Dad's Birthday Bash

Loaded post, heeeere we go!

Today was Dad's birthday celebration! I'll cut to the chase, since it's been a long day and I want to make sure I get everything in here ;)


First things first. Yoga.
There is something I can't translate into words about how... perfect it is here in the mornings.

#yogaeverydamnday

Once the rest of the family was up and at it, we started in on breakfast preparation. Dad wanted birthday pancakes, so he led the way alongside the best little helper in the house.

Soon Nana came and scooted him from kitchen to patio table setup, and consequently picked up where he left off in the pancake mixing. After all, she made the stuff...

This was Sydni's reaction when I told her that the entire family was coming, and that we'd voted her responsible for making a "bajiiiiiiillion" pancakes:

"uhhhh.. no way, mom"

^My adorable little mad scientist!

Moving on.. Did I tell you Sydni and my parents have formed a band? It's uhhh.. a joyous sound - we'll just put it that way, haha. Just kidding. They love every second of the ruckus..

Nana & Pappy even purchased water balloons to add to the fun. We never actually got around to the water part, but Sydni showed us how to properly inflate and flash-deflate them.

moments before she let go & sent it flying!

It wasn't long before my sister, nephew, niece & great nieces [whaaaat?!.. yeah] arrived. From there on out until the time they left, it was picture time, badminton time and celebration time.

emmie & sydni
model & photographer in training!

ya gotta start somewhere... ;)

my sister heidi & her granddaughters, along with my mini-me

joyful hanny!
precious little great-niece of mine ♥

sweet moment between heidi & hanny

silly sister candid moments

the big girls emmie & sydni chasing bubbles around the yard

mom & rob

sweet little hanny

my compassionate little girl & spanky, the 21-year-old cat
we adopted as a kitten, when i was a child ♥

lady cornhuskers [minus the other two big girls]

my better half ♥♥

♥ sisters.

no makeup, no fuss, no worries.
♥

Last but certainly not least [& disappointingly sans Sydni, who insisted that she wanted no more pictures. In her defense, she was a trooper for the rest of the day!] - the celebration of my dad. Happy birthday, to you! We LOVE you! 

happy birthday, dad!

I love this family of mine. I'm still not over the fact that Sydni wasn't in that last picture, but she sure made Pappy's weekend by being there for his birthday party.

We're en route back to Cincinnati now and looking to take it easy for the rest of the night. It feels like a Sunday but I'm thankful we still have one more day. Here's to the rest of the weekend!

xo | cmd

My F A M I L Y

We were up early again today, and off to church with my parents. It took a bit of coaxing to get Sydni into the Sunday School class, but by the time the service was over, she'd found her place and even brought home a tiny little trophy for the morning.

haha.. look at the mischief on her face!

After church, we took a tiny little tour via Dad around some of the hotpoints of good old MTV, then headed back to the house. The camera came out, and I promise that once I get the actual edits done, I'll re-post the less-shadowy versions of these.

For now, HERE!

"... to the moon & back, mommy.. i love you!"

Here's the "bench series" haha..

my beautiful little girl

playing with her animals

hello, favorite people!

pappy & nana with syd!

We moved from the bench to the porch... 

my family.



i love them more than i'll ever be able to express.

And finally, we made our way onto the front steps!

these are my favorite moments!!

Sydni showed off two very contrasting sides today: Sweet & Something-Like-Sour?:

my sweet little plant-loving girl

... & the homegrown bumpkin who will knock your teeth out
if she catches you trespassing.. hahaha

How I love this girl. How I love my family.

It wasn't long before Rob and I were loaded up and back on the road to Cincinnati. Syd's hanging back with my parents for a mini vacation there; she's gonna come back mid-week spoiled as all get out, I'm sure. ;)

Again, we can skip the details [or lack thereof] of the commute back to Cincinnati, and hop right to the part where we were home for less than five minutes when Becky came pulling up. She'd been watching the pups over the weekend, and so the three of us decided it was a good a reason as any for some take out sushi from Mango Tree.

helloooooo from mango tree!

Nope.. there's nothing wrong with today, except that Syd didn't come back with us... but I know my parents are overjoyed to have her for a few days. Life's good. (:

xo | cmd

[Satur]Day of Play!

Today's Highlight Reel:

1. Good morning, happy pup!!
>>> Stella is the stoic of the two, and since she rarely smiles to express herself, this was a rare glimpse of the cheesy face I love so much!

stella pittie!

2. Breakfast! Nom Nom Nom...
>>> I woke up with a craving for French Toast. So, I made French Toast.

delish!

3. Princess Cycling Gear.
>>> We broke out the bicycle for her first spin of the season at the house. We discovered some new parts of the neighboring areas and Syd proved she's just about ready for the training wheels to be weened away!

go go go!

4. Fields of Golden Flowers.
>>> Or, just our yard. While it certainly looks pretty, these little buddies will unfortunately disappear in the next couple of weeks when the lawn mower comes out. 

still kinda pretty ;)

 That meant some serenading [of the Frozen soundtrack, duh] from my theatrical little monster.. ♥

let it GOOO

candid running faces.. haha

more uh... jazz hands?

field of little flowers (:

5. The Scariest Donut I've Ever Seen.
>>> In a moment of extraordinary weakness, I caved and bought this disgusting star-shaped, overly-frosted, sprinkle & gummy crap-covered thing for Sydni. I had zero intentions of letting her eat this entire donut, but she was being good and caught me in a moment of generosity, so yeah. If you're wondering, I took one tiny bite of this thing and decided it was just as disgusting as it looks. I really don't know how people could eat these things all the time and not have heart attacks. Oh, well...

goooood grief.

6. My Family.
>>> These two are my everything.  Today it was team turquoise, apparently.. haha.

my little world ♥

7. Grilling Out With Becky!
>>> An impromptu visit from Becky, who joined us for dinner, suffered a gigantic foot splinter from our deck and still agreed to come back and dogsit for us. There rarely are better friends. (: Hopefully my bribing of homemade mac n' cheese along with Rob's perfectly-grilled chicken & potatoes were enough to alleviate the unfortunate 2.5" splinter that she had to remove from her foot.. haha.

best way to recover from giant splinters?
.... cloudgazing, apparently (:

So aside from gigantic fragments of our deck splintering off into our guest's foot, I suppose we have no complaints from today. Thankfully it was Becky, who is probably my most durable friend. Haha.

Splinter is gone, sun is fading and everyone's happy again. (:
That's a good Saturday!

xo | cmd

Newport Aquarium & Stanbery Park

We had a blast today.
Between Nana & Pappy's visit with us to the Newport Aquarium, followed by lunch and a romp in the park, we are a tuckered-out little duo.

I gave the D90 some exercise today as we journied through the land of fishies, sharks & all things quirky at the aquarium.

Here's that story:


rawr.

^ We'll start with the first reason Sydni was excited to get to the NA today. Haha. My four-year-old wanted to see the sharks. I'm thankful that we're past the phase of being terrified by them swimming up to the glass, so I gladly embraced her request to stand in the water tunnels for ten minutes each. Hah.

shark rays

more sharks & shark-esque creatures..

We found some divers in the shark tanks..

up close & personal

.. so Sydni wanted to give it a whirl.

shark petting

^ Close enough. Haha. We'll take an actual dive with some swimmers when she gets the hang of the whole swimming thing herself. We're super close, but just not quite there yet.

lionfish

My personal favorites - pufferfish!

awhhh ;)

We found beautiful creatures everywhere. There were dots, spots, stripes, squiggles and all kinds of other patterns. 

spots & patterns everywhere!

And things that glowed in the dark..

jellyfish gardens!

And things that live in the dark... which, btw NA, you may want to move the No Flash Photography sign a bit lower... Luckily I knew this but there were plenty of folks today that certainly didn't see it. Poor octopus :/

octopus!

We saw some distant relatives, too - some who travel by land, and some by sea.

shelled beauties!

.. And some who do both (:


emperor penguins

taking a break to photograph a couple humans on the adventure

There's always of course at least one celebrity:

"mighty mike"

^ We found a sun-bathing groupie croc on the upper deck of Mighty Mike's tank; Mighty Mike is the 800-lb, 14-ft-long alligator who travels to various aquariums for us to admire. Sydni is about the size of his head. Crazy!

my girl ♥

I snagged at least one picture with mini before we called it a day at the aquarium. Our next stop was lunch at Bar Louie and then on home to unwind for a little bit before my parents had to head back home. The weather forecast has been buzzing with nothing but warnings for this impending winter storm, so Nana & Pappy made sure to get their driving out of the way before it all started to settle in. We'll see them again soon.

To ease the abrupt absence of Nana & Pappy, Sydni and I decided to squeeze just a little more juice out of the beautiful weather. We trekked the whole mile or so up the road to the park and spent the last few hours of daylight romping around the playground.

she's so busy!

love. those. smiles.

I have no complaints on the day, other than selfishly,  I wish Rob had been here to enjoy it all with us. There will be plenty of others, though. (:

From us to you, happy weekend!!!

i love you, forever & ever.

xo | cmd