life

is flying by!!

Last weekend Ryan and I and five other couple got together to do Ragnar. It's a 200 mile relay made up of 36 different legs, so each runner runs three legs. Since we were all (with the exception on one couple ;) ) married, we were The Honeymooners.

Our tag line was "You've been Honeymooned!" and there might have been some mooning involved.

Kaylani, Jasmyn and I. We took our flagging job seriously. (you needed a flag while crossing the road - new safety regulations)

We had friends nice enough to let us use their huge Excursion, and we still managed to fill it to the brim.

Dunzo!!! It took us 32 hours. We might not have been the fastest team, but we sure had fun!

This picture cracks me up, not only because of what the boys are wearing, but because Ryan's furthest from the camera and looks tiny. Plus Joel just throws the scale off. hehehehe

When I picked Drake up from school Friday, he was still napping. I love it when I get to go in and wake him up, and he's all sweaty and tired. But I had to get a picture of him in all of his dirty boy glory. The back of his shirt was way worse. It had mud and dirt all down him.

Then Friday night we took the kids to the drive ins to see Rango. It was pretty cute, and we figured it was a good idea to see it at the drive ins because it's so dang cheap! (kids under 5 are free (Drake) and 5-12 are $1 (Gwen)) then Ryan and I had two re-admit passes, so we were free. So if Range stunk (which it didn't, it was okay) then we weren't out much. After Rango, Ry and I decided to let the kids sleep in their car seats while we stayed around for the free double feature. We saw Unknown. It was soo good! Then we were on a movie high, and SHOCKED that i was still awake, so we decided to push our luck and stay around for The Adjustment Bureau. Another good one, but Unknown was better. So we didn't get home til 2:15 am!!! We're party animals.

But we were feeling it Saturday morning when we had to wake up early to get the kids to their soccer games. It was Gwenny's first soccer game.

She's #24, and she did AWESOME!!

My cute little soccer babies.

After soccer we went to the Collards to party with Kit for his third birthday.

Then in the evening we took the kids miniature golfing at Golfland.

They were so cute and actually did pretty good.

You can't tell much in this picture, but Drake's trying to squint one of his eyes. Here's the story. About six months before Ryan and I met, he got Bell's palsy, which basically was damage to a nerve in his face which has affected the the left side of his face. The lasting effect shows when he smiles, his left eye squints. Well Drake has been trying to be like his daddy, and that means he's been trying to squint an eye when he smiles for pictures. Cute boy!

boys

The retro run. I let myself down with my efforts to put together an 80's outfit. I meant to hit up the thrift stores Friday night, but I got to watch cute little Mason, and I'm no longer brave enough to go shopping with a newborn.

It wasn't my best 5k, but luckily it wasn't other females 20-29 either, so I ended up with second place. Ryan did well, and blew my time away. Unfortunately for him, the male folk 30-39 ran like the wind, so he didn't podium, but he did place 4th in his age group! Good job Ryan.

Also this weekend, my sister in law Molly, had baby number 5! Lewis Michael Jorgensen. He was 8 pounds 10 ounces, that was Drake's weight at birth. Also, my sister in law, Emily, found out she's having a boy! This is particularily exciting since they have three girls and Gavin's out numbered. All this has had me thinking how much I love having a little boy.

Here's my little monkey man, just a couple days old. He's such a little snuggler. And I figured out the difference between a son and a daughter, Gwen loves me, but Drake's IN LOVE with me. Aww, I love my babies.

I'm so retro

I've aged myself. Yesterday I was talking to a friend at school about how I'd do my reading while watching "Must See TV". As the words were coming out of my mouth, I realized I hadn't heard it called that in a long time. I remember being in highschool and every Thursday night we'd go to Jasmyn's house for must see tv. You know, Friends, Seinfeld, Will and Grace, all those good shows. I could tell that he hadn't heard of NBC's Thursday night shows called Must See TV. Wow, didn't realize things have changed so much.

Also, tomorrow Ryan and I are doing the Retro Run, where you're supposed to dress retro. Okay, does that mean 'fros, bell bottoms, tie dye and peace signs?? No! They specified 80s! The 80's are retro now!

I have to face it, I'm getting old. The other day I heard a friend had to explain to her daughter what camera film is. Weird.

While I'm on a tangent, I'll take this time to inform those who might not know, when you say "et cetera" (etc.) the T is before the C! I'm currently in a training and the trainer keeps saying "excetera", and it's not giving her much credibility. Okay, now I'm going to start paying attention to her.

lovers day

Well, I checked my phone, and unfortunately I only got two pictures from Valentine's Day. But they're good ones!

Here I was so excited to see this young man exiting the light rail on his way to school. He made my day even better (and mind you I woke up to my Valentine giving me a watch and perfume!!). This gentleman is probably about 6'3", but maybe you wouldn't have guessed by his 18" legs!! I mean his femur is almost non existent! His bum sits on top of his knees. Oh, wait, maybe his pants are just falling down? Anyhow, this made me happy.

Next up: Valentine pizza for my Valentines. Drake especially. He will poo poo just about everything I make, except for pizza and cookies. This was so yummy. If you can, never make pizza unless you use fresh mozzarella. It makes such a difference!

Okay, now back to school work.

metal mouths

My friend Alison reminded me I totally forgot to blog about my poor babies dental trip. Last week they went in for a dental exam after Gwen chipped her tooth and we could see she had a huge (pronounced UGE, mind you) cavity. Nice. So they go in for a check up. Gwen has the one big cavity and will need a silver cap, and Drake has SIX freakin' cavities!!! So they scheduled an apt, for an early appointment so we could bring them in with empty tummies ready to be drugged.

Here's my boy, in lala land, watching Sponge Bob in the ceiling, getting ready to be drilled.

So two of Drakes teeth the dentist decided would need silver caps too. So he now has two "Iron Man" teeth. Much to Ryan's dismay. But really, how did it get this bad!?? We make sure they brush!! Although I concede that I should be more on Drake's sneaking food and candy into his room, because naturally if I know he sneaks it in there, he'll eat it at night after his teeth are brushed.

Oh man, was this girl funny! She was falling out of her chair, and talking and singing to herself. She even threw in some "mommmmmmmyyyyyyy, my face feeeeeeeelss funnnnnny!" Just look at her stoned out of her mind!

We had to get some Jamba Juice for these little ones since they weren't allowed to eat real food. After all, with how numb they were, they'd have chewed their cheeks to pieces.

Look at my Gwenny, passed out in front of the heater. These kids were loopy for hours. And the kids now have better brushing habits. (Like Drake brushes his teeth for longer than 5 seconds, and they HAVE to do a fluoride rinse after brushing)

weekends rule

And it's not even over yet!!

I have some awesome friends! And we (and our husbands) all went out last night for a fancy schmancy Valentine's Day dinner at The Capital Grille. Too bad we didn't get a group picture. Why didn't we ladies?!?

Then this morning, I skipped my long run for Drake's first soccer game. Seriously, I'm so selfish!! It was so hard for me to give up running Ethan's Run with my friends to go to Drake's very first ever soccer game. Poor boy. Your mom will work on being a better mommy I promise. But it was cute, and Drake was such a good little player. His team was 4 year olds who have never played soccer before, going up against 5 year old pros. (okay maybe they weren't pros, but even though these games aren't supposed to keep score, and just have fun, after every goal they'd get, they'd yell out the score that they're keeping in there head anyway, and do jumping chest bumps!! I'll bet half of the kids on our team couldn't even count to 12) I think the last score I heard these boys yell out was 17 to 0. But Drake was a cute little soccer boy, and even Gwen is interested in playing now.

Then we came home and I yelled at the kids until they helped me clean the house.

Then I took them to cash in the cans they have been collecting for months. These kids have been so funny! A while a go, the kids were wanting to earn some money. I told them they should start collecting cans. They'd walk around looking for cans to bring home. They'd dig them out of garbage cans at the park, and even yell out for me to stop the car in the middle of the road if they saw a can in the gutter. Well, the GIGANTIC, black, plastic lawn bag that's been bulging with cans in my laundry room for months, was finally ready to go.

(feel free to click on the picture to see what Gwen's necklace says!)

(cute huh? she made it)

We went down to the local sketchy recycle place, and those babies made $9! They were ecstatic, and their desire to grab the random dirty half full beer can out of some stranger's yard has only been reinforced.

And now off to make more treats for the Vday.

Hope your Valentine's Day is full of hearts and pinkness.

Ours certainly will be.

XOXO

just jousting

This weekend the law school had a family BBQ at El Dorado park. It was so much fun, they had bouncy houses, relays, toys, jousting, etc. The kids had a blast (until the water balloon toss at the end and Gwen got soaked). It was the perfect day to be out at the park.Drake even knocked over some huge kid jousting (not this little boy here).
And Gwen made a friend too, but needs to learn to not look at the camera when she's jousting.

Other weekend events took us to a good friend's birthday party where we were hypnotized!! Ryan had to pee really bad but his right foot was stuck to the floor. It wasn't really. I think the hypnotist was disappointed.

yumbelievable

I made these Lemon Ricotta cookies tonight, (I'll just stay up til one to do my school readings now) and holy smokes are they good! Supposedly they're kinda healthy too (in a cookie way) because they don't have a lot of butter, and you use skim ricotta. So you've got extra protein, calcium, less fat, but just as much sugar. I suppose if you wanted to get crazy you could use some stevia and whole wheat flour, but then they might taste like poo. Just my opinion.

I love the citrus time of year, and that I can just go out and pick a fresh lemon to zest up. Plus, I think I've eaten four oranges a day for the last couple weeks. I always want to live close to citrus!!

It's that time of year again!

VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!

It's my favorite! Everything is just so cute, and it's so nice to celebrate your love for your friends and family.

But also, V-day candy.

I can't complain about being able to buy a bag of Tootsie Pops that are ALL cherry flavored. I mean that's my favorite flavor!!

I'm currently on bag 4. I eat 3-4 everyday at school. My tongue pays a price, but it's worth it.

Also, the cinnamon hearts! They're like super soft cinnamon bears, but even better. $1 a bag at Fry's. Also, on bag #4.

But these are my favorite!!

That may be a picture of cinnamon imperials, but that's not what I'm talking about. These are about the size of a quarter, and thick. I don't remember the brand, but you can get them at William's Sonoma this time of year, $12/bag, and again, sooo worth it!! They just melt in your mouth and have the BEST spicy cinnamon flavor to them.

I just may have to make a trip out to the mall tomorrow!

So in closing, I love V-day candy, and who needs new year resolutions anyway?!

Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon 2011

Ryan did it!!! His first half.

And he did great! 2:01:42. That's on a week and a half of training people.

(and no I don't have a tumor on my back, that's my running fanny pack!)

We stayed together the whole time, listening to the mix that Tara and I stayed up the night before putting together.

Which brings me to my next thought. Apple needs to have blue tooth or something between ipods. We spent the first half of our run trying to synchronize our music. We finally gave up and gave in to my music being only a half a second ahead of Ryan's.

Next thought. There's a lot of nice people out there. Like the two guys that we had take pictures of us at the finish and then email them to us because we forgot our camera/phone. Thanks a lot anonymous photographer.

what I haven't been up to

How we've spent our Christmas break:

School starts again on Tuesday. I'm not ready to go back. I've loved this break too much. I STILL haven't read Mockingjay, and still haven't finished my cabinets, I still haven't completed my internship application paper. But I've snuggled my babies like crazy.

But this break will go out with a bang. My girl friend and I were planning on running the Rock 'n' Roll half this weekend, but she went and got pregnant dang it. (I'm really jealous) So I've talked Ryan into doing it with me. (running, not baby making) This will be his first half marathon. I'm excited!

2011

9:30pm, kids asleep.

11:45 pm, Martinellis and nachos!

Number of resolutions already broken: 2.

Christmas

It's so strange. Since I've been out of school, I rarely get on the computer. It's been a surprisingly nice break from the internet. But I couldn't let Christmas pass without a little blogpost.

I'll just let this picture say it all.

One of the best Christmases yet!

Thanks and stuff

Turkey day started with a nice little turkey trot with the McPhies in South Chandler. It was fun, but oh so cold!

Dad cutting the turkeys, he even BBQd one of them. Yum yum.

The Taylor's came down for Thanksgiving, and of course we love it when they come to town!

We took the kids to see Tangled (darling movie!!) and then to see the big tree at Tempe Marketplace.

And naturally the day after Thanksgiving we put up the Christmas tree! The kids were so excited!! I totally bribed them to clean up their rooms and the family room by telling them we couldn't get out the Christmas decorations until the house was clean.

Drakey boy got to place the star this year.

we sure have a lot to be thankful for this year, like all the stress right now because finals start next week. Thankful for that because it means the semester is almost over!!

El Tour

Last Friday night we went to the Zoo Lights with our friends the Stewarts.

Apparently one of the monkey escaped and put on Gwen's clothes.

Then Gwen and Drake got to spend the night at the Stewarts because early the next morning Ryan and I loaded up our bikes and headed down to Tucson.

We had some good company. Gavin, Emily and Emily's sister Sari did it too.

And I know my helmet looks funny sitting up on the top of my head like that. But that's what you get when you have a $15 Walmart helmet.

At mile 6, we all had to get off our bikes and carry them through a dry creek bed. Even a 14 pound bike gets really heavy after a 1/3 mile hike.

At about mile 45.

People along the way kept telling me they liked my pony tail. I'd say thanks in a weird way, because what's so cool about a pony tail? Apparently this is what they were talking about. It was tucked into my number and didn't know it.

All done! We did the 66 mile course this year, but have our sights on the 109 for next year!

It was so much fun, but I missed my babies so much! When we finally got back into the valley, it was about 9:00 pm. The kids were with the Stewarts for 24 hours! But when we walked in, the kids were disappointed that it was time to go home, and wanted to stay longer. They had SUCH a good time! Thanks Drew and Amy!

just an average day

at ASU!!

You might have to click on the picture to see that this guy's rear is entirely out of his pants! Pure boxer butt hanging out. But here's the best part. As they're passing me, (and there are several people around to hear this too) he says to her, "I can't wait to do you!"
Lovely.

oh dear

Today, this...


led to this...

Don't worry, no one was hurt, and the monkey bread survived! But now I have burnt carmel sauce all over the bottom of my oven.

Oh, and my Shepherd's Pie was cooked to mush.

Mixing it up

Okay, so the Ramblings of a Punk Rock Princess thing is way too old. I mean I never talk music on this blog, I'm so out of the loop with that anyway. I think the last show I went to was Owl City last year!? I just don't have time anymore. That should be the name of my blog! I don't have time anymore. Like right now, I'm wasting time blogging when I should be writing a memo about what constitutes "knowing possession" and "conspiracy". But to be honest, I'd rather chew my arm off. Well, only if I could grow another one back. Instead I'll just change up the blog and go to sleep. Good night!

go Ryan

Casa Grande Triathlon 2010.
And I was on the sidelines. As much as it pained me to only be a spectator, it was Ryan's turn to do a race and have his family there to support him. And Ryan did really well. But I don't think we should take all the credit, although we were really good cheerleaders. ;)

Look at my adorable munchkins waiting for this thing to start. And notice the cow bell. I don't think anyone around us would have asked for more cow bell. Like I said, we were really good cheerleaders.

Drake kept making this face in all the pictures.

Ryan tearing through the water. Notice what a nice arm pit Ryan has. In his own words, "if you've got it, flaunt it." Well he's got it!

Coming in from the bike. And I know what you're thinking, "wow those water bottles coordinate with his bike so well!"

All done. My boys are silly. Good job Ryan!

And Ryan wasn't the only super star racer out there. Props also go out to Gavin (Ryan's brother who also did the triathlon) and Kaylani.