My Twerps...

First of all, Alagram Family? Yeah, Margala Family was taken. Who would have thought? Some of Stephen's family has used the name Alagram (Margala spelled backwards for those of you who haven't figured that out) in their emails. I thought there was NO WAY that alagramfamily would be taken. I was right. So, Alagram Family it is. A little quirky, but that's how our family is most of the time.

It seems like ever since I can remember my Grandma called me a twerp...or a vasicup...either one probably suited me and my siblings just fine! Personally, I think that a twerp is a silly kid. You know, someone who is goofy and silly and fun to be around. Yeah, I have three of them. Twerp #1 is 7 and going into 2nd grade in the fall. Twerp #2 is 5 and starting Kindergarten in the fall. Twerp #3 is 4 and (since he's finally potty trained), he'll be going to his first and only year of preschool. 3 days a week! Do you know what that means? I'll be "childless" for 2 hours a day, three days a week. That's 6 hours of uninterrupted grocery shopping, cleaning, errand running, YMCA going, date lunches with Stephen and dare I say that occasional nap? I haven't had 6 hours a week to myself in 7 years, people! Holy smokes. I'm excited for September to roll around.

Not that I just want to skip summer altogether. Nope. Wouldn't want that. We're doing tons of fun things this summer. This year, it finally feels like everything is falling into place. We've got three potty trained kids who don't have accidents. None. We've got kids that can help out - a lot of helping out. So, we can go camping and not have to do all the "camping" by ourselves. We're doing a lot of camping this summer. We're going on a "up-country" trip too. Not a "cross-country" trip, because that would mean that we're going from CA somewhere East. No, we're going from CA to WA. Fun, I think...

Here's my favorite picture of the kids from this year. No one is crying, not looking, picking into holes on their face, pulling hair or generally being "not kind" to their siblings. Nope, everyone is cute, clean and happy. We don't get too many pictures like this. We get a lot of cute, dirty and happy pictures (when we're camping) or smiley, happy, not looking into the camera pictures...but not a lot of "mommy took this picture and we love her so much we're smiling great" pictures. Enjoy...