The Wedding

Well this weekend we took a real road trip down to Zapata, TX for my cousins wedding. Road trip = fun right? Well not when you have a 3 and 1 year old. My perfect baby girl decided she would cry half of the way there. This is at least a 6 hour drive so in case you're not good at math that's 3 hours! It was like Chinese torture. And we counted....Matt said "Why?" 9,752 times on the trip...okay we really didn't count. But it was worth it to see all our family! The wedding was beautiful. Congratulations to my cousin Mario and welcome Mariamada to our crazy but amazing family! My Granny is quite old but still fairly heathly. We love each time we get to see her. When someone asked if she knew who I was she said, "No, but I know she's one of mine". That's just too cute and so is she.

I've devoted a lot of this blog to Marlie thus far but don't you worry....in real life Matt demands about 83% of our attention at all times! Let me tell you that my son is truly a rock star. We first realized this at my very dear friend Yuvette's reception. We hadn't planned on taking Matt that night but decided last minute we should because our babysitter (aka my Mom) wasn't feeling well. So she took Marlie and off we went with Matt. Note that my kids are in bed by 8:30 so any events after that time are pretty much destined to be disasters. So back to the wedding......Matt was the first one on the dance floor and at 11:00 he didn't want to stop. I think he provided entertainment for the 300 guests that were laughing hysterically at him. He is so serious about it and his moves are so wild.

So he was excited about this wedding. But when we showed up church he walked in and asked why no one was dancing. Then they played this upbeat Mexican music right before communion - odd but kinda fun - and he immediately jumped in the aisle and started dancing. So as you can imagine he danced his heart out at the wedding until midnight. When we finally got back to the hotel he said "partying makes you tired". At least he wasn't toasted like my fabulous husband who drank a little too much Crown and Coke. Let me note for the record that my husband is blast when he has a little buzz so all was good. Except when he tried to help 2 little 9ish year olds dance together not realizing that they were actually related.

Anyway the weekend was great and to top it all off Miss Marlie got the cutest gifts from her Godparents for her first birthday. From earrings to cute outfits to dresses and shoes....she puts Miranda in the Devil Wears Prada to shame! Thank you guys so much for everything!

Trip to Great Exuma

Well as you may or may not know I decided this year that I was going to retire from Continental. So we wanted to take one last trip with our flight benefits. The original plan was for Doug and I to get away. My Mom kindly agreed to watch the kids and then we thought.....it would be even better if she watched them on our vacation. Then we can have the best of both worlds. So last minute we found open flights to Great Exuma and I lucked into the greatest house on the beach. This house couldn't have been more perfect for us. The views were spectacular and the beach was heavenly. We'd wake up in the morning and eat breakfast, then head to the beach. When we got hungry we'd come up to the deck and have lunch. Then we napped and spent late afternoons back on the beach. The water was so warm in the evenings and the beach was shaded so it was perfect. Then we'd eat dinner back on the deck and dance around the house to Bahamian music afterwards. We'd put Marlie to bed and when it was dark we'd grab blankets and cuddle on the beach chairs just off the deck. The stars were amazing! Doug and I saw a shooting star that was so close to us. Matt had fun watching for shooting stars too although I'm not sure he really saw one.

I could go on for hours about this vacation. In the past when we've taken the kids on a trip we've come home and agreed they weren't traveling with us until Marlie was at least 3. But this was just different. Partly because my Mom helped us SO much. It wouldn't have been as wonderful without the kids or my Mom. But maybe next time Doug and I will go up one night before on our own! We WILL go back to that house again. Which is surprising because you know I'm a one-night-stand traveler. There are so many wonderful places in this world to see that I don't like to spend time revisiting places I've been. But we will for sure go back to Great Exuma and rent this house again.

If you'd like any info please send me an email at pamela_maziur@yahoo.com. I'm pretty sure I missed my calling and should have been a travel planner. I LOVE to plan vacations and would be happy to plan your Exuma trip.

This picture pretty much says it all. There are a few others in the slideshow but this is by far the best.

Marlie's First Birthday!

I cannot believe my sweet angel is 1! I love both of my children more than you can imagine (unless you have children yourself and then you can relate of course) but God blessed me with the sweet little girl that I've always dreamed of. Now...when she was born that's not how the story went. My epidural didn't take so they knocked me out. I woke up hours later and Doug kept telling me that I already had the baby and showed me a picture on the digital camera. It was the funniest looking baby I've ever seen so as the room spun I just closed my eyes and hoped I'd wake up again later to find my snow white. Well no such luck....she was pretty funny-looking. But that was then and this is now! My Snow White is here and she is an angel. Doug says she's sweet but a bit feisty like me. I think she looks exactly like my baby pictures! Everyone has always said that I look like my Mom and for some reason I hope Marlie looks like us too. Of course I hope she has the body structure of Doug's family.....you know they are "those" people that never spend a minute working out and eat cookies, chips and drink cokes and they look like they spend their lives on fabulous diets and in their home gym. Anyway...I guess my Mom and I have a special bond and I just pray that Marlie will one day think the world of me like I do of my Mom!

We celebrated Marlie's birthday a little early over Memorial Day weekend in San Antonio. Thank you to Doug's Mom for doing everything to prepare for this once in a lifetime event! Marlie doesn't seem to be much of a partier so I guess that's a good sign. She finally perked up as everyone was leaving. The rest of us had a great time on her behalf! Her favorite twins Hayden and Cale were there along with all her cousins! It was Marlie's first time in the pool this summer but we don't have a pic. My fault.

We celebrated her real birthday at home. This was my first real day off from work so I had this great idea to be Miss Pamela Homemaker and make a great dinner and semi homemade cake for her. Well if you know me at all I cannot cook to save my life (my poor husband - he grins and bares it sometimes and that's one of the reasons I love him). The chicken wasn't cooking right in the oven and have you ever frosted a chocolate cake with white icing? Well I don't like white icing but needed it for decorating purposes so this was a first. I guess there's a secret to doing it right that only 95% of the women in the world know and I'm part of the 5%. I've never liked being just part of the crowd. Anyway it turned out pretty ghetto and I'll go ahead and let you see it so you can have a good laugh too! I planned on making a really cool cake for Matt's party in a few months but I might just have to let the experts handle that one. I've always said being smart is not about what you know or what you know how to do, but knowing where to find the answers and who to ask for help. JR Goodies makes a damn good cake.

So at 1 what are we doing? No walking yet. Not even interested. I think I'm to blame because she's either in my arms, in a stroller or in her highchair. She doesn't touch the ground much but she's a great crawler so we'll just take it one step at a time. She says pretty much everything except "Momma". I think she even said elephant the other day. But no "Momma". When I ask where is "Momma" she touches her nose. So I guess I'm chopped liver but one day she will love me...then she'll hate me when I tell her she can't ever date, but hopefully she'll love me again! As far as size she's pretty petite but still falls in the 75% for height. And she is getting more beautiful each day. Now Matt is what I call a "looker" and has been since he was pretty young. I think it's his eyes that get me and now he's growing into that big head of his! There's a little girl in his class who says she's going to marry Matt. I told her Mom that we have some work to do to get his act together over the next 20 years but he'll be ready and we love Edi (and her gorgeous hair) and her parents too. Are arranged marriages really a bad idea? I think not. Send in your application before it's too late.

Okay it's Father's Day weekend at our house so I should get to bed. I'll let Doug sleep in this weekend because he deserves it. Happy Father's Day to all the awesome Dads out there like Doug! Although I doubt any Dads are reading this.

Easter

I've decided that this blogging thing is really cool but my problem is that I'm a picture person. I'll have to figure out how to maximize my space here to download pictures. I hear that there are "photo" blogs but again.....one step at a time.

So my problem now is that we had an amazing Easter but I can't seem to find the pictures. I feel like an artist without paint. Okay well that's a little dramatic but you get the idea. I'll try to tell the story and hopefully find the pictures to post later.

We went with Doug's family to the Frio River. Doug's Mom and Papa Howie rented a few cabins and we had so much fun. Matt LOVED playing with his cousins. He had so much fun throwing rocks in the river and walking around at night with his flashlight. We sometimes forget that the simplest things are what excite small children. You don't have to take them DisneyLand every year to have fun. I must remember what I just said. Thank you so much to Gram and Papa Howie for planning this for us. And to Aunt Dani for cooking all of our meals!

Take II - Marlie's Photo Shoot

So I'll be honest....I've been inspired to blog because a few friends do it and I love being able to keep up with their families. I was actually inspired some time ago but working full time and being a full time Mom (and being super at both) was much more difficult than I ever imagined. Well I am working part-time now and am going to finish what I started......I mean what Doug started. Our first entry was back in February and now it's June! I'm going to try to catch you up on our year over the next few days and then hopefully I can keep this updated once a week or month....let's not get in over our heads yet. But do let me tell you that I am high tech these days. Not only am I blogging, but I finally got a Blackberry and actually used my IPOD that my wonderful husband gave me about a year ago. I tell you.......I felt that I didn't have time to breathe and now my world has changed! So here we go......I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy putting it together. I can talk about my children for hours so if you get bored you can just hit that little "X" at the top right of your screen!

We had Marlie's photo shoot in February and it was a blast! Well actually now that I say that Matt didn't really cooperate at all. He stuck his tongue out or just acted silly most of the time but we managed a few good shots. Marlie was a rock star of course (just like her Momma) so there are some great ones of my sweet angel. Thank you to Leslie for being so patient with us and taking great pictures! Here's my favorite of Marlie and my favorite of Matt from his photo shoot when he was her age! You can see more pictures in the slideshow!