magazines.

 

And then stopped at the mall to check out the Easter festivities there. Once the bunny at the mall took her head off, I knew we weren't staying in line for a photo. If I thought YHG was chaotic, I got a reality check on chaos at the mall. I ushered the girls out as quickly as possible but got sucked into putting 50 cents into this peice of vintage awesomeness. Don't ask about Marley's hair by the way.

More Easter Slumber Party Fun to come...

Buddha says HAPPY EASTER!

Good Friday

I made it through a long week of weddings have have the weekend off to enjoy Easter with the girls. We have an Easter Egg Hunt to go to tomorrow and a baby shower in the evening. We'll have an Easter Egg Hunt for them at home on Sunday and then who knows what else. I spent a good portion of today trying to get caught up on emails so that I could work as little as possible. It is high season for weddings now and I am feeling very lucky that as busy as April is, I only have ONE weekend wedding! Which is the total opposite in June. In June, I have just as many weddings and they are almost all on the weekends, which two or three per day. Help. Any grandparents wants to fly in just for the weekends??

Last weekend we worked on some Easter projects.

Maya wants to wait til Easter for the big reveal.

We wore our Easter socks. I picked these up for a $1 each at the Las Vegas Target when we were there last month....sigh...I miss Target...(oh, and Vegas).

We had a wedding on April Fool's Day. The bride wanted me to pull a trick on her. So I did.

I gave her flower girls. No additional charge.

They were whisked about before the actual ceremony began. But oh were they excited to be a part of a wedding and so so so badly wanted to watch the bride & groom kiss!

Stella, one of the cats we actually own, is the least popular cat of them all. There is a love triangle going on in our house with Guinness, Tres and Stella. Tres is definitely Guinness's man and Guinness does not like (the thinner and younger) Stella around. She's been going on vacations here and there - being gone for a week or two at a time. The kids never notice. Stu is always overjoyed when she's gone and disappointed when she returns. Poor Stella.

My stop at the Humane Society this week yielded no positive news on our cat situation. I can borrow a cat trap but when I asked what happens after you trap the cat, I wasn't too fond of the answer. I thought it was as easy as bringing in a feral cat, having him fixed and then we could set them free again. No reason to end their life - we are feeding them - we just don't want them knocking up unfixed females. So the answer is that we bring them to the humane society and if they are feline luek or feline HIV positive, they get put down. Fair enough. If not, then we can adopt them ($100 fee!) and they get neutered and returned to us. I have FOUR males hanging around my house. $400 to fix cats that I don't even want? I don't think so. So I think we just may move.

Oh....but while at the humane society, they had the CUTEST little kitten and the COOLEST black & white cat...oh the look on Stu's face when I asked if we could get them was priceless. I think I'm ready to embrace my inner crazy cat lady.

Stu took the girls to a birthday party for me. They each got a new bathing suit recently. I wanted a picture of them in their suits before they left by trying to get them to stand next to each other and smile was impossible. This is the best I could do. Marley is out of focus but you can still see the extreme look of frustration with her little sister on her face. And her hands are in position to wring her little neck.

Maya has learned a new skill that is serving her well. She is very good at snapping her fingers and now whenever she is getting in trouble, she just smiles and snaps her fingers. Usually frustrating her father and I to the point that we just sigh and walk away.

We've been looking for ways to get better behavior out of our little smart ass. Enter the Happy Heart Club.

For each good deed, for each nice thing they do for their sister, for listening to mommy & daddy, they get a marble. For bad behavior, they lose a marble. When the jar is filled up, they can get whatever they like. Which by measuring the progress of their marble collection, will probably be a car for their sixteenth birthday, as that will be about as long as it will take them to fill these jars up.

PS Stu and I each have a jar as well so the kids can keep our behavior in check as well. Stu wants another trip to Amsterdam.

 

A few random musings...

I've been really bad at blogging lately. My camera had to get sent in to Nikon to be worked on (rain really isn't good for cameras) and without it, I lost motivation to take pictures. I have been shooting with my old Nikon D50 and embarrassing as it is to admit, I used to only shoot in auto setting with that camera. I could not figure out the settings on that stupid thing (nor did I spend a lot of time trying) so I just kept shooting in auto. I have been storing my photos as usual, just not posting them. Because I'm so behind, I thought I'd go ahead and throw up my favorites (not many) and a few others that show life around these parts these days.

I think we are getting a dog. Soon. Because this is yet another random cat that keeps stopping by. I really don't mind the random cats but you know what I do mind? Un-neutered males. They spray. They mark their territory. I'm stopping at the Humane Society today to see if they have cat traps. I want to capture, neuter, release.

Marley is asking every single morning if "today is Easter?". Girl is anxious for some candy.

I was very excited to find this little doll cradle at the flea market for $5. I've been wanting a nice doll bed for the kids but they don't sell nice doll beds at Kmart and shipping one from the mainland seemed like a waste of money (I wasn't convinced the girls would really play with it, I just thought they were cute). This one was a little beat up, but for $5, it was the perfect project for me.

Across the street from the flea market is Home Depot. I immediately headed over there and bought spray paint - my first spray paint project.

I had a helper (she really wasn't that much of a help).

Maya was a big fan of the rocking action on the cradle. You can see her baby doll flying out of it as she "gently rocks the baby". Good reason right here why she doesn't have a little brother or sister.

We have a birthday party this weekend and some Easter projects to work on. I'm anxious to play with my camera again so you know I'll probably take 500 photos. We have 8 weddings the first week of April (we had 9 but one poor bride found out that the rat bastard was cheating on her) so I'm hoping I'll be able to post some pictures of our weekend next week. And you know Buddha will be stopping by the blog on Easter to say hello in his Easter costume.

Tiny Bubbles

Marley hasn't been in Tiny Bubbles since October but I ran into one of the other parents a couple of weeks ago and she told me she has seen a few posters around town with an adorable photo of Marley on it. I checked out their website and I'm assuming it has to be the first one - that's a good advertisement photo right there! I stole it and the 2nd photo from their site to share on here. She'll start Tiny Bubbles again in May.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

March was Stu's month to decorate Buddha and it's no surprise he went with a St. Patty's Day theme!

We had the girls take their photo with Buddha. These crack me up. Of course, to get Maya to smile, Stu had to pretend he was farting on my head.

Conversations to remember

I was just thinking of some funny things the kids say this morning and wanted to jot them down for the blog.

 

I took the kids to the pool one day and did some water aerobics while the kids played. Marley asked me what I was doing and I said "exercising" and she asked why and I explained that it keeps you healthy and hopefully helps you live longer. She says, "oh, I want to live a long time, I'm going to exercise too!" and joins me. A few hours later, she starts to exercise again and says, "look mom, the exercising is working!" and when I reply, "really? Are you healthier?" she says, "yes, and I'm still alive, I was supposed to be dead by now but I kept exercising!"

 

Another night the girls were having dinner and Marley asked for milk with her dinner and Maya said she wanted water. When I gave them each their requested glasses, Marley very smugly informs me that milk is made by cows. Maya, just as matter of factly tells me, "and yes, water is made from monkeys".

 

This morning on the way to school, Maya asked me what came next "Christmas or Halloween"? I told her it was going to be Halloween again before Christmas time again and asked her what she wanted to be and she very quickly told me she wanted to be a pig donkey. I asked what a pig donkey was and she gave it a moments thought and told me she would like a donkey head and a pig butt. And to make sure the pig butt has the squiggly tail.

 

"Do the whole thing" is very big around our house. The girls will ask us about something...maybe ask us to tell us about something they did "when they were babies" (for them, when they were babies seems just so so so long ago) and when we tell them part of the story they will stop us and say "no, do the whole thing". Maya did this with me in the car the other day. The tint job in my "island car" (that's a nice way of saying Piece of SH*T) is starting to peel in the back. Maya asked me why and then what the tint was for. I said to block out the sun and she says "no, do the whole thing" - basically, I had to start from scratch as to why the tint was there, who put it there, why it is peeling, what the purpose of the tint was for and why she is not allowed to pick at it and what would happen if the tint was no longer there. The WHOLE thing.