Lots & Lots of Pictures!

It's been awhile since I've shared some photos. I finally uploaded the latest, here they are and enjoy!


Memorial Weekend

While I was cleaning the loft I heard silence. This usually isn't a good thing when it comes to my boys. But fortunately this is what I found when I peeked in on Noah. Sitting quietly reading a book. :) This makes me happy!

He loves to look at all his books. He loves storytime and is always saying, "Book me?" Translation, "Read to me." Love it!

Here he is, Mr. Motorcycle man! Thanks Uncle Jay for letting Noah ride on your bike! This truly was the highlight of his evening, well that and hanging out with Duke! Noah, you're such a Motorcycle Stud!

The Cousins just chillin' in the back of auntie Sueritta's house. l-r, Samuel, Adam, Nicholas, & Noah!

What handsome little guys . . . Noah and Adam. Look at Noah's feet. He absolutely loves to run barefoot. My true island boy :)

Everyone say "TapOut!" The boys hangin' in the backyard waitin' on the UFC fight to start. l-r Noah, Adam, Nicholas, Kelly, & Samuel

Noah's best bud . . . Duke! It was so sweet to watch Noah play with Duke!

Noah warming up to the crowd at auntie Sueritta's house! Cutie patootie!

This Weekend 5/30/09

Mum mum Judy hanging at our house yesterday after Nicholas' baseball game.

Mommy & Noah cheesin' it for the camera.

Mum mum & her boys. They're always sad when she has to go back home!

Showin' mum, mum some love! Kisses to you!

A proud mum, mum and proud grandson for sure!!!

Mum, mum and her boy Nicholas!

It's hard to get Nicholas to smile! Look at how great he looks when he does. All it takes is a little tickle from mum, mum Judy. And Noah snuck in on this picture. He loves the camera :)



What we did this morning:
It's time to clean at the Charfauros home!

Teaching Nicholas the responsibility of vacuming. He already makes his bed every morning! Next up to learn, cleaning his own bathroom.

Noah doing his part, picking up all his books off the floor. Such a helper boy!

Nicholas letting Noah take over the vacuming. Hmm... why do I get the feelin' this might become a habit of Nicholas' :)


Well I hope you enjoyed the pics. The boys are growing so fast, but one things for sure, they'll always, no matter their age, be mama's boys!

Until later . . .

Happy Day - Happy Day!

It's Thursday and what a day. I woke up to Jay tapping me lightly to get up before the boys did. He was already up, the coffee was made and all I had to do was roll out of bed and brush my teeth. So nice!

Our Memorial weekend was pretty much low-key. Jay worked the entire weekend, and besides going to my cousin Sue's house, the boys and I stayed home. But it was nice, Sunday afternoon I bought the boys McDonald's took it took the park and had a mini picnic. We missed Jay, but it was nice to sit outside with the boys with absolutely no care in the world - besides how high we wanted to go in the swings :)

Tuesday and Wednesday Jay and I went out running. Both days we ran 3 miles. Now I must say this is huge for me because I don't think I've ever run that distance before. And even better, I am totally and completely enjoying each time I go out and run. It's theraputic, it clears my mind in a way that I crave so often when the days get so hectic.

There are a few things I want to share, one from a blog I love to read and one from a book I'm currently reading.

Here's an excerpt from Donna Downey's Blog

i have been working a lot lately on developing my concepts of what living a life inspired means...and more and more i am reminded that choosing to live inspired doesn't just mean with paints and colors, but also looking at life more creatively...finding creative ways to look at situations with a more positive outlook or in this case solution.

creativity lies in the tiny moments when we decide to do something differently and try new things...stretching outside of our comfort zones on all levels and accepting the things we cannot change.

i love this message today...simply accepting the things we cannot change.
the next step forward can be the moment that can often redefine how we see the world.

And here's an excerpt from the book Cold Tangerines that I am SO enjoying. I have mentioned that this book is like a Splash of Happiness in each chapter.

Friendship is acting out God's love for people in tangible ways. We were made to represent the love of God in each other's lives, so tht each person we walk through life with has a more profound sense of God's love for them. Friendship is an opportunity to act on God's behalf in the lives of the people that we're close to, reminding each other who God is. When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life. We get to remind one another about the bigger, more beautiful picture that we can't always see from where we are

-shauna niequist

Both these excerpts are inspiring to me; to walk today with a little more pep in my step and to walk a little more in HIS WAY! I have a fridge magnet that reads - Give your feet a Good Workout, Walk in His way. Here's to a beautiful Thursday, filled with many blessings your way!

*Shout out to my cousin Joe, (aka little Joe always and forever to me :)) I will post picturs of Kelly boy and mom soon. I promise. Lots of love your way!

One of those Days . . .

From the moment I woke up this morning I've just been having it rough! Noah was super whining all throughout our morning routine. Oh my goodness, at one point I just felt like crying. Hopefully it gets better . . . I just have to remember to breathe and slow down.

Hopefully I can go out for a run today. I feel like I could sure use it!

It's Monday, my favorite day of the week because I love beginnings - I love the chance to start fresh. I'm hoping to get some exercise in today during Nicholas' baseball practice. Jay is off and we'll probably run the track. We got a late start this morning and didn't have a chance to get our workout crossed off our list earlier in the day. Last week I focused on my weight watchers program; I had gained 5lbs and just wanted to get back into eating healthy. It felt so good - even though I only lost 1 lb! I decided it's much better to focus on eating healthier and in good portions rather than focus on the actual # on the scale. Weight watchers helps me to do this.

On another note, Saturday I hung out with my mom and we had such a lovely time! We went shopping - tried on ALOT of clothes and it was so wonderful of her to spoil me and buy me a few things! So I'm excited, I have a few new things in my closet and I'm so grateful (it's very rare these days that I will buy anything for myself. My two growing boys are in much more of a need than I am!). None of them are fancy, as I am a "plain jane" but I now have a few new bermuda shorts and a couple cool flirty tops to match! Again, thank you, thank you mom! I love it all!

I'm off to read a little while Noah naps. It's heating up here in Southern Cali! Summer is creepin' in - I can't wait to hit the pool & beach!

Just wanted to share a picture I took of me & noah last week (love camera self-timers)! This is how I spend my days - hangin' out with this cute little dude!

Happy Monday!

Books

I'm reading this book right now and I am SO enjoying it! I started it awhile back ago and couldn't really get into it; but I picked it up again and now I am anxious to keep turning the pages. I love when I can find a book like that. I have a running "summer reading list" that I've started to jot down. This summer it's going to be about reading . . . YAY!!! Love to read.

Summer Reading List

• The Painter from Shanghai
• The Shack
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven
• Resilience
• Mommy Grace

I have also finally ordered Cold Tangerines! Super exctited to receive this one in the mail!

Good Day to everyone! Happy Sunday - many blessings your way.

An Essay

Wanted to put this on my blog. It's an excerpt from a book called Cold Tangerines that I'm looking forward to receiving. It's long, but really worth the read.

“On Waiting”
by Shauna Niequist

I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.

And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.

I love movies about “The Big Moment” — the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.

John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat. The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearls. And strung together, built upon one another, lined up through the days and the years, they make a life, a person. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies.

But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets. This pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience.

I believe that this way of living, this focus on the present, the daily, the tangible, this intense concentration not on the news headlines but on the flowers growing in your own garden, the children growing in your own home, this way of living has the potential to open up the heavens, to yield a glittering handful of diamonds where a second ago there was coal. This way of living and noticing and building and crafting can crack through the movie sets and soundtracks that keep us waiting for our own life stories to begin, and set us free to observe the lives we have been creating all along without even realizing it.

I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered like tiny shards of gold. The big moments are the daily, tiny moments of courage and forgiveness and hope that we grab on to and extend to one another. That’s the drama of life, swirling all around us, and generally I don’t even see it, because I’m too busy waiting to become whatever it is I think I am about to become. The big moments are in every hour, every conversation, every meal, every meeting.

The Heisman Trophy winner knows this. He knows that his big moment was not when they gave him the trophy. It was the thousand times he went to practice instead of going back to bed. It was the miles run on rainy days, the healthy meals when a burger sounded like heaven. That big moment represented and rested on a foundation of moments that had come before it.

I believe that if we cultivate a true attention, a deep ability to see what has been there all along, we will find worlds within us and between us, dreams and stories and memories spilling over. The nuances and shades and secrets and intimations of love and friendship and marriage and parenting are action-packed and multicolored, if you know where to look.

Today is your big moment. Moments, really. The life you’ve been waiting for is happening all around you. The scene unfolding right outside your window is worth more than the most beautiful painting, and the crackers and peanut butter that you’re having for lunch on the coffee table are as profound, in their own way, as the Last Supper. This is it. This is life in all its glory, swirling and unfolding around us, disguised as pedantic, pedestrian non-events. But pull off the mask and you will find your life, waiting to be made, chosen, woven, crafted.

Your life, right now, today, is exploding with energy and power and detail and dimension, better than the best movie you have ever seen. You and your family and your friends and your house and your dinner table and your garage have all the makings of a life of epic proportions, a story for the ages. Because they all are. Every life is.

You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of super and natural.

You are more than dust and bones.

You are spirit and power and image of God.

And you have been given Today.

what a week! hope everyone had a very nice mother's day! i did! sadly i have no photos of that day - i brought my camera, but i was too busy enjoying the family gathering that i forgot to snap pictures. actually i did get this one picture of noah. here he is eating a popsicle that poly bought for him. don't ya just want to squeeze him!

last week i was down in the dumps, i guess i'm entitled to feel that way once in awhile. i suppose i was bored with the monotony of my everyday routine . . . how quickly my attitude changed when i heard of an old classmate who has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. i was so sad to hear about that and my thoughts and prayers will continue to be with him. i felt also bad for allowing myself to forget how blessed i am to have these sweet wonderful days with my boys - i am lucky to be home with them, routine or not. i really can't complain!

for the rest of the week we just enjoyed eachother's company; we hung out in the backyard, went out for ice cream, watched nicholas' baseball game, played with squirt guns. it was nice and it really did remind me of how truly blessed i am.

here are nicholas &noah playin' in the backyard! look at noah's boots!

noah just chillin' on a monday afternoon! it's his new thing to strip down to his pampers! :)

me & noah on our way out to "wal-mart" he loves wal-mart!

look at how big he's getting! my 10 year old handsome boy! he won't ever smile for me & my camera :(

playin' with squirt guns! look how much fun $1 from the dollar spot at target can bring!

and last, but certainly not least, how we've been spending most of our saturday's. watching nicholas play baseball. i love this picture of him - i'm soooo proud of him!

starbucks, my dad, and my 2 crazy boys!

i got a starbucks today . . . been awhile since i had one of those frap. thing(ies). they're so expensive and so fattening, so i've just stayed away. but today i was out & about & i decided "why not? i've got $3 bucks, what the heck!" as i walked to my car sipping the yummy frap. i smiled and thought of my dad and the first time he tried starbucks. he was already diagnosed and we stopped at a starbucks in s.d before his dr.'s appt. we ordered my dad one of these coffee fraps. and he sipped it down to the bottom like a little boy trying sugar for the first time. the thought and vision of him just made me smile, warmed my heart, and reminded me of how much i miss having him in my life.

i have to brag that i'm mastering making "red rice." i made it for dinner tonight while jay was out grilling the ribs i marniated yesterday afternoon. i also made a delish bean sprout and cucumber salad. it was a FULLfilling dinner.

nicholas & noah drove us nuts today. noah's talking so much, today he said "mom, phone ringing" and he's so cute the way he asks for things. for instance - napkin me, means can i have a napkin; belly me, means rub my belly; juju means, orange juice; he pronounces apple as happle. gosh there's so much i want to write so i won't forget. i'll need to jot them down as he goes along talking. oh and he can answer this question, "noah, who's the president?" noah's response, "Obama!" and if you ask him where does Obama live he'll say, "white house!" he's just too cute for words.

nicholas is getting so big, it's almost hard to believe. i'm anxious for summer to begin so we can just relish in the lazy days of summer. he's countin' the days too. he just brought home his progress report and he's headed toward making the principle's honor roll! yay nicholas!!! hopefully he continues the hard work the few weeks he has left of school. he's done so well this entire year, making the honor roll every trimester. we're so proud of him!!!

okay so that's a wrap - off to chill. laters gaters:)

5 THINGS . . .

can you believe it's may already . . . it's just about mid year, i can hardly believe that. gees, how time flies. it's the beginning of a new month and i love beginnings . . . so i'm going to try this new list techniques . . . here it is.

i am a list maker by nature, and i always have a running list of things to do. however, i am easily and frequently distracted and discouraged by a long list. therefore i have decided to make a daily list of 5 things to complete. this will serve as encouraging as 5 things are pretty manageable. so this is today's list . . .

1. laundry, wash, fold, put away & repeat until done!
2. Clean bathroom vanity
3. order (5 at min.) pictures for frames
4. Begin closet organization
5. Clean floors & vacume carpet

off to complete my list of 5! happy friday. sorry no pictures to share for this post!