Ari and Paris

My favorite girl turned 12 recently. Her only request for a gift was a mum and daughter trip to Paris. I could handle that. So before she opens her birthday presents she gets a card. Cool. Everyone had signed it, she read it, finished opening her gifts and was totally ready to dig in to some cake. But first I had one more thing for her.

Another card...

Except this one was telling her we were going to Paris! And go to Paris we did, this is at the Louvre. Why hello, Mona Lisa.

It was a selfie with my phone so the photo is a mirror image. You can't get too close to the painting. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated seeing it in person but I really thought we would be able to, like, get a wee bit closer. But no. 

Funny thing is you can get all up on the painting of Jesus and his posse but get this close to the Mona Lisa and you get tackled by the overweight security guard. 



Oh wait, we aren't in America anymore, the security guard isn't overweight.

When in Paris you have to have crepes. It's a law. And if you're a resident of Twilight House you have to have nutella in your crepe. That is also a law.

We walked all over Paris, saw the coolest sites, did some shopping, and witnessed the dudes that seek trinkets outside the Eiffel Tower run from the cops. It was fabulous.

Here's to my last year of having a tweenage daughter, this kid keeps me on my toes - I dig that. And nutella filled crepes.

For E

Me & my little man. February 2000

You.
You are the kid that saved my life.
You are the person that made me want me to create a life worth something. Something more.
You are the one. The only one that has been there with me through it all. Such a tough gig for such a small person. And yet you have never once let me down.
You are my baby. And I was a baby when I had you. You are that faint second line. That line that told me my life, at 17, was forever changing. You were my fears. And my dreams. And my life. You are the sweet boy that expects nothing from anyone. You are the grateful one. The one that reminds me of everything good in life. You are the quiet one. The humble one. The polite one. You are the one that made me want to be a better person. And keeps me striving to be better than I was yesterday.
You are my reason, Ethan. You are the reason for all the good that I am. You, unknowingly, urge me to strive for more. You unknowingly touch everyone you come into contact with.
You are brave. And strong and selfless. You are things adults even aren't and yet you're only 13 today and you are naturally those things; you are naturally open minded. And non-judgmental. You are an old soul. And a genuinely good person.
You have your challenges. Like us all. But you push through. You persevere. And I admire you for that. I want to thank you for that. Thank you for everything. For being you. For showing me that there are good people n the world that want nothing but good things for all.
Thank you for being all that you were to me when I was only a child - your mother, yet still a child. Thank you for that. Thank you for all that you are. Thank you for all that you will be.
I'm so very proud of the man you are becoming. I'm so very humbled to call you my baby. I love you more than you can fathom.
Happy birthday little dude. I'm here for you no matter what comes your way. I'm here for you always.

Love, Mom

Jersey's 2nd

So as you all know we moved right before the school year started. Don't remember? That's because you suck and haven't been keeping up with us, and what's the purpose of my lil' ole blog? To allow you to keep up with us without me having to talk to each and every one of you on the phone. Because I ain't a phone talker. I got shit to do. Talking on the telly isn't one of them. Except on Sundays, to mi madre, padre, and bro bro. I digress.

Days before our move we celebrated Jersey's second birthday. Read the story of how we picked/came to adopt Jersey here. We've had him since he was a few weeks old. He was tiny. Now he's ginourmous. He's so big that I even thought he needed a diet or something so I took him to the vet and she said, "He's gorgeous. Nice and muscular. Not overweight at all. He reminds me of my *insert ridiculous cat name here (such as Mr Sugar Pants or Sparkleboots)* that I have at home. I have five." She obviously hates cats.

It took Bear (our meat head) and Jers some time to get along, but they finally did. And now they live in perfect harmony. But on to Jersey's bday, yes? Ari picked out this little cowboy hat. He fought the love for a while but ended up wearing it long enough for a photo op.

The kids also picked out a few toys for him.

Owen even made him another gift after our move. A marker with some string tied around it with a note that read: For Jersey. We love you.

If that's not ingenuity then I don't know what is.

Back to the festivies and the kids wanted to give him ice cream, but since he's already a bit overweight in my opinion super "muscular" I didn't oblige. Instead we came to an agreement, Jersey got food but got to eat it at the table with us while we ate ice cream. 

Even Owen's monkey joined in on the feast, see him in the chair next to Jers?

Jersey's a chill little dude. A bit of a snob, not very curious, and waaaaay serious. Like for real. If he were a person he would wear a pocket protector. But we love him oodles. Even if he does tear shit up every once in a while.

So there you have it, an update of what happened in August of 2012. I really need to get more organized...

Ari's 10!

My one and only baby girl is officially in the double digits as of this morning. Yep, she’s 10 and yeah ya’ll, that means I’m old. I cannot, for the life of me, grasp the fact that she is 10 years old. Where does time go? It seems like just yesterday I found out I was pregnant with a girl. I was so excited but I’ll admit that I was scurred; I had hoped for another boy since my first bambino was boy and I knew what to do with boys. Plus, I knew the hell I put my parents through and I wasn’t looking forward to my daughter putting me through the same shenanigans. Let me put it to you like this, when I told my parents I was expecting a girl my dad chuckled and then simply said, “Payback, Lor.”

Says it all, don't it?

She’s my little rebel, but I wouldn’t trade her for the world. She’s the smartest kid I know, and I don’t just say that because she’s mine. She’s beyond beautiful and she doesn’t even realize just how gorgeous she is, which makes her that much prettier. She’s kind, yet sassy. And talks more than anyone I’ve ever met. Seriously, if you get in my car and the radio is off you can assume that Ariana was in the car on the last trip because there is no listening to the radio with her in the back seat, she’d rather chat your ear off. She was born a chatterbox; she said her first full sentence at just over a year old. I’ll never forget it, she received a stoller as a gift for her new baby doll and as soon as she opened the stroller she buckled her baby in, started pushing the stroller around the living room and said, “Baby, you ready go bye-bye?”

Dammit, now I’m gonna cry.

She’s super artsy; she loves music, she loves to draw and paint and make something from nothing. She’s my creative child. She’s also the one that’s not afraid to stand up for other kids.

Oh, and she's a goofball. Case in point:

She’s my little fighter. I had a very scary pregnancy with her. I went into pre-term labor at 19 weeks and the doctor basically told me that she wouldn’t survive if she was born at that time. They gave me a shot to stop my contractions and put me on bedrest but I still went into labor about once a month for the rest of my pregnancy. Finally, on the morning of 17 April the doctors didn’t attempt to stop my labor anymore and my 6lbs 0oz munchkin was born only three weeks shy of her 6 May due date. She’s always been small physically but she has a big personality.

When the boyfriend and I get knocked-up I hope to have another little girl, thanks in large part to the awesomeness that is Ariana.

So here’s to you Ariana Noelle, my little guitar playing, canvas painting, talkative rebel of a beautiful child. Happy birthday Bella, we love you to the moon and back.

Birthdays, Parachutes, and Photobooths

Sunday was my birthday. Don’t ask me how old I turned because I’ll most likely falcon punch you and then crawl to the corner to hyperventilate (not over having just assaulted you but over my age). You can read more about my meltdown here, I’m not gonna go into it again because I’m feeling sliiiiightly better about my new age and I just gotta keep lookin’ forward. Jesus, I sound so dramatic.

Because of my quarter-life-plus-five-years-crisis I wanted to do something completely ridiculous to celebrate the second anniversary of my 29^th year of living. Something to get my mind off of freaking out over turning *gasp* 30, yeah, I said it and I’ll say it again - 30. Ahhhhh!

So naturally, I picked skydiving. Can I get a ‘what, what’?!

We woke up early yesterday morning and trekked up to Skydive Panama City. I wanted to throw up the entire ride there, for some reason I got super nervous despite the fact that I was the one that wanted to partake in said life risking event, but my nerves suddenly got the best of me. Luckily the owner and instructors were all great people so that calmed me back down once we arrived. After signing our lives away we suited up…

Then hopped in the plane...

And up we went, 10000 feet into the air.

I can’t even begin to describe the experience but it was completely amazing. Freefalling was the best part – it makes you feel so free and so alive as corny as that sounds. I screamed my face off and my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. But that split second when we stepped off the plane was not for smiling.

Check out how calm he is and check out the "OH SHIT," look on my face. Priceless. But after that  it was smooth sailing.

We fell straight through a cloud which was pretty cool.

Freefalling was definitely an adrenaline rush. Then when the parachute opened you were able to calm down, take it all in, and have a serene little moment all to yourself, well, you and the dude you’re strapped to.

I’ve always wanted to skydive because it seemed like it’d be so much fun, but I assumed I’d do it once, check it off my bucket list (which I wrote about here) and move on with life. WRONG! It’s something I totally plan to do again, I guess it’s like a tattoo - you can’t stop at one.

And of course no 30^th birthday is complete without wanting to feel like a kid again, so on our way out of the movie theatre (we went to see Safe House, it was tres bon) we popped in a photo booth and vogued.

See the pic of us closing our eyes while smiling (third one down)? It’s a Rumbarger trademark – Seth constantly ruins pictures by closing his eyes while smiling so now it’s kinda become a thing. Would you like some photographic evidence? I present to you exhibit A:

Yeah, he’s such a smartass, but it’s one of the things I love about him. And look, even my mother does it:

Hehe. I’m gonna get in trouble for that. She totally didn’t close her eyes on purpose in that photo but how can I not include it given the topic at hand – right?! Love you mom!

So there you have it folks, my skydiving adventures. Oh! And they gave me a video of my freefall, but I'm sure no one cares about it but me so I'll spare you. Besides, I'm sure the 247 photos I included in this post are sufficient for ya.

PS Remember how I said no presents, no dinner, no cake, etc.? Well, yesterday Seth walked in the living room with a cake. When I gave him ‘the look’ he said, “What?! Did you want me to put candles on it? That many candles would probably burn the place down!” Smartass, I tell ya.

Sunday was a good day...

Lorri