Sunday, August 23, 2009

Where to start...?

I know it has been a couple weeks since I blogged. Not to mention I was off Facebook for like 3 days too and so my friends were worried. Ha Ha. So what has got me so busy that I don't have time for blogging or Facebooking? Hmmm... well other than the obvious 2 kids 2 dogs and the 2 H's (House and Hubby) that I have to take care of, SO much has been going on here.

Jill: had all four wisdom teeth out which was way more mental anguish and pain than physical pain. Now that they are out, it was really no big deal. I had a Mom's Night Out with friends for Margaritas and lots of tears at the movie The Time Traveler's Wife (loved it). My favorite part of the night both involved my bestie Brooke. She had the sexiest LEGS I had EVER seen in her little short shorts and as a Mommy of two she deserved HUGE props for that. And second she leaned over to ask me "How Amazing Was Vegas?" but it came out so sloppy and slurry that I cracked up laughing. She was immediately like I am not slurring and we all thought she was so dang cute. That one Margarita really did her in! LOL Just Kidding Brookie- you know I LOVE YOU! Photos below:



Jimmy: has been golfing and hanging with his buds and just found out his evil boss that has been holding him back from any promotions at Wells Fargo has been replaced. So we are hopeful and excited for his replacement.

Ella
: started school and she loves it. (Which I wont get into here because you can read all about it at her school blog here ). She also starts dance classes on Sept 2nd. We went out and bought her a little pink leotard and black ballet slippers. Its funny cuz neither school nor dance class was our idea. We waited for Ella to come to us to ask for both. She started asking for school when Ryen was born and we told her she had to wait till August (a long time) and she asked and asked and asked over that 10 months! Photos below:



Ella also is SO into learning about money! Hilarious right? She loves getting coins it is like her favorite thing ever. At least it was till Aunt Kim and Aunt Gerry bought her her own PIGGY BANK! She adores it. Everyday she asks me for money to put in it (thanks Ladies! LOL) Here is a photo of her and piggy bank.



Ryen: there is so much going on! She has started WALKING! Ok well maybe that is an overstatement. She walks in the pool about 5-6 steps before she collapses with triumph in my arms. So maybe I should say she started stepping! Hee Hee. But the other day Ryen took 4-5 steps on land. She has been taking 2-3 steps at a time unassisted and then drops like a stone. But I know she just has to get confidence. She pulls up to standing almost every second and keeps surfing along the furniture. I just know I will turn around and see her let go of the sofa and walk across the room before I know it! Stay tuned! Ryen is also getting FEISTY! Oh boy so many changes in her in the last month. She shakes her head no which is hilarious because she shakes her whole body while doing it. She also dances when she plays with the radio on her playhouse. These things are hard to get on video but I was able to sort of catch them in short increments and have created a montage below (the first video is real blurry cuz it was done on a cell phone):

What else is going on here? We have been spending our Wednesdays with our BFFs as usual, and having way too much fun. I have many photos to share of these days but will do so later in the week with a different post. Here are two teaser photos however:



Also birthday party planning and preparations are underway. Ryen's invites are going to go out this week and Ella's party planning is around the corner. Geesh time is flying. Ryen's birthday party is 5 weeks away. I CAN'T believe my baby is going to be ONE! This whole year went so fast. And I feel like it was way easier than I thought it would be. I know there are times when the sleep deprivation gets to me. Example? The lady I see everyday at Circle K asked me if I was OK and told me to try to remember that although it is hard having two so close together in age and to be so tired all the time, that it goes by TOO fast and to try to enjoy as much as I can. This was all it took to get me into tears while I was pouring my super caffeinated coffee at 5:45am. LOL. She even came over and put her arm around me and gave me a squeeze. Nice lady! sigh but she is right, it is all worth it. Just look at how I found my babies the other morning. Ella had dragged something over to Ryen's crib and climbed in and starting helping feed her a bottle. So cute...



I also had two parties to prepare for last week BOTH on Saturday at my home. I had a baby shower in the afternoon for my friend Jessie who is having her second baby (a girl named Elizabeth Grace) on Sept 24th (woo hoo). So we had friends over to shower her with gifts and love for her latest addition. It was great. Then half of my guests pretended to leave only to come back 40 minutes later and surprise my co-hostess Adrianna with a going away party cuz she is going away on 9/1 for a few months. And because she is the best ever and we LOVE her to death and will miss her, although we know we will see every 4-6 hopefully till she comes back to us for good. Here are some of my favorite photos from both parties (the rest are on facebook so take a look ladies):




And as if that was not enough, I am trying to start my own business. I have been looking for something to keep me busy at home and always loved doing graphic design and photo editing on my computer. It lets me be creative and I have fun doing it. I have also enjoyed hand crafting invitations for showers, birthday parties before. So I thought I would try to make a small business of it. I am hopefully going to be taking some graphic design classes soon while I am home with the kids. For now, I am able to post some of my work and designs on facebook and craigslist etc, but I also opened an online shop at Etsy.com. which is great website for anything hand-made. Here is my store (work in progress). I am trying to find time to design products that I think people might be interested in and that might show off a little of what I can do. I am looking forward to getting better and more creative through this and seeing what can become of it. Even if it is just a fun hobby for me, I enjoy it. But trying to find the time to design and get a business off the ground with everything else going on is crazy hard and not helping the sleep deprivation! Here are a few of my favorite designs:




I have lots of cute photos of the girls but too many to post on the blog. So I will be updating babysites this week (www.babysites.com/sites/carilli). But I have to find time to get to that too! Geesh!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Ok here it is...

Many who missed the live broadcast of our gloriously cheesy vow renewal with Elvis have been asking if I will post it. I finally was able to get it online. The entire thing from Elvis walking me down the aisle to our leaving is 5 min. Enjoy! LOL


FYI when I got there and complained that we really would have preferred to be married by Bob Marley, they laughed and said I should've told them as they can customize themes for weddings. DARN IT! If only I'd known we could have had a Rastafarian with dreds singing One Love instead! hmm... maybe for the 10 year in Italy. (Just Kidding!)

Monday, August 10, 2009

Viva Las Vegas!!!

Jimmy and I just got back from a weekend in Vegas. We have been home for about 28 hours and have already said about sixteen hundred times we wish were still there. We had so much fun it was ridiculous. Thanks to my friend Adrianna and my Sister Lori, we knew our kids, our dogs, and our home were in good hands and that it made it easy to relax and have fun! We went to celebrate our 5 yr wedding anniversary (Sept 5th) and to renew our vows. We plan to renew our vows every 5 yrs and we decided on Vegas for this 5 years and ITALY for our 10 year renewal! Woo hoo! Since we did the romantic beautiful elegant wedding the first time around, we wanted to do something HILARIOUS the second time around. So not only was I a VEGAS bride, but we got married by ELVIS! It was so funny and cheesy and so Las Vegas, it was beyond fun. Here are some photos of us on our way to Vegas!!





Our friends Amy and Brian who got married at The Bellagio (in a gorgeous Las Vegas wedding) 1 yr ago this Sept 19th met up with us for the weekend.



The four of us had a blast and laughed that it took us traveling to Vegas to hang out, which is ridiculous since they live in Phoenix! HERE are the Wedding Photos...enjoy!








The wedding was streamed live over the Internet and some of our friends got to watch. Ella was apparently mad that she was talking to us and we were ignoring her and she stormed off after it was over- LOL! After the vows we had dinner and drinks and some gambling at The Bellagio. While we walked to our hotel at The Mirage- we had a little too much fun and took some hilarious photos!








Saturday by the pool at The Mirage was great. We didn't get The Cabana we requested 2 mos in advance and would have been charged $350 for b/c they were all given away last minute to high rollers. Nice huh? Bastards! But we enjoyed our day by the pool and our $100 rounds of just 4 drinks. Not kidding! Photos please...





Saturday Night we decided to celebrate Amy's 30th Birthday a little early (Aug 13th) by having dinner at NYC's famous Seredipity3 which is now at Caesar's Palace!






After dinner we took in the Bellagio fountain show (which was so beautiful it made me a little teary) and then the Mirage Volcano.



After saying goodnight to The Jensens, Jimmy and I hit the Craps table (my favorite) and we had a BLAST! We actually left Vegas with Casino money in our pocket! We left the next morning to head home to our babies. They were very excited to see us, as were we. The doggies were happy to have us home too! Every time we called Ella would ask where we were and when we told her she would yell excited to Aunt Lori "They're in Las Vegas!" It was so funny. Lori was like, I know- I know!! To cap it off, below is one of my favorite photos of the whole trip. I LOVED my dress and my husband was looking like a hottie. The photo is a little blurry but still one of my favs! We can't wait to go back again!