Impromptu photo session

Quick product post

I've found a new face cream that I love. It's this..

No icky parabens, petro chemicals, blah blah blah. I've never been terribly picky about that stuff but I did try to start reading labels when I was pregnant.  It's actually been hard to find more "natural" products that feel good.  Weird--my skin likes chemicals.  But I decided if I could find something I liked that was a little healthier, then great.  In the past I've used Estee Lauder's Hydra Bright (used to be Hydra Complete) and loved it for many years.  Love LaMer, but it's expensive and a little too perfumey for me.  I'd been using Keihl's recently and while I very much like Keihl's, it made my typically normal skin kind of oily. I would need to blot several times a day. Wasn't sure if I should attribute that to Keihl's or the fact that it's been a million degrees here and I'm constantly sweating.  Well, Origins seems to be a perfect balance.  I love this stuff -- my skin is hydrated and no blotting required.

I also tried this and fell in love.

I didn't think a tinted moisturizer would work for me because frankly, I like wearing makeup, but wow, do they all cover this well? This one feels light and covers so well, plus has SPF.  A good find!

A first and some random photos

 

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with the story below but this little butterfly follows the boys around and I had to snap her picture.  Little CJ named her Flower.  Aw.  PS.  I shot this in Manual and am so proud of myself.  I indulged in a 50mm 1.4 and I love it.

Anyhoo.  Earlier this week I took the boys to the movies for the first time to see Cars 2.  It was fun and hysterical and memorable (and I had my camera with me but it was so crowded I was too chicken to pull it out!).  We are steadily marking things off of our "Summer Fun" list.  There were about 6 million previews and I was sure we would never get to the main attraction.  The preview for "Puss in Boots" had CD a little concerned.  His exact words were "The huge cat is scary."  CJ was a little bothered by the loudness at first but after a while he got used to it and settled right in.  He was also a little concerned about the way the seats push down and flip up, so for the longest time he sat right on the edge of his seat and refused to scoot back.  Funny!!

Here's my review:  I thought the movie was really cute and the boys love their Lightning McQueen.  The plot seemed a little sophisticated to me (since I was having trouble keeping up for a while) and there was one stretch in the middle where the boys seemed to get restless, but overall we all really liked it.  I think the first Cars is still my favorite though.  But we made it the whole way through with no major drama.  Success!  Good memory:)  It was so fun to be at the movies with my boys.

Randoms: CJ loves this game on the iPad. If you touch the letter, animal, or word it sounds things out for you.  He loves it!

Boys being boys

I stare at my children all the time and am amazed I am their Mama.  I feel so blessed.  We are having such a great summer and these boys just love to run with wild abandon anywhere and everywhere. They just want to be outside.  They are constantly covered in mosquito bites and always have bruised up knees.  I love to see them get dirty and grimy like little boys should.  I snapped a few pics last night while we were sneaking in some playtime before bed.  Sad that this will be the little one's last summer of john-john's.  Where does time go?

On another note, little C is really doing great in swim lessons.  We tried one round of lessons in a group but it seemed C would benefit from one on one attention and it has made a huge difference.  Yesterday in just his 3rd class he swam the length of the pool on a noodle!  So proud of him.

Apparently I use the term "You better.." quite often because CD says it all the time.  He'll say, "I better go get my car" or "You better get me some milk".  Ha!

It seems someone is always picking a nose around here:) 

A Day at the Fair

Today we took the boys to the fair.  It was SO fun!  There were tons of rides for little ones.  A lot of the rides are the ones I remember from years of going to the Myrtle Beach Pavilion, oh good memories..  Of course there was no riding the Caterpillar or The Enterprise (my personal favorite), but the boys sure had fun on the little stuff!

We did some snow cone eating...

some motorcycle riding...

Please tell me you remember the scratchy fiberglass glitter boats?

Oh I love me a fair--I felt like a kid again!!!  We rode our first family ride together, the tea-cups..

Airplanes, carousels, we left nothing untouched!

It was so so fun to share this day with my sweet little boys.  I think we are going back so that Mama can ride this..Big C was laughing at all the warnings for this ride, "Please no recent surgeries, illness, heart problems, etc."... HA! It sure did look fun though. I dunno, maybe we will just go back for more snow-cones and funnel cakes:)

Excursions

I'm so terribly behind on posting lately... my parents visited last weekend and we went some cool places, one of which was the zoo.  They have a cool little place where you can feed the birds and I loved it, I mean, the boys loved it!

The zoo is neat because they do a great job of sharing its history.  There is a home on the property that was in someone's family for 5 generations and they donated it to the city with the stipulation that it be used to honor the environment and educate others.  It's such a gorgeous old house with outdoor kitchen, carriage house, huge garden, barn, etc.  I do not have a great picture of the house itself, shame on me, but we went for a tour inside and for antique lovers like my dad and I, it was heaven.  It was so fun to walk through a home that old with all of its original furnishings. Gorgeous handcrafted furniture, heavy moldings, neat old door knobs... etc.  Oh, and so fun for a 2 and 4 year old.  Quite possibly shaved a year off of my life protecting the antiques from my two rambunctious and curious boys.  But they did a great job with the promise of carousel rides for good behavior!

Excursion number 2 was to Antique Archaeology.  The dude from American Pickers owns it and we are big fans of the show.  It was pretty cool, we saw lots of stuff that we've seen on actual episodes.  Neato!

If you watch the show you might remember this old arrow...

I'm guessing they're going to make a few dollars on t-shirts if nothing else.  If you're on my Christmas list I hope you like American Pickers, ha!

Happy Birthday Big C:)

My sweet husband is a year older today. Hallelujah!! It's our little secret that I'm a tad older than CJ so his birthdays are especially happy days for me. hehe.  He's catching up;)

I'm going to try not to get too sappy.  C is our family hero.  He's a fabulous father and husband.  He's patient (although he might tell you that years of living with me is chipping away at his famous patience), he's kind, he's a good sport (one of the first things I loved about him), he's an incredibly hard worker, he's a great friend, son, brother, uncle, everything.  He is a fantastic cook.  He's a pizza snob (a New Yorker).  He's a gentleman.  He makes a mean egg sandwich and he loves a good New York deli.  He's fun.  He's thoughtful.  He's not perfect, but he's close.

He makes me a better person and the boys and I love him dearly.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET HUSBAND!!!

PS. Note to self: take more pictures with my husband!