tired.

the time has come for us to start getting ready for our annual summer trip to michigan!!!! while it is fun and exciting...it is a lot of work to prepare the house and ourselves for the trip. this year, kelle and i are road-tripping it to michigan. we are taking three days to get home, making fun stops in macon, georgia and tennessee!!! kelle has a ton of ideas to make our trip even more memorable. i won't bore you with the details...tonight...i'll save it all for kelle and heidi's (and kiddies) roadtrip series blogposts!!!

around this time of year, i get a tad sad that i am leaving home. as much as i love going home to our families...i always miss home.

we will be gone for two months. we will have tons of fun, take many trips, have family dinners around a table with people we don't get to see very often. it will be lovely, making it hard to return home at the end of august. i guess i just hate saying goodbye.

every year around this time, i pack as much as i can into a two week period...trying to fit in playdates, girl's nights out (or in), coffee in the morning with friends who have off for the summer...

it goes on and on, and I LOVE IT! however, i have finally met the point where i need to hole up and sleep for a while...ha. i'm sure that can't happen. i am so excited for this summer and for all the memories we will make. my kids are sooooo excited to get to michigan and see sito and gido, papa and nona, g-pa and g-ma, auntie hi-o, auntie elaina, and baby evie too. i can't wait to see all the lovin' from my sisters and brother to my little babies. they will eat it up...glow, and feel super special. okay, i'm not sure why i said glow. hahaha. i'm so tired. anyway, this is what was on my mind and without proofreading it and checking for errors...i'm posting.

here are a few pics that daddy will enjoy. he is in michigan and has been for about two weeks so we know he will enjoy. we love and miss you jeff.

beckham not into getting his pic taken anymore...what's up with that anyway?

i bribed him with m&m's for this one

(trying out my new lens too)

i love this picture of my little baby boy...he is just the happiest little guy...apart from his new favorite pastime...temper tantrums!

while daddy has been away...we started a new tradition...sparklers in the pool each night before bed!!!

my baby girl graduated pre-k3 last week...

peyton, grace, zach, beckham, and other friends dancing at the end of the year school party. she was having so much fun. i wanted to bottle her happiness up...it was darling.

peyton mae...

we are soooo very proud of you. you are such a big girl!!!! you have grown so much in the last year and we love you so much. you make us happy every single day...every single day you make me smile and say a little prayer thanking god that you are our little one.

i love how you care so much about others, how you are learning to help a friend that needs it, and how you are using your words to tell other's how you feel. i love how you are so protective of your little brother and how much he loves you for it.

we know there is so much to look forward to this summer, but most of all it will be watching you and your baby brother loving on each other (most of the time:) ) and having fun with family.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

g'night. i'm off to bed!

happy early birthday...

beautiful-sweet-booty-shaken-dance off champ-colleen!!!!!

we love you and your moves on the dance floor.

thank you for moving your celebration up too!

cheers!

xoxo

catching up, gardening, and a little brunch...

i think this is the longest i have gone without blogging...maybe not, but it has been a while. i simply can not believe how busy we are during the days and how tired i am at night. i think my next year of age is creeping up on me...slowly like a thief in the night.

however, truth-be-told, i love to sleep. LOVE. TO. SLEEP. growing up i would relish sleeping in on the weekends, and i when say sleeping in, i am talking about the old school kind. you know the kind of sleeping in you did before you had your own house, kids, tons of responsibilities. yeah man...i would sleep until 11 or noon even. my mom would eventually come in, raise the shades, and say..."you're wasting the day. you're sleeping it away. get up!"

i have to say...i have never EVER felt guilty about sleeping in or 'sleeping the day away!' nevvva!!!!!!

and i guess my age has me appreciating new components of the getting-into-bed ritual because i truly love and savor crisp clean, downy smelling sheets...fresh and cool and scrumptious. i bury my face in my pillow and smile from ear to ear. when jeff sees me...he knows the face. he gets all happy and tells me how happy i look. is it weird that i get that happy bout sleeping?? i bet it's even more strange that i am blogging about it. i guess i just want my kids to know how sleep-loving their mama is when they are old enough to read this for themselves. maybe the next post i will talk about how i NEED to have my fan on full-blast when i sleep:) moving on...

peyton and beckham love to garden. i hear it a few times a week at least. "mama, can we plant a garden?"

we did it last year and it worked out okay. we planted about $25 worth of flowers that peyton chose from the array of blooms. only 'bout $5 made it...grew, flourished, but we'll take it. so, we did it again this year. this time beckham was old enough to get more involved. he wanted to help plant peyton's garden! it started to rain as we headed out, but it didn't stop us, it only made it more fun...for the kids!

notice the ONE boot. peyton's old boot no less:) he cracks me up. he really, really wants some cowboy boots and when he couldn't find any that fit him he decided the girly fuzzy boot would work just fine:)

peyton takes her garden very seriously. seriously though...she does.

...the wildflower seeds...

you can't hear it, but peyton was singing to herself while dusting the

seeds into every square inch of her garden.

watering time!!

peyton's flower garden!

later that day when jeff pulled in from work, she raced out of the front door, grabbed him by the hand and nearly dragged him to see her garden. "daddy, daddy...look at my garden. i let beckham help too. are you happy that i let beckham help too, daddy?"

i love these kids so much.

in between fighting sickness and daddy going to michigan, and us packing for our

ROAD TRIP...hellllo, i/we (jeff helped lots) hosted a summer brunch...

little vintage flower seed packets...looked like little pieces of art. i want to take each one and do something special with it.

...and it was so much fun to see so many of my friends in the same room together drinking coffee, sipping mimosa, noshing quishe and chocolate filled croissants. laughing, excitement looming because of the impending summer break. it was fabulous. i have many more pictures, but these are the beauties that kelle sent me. thank you:) will post more in a few days.

xoxoxo

peytonism:

after stepping on one of the kids toys, my foot felt like it had been ripped in half therefore, causing me to scream out in pain (i'm kinda a baby in that way tho). peyton rushes to my side with an ice pack. she literally ran to the freezer and back to the bathroom in record time and with conviction and a nurturing little heart.

she says, "mama, am i a doctor (said with an extremely serious face)?

before i could answer, she says, "nooooo, i'm not a doctor, mommy. (in a tone that would suggest that i had actually called her a doctor in the first place) i'm just kid. you are so silly mama!" :)

long weekends mean...

...impromptu bbq's.

(hmmm, how many guys does it take...?:)

...relishing naples in all it's sandy goodness with people we love, family i adore, and a bartender that makes the best slushy lemonade this mouth has ever tasted.

we sat around, soaked up some harmful rays, we documented, we drank, we dug in the sand, took fast jet ski rides out into the deep blue sea...then dove in and floated while pondering life's little blessings. we were almost rescued by the sea and tow, but we waved em' on, letting them know we were okay-just enjoying the water.

we said over and over again how much fun we were having. i heard random strangers muttering what a beautiful day it was while our kids played on the beach for hours, took kayak rides, ran after birds,

played football, napped on the beach...

i took it all in knowing that we are giving our kids a little gift. memories they will surely hold onto...atleast a few from today. i'm tired and and it's late so i could easily go on and on in my sensitive and euphoric state about what a wonderful weekend it has been thus far, but i won't...because it's late and i'm tired :)

long weekends mean that i can play around with my editing tools longer than i should...

and one of my favorites from the day...

and in breaking news...!!!!!!

http://s296.photobucket.com/albums/mm178/peytonbecks/?action=view&current=Untitled10.flv

you heard it folks...ROAD TRIP!!!!

(it will be well documented and we can't wait!!!!)

more to come soon...

xoxo

a little blog lovin'...

dear blog,

oh, how i've missed you. without ram nothing worked...tons of pictures sat on your hard drive just waiting to be showcased, shared with friends and family. stories and tidbits of our life have begged to be blogged, so i promise to give you love more often...because i love this blog...the place i call home in the great big world wide web!!!!

xoxo

anywho, okay...my computer is fixed...healed. back from the black hole it was in for a couple of weeks-thank the good lord in heaven above. i feel like a new person!!! we are all backed up, pictures stored safely on an external drive. so we are back and feelin' safe and secure for a while longer:)

i could blog about any number of things tonight, but i will start with beckham's latest accomplishment...

can you guess?

i wish i could show you how proud his face is when he gets that bike moving!!! it is precious. he such a big boy now. we are so proud of his sweet, sweet heart. i really can not believe that this little boy is for real...with all of his sweet gestures and love he gives to all of us everyday! we are so very proud of him!!!

xoxo

so much more to write to but off to see good friends and laugh the night away, maybe watch a little

american idol finale...GO Kris!!!!!

peace.

all i need is...

...and more RAM!

(house quiet, coffee in hand, thoughts of how good this day is going to be running through my mind...hmmm, maybe i'll do a mother's day post on my blog. yes, right now. i know exactly the photos i will post. can't wait!)

...two minutes later

no collages of my kids or pictures of my mom on the beach with my kids-not today anyway.

i never realized i would ask jeff for more RAM on mother's day versus something cooler like a new hat for the beach, or a picnic basket, or a gift cert to buy new make-up. asking for RAM is like spending money on a new washer or dryer or new roof! ya know, stuff you need,

but don't want to spend your money on.

all that aside, happy mother's day to my mom and to my grandma for having my mom-

because i adore my mama!!!

also, to my mother-in-law for having such a sweet son.

i love you all very much.

and to my babies...for making me a mommy!

dreams do come true and they are called peyton and beckham.

my babies...you two steal my heart everyday. i love you so much.

we are off to spend the day together. going to enjoy the paradise we live in...the beach.

RAM or no RAM, camera or no camera (mine is now officially dead...heavy sigh)...

today is a good day because, indeed, all you really need is love!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

my little guy.

he laughs. he loves. he plays. he innocently says things to us that make us throw our heads back and laugh until our sides hurt. he coyly smiles back and then repeats what he just said because he knows...we're listening.

he does so much more than i could ever imagine a two and a half year old (he will officially be two in a half years old in 4 days!) could do. he learns so much from his big sister. she teaches him everything that she knows to do. some good, some not so good. he just seems so grown-up lately. not like my baby boy. 'my baby boy,' that is what i call him. every single night and a few times a day, i ask him, "who are you? you're mommy's what?" he'll look at me, smile shyly, pull up both of his shoulders, tuck the right corner of his chin down into his chest and say, "mommy's baby boyyyyyy!!!!" he sings it. makes me happy. it's precious and it fills me up like nothing else can.

i could go on and on about how special beckham is to us. i could talk for ten pages full all the little things beckham does and says...his little nuances and habits and things that make up beckham darwish, but i won't. not today. right now peyton wants to have a pretend wedding with me and beckham is the 'daddy!' peyton has it all worked out! so i have to hurry to get this post done.

one of the many things that beckham likes to do: cook!

one day while peyton was at school, beckham wanted to make cupcakes.

"cupcakes, mommy! i want to make cupcakes! Pleeeeze?!"

i told him we didn't have cake mix, but since he wouldn't take no for an answer, i got up to 'look' for the mix i KNEW we didn't have, to prove we didn't have it. however, sure enough i found a lone box at the back of my pantry closet also known as the black hole in my kitchen.

while we waited for the cupcakes to cook...beckham tried his hand at some painting!!!!

after that...those darn cupcakes still weren't finished filling the heart-shaped silicone cups with fluffy goodness, so we did a little dancing to lady gaga's poker face. check out his signature move on the last picture. he does that move, accompanied with, "rock-n-roll!" usually holding his sister's hannah montana guitar. pictures of all that to come later.

finally, beckham frosted his sweet confection. painstakingly placing a colored sprinkle one-by-one onto the frosted cupcake. cracked me up.

at last...

last night, while rocking him to sleep he said, "sing me my song mama!"

we have a few diiferent ones in regular rotation, so i just started singing the one i made up for him after he was born. the baby boy song.

"no, not that one."

.

i moved on to Here Comes the Sun...this had to be it. we played it the night he was born in the hospital. i rocked him at 3 am, in my hospital chair, the room was dark and light from the bright hosptial hallway was shining through the cracked door, singing him this song. hearing it takes me back to that night every time.

"no, that one one mama. my song."

.

so tried one more, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

to my amazement...he started to sing with me. not just the tune, but the words. he wasn't mumbling the words...he was singing the words with conviction. with purpose.

i clapped and when i did, he again, did his shoulder/chin/proud & shy smile thing. he was so proud of himself. we did it again and again. i know he should have been sleeping by then, but hey, how often does your little one learn the words to a song.

.

one day soon, we won't even want to sing this song anymore. i know all the big kid independence, i'm too cool for my mom stuff will be here soon enough. for now...i'll bask in the mutual adoration we have one another. the bond we share as mommy and baby boy, the way he seems that he simply can not get enough of me. i'll take it as long as i can get it. i hope writing all of it down in my little digital diary keeps me from forgetting it one day.

i love you baby boy.

mommy's baby boy forever.

my bubs.