Mother's Day On The Water!

Today was part 2 of Mother's Day.

Today...

... was...

amazing.

I thought I'd start today with a tribute to my own mothers. Yes, plural. If you're just now tuning in to this itty bitty little life of me, hang on tight. Here's the super-abridged version:

I was born in the Philippines, to a mother who decided she would rather her child live a fulfilling, prosperous life than raise her in a world of intense poverty and instability. I was consequently adopted by an American family, which was, has been and still is spearheaded by the self-sacrificing, unconditionally-generous woman who I've called my mom for as long as I can remember. So yeah, I have 2 mothers; they are both two of my greatest heroes.

Today, I wanted to pay tribute to my adoptive mom and her mother, my Nana. These two women taught me some of the most fundamental things I learned in my early years. My Nana passed when I was 12, but I smile even bigger every time Sydni calls my mom, "Nana."

3 generations of love ♥

To start off our Mother's Day, we headed to SonRise, where we were able to witness a Sunday full of baby dedications and baptisms! The sun was shining bright today, giving signs that it was a perfect day for both of those things. AMEN!

baptisms @ sonrise

my coordinated little family..

After church, I attempted to take a family shot, but Sydni had the grump face plastered to her head because we'd told her we were heading out in the boat for the day.... and it wasn't happening fast enough. Haha.. rough life, kiddo.

But yes, we did vote yes to boating for the afternoon. We stood and cotemplated the skies for a bit, and after a little while decided that the worst that could happen was us turning back around and heading home. So off we were, for Sydni's first time on the lake!

To say she was excited is a bit of an understatement... She finally got to sit in the front seat!

little stingray girl!

Sydni took to the boat like she does to just about everything else: seamlessly. Five seconds out of the loading area and she looked like she'd done this a million times.

oh, just another day, eh? ;)

happy mother's day, to me!

We cruised out to a cove, where Rob went flying off the back of the boat, and Sydni shortly behind him. They're both crazy; it might be May, but the water felt even colder today than it did when we had our last crowd with us. Little fishies don't mind though; I remember being a kid, unbothered by frigid water, and wondering then why all the grown-ups just wanted to stand around and watch. Now I get it ;)...

because we left her pretty life jacket at home, this will do!

i'm ready, mommy!

leap!

big & little fish ♥♥♥

Some footage:

Love them. Back on the boat, we set our sights on a little cruise around the place. Sydni got her first lesson in functional steering today, and I must say she didn't do half bad! On a side note, I heard a news brief on the radio earlier about a mother who passed out while driving, and her 8-year-old daughter steered the car to safety. The daughter later told police that she knew "kinda how to do it," because she'd been allowed to steer the tractor and lawnmower sometimes. This, folks, is one of the reasons I love these kinds of small lessons. My kid will be able to steer this boat on her own by the time she's 8 [not that she will, but I'm just saying...], and won't be panicking on a quad or a lawnmower, either... I can guarantee that.

Plus, she looks adorable doing it!

mini driver!

cruisin' around!

More footage of my little boater:

"You mean THAT cone??"
Hahaha.. I love her.

More lounging around on the boat.. checkin' out the itty bitty fishies swimming under our feet..

the best mother's day yet! ;)

On our way back in, Sydni expressed her frustration at the very idea of a no wake zone. We explained to her the logic behind it, in a way that she then re-defined. Frankly, I like her idea better, all logic and reasoning aside ;)

In case you couldn't hear over the boat motor [dangit!], Sydni is explaining to me which parts of the water the SUN is allowed to touch. When the sun touches it, it wakes up. When it doesn't, it's sleeping, and therefore is in the no wake zone. The sun's not allowed to touch anything inside the floating cones. We'll worry about correcting her when it matters; today's not that day though, amiright?!

Back at  home, it was some big relaxing in order, and that's exactly what we've done. Sydni is playing with the dogs, Rob's gotten everything from the boat put back in its place, and I'm well into the last round of laundry.

Thank you, Rob for giving Sydni and me the most perfect Mother's Day experience I could've imagined. You are the best!

Happy Mother's Day, to the rest of my fellow moms out there - AND to the dads who are on a solo mission right now - your TIME & PRESENCE is more important than any amount of money you could ever give.. I celebrate all of you who give of yourselves every day for your children!!

Love & More Love!

xo | cmd

!! WEDDING BONANZAS !!

Where to start?!

Today.. was... AWESOME.

First, Sydni and I got to lounge around and do all of nothing while Rob set off on his mission of a Mother's Day surprise for me. Long story short, he scooted off in my car to get my surprise, which turned out to be a new windshield and tires! Talk about a lucky girl. It was making me crazy having that giant crack in my windshield for two weeks, and I needed to upgrade the tires, too... and I have a guy here who gets boyfriend of the year for that alone ;). THANK YOU, Rob ♥. You're. The. BEST.

After my excitement over my car was expressed, I took care of some last minute errands, dropped Sydni off at her dad's, and came back home to get ready for the long-awaited evening: The DOEBLER WEDDING!

*Squeaaaaal!!!

Pictures, you say? Okay. Here ya go!

oh, the anticipation!!! seated & ready to go!

this girl came in right behind us (: yay, kim!

omgomgomgomgomg, they're married!!!

& From the DOEBLER Cocktail Hour..

pinay power mode with jen ;)

my beautiful former roommate trisha

& moving upstairs, to

The DOEBLER Reception!!

gorgeous.

fun!

I took my best friend to the wedding:

love. him.

muahh♥

We were seated at Table 5.

This was on our table:  

#catieandandy!

Fine. You asked for it!

#CATIEANDANDY | #TABLE5

#CATIEANDANDY | #TABLE5

catie & the ladies [minus ravae] of #TABLE5 ♥♥♥♥♥
.... #CATIEANDANDY hehe..

 >>> Hello, Mrs. DOEBLER! <<<

loooooove!!!! ♥♥♥



me. catie. jen

You know it's a good party when you don't have that many pictures [which kinda stinks, but we got some, and that's what matters!]





this guy♥





catie & her mama

related, you think? ;)

with the gorgeous bride!

I LOVE a good party. 

 

Catie & Andy,
THANK YOU for including us to join in and celebrate your WEDDING! We had a BLAST, and love you both to the moon & back. xoxoxo. Cheers to a LIFETIME of everything that makes you two what you are as a unit, and all the love & laughter that comes with it!!

Love love & more love,
Corin & Rob

 

The Doebler wedding was of course the spotlight of our night, but I have two other sets of lovelies in my life who were also married today!!

 

To Suzie & Adam, your pictures were GORGEOUS! I hope Louisville is treating you well & wish you all the very, very best! ♥

mr. & mrs. sabin

Aaaaand, Jay & Trey! After just being at your house earlier this week, I wouldn't have recognized it with the gorgeous setup you had! Congratulations to both of you!!! Wishing you two generations of love & happiness!♥

jay & trey

Oh man.. what an amazing, love-filled day for basically ALL of us! Wedding season is upon us, folks... and I love it.

 

Congratulations to ALL the newly-weds!

And happy weekend to the rest of you!

 

xo | cmd

"Yeah, But What IF....?"

I'd be willing to gamble that anyone with children has at one point heard,

"Yeah, but what iiiiiiiiiiif

      [fill in the blank with just about anything here]     ???"

It's part of the daily questioning here at our house, usually the promptings of silly wanderings in Sydni's imagination. Since she's a 4-year-old little girl, the Disney princesses are also a very frequent topic of conversation.

Today we found a what if that involved some of the classic Disney gals.

.... Perfect.

Disclaimer: Because someone out there is bound to run across this and declare that I've opted to take credit for everything below, know this: These are NOT my original ideas, drawings or finished products. There. These are from the creative genius of Tumblr gal lettherebedoodles; we just found them fun enough to share. #lettherebedoodles, in case you're into all that hashtaggish stuff, too. ;)

Anywho, here's the fun that is the re-imagined version of the Disney royalty: 

snow white

cinderella

jasmine

aurora

ariel

pocahontas

belle

I thought those were fun! Of course there was the slew of feedback bashing the ethnic translations of each one for whatever supposedly racist innuendo, but frankly, I'm choosing to believe that this gal perhaps just wanted to play around with her creative side, rather than wage some sort of anti-[insert culture here] war. I visited her page, and nowhere in this post did she claim that the re-created versions are the better of the two, or that hers are the way they should've been, etc. I've decided not to read into this on a political or racial level; I think the artist here is talented and just had some fun with this!

 

Sydni had fun checking these out, too, which I enjoyed. A childlike approach to the smallest things, without a 50-page dissertation on why they are or are not correct, is refreshing. (:

 

Also.... the weekend's HERE!

Enjoy!

 

xo | cmd

Crafty Cards & A Four-Year-Old Four Wheeler

Elisa and I did something today that we've never done before.
We... played.. hookie.

Okay, so that's kind of what we told ourselves, but really all we did was take a dual lunch break and make a pitstop at Findlay Market. I gave Becky & Mike a heads up that we would be stopping by, and the four of us had a chance to chat over some gelato for a few minutes.

Oh, and there are hanging glass terariums at Market that give me the urge to transform my entire house into a gallery of tiny hanging succulent bulbs.

love!

And cacti:

d'awwwww (:

Sure, we made it back to the office in a reasonable amount of time, but for the sake of pretend rebellion, yeah, we went there. ;)

Anyway, with Monday gone to Sydni and my play-doh party, Tuesday gone to the circus episode of retrieving brick pavers, and last night gone to volleyball, I was left with tonight to start and finish the production of our Mother's Day cards.

So,

THANK YOU, PINTEREST. 

I had the format for these ready to go in my head on like, Sunday night, with every intention of having them completed and in the mail by Tuesday at the latest. Oh well.

They're done, we're happy, and here they are (:

to my mom ♥

open

front & top views

And the personalized but still mass-produced outcome?

dawne. mom. kate. mindi. carolyn.
"[some of] the moms"

add a little bit of a personal touch! ;)

While I was finishing the last bits of final touch on the cards, Sydni got bored and wandered outside to help Rob with the yardwork and re-arranging he was doing. It wasn't long before I heard, "Mooooommmmyyyyyyy!!!!!" It wasn't the panicked cry, rather that mischevious inflection that sounds more like, "Mmooooooommyyyy..." I opened the back door and found a giggly girl and Mr. Rob doing loops in the backyard.

i. friggin. love. them. ♥♥♥♥♥

They're amazing.

We're some happy people in this house, tonight ;)

Happy Thursday!!!

 

xo | cmd

Becky's At the Beach!

Today was a pretty decent day!

First, it was warm out all day. Like, super warm. It's finally starting to feel like SUMMER! That's a lot of fun of course when you're not clad head-to-toe in office clothes, but it didn't take long before work passed by and the league players at Hahana Beach started trickling in for some sun, sand and ball.

Kalyn had a work function tonight, and poor Beth is still trying shake off a bug, so it was just Chad and I left to hold down our team for the tournament brackets. Fortunately, we pulled in Paul, who has always been our go-to guy since Kalyn and I played on a team with him. The problem is that Kalyn and I are notoriously awful at having female friends, therefore our options for another girl sub were pathetically limited. We came up with Becky and....... yeah, Becky was pretty much it. I put the feeler out there to see if she'd do it, and luckily enough, she begrudgingly obliged.

No, she didn't really want to play.
Yes, she did it because she's an awesome friend like that.
AND...
... by the time the night was over, we could barely peel her off the sand.

She loved it! I figured she would, but I don't blame her for being self-conscious about her volleyball skills since she doesn't regularly play and hasn't touched one since high school. However, as with really every other sport she touches, she was great and I love that she came out (:

Here are two super-duper blurry pictures to capture tonight.. haha:

take 1

take 2 - still blurry.
... whatever

Oh well :p.

We had a blast. Mike and Rob joined us to hang out, eat dinner and cheer us on. Our first game was scheduled at 6:15pm, and this sucker's backdated because our clan finally rolled out of the place around 12:30.... AM. Haha.

This is what summer's gonna look like, and I can't wait!

xo | cmd