December so far....

Even though I despise winter, I have been enjoying December. We have had some great weekends. We went to Salt Lake one night to visit Dave's grandma Jane and after catching up with her we bundled the girls up an took them to see the lights at temple square. We had to park so far away but it was actually a lot of fun walking through the city at night. The whole thing started way past the girls' bedtime, but they were having SO MUCH FUN. Winter ain't so bad with long underwear, warm gloves and a fleece hat on. We saw some great singers from Syracuse High singing Christmas carols and Sasha really loved their show. That will be a yearly thing from here on out. It was just a great night.

A few weeks ago we took the girls on a great hike, again we were totally bundled up, but we got up out of the inversion and enjoyed a nice day of sun. We went prety high up the mountain and the girls got to do their favorite outdoor activity at the top, THROWING ROCKS!!! Rock throwing entertains these kids for hours!
Last weekend was so cold, but we had a lot of old bread in the kitchen so we went to Beus Pond to feed the ducks (and the maniac aggressive geese). As we got out of the car, the geese charged us. The children were terrified (okay I was terrified as well). We fed them anyway and Dave got bit on the legs a few times. An old woman was taking nature photos in the background, and good thing she was or I think we would have been eating Christmas goose for dinner. Dave sort of wanted revenge for all those bites. It was funny to watch.




Today was great. Aunt Leslie sent a HUGE package for the girls. We found the giant box on the porch and quickly brought it in and opened it. All the girls saw was TONS of the huge bubble wrap. They were instantly in heaven they both grabbed giant sections of it and ran to the living room to play. I took the actual gift out of the box and put it under the tree. They still haven't even noticed or asked about it. I think they believe their aunt sent them bubble wrap and they are so thrilled about it. After Lyla went down for a much needed nap, Sasha and I transformed the bod into the "Sashabot". Good times as always.

And last but not least, I have taken my crafting to a new low....
I wanted to take a great white elephant gift to a party and I thought I should make something this year. I walked into the fabric store, and I stumbled upon a clearance remnant of some flesh colored fleece and my brain automatically went to the gutter..... So I went with it and here's what I made. I won the white elephant gift contest and was asked by a friend to make her one for a party she was attending. I don't think the world is ready for this, but it was SO FUNNY!!!

You have to admit a ball-sack purse is sort of funny, right?

Halloween

I am a schedule person and strangly enough, the introduction of kindergarten has left me little time for doing the things I love, like writing this blog. If I have a couple of hours with one child, I like to go to a store or shower and appy mascara. One kid means almost NO SCREAMING sounds coming out of Lyla and I just want to enjoy every second of life when my children aren't trying to harm one another.
AND.......Pintrest. I should never have logged onto that website in the first place. I was warned of it's addictiveness, and I went anyway. I am VERY addicted to it and I think I love it more than Facebook, and everyone knows I'm not ashamed to say that I love Facebook. So yes, I am wasting LOTS of time on Pintrest and I've even caught Dave on Pintrest. It's that good.

So Halloween here was a blast. We had Sasha dressed as Tinkerbell and Lyla dressed as, you guessed it, TINKERBELL! It was just fine with me. I had to think once and sew twice. Easy peazy. They looked so cute and they had super cute Tink hair and I was so happy with the results, as were they. Lyla did her first real trick or treating and she loved it. At the second house, she tried to give her first piece of candy to the lady at the door in exchange for the new piece. She thought it was some sort of "trading" instead of the mass collection of candy that it really is. She had fun despite the fact that she could not actually eat a single piece of candy she collected. When the girls got back, we took all the peanut candy out of their bags (it was half the candy!)and gave it away to the ten million kids who knocked on our door. We had an insane amount of trick or treaters this year. It was fun though and the kids are already making plans for next year.

I'm still Alive!

Summer, plus distractions seems to equal ZERO blogging. Well I'm back! Here's the update. Sasha started Kindergarten and she loves it! She goes to half day kindergarten and the schedule sort of sucks. I personally didn't love school when I was a kid and I feel bad that Sasha has to go to school all day, everyday for the next 12 years, so I'm FINE with half day school for now. If you ever wonder why I didn't go on to Med school, my hatred of "school prison" is the reason. I like to do what I please most of the time. Of course I keep this information quite when speaking to Sasha...

This is her picture from the first day of school. She got to walk to school with cousin Anabel and her hairdo took a little long, so we didn't get the classic front porch shot. I will absolutely pat myself on the back for her ADORABLE dress which I made specifically for this grand occasion. She looked top notch! Here's a better shot of this adorable T-shirt dress. I got this gorgeous yellow trim from my grammy Bonnie's basement, so I bet it is totally from the 60's or 70's. She gave me a bag FULL of laces and trims and to me this is such a treasure. I can't get enough of ric rac, lace and ribbon! I get a bit to excited about that stuff.

So she's in school now and I guess this means my dreaded enemy winter is coming. I know that I live in Utah and it snows here, but now that I realize that the sun is my best friend, I just get so sad about Mr. Sun hiding behind the clouds for months. It's a bad situation for sure. We are trying to make the best of it though.....we bought a snowmobile and we're still looking for one more. Hopefully, this will make it a little better. Buying the boat last year, changed my life forever. I found out that we are very much "Boat people". We went to Pineview Dam nearly every single weekend and it turned out to be some serious quality family time......not to mention major Tan Time. I loved every second of it. Though it took months for her to warm up to it, Lyla finally found her love for walking on sand. I can only imagine how much more fun she has now that she has recovered from sand paraplegia. She threw all her toys off of the blanket and I just told her SHE had to walk off of the blanket to get them herself. She struggled for sometime with this sad reality, but ultimately she did it and life has been great ever since.




I love these girls SO MUCH!!!! I feel like I hit the kid jackpot. They are so cute and so funny. No lack of personality with these two!
There is one other reason that I have not updated this blog in so long. We have discovered a few new songs that require A LOT of dancing. We have gone dance party crazy at this house. LMFAO is the name of the group and they have two songs that we just can't get enough of. "Party Rock Anthem" (the name says it all) and "I'm Sexy and I Know it" is the other one. I feel that club dancing is the best medicine of all for a rotten mood, so we make sure to blast these songs several times a day and just shake our butts. The kids love it and I hope this part of their upbringing really puts a lifelong stamp in their memories of me. I'm not the best and certainly not the worst, but I definetly like to have fun. I can't handle a shortage of that....EVER.

I Want to Live on Vacation

Coronado was AWESOME! It just doesn't get much better than that. The weather was perfect every single day. We lived in the pool at the rental house and when we weren't in the pool (or soaking up the California sun next to it) we were at the beach. In hind sight, I wish we would have spent even more time at the beach, but you have to make some schedule adjustments if you want Lyla to take a nice nap and be happy.
We did go to one theme park, Legoland, and it was fun but VERY hot and really crowded. The Lego city display was so cool, but a day at Lagoon would be just as exciting for me, so we probably should have saved our money and gone to the beach. That is what I hate about theme parks. If I'm paying like $60 a person to come into your hot, crowded theme park, I think the least you can do is comp my parking. I'll be forced by the sun to buy a $3 water and maybe one $5 Gatorade, so do you really NEED my $12 just to park the rental mini van in your lot? It is just too much for me. Oh and I better not forget one crucial detail about said mini van........it broke down on the I-5 freeway. Better still, it broke down on the left hand side of the freeway, right next to the fast lane. This piece of shit Chrysler just turned off for no reason at all. It was sort of terrifying, but since it eventually started back up and no one died crossing 5 lanes of busy freeway, it ended up being sort of funny. Like the adventure before the theme park. The rest of the way there and back we had to stay in the slow lane just in case the van said "NO MORE" again.

The trip was also great because the kids and I spent some time with Dave. We rarely see him and it was just nice to spend some time together. And since we were staying with family, after the kids went to bed, we went on walks or went night swimming and that was so fun (especially our 5 mile walk/run to the other side of the island). It was just perfect and I so wish I lived there. If I win the lotto, you know where to find me....

Summer Vacation

The awesome summer vacation that I have been dreaming about since winter is finally here! I just can't wait to see the real ocean on the real beach and soak up that California sunshine! I am packing way light, but it's still time consuming and I feel like I am the most easily distracted person on the planet. I have seriously spent half the day on the phone and the other half right here on the good old laptop. It's been fun while I'm letting it get the best of me, but everytime I look away, my children are destroying any packing progress I've made. Lyla DOES NOT understand the words "don't touch". I don't even care though. I am so glad all the waiting is over and it's time to cash in on the dreams of summer vacation! Hopefully Lyla will drop the paraplegic freakshow act and finally WALK in the SAND!

Go Go Going!

What a summer already. I feel like fun plans materialize out of no where this summer. A day with nothing planned, ends up being filled with good times. I've taken the girls to the playground so many times at this point, that two year old Lyla has No Fear and she yells at me to stop there when we are passing it in the car. We have gone boating every weekend and that has been a real game changer around here. Yes, Lyla still hates the sand and won't touch the water ( in her defense Pineview water is sort of nasty), but she loves chilling out on her beach blanket, flipping sand around with her shovel. Every now and again she says, "I Lyla boat, go fast", followed quickly by "I go home". She don't know what she wants! Sasha on the other hand could spend the entire day just playing on the beach. She loves to sit on pops lap and "drive" the boat, she is constantly on the look out for waves to jump. It makes me so happy to be filling her young life with such fun memories. I am a sun loving lady and my tan is going to reach Pauly D. status by August. I know I'm not supposed to want to get my tan on....but I still love it.
Sasha took her first trip to Lagoon the other day and she had so much fun. Even though I have my mothers dizzy genes, I took a Dramamine and enjoyed some rides too. My best friend Russie has an adorable daughter, Addison , that is 19 days younger than Sasha. So that makes a trip to Lagoon that much more fun. Russie and I took on the old, white, rickety roller coaster and it didn't collapse, so it was a fun ride. I seriously felt 12 years old at the top of the first hill. Good times for sure. Sasha is fearless by the way. She was 2 inches to short for the roller coaster, but she was begging to ride it. Next year for sure.....


Some of the pictures below are of totally random stuff we've been doing (These are for you Leslie). Sasha's first ballet recital was adorable. She had so much fun being on stage and grandma Linda and grandpa Dennie brought her the most gorgeous bouquet of roses to give to her after her performance. Other shots are from Antelope island in the center of the Great Salt Lake. We totally went there at the worst time of the year. We got eaten alive by "no see" bugs within minutes of exiting the car. Sasha cried about it on the way home and she kept saying, "I am so sorry I ever made us come here! I just want to take a bath and go to bed!" It was funny, but we did see a buffalo very close up.... like 4 feet from the car.

Pre-show

Just left of Sasha is her big girl partner Grace. She is my cousin Joel's daughter and she is a beautiful ballerina. She was the star of the rest of the show. It was amazing watching her on those pointe shoes! She is an inspiration for Sasha.

Lyla put on a show too, off to the side of the stage....

too cute!

This is not zoomed in. It was that close.

The bug attack was getting more intense....

Sasha's drawing of our family. I am the child sized person to the left of the giant. I like that my hair is huge and I am the same size as my 4 year old. I was so sad that she drew this on the chalk board, because i would have framed it!

Apple Pine

Things are going pretty well with Lyla. Her diet is not "normal" for a kid her age, but we've made our own normal and it's great. She loves to eat cans of new potatoes with some salt, pepper and olive oil. She also loves to have chicken mixed in with the potatoes and it really is a delicious meal. It is called "kickin and tato" by a hungry Lyla. She has also rediscovered her love of pineapple. Today she threw a mini temper tantrum in her room and the whole time she was screaming "apple pine pwease! ME EAT APPLE PINE PWEEEEEASE!". I got the impression that she wanted some pineapple and she doesn't care what it's really called. So she calms down and eventually makes her way to the kitchen. I serve her the pineapple at the kitchen table and Sasha approached the table to see what Lyla was eating. This enraged Lyla! In the cutest baby talk you've ever heard, she puts her arm out and yells "Get Away now! ME LYLA APPLE PINE! Get away!" I can't help but laugh. Who takes their pineapple that seriously? Adorable!