tales from a far-land

Yesterday, on our way home from a quick trip to Costco to get some necessities -- milk for the kids and coffee for the adults, Madilyn was having a conversation with her brother.  We had provided them some animal crackers to share as a snack while running the errand.  From her car seat, we heard Madilyn explain to Aiden that she "Didn't got no more cookies."  Josh and I quickly exclaimed that she "Didn't *have* any more cookies."  Then, Josh proceeded to explain to her that, "Grammar starts at home."  Madi quickly responded that "YES!  Grandma has more cookies at her house."  We just busted up laughing.  It was perfectly on que and without any prompting.  We did confirm back to her that Grandma did, in fact, have more cookies at her house.  Too bad we were not heading to Grandma's house though.  Oh Madi!  We have entered stage where "kids will say the darndest things".  Hopefully, we will be able to record and remember most

I have never been very good at keeping my new year's resolutions.  Probably because I made resolutions, but I have never been very good at turning those resolutions into goals.  Well, this year I decided that instead of making a bunch of new year's resolutions, I would instead make goals.  For the past week, I spent a good amount of time thinking about the good, the bad and the lessons learned from 2012.  Luckily, we had more good than bad this year and for that I am very thankful.  Then, I shifted my focus to 2013.  What successes would I like?  What are my goals?  What am I lacking?  What would I like to change?  I quickly was able to list out all of my goals and thoughts for a successful year.  The last thing that I needed to do was to figure out a way to keep all of these great ideas on top of my mind so I could guarantee their success and not forget about them as life becomes crazy.  Luckily, today I was invited to a Vision Board Party.  A vision board is typically a pos

Happy New Year!  The Farrell-Landers clan had the most idyllic start to our new year.  After breakfast, we all cuddled on the couch with blankets to watch the Rose Bowl Parade on television.  Aiden was so mesmerized with all of the floats and marching bands.  He sat on my lap watching the parade for at least an hour before he wanted down to play.  What a shock!  After the parade, we decided to head downtown to visit a park from Josh's and my childhood -- Encanto Park.  Encanto Park is a municpal park established in 1934 and consists of picnic areas, a lagoon, a boat house, swimming pool, nature trail, amusement park, fishing and two golf courses.  It was a beautiful day to go to the park.  Sunny and not too chilly.  We all had a great time.  The first thing the kids wanted to do was feed the ducks. As soon as we opened the bread bag, the ducks and geese started swimming over.  Madilyn was so excited to throw bread out to them in the water.  Aiden, on the other hand, was more inte