Homesick

 Is the Christmas tree still up?  Please, you gotta know Mama better than that!  That puppy was down December 26.  But obviously this picture is from a couple months ago.  Still haven't gotten that new 'puter so Mommy is reluctant to download much of anything else on this old one for fear it will crash and burn any minute now (really, any minute!)
Mommy thought this picture was good because she signed up to bring in 4 dozen brownies to school for our program tomorrow.  Yes, you read that right.  FOUR DOZEN.  When she signed up she had delusions of grandeur like - "I'll bake them from scratch" and "I'll make several varieties including nut free and egg free" and other nonsense.  What ended up happening?

Daddy baked them!!  Thanks, Daddy!!
We miss Kentucky.  I think Mommy misses it a lot right now.  We miss our friends.  We miss Mary Lou.  We miss our neighborhood, our street we could ride our bikes on.  Mommy misses her three besties she could commiserate with, who got her and her wildly inappropriate jokes, who laughed at her not just with her, who weren't afraid to tell her what they really think and when she should shut up...  We miss their kiddos - SO WE WERE THINKING - we need a reunion.  This Summer.  Check your inboxes, peeps!  There's an email on the way.
Hope to see you.  We really miss you!
XOXO
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack

Cars!

 Yesterday Daddy drove us to preschool and I saw a white "Maserati" (aka Convertible).  I got so excited I made Daddy call Mommy so I could tell her!  You never know when Mommy or Daddy are going to say something that's going to stick with us.  I will probably be calling convertibles Maserati's for years, because it's funny and at this point, what's the use in correcting me?  So Mama got to thinking we ought to post some pictures of some of our OTHER favorite cars!

Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack

Valentine's Day Goodies

 So yeah, we know this is a little past Valentine's Day but you know - when you get goods you gotta post it up - even if it's 2 weeks after the fact!

 When Daddy picked us up from school I ran straight to him and said, "Oh my GOSH, Daddy - today is the best day of my WHOLE LIFE!"  Better than Christmas?!  Better than DISNEY WORLD!?!?

 Jack concurs this was the best day of his life...he got a sucker...all over his face...and Mommy's not so white-ish couch.

 Seriously, the excitement.  I mean, over a SUCKER!  SWEET!

 Holidays are great.  Candy, candy, candy!  And cards, and love!

Thanks for the sugar everyone!  Thanks for the cards and love, Grammy and Grampa!  Thanks for the cards and love, Grandma!  Thanks for the cards and love, Babi and Duda!  Thanks for the love and goodies, Teti!  Thanks for the smooches and the hugs and the sugar all the rest of the year everyone!
We love y'all!
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack

Snow Fun!

 Did I already post this picture of Jacky?  I feel like I did but I can't remember.  I've been having that problem lately.  It's a cute one though, so y'all get to see it again if I did. 

 Last weekend we got about 5 minutes of snow in Greenville and it was awesome!  We even had our friend Charlie over to enjoy it with us.  We got all dressed up in our coats and boots (cowgirl boots for Anna Jane) and went outside and basically got all wet!

The snow didn't accumulate, it just made everything all wet.  It was really heavy snow but it was snow so we can say we had some snow this year!  Brrrr!  And this whole past week it hasn't stopped raining for a minute and that's been a drag but we've been doing some fun indoor things like running around all over the place, rearranging all the furniture and chotchkies and causing general chaos.  Fun stuff that Mommy loves like that.
We hope you're enjoying your Winter!  We're getting pretty antsy and ready for Spring!
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack

Happy Birthday, Grammy!

Take 1!

Take 2!
Much better!  NOT quite sure what happened to Jack's pants?!?
Happy birthday, Grammy!  We love this three day stretch every February - birthday, Valentine's, birthday!  It's our longest blogging streak of the year!
We hope you have a FANTASTIC year this year!  Will there be any more new babies this year (Uncle Matt and Aunt Nikki?  Hmmmm????)  I bet you have a streak going with your side of the family and Grampa's of about a baby a year (at least) for the past 6 or 7 years!
We hope Grampa took you out somewhere special - like Bob Evans for breakfast or maybe Cracker Barrel for brunch?  And we hope you enjoy your special day!
We are looking forward to seeing you in May!
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, Joe!
As I sat down to write this "Ode to Joe" I got a text message from Mr. Bryan that he's surprising Kimmie with a trip to Italy this weekend.  For reals, y'all.  I think, anyway...so...kind of makes anything I was going to write here seem...um...insufficient?  It's actually kind of hard to concentrate because I'm still trying to decide if he's joking on this mass family text or if in actuality he is like the coolest boyfriend in the world?  Which if he is, I'm glad he's my sister's because she deserves it!
But, um, moving right along and back to US, baby...
This is our TENTH Valentine's Day together.  TEN!  Do you want a rundown of what we've done over the past ten Valentine's Days?
Here goes:
Moved from Boston to Denver to Princeton to Cincinnati to Louisville to Greenville - HOME.  Went to the Caribbean, took me to New York City (which I love so much you proposed to me there), took me skiing, snorkeling, hiking, camping.  Always challenging me to reach beyond my comfort zone (though admittedly the older I get the less I like it), always doing thoughtful, fun, special things most of the time for no reason which is the best reason of all.  Been through school, jobs, change and even a little hell.  We have three beautiful, healthy children who love and adore you more than anyone else in the world.  I think you are strong, confident and amazing.  You are vulnerable and sensitive and brave enough to change.  You really truly are the man of my dreams from your intelligence and sense of humor right down to your blue eyes and beard (always had a thing for it as you know - I guess I can thank my childhood crush on Cat Stevens for that).  You are so smart, you are an amazing healer, you're a fixer upper, a work in progress and a man of God.  I can't believe you're mine, Valentine.  I love you.  I am looking forward to 5 more 10 year Valentine Anniversaries.
Love,
Me

P.S. I know you're all thinking, "Italy?  Really?"  Yeah.  No.  Try Little Italy Pizza.  Good one, Bryan!  You had me going!  Now you owe Kimmie a trip to Italy!  My Babi would have some choice words for that little joke...all of them in Slavic!  And all of them not family friendly!

Happy Birthday, Uncle Marko!

Happy Dirty Thirty Uncle Mark!

How does it feel to turn the corner into your 30s?!?  One month after Mommy turned 30 she had ME!  So it was truly a new decade and a new phase for her.  Mommy thinks 30's get a bad rap and that they are actually pretty awesome but they can be a little scary, too.  I mean, now you can't play that "I'm young and carefree" card as often because you know, you got a JOB, SON and you got BILLS and you're THIRTY!  Remember how old 30 seemed when you and Mommy were little and you were pedaling your Big Wheel up and down the driveway singing stupid songs and smiling that big ol' shit grin?  

Mommy thinks you're a pretty special guy, Uncle Mark and she's awful proud of you.  We can't wait to see what the 30's hold in store for you.  Pretty awesome things, we bet.

What we are MOST excited for however is celebrating your birthday with you this Sunday and having cake and ice cream and seeing a show and getting some quality time with you and Aunt Kimber!  If you ask us, we would say the best birthday present you can get is time with us!  You're such a lucky Uncle!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, UNCLE MARK!  WE LOVE YOU!

XOXO

Love,

Lilly, Anna and Jack

TESLA!

 Mommy has a confession - we haven't taken or downloaded any pictures since CHRISTMAS!  That is borderline negligence.  Especially since we know Jacky is the last of the babies.  We've missed out on documenting a whole month and a half of his baby life!  Bad Mommy!  Bad!
Good news for our loyal followers is that Daddy bought Mama a "purse camera" (and a dozen red roses) for Valentine's Day!  That is good, because while the iPhone is great for taking photos on the fly, they don't translate well to blogging nor do they print well.  So we're back to old school shootin, downloadin, bloggin.

We did recently learn that we can download an App to the iPhone that WILL let us blog on the fly which will be great for posting things like what I said yesterday in the car.
Did you know Mama LOVES luxury sports cars?  Let me tell you something about Mama and luxury sports cars.  Once, in the parking lot of Costco in Kentucky she saw a beautiful red Ferrari GTO (IN THE COSTCO PARKING LOT, PEOPLE!   FOR REALS!!!) anyway she got out of the van so she could go over to the Ferrari and just touch it.  Then she couldn't.  She just stared at it in awe.  The owner came out of Costco (old man, of course) and all Mama could say was, "Nice car."  What she wanted to say was, "Please, please PLEASE can you take me for a ride in your car?!  Just around the parking lot?  PLEASE!?!?!"  This moment, in the Costco parking lot, was the APEX of luxury sports car sightings outside of Miami, FL- so you know.  Average starting sales price?  A cool $300,000.  The value of GTO's can go all the way up to (brace yourself) $35 MILLION.
Mama loves luxury sports cars so much that once when we were driving around she saw a Maserati GranTurismo Convertible and she straight started flipping out and couldn't stop screaming, "LILLY!  ANNA!  LOOK!  A MASERATI GRANTURISMO CONVERTIBLE!!!!"  that to this day I call every convertible I see a Maserati.  Every single one.  I get just as excited now too, which is awesome because who knows what the future might hold for me?  Maybe one day I will actually get to drive one (or even just touch one, which would still be cool).  Plan on forking over a mere $135,000 plus for one of these babies.
So yesterday as we were leaving Preschool (yes, leaving preschool) and on a side road in Alta Vista what should be in front of us but a TESLA ROADSTER CONVERTIBLE?!?!?  PURPLE!!!!!!  For your information, only about 1,000 of them have been sold in the United States.  Now this is no Ferrari GTO nor is it Mommy's dream car (which so you know, IS a Maserati GranTurismo) but it is very, very exciting to see a Tesla Roadster (on the ROAD, yo!) when only 1,000 of them went into production and are sold out in North America.  The base price of such car a much more reasonable $109,000. And, it's ELECTRIC!  (Cue "Electric Slide")
So we pick up Daddy and Mommy says, "Did ya get my text?!?  We saw a TESLA ROADSTER!  On the ROAD!" and Daddy says, "I don't even know what that is."  And I say:
"You will when Mommy gets one!"
 Dream big, baby!
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack