a picture a day

1.26.2012

2012-01-26T18:12:00.001-08:00

I gave T my old, old camera and he brought it on this trip. He's been bringing it around with him and today I stuck it in our ipad to see what he'd been taking pictures of. His pictures used to only be of the wall and floor, occasionally a foot or something, but he's really gotten a hang of the whole picture taking concept. I was pretty impressed with his pictures this time.
Here are some of my favorites. HA!

My little photographer.

1.24.2012

2012-01-25T06:19:00.001-08:00

We've had such a fun week of visitors!
First Dad came on Thursday. It was so fun to see him!! The kids couldn't stop smiling and neither could I. His brother Zane flew in on Friday and he's here visiting until tomorrow. The kids are having so much fun with Uncle Zane, it's nice to have someone here to play with them all day. We also met up with our good friends that we met while living in Vegas, the Kelvingtons. We hadn't see them in nearly a year, it was so fun to see them and see their cute girls. Unfortunately it rained the past several days, but we went to a movie, went to the aquarium, and I even talked the guys into getting pedicures with me. hahaha. They loved it. Anyway, here are lots of pictures.

We wish Sam could've stayed longer, but we sure had a great time with him while he was here. It was sad to say goodbye again yesterday. I am seriously the worst wife ever for ditching him so long to play in California, but I couldn't turn it down. We're having so much fun! Thanks for letting us invite ourselves to come along mom & dad :)

1.19.2012

2012-01-19T06:29:00.000-08:00

The other day we went to see the La Jolla Caves. It was really cool! We found this little store called the La Jolla Cave Store and hiked down tons & tons of stairs to get inside a real cave. T loved it and he did a great job walking down and up all the stairs by himself.

Yesterday we met up with my friend Jennie and her kiddos and went to sea world. We had such a great time! Sea World is so fun. We saw the Shamu Show and laughed at the Sea Lions. The kids loved playing in the water and going on the rides. We had a great time. Thanks Jennie for showing us around.

Course we've been spending most our time playing at the beach. It's pretty fun to be staying right on the beach. It's relaxing to hear the waves all day long and wake up to the beautiful ocean. Maizie sure loves the beach. She loves getting dirty & wet. T likes playing in the sand but he stays far away from the water. ha ha, my careful little guy. Here are a few pictures of Maizie on the beach. She just looks so darn cute playing out there. I love it.

Sam's on the plane right now headed our way, he'll be here in a few hours and we are dying to see him!! Wahooo!

1.15.2012

2012-01-16T06:12:00.000-08:00

We're having so much fun!
Uncle Cliff flew in for the weekend on Saturday and had to leave last night. We were sad to say bye to him but boy we sure had a great time with him while he was here.

Sam flies in late Thursday night and we can't wait to see him! We're getting so spoiled here. It's going to be hard to fly back to Ohio after getting used to this sunny weather and beach bummin'.

1.10.2011

2012-01-11T05:17:00.000-08:00

We went to the San Diego zoo today with my parents good friends and their daughter Natalie and her family. Natalie has 2 kids, Felix who's about a year older then T and Olive who's about a year younger then Maizie. We had a great time. Maizie is such a little animal lover, she was more into looking at the animals then anybody! T was probably more into running around with Felix then anything. haha. Those 2 boys are so crazy when they get together, but they sure have a lot of fun together.
Here's T and Maizie mapping out our day...

Riding the bus. I can't get enough of these 2 crazies, I love em so much.

We're having so much fun! Just counting down the days (8!!) until dad gets here!

1.7.2012

2012-01-07T19:33:00.001-08:00

Me and the kids boarded a plane early thursday morning and flew to san diego to meet up with my parents. Theyre here for the whole month so we figured we'd take advantage of the opportunity to get some sunny weather (and of course see them too), so we're tagging along with them and staying for the month also! We're having so much fun, the only thing that would make it better would be if sam were here. Hes coming in a few weeks and we cant wait to see him! This is my first time blogging with our iPad. Hopefully it works!! Here are some pictures of our trip so far, starting with the plane ride.

Basically, we've been filling our days beach bumming, going on walks and T's been riding his scooter a lot. It's been really nice and it sure is fun to see my parents. Now if i could just get my kids adjusted to west coast time we'd be golden. They've been waking up so super early!! Thanks for the fun trip mom & dad, we're having a blast.

1.2.2011

2012-01-03T05:18:00.000-08:00

This morning we woke up to snow on the ground!! We were so excited to finally use the shovel that Santa brought, so we went out first thing to shovel our walks. T was so into it that he not only did our house, but he shoveled the sidewalks all around the whole circle!

Maizie wanted in on the action too and came out to shovel for a while.

After we were done, we ran down to the coffee shop for some hot chocolate.

We sure had a fun snow day.

On a different note...Maizie is such a big girl now! We put the high chair in the basement (it was one of those clip to the table type chairs and it was making us nervous how big she was looking in it..like she was weighing down a little too much and it was going to break..) Anyway, she started sitting in a booster at the table by T and she couldn't be more thrilled about it. After she's done with her meal, she'll usually move onto T's food that he left behind. HAHA. I love my little fatso.

12.28.2011

2011-12-28T11:35:00.000-08:00

I'm really excited about a new app I just discovered called Diptic. It makes it super easy to combine photos into a collage.

I love these crazy kids so much!!

I also love instagram. It's an app that transforms photos by changing it's effect to make them more fun. I love it. Here's an example. Yesterday I took a picture of the kids and Ollie hanging out in the back of the car.

...and filtered the color a bit by using instagram.

Way cooler, right? iphone's are so fun.

12.27.2011

2011-12-27T06:12:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve, Sam & I played some tennis, we took the kids on a walk, T rode his scooter.. (the weather was so nice! The kids have been asking for popsicles on our walks lately! ha!) and they got to open a few presents. Thanks to Sam's parents for the jammies and cool flashlights for the kids!!

We had some good friends over for dinner. (Sam & Erik grew up practically next door to each other, so we've known them for a long time. We're so glad the Peterson's live here too!) Sam made a delicious ham and we decorated cookies for Santa.

Christmas morning Sam woke up at 5am to make his traditional delicious cinnamon rolls. (big thanks to Becki, he's used her secret recipe for 3 years in a row)

A few pictures of Christmas morning around our house.
Our kids are at such fun ages for Christmas. I knew T would be into it, but Maizie surprised us and was just as into it as he was. haha. It was such a fun morning.

All T really wanted was a new "little key." (We lost his a few months ago) We're pretty surprised how into it he is. We weren't expecting him to love it like he loved his old smelly, ratty one. He still favors his big key but he's giving his new blanky a chance.

We missed our families this year, but boy we are so blessed to be here with a good job and healthy, happy kids. We hope everyone had a happy Christmas.

12.21.2011

2011-12-21T19:14:00.000-08:00

We've had a lot of really fun days at the zoo, but today was the best, most fun zoo day we've ever had. We went down around 12:30, hoping to beat the rain that was supposed to come, ride the merry go round and come home, but we stayed until 4:00...and the merry-go-round wasn't even running! haha. When we pulled up there were 4 cars in the whole parking lot, so I figured the zoo was closed. But good thing we stuck around because we had such a blast!! The kids were so happy, and happy kids=easy kids :)

I loved today. The stars aligned for us and everything worked out perfectly. Maizie loved walking around and I loved that I didn't have to worry about her crawling on the nasty zoo floor or losing anybody in the crowd. T wore big boy underwear and even told me once that he had to go potty so we found a bathroom at the zoo for him to use! (slowly moving out of the underwear at home and diaper when we're away phase....) It was super cloudy all day and kind of dark so we could see all the cool Christmas lights (we were happy they were turned on!) but never rained a drop. Anyways, we couldn't have picked a better day to go.
Wish I would've brought my real camera..but here are some phone pictures.

After all that zoo fun, both kids were bathed and asleep by 6:30pm so Sam & I watched a non-cartoon movie, peacefully, all by ourselves! If today ended up being groundhog day and I lived it over & over again I wouldn't be one bit sad. It was a good day. Plus that would mean my kids wouldn't grow up anymore, and that would be perfect because I love 'em so much right now and I'm not totally convinced I like all the growing up they've been doing lately. What happened to my little babies??

12.18.2011

2011-12-18T15:41:00.000-08:00

I was online a few weeks ago, searching for cute Christmas jammies for the kids and I came across these non-Christmas but so cute jammies (they say "Moose Caboose" on the bum. ha! I love 'em).

..and I love her!

I'm totally bummed out that they were sold out of T's size. But I'm going to keep checking back and get them when they come back in stock.

12.15.2011

2011-12-15T10:26:00.001-08:00

Her hair is getting so long! So today I tried putting some pigtails in and she looked adorable.

I can't get over how fast she's growing up. She hardly crawls anywhere anymore, she's walking all over....and getting fast! I love her so much, I can't even stand it.

12.13.2011

2011-12-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

Tonight we went with some friends to see the lights at the zoo. Wow! I was super impressed. There were lights everywhere and Santa was even here visiting from the North Pole. T was really excited. It was super fun.

Our friends have twins that are a few weeks younger than Maizie. A boy & a girl. They are SO cute.

12.10.2011

2011-12-10T18:49:00.000-08:00

T loved meeting Santa. He told him that we were going to make cookies for him and when Santa asked what T wanted he said, "a new little key," (blanket, like his big blue one but it's little. He used to have one but he lost it back in the summer somewhere). Anyway, it was news to me! It actually kind of broke my heart, I didn't know he was so torn up about losing it so long ago. I really don't know where he got the idea to ask Santa for a new one. haha. Funny guy.

He also told Santa that Maizie wanted a baby because she wasn't telling him herself...haha. She didn't want to touch him with a 10 ft. pole. (just like me when I was a kid...hey, can you blame us?)

12.6.2011

2011-12-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

It started snowing last night after Maizie had gone to bed, so T & I ran outside to play for a few minutes!!

He loved it, but I think he loved the hot chocolate after even better.

After the kids went to sleep last night, Sam and I turned on some Christmas music and each decorated our own gingerbread house. It was so fun to be able to make it just how I wanted...haha so selfish. Really though, it was a blast. I think my favorite part was watching Sam decorate his. He was concentrating so hard on it hahaha, it was so cute. Oh man I love him. (Sam said he wanted to add something to his so I didn't take a picture, but it's in the next picture anyway...)
Here's mine.

OK so here's the part that I'm not proud of....as we were decorating, T got out of his bed and came down and oh man I'm never going to forget the look he had on his face when he saw Sam & I at the table, munching on candy, doing gingerbread houses & having a party without him. He was so confused. It was heart breaking. Course he wanted to help and I gave him a gingerbread cookie to decorate but I wouldn't let him touch my house!! ahhhhhh I'm embarrassed to say that. What kind of a mom am I? hahaha Seriously! (He was actually quite happy with the cookie, but I still felt bad) Anyway this morning while we were out, I grabbed him one and let him & his friend Lily have at it this afternoon while she was over playing. So now we have a whole gingerbread village gracing our home. (complete with a gingerbread train-not shown)

This morning we went to Costco. Maizie started getting a bit fussy so I grabbed this giant bear to ride around in the cart with us with no intention of buying it (is that bad? Does anyone else do that, because I do it all the time) Anyway, when we went to check out, she had clearly bonded with the bear and had a MAJOR melt down when I took him away. After finding out it was 8 bucks and change, I decided it was worth my sanity to buy the thing. He did look pretty darn cute riding in the cart next to Maizie. (Don't mind her mullet....I need you ROO!)

We made a snowman today. T wanted to name him Frosty. Clever huh? haha. Unfortunately Winston thought Frosty was an intruder or something & his life was cut short. He was tackled down to the ground shortly after I took this picture. Darn dogs.

She didn't mind the cold or snow one bit! She just sat happily in the snow and watched all the action. ha ha i LOVE HER!!

My neighbor (& friend) was in a bind today and had nobody to watch her kids while she went in to work, so I watched them. I had (including mine) 4 kids. TWO, 3 year olds, a 13 MONTH old and a 4 MONTH old, all by myself for 5 1/2 hours. Apparently T thought it was the coolest thing ever and kept saying stuff like, "I want a baby like Jackson. He's so cute. Maizie is way bigger then him. She's not as cute as he is." hahaha. Ironic, because I was thinking all those kids at the same time was great birth control and here T is talking about a baby brother. Sorry to break it to you T but you're probably not getting any more siblings. Hopefully he can get some cousins soon though?? haha. Really though, siblings. Get on it :)

12.2.2011

2011-12-04T05:07:00.000-08:00

Health Care REIT had their Christmas party on Friday night. It was fun to meet some new people that Sam works with and to see some friends that we hadn't seen in a while, but my favorite part was getting out of the house alone with Sam & no kids. hahaha. It's always a treat. (Not that I don't LOVE the kids but ya know!) As we walked through the door a photographer snapped this super cheesy picture & gave it to us. We we laughing so hard that she would pose us like this. I kinda think we look like we're 75 years old. hahaha.

Sam makes me laugh so hard. I love date nights.

12.1.2011

2011-12-01T06:31:00.001-08:00

I stumbled across a picture of a kids treehouse bed and emailed it to Sam saying something like, "how sweet is this? I bet you could make it." And before I knew it our garage was transformed into a workshop and he'd gotten to work! I couldn't believe it. AHH what a great dad, I married so well! In less then a week, Sam made this amazing bed for Tucker. There were a few nights where he came home from work around 6pm and worked on the bed until 1-2am. (You normally won't find us awake past 9 or 10 so it was even that much nicer of him!) Anyway, I have been so impressed with him all week, I knew he was handy but, man! What a guy. Not that he needed to because T already looks up to his daddy so much, but he scored some major points with T this week. Thanks Sammy! Amazing job! Here are so pictures that I snapped along the way...

Finished!! Complete with Christmas lights. We spent hours hanging out in it this morning. So fun!

11.25.2011

2011-11-25T17:32:00.000-08:00

I used to tell people that Thanksgiving was my favorite Holiday because as soon as it was over we had a whole month of Christmas ahead of us. I love Christmas. Love it, love it, love it. Always have. Always will. I love the lights and the decorations, the music, the magic. (WOAH cheesy) Anyway, I love everything about it. Today, we had so much fun setting up our Christmas decorations and this year we had a few new additions:
Addition #1 the train around the tree.

T didn't stop playing with it from the time it came out of the box to the time he went to bed. I don't think I've ever seen him this into a toy before. wowza he loves it. (and miraculously Maizie hasn't tried to grab it off the track? She waves at it and blows it kisses as it dives by her. It's pretty darn cute)

Addition #2 the garland up the staircase.

I got it back in October and I've been so excited with the anticipation of putting it up. This is the first home we've lived in with stairs, and I'm loving the garland.

This is the first year in a long time (our whole marriage?!) that we're planning on staying "home" for Christmas. And although we will for sure miss our families, I'm excited for Christmas morning, for T to come out of his room and down the stairs to see that Santa came to his house.
I'm excited to start our own traditions, does anyone have a favorite tradition? I'm looking to pick a few up. haha. Really though. I'd love some fun ideas.
Yay for the official start of the Christmas season, let the magic begin!

11.24.2011

2011-11-24T15:54:00.001-08:00

I'm thankful for him...

..for many many reasons, but especially today because he did almost all the cooking for our big Thanksgiving meal. This was the 1st year we volunteered to make the turkey, so Sam did a bunch of research and made a super delicious & perfect turkey. (Our friends didn't buy it that he'd never made one before) He also made some stuffing from scratch, I loved it. I was totally impressed.

I was in charge of the pie and the table decorations. (I picked a pumpkin pie up at Costco haha) I put a little more effort into the table settings. This kids places turned out cute.

The adults (am I really an adult? I always feel weird calling myself one...) were nothing to write home about, but I took a picture anyway (and look at that, I am writing home about it haha).

the spread.

I'm not only thankful that Sam did the cooking, he also did all the dishes and clean up. I know, I know, I'm so lucky! Even though we don't live by our families in Utah, I'm thankful that Sam has such a great job. I'm thankful that we have such good friends who want to come over and celebrate Thanksgiving with us. And most of all, I'm thankful for my husband and my healthy, beautiful children. Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving!

11.23.2011

2011-11-23T11:05:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to make this tree treat (wow how's that for a tongue twister?! haha) with T since I saw it on pinterest a few weeks ago and I thought since we were watching some friends this morning it'd be the perfect time to bust it out. They turned out super cute and they were so easy to make! Here's T, making his tree.
I love T's cheesy grin.

Sweet Sadie with her finished tree.
We love Sadie. T cried & cried when her mom picked her back up today.

All you do is cover a sugar cone with green frosting and stick some Christmas m&m's on. easy!! Thank you pinterest!

11.22.2011

2011-11-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

missing them...

Sunday morning after my mom and dad left T went in their room, sat on the bed and said, "I'm just going to wait here until baba gets back." seriously broke my heart :(

Thanks for coming to visit us mom & dad. We are really missing you so much now!! Come back.

11.18.2011

2011-11-18T06:01:00.000-08:00

she walks! here's a video to prove it.
(Don't mind my mom in her PJ's, it was like 6am. And don't mind my baby talk. In fact, go ahead and just mute it.)

11.14.2011

2011-11-14T17:39:00.000-08:00

Grandma & Grandpa are here visiting! We're having so much fun, and I'm sure the kids are happy to have someone here to play with besides me. haha. T was so happy that baba played doggies with him all day long, and took him (leash & all) on many doggie walks around the house. haha.

Tonight after dinner we decorated a gingerbread train.

All done!

so happy to have them here!

11.11.2011

2011-11-11T06:30:00.000-08:00

She's a drama queen.
(My favorite video of Maize so far hahaha)

Seriously, if she's this dramatic at 1 can you imagine teenage drama? ahhhhh. I'm scared to have teenagers (especially a girl).

11.9.2011

2011-11-09T10:53:00.001-08:00

We love meeting Sam for lunch at his office. They have a chef who prepares the best food, and everyone treats us so nicely. We'd go everyday if we could. Thanks for the fun lunch dad! We love seeing you in the middle of the day!

11.8.2011

2011-11-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

She won't let me feed her from a spoon anymore. I guess she thinks it's baby-ish and now that she's a big one year old & she wants to feed herself. (she gets real mad when I wont let her grab the spoon) So this morning I thought what the heck and I gave her some yogurt with a spoon. It started out okay, she made contact with the spoon to the yogurt.

But it quickly turned into more of a sensory activity then eating. ha. I figured it would. Oh well, she loved it.

11.7.2011

2011-11-07T16:50:00.001-08:00

Ever since we moved to Ohio, every Saturday morning we head down to Sam's office (they have a ton of property, and a mile long path that loops around a huge grass field) to let our dogs run around and we'll walk the loop a few times. It's my favorite time of the week, and I wish it wasn't starting to get so cold because I have a feeling our fun Saturday morning's outside are getting numbered.
Maizie girl is getting pretty close to walking...

T likes to pretend that the stroller is a train (like the Polar Express) and I'm the conductor. We go through the whole spiel of "why the polar express of course!" and "suit yourself!" "Wait the little boy wants to get on the train! I must stop the train! Maizie stop the train!" ha ha ha. He loves it. (he likes to do this at the grocery store too) Here he is sitting in his seat, waiting to give me (the conductor) his ticket. It's his favorite game. He makes train tickets all day long while we're at home. Tickets for everyone. (every time he hands Maizie her tickets, he says "don't eat them Maizie, you need them to get on the train!") ha.

my pretty baby.

Saturday night Sam & I went to a fancy Wine Gala. ha ha. Yes you read right. Pretty positive we were in the only ones in the room with empty wine glasses, but we still had a ton of fun. His work needed some representatives to go and we're always up for going on dates with no kids, especially ones with free dinners. haha. It was fun to dress up, and yes I'm wearing heels, a very rare occasion (first occasion?!) Sam was wearing pretend heels. haha. Sorry babe. Thanks to our babysitter who took a picture of us on our way out the door and said it was like Prom. haha

Cheers!!

It was actually pretty cool. There was a silent auction with all kinds of great stuff from vacation packages to kids books and autographed things. We bid on some things (a sweet rug, some steak knifes and a inside grill, a pretty necklace, a beach bag stuffed with beach trip stuff, and 5 large pizzas to our favorite delivery pizza here) We got outbid everything (we went up on a few things but still got outbid) except for the pizza!! Now we have 5 large pizzas to use so if you come visit us, we'll have a pizza party! After dinner and during the silent auction there was a live wine auction. It was so funny! I'd never been to an auction before, the auctioneer had the crazy fast voice going and everything. It was great. Oh and these wines were going for thousands of dollars, it was unbelievable. haha. It was a fun fun night, we had a lot of good laughs.

On a totally different note, on Sunday the Primary met in the Chapel to practice for our primary program coming up. After church, I swung by nursery to pick T up and took him back to the chapel to gather my things. Apparently I didn't pass down my fear of speaking to this kid. He ran right up to the mic, stayed there talking for a while and had a major, major meltdown when I told him it was time to head out (he's usually running out to the car..ha) I snapped a picture of him with my phone because he did look pretty darn cute up there. (is that okay? to take pictures in the chapel? I'm not sure...) anyway, he's a real natural.

T loves it when the dogs hang out in his room. He was pretty stoked that Ollie was letting him be his foot stool this morning. haha. Cute huh? Ollie's a good sport.

11.4.2011

2011-11-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

T starts soccer next week, yesterday we went to pick up his uniform and get him a ball to practice. The guys at the front desk told him to go check out the field where he'll be playing since it wasn't being used. He had so much fun and has been asking to go back to "the cool soccer place" ever since. He does have some pretty sweet moves... I love the spin he does at the beginning of the movie, ha ha.

And my little Maizie just discovered the slide, and now she's obsessed. She loves it and would slide down all day long if she had the chance to.

11.2.2011

2011-11-02T06:24:00.000-07:00

This morning T was crawling around barking and wearing his dog ears. (what else is new? haha) I stuck some on Maizie too-fully expecting her to pull them right off. But she loved them! She crawled around, chasing T and barking like a dog. He loved it. It was the cutest thing, she kept reaching up making sure her ears were still on and getting a huge smile when she felt them. She loved it. Seeing my 2 babies playing together is my new favorite thing in the world. I love it.

haha!

10.31.2011

2011-10-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

We had a great Halloween! It all started last night, T & I made a pumpkin pie out of a real pumpkin! We were really excited about it, we'd never made pumpkin pie out of a pumpkin before. I should go take a picture of the finished product, but it's not that pretty. It did taste really good though, that's more important right?

This morning I put a spooky skeleton in T's pancake. He didn't really like it, and asked for a new pancake with no ghost (must've gotten his Halloween characters mixed up hahaha) I thought it was cute though.

After breakfast, we headed out with some friends to go trick or treating at a nearby town's main street. It was super cute. All the little shops with a pumpkin sign in the window gave out candy. I was surprised how into it he was! He loved looking for the pumpkin signs (which just about every store had. It was cute). He just about filled up his whole mailbag with candy. He loved looking at all his candy, but didn't really want to eat any. He liked the smarties and kit kats, but that's all. One store tried giving him a twinkie and he just put it right back in their bowl. haha. Anyway, I love my little mailman and I can't get enough him in his costume.

Love hers too, she's so snuggly in her big pumpkin costume.

After Dad got home & we ate chili in the crock pot for dinner (anyone else have that Halloween tradition? yummmmm. Perfect on a cold fall night) We headed out trick or treating around the neighborhood.

After we hit up about 3 houses, T said "mom I want to go home at look at all my candy." ha ha. So we did. And as it turned out, he liked passing out candy to the trick or treaters even more then trick or treating. He got really into it. He'd sit and wait on the stairs for people to come. Then get super stoked when the doorbell would ring and say the cutest things to the kids, commenting on their costumes and telling them to have a happy Halloween. I should've recorded it. It was too cute.

Trick or treating hours here are from 6-7:30. Which I'd never heard of before. Is that a new thing everywhere or just an Ohio thing?? It was nice because we could calm T down and put little miss to sleep and not worry about the doorbell waking anybody up.

Anyway, hope everyone had a Happy Halloween. We sure did. Holidays are getting more & more fun each year my kids get a little older.

10.29.2011

2011-10-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

Today we went to a Halloween Party! It was so much fun. I love little kiddos in costumes. They're just so darn cute. Here are my cuties all ready to party!

I was surprised how shy T was at the party. He knew all the kids from church, I guess the costumes threw him off. He just hung by me and wanted to play we me and Maizie the whole time. (I didn't mind one bit!)

She was just eating the whole time. Anything she could find, edible or not. Shortly after I snapped this picture, I found her with about 7 candy corns stuffed in her mouth! ha ha. Oh man I love her.

Donuts on a string. Classic Halloween party game. I loved watching T play.

ha ha ha. I was surprised how long he actually tried to eat it without hands before just grabbing it.

We had a great time! I love my little mailman and pumpkin so much.

10.27.2011

2011-10-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

I took both kids in today for well checks. Maizie had her 1 year and T, his 3 year.

(I know, I know, what you're thinking! I let him take his key. BUT it really was the 1st time he's taken it out of the house in a few weeks. I knew he was getting shots today and I wanted him to have it. Judge me if you want, go ahead. My 3 year old carries a blanket)

Both got their flu shots and little miss had 4 other shots too. I guess NY has a different immunization schedule then Ohio so T needed to get caught up on one more too. (Going back in a month for the 2nd dose...sad huh?) Both checked out completely healthy though, so we celebrated with donuts!!

T was all ready, even anxious, to go to the Doctor today, thanks to my awesome Mother in Law who sent him a bunch of costumes for his birthday.

I really do think it helped, because yesterday he checked Maizie and even practiced giving her a flu shot. He kept saying, "it doesn't hurt Maizie girl, it makes it so you don't get sick!" it was adorable. She totally put up with it too. She was loving his attention.

Argh Matey!! (Thanks Robyn!)

10.25.2011

2011-10-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to my Tucker!! I love him so much I can't even stand it! I know everyone says this about their own kid, but seriously he is the sweetest kid ever. I've never met a guy his age, so concerned with other peoples feelings. He is one in a million and I love him!! We had a super fun day and took lots of pictures. It all started out with pancakes, his shaped like a 3.

And a few presents before Sam left for work.

Since T is so into dogs right now, we decided to have a little doggie party today to celebrate. It was his first real birthday party and it was totally fun! You might think that I'm crazy for having mom's drop their kids off, instead of staying, but it wasn't even that crazy. It was really fun! (Big thanks to Vicki & Elizabeth who stayed and helped, it really would've been total chaos without them) but all in all, I'd do it all over again, T had a blast and that's all that matters right?
Here are some pictures from the party.

Lunch was hot dogs in dog bowls.

(pin the dog bone in the dog's mouth...)

(bean bag toss...)

CAKE!

Thanks to everyone for all the great gifts! We're so lucky to have such great friends.
(This was the 1st year that he was totally excited to open presents)

Maizie napped through the whole party! It was super nice, thanks Maizie! Not that I wouldn't have loved her to party with us, but she loves to have her mama's attention, so it was great that I didn't have to give her any for that hour and a half. So, after the kids left and Maizie woke up, I gave her some lunch and a tiny slice of T's cake. She dug right in! ha ha. (remember on Sunday when she hated her whole cake experience?) I think it's because this time around nobody was singing to her/looking at her/ and it was just a small piece. It can't be because I baked her cake and someone else baked T's, right? RIGHT? ha ha. oh man I love her.

After the house (& Maizie) were clean and T had rested while watching 101 Dalmations, he went on a long bike ride while I pushed Maizie in the stroller. Then we met up with some neighbors to play outside and jump in the leaves.

Tonight as he was falling asleep I asked him if he had a good birthday and he goes, "I had a great day mom. The best day I ever got!" ha ha. He's so cute. I sure love him. Happy birthday my big 3 year old!! I'm so lucky that he's mine.

10.23.2011

2011-10-23T16:33:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday to my Maizie! I love you so much I can't even stand it!!
We went to the farm for donuts, pumpkins, a hay ride and to see all the animals.

...and back home for presents (after a long naps, which was heavenly!) We let T open one of his birthday presents (his is on Tuesday) early, "so he could teach Maizie how to do it." (we just felt bad that he didn't have anything) he got a nerf gun, that he loves. Here he is helping little sis.

Maizie's cake-which I was SURE my little fatso baby would just dig right into.

But.....nope. She hated it. Just like T hated his first birthday cake. ha ha ha. What is it with my kids? (with T I was bummed, with her I thought it was funny.)

we tried moving her to the table....

still a no go. ha ha. Oh well.

I'm so lucky I get to watch this little girl grow up, she is such a great kid and I love her, love her, love her!! Happy birthday Maizie girl!

10.19.2011

2011-10-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the awesome & spoooooooky cupcakes Vicki!

We loved em.

10.16.2011

2011-10-16T15:51:00.000-07:00

This morning we went on a long walk around our neighborhood and T rode his bike. He decided that he'd better wear his dragon costume to scare away the ghosts. (he watched a Halloween Handy Manny on TV yesterday about a ghost in the clock tower, poor guy keeps talking about ghosts, I hope he wasn't traumatized!)

We had a ton of fun. Long walks with my family (especially in this gorgeous fall weather!) might be my favorite thing to do.

10.14.2011

2011-10-14T16:42:00.001-07:00

We went apple picking today. (T wore dog ears all day. Didn't want to take them off and he wanted me to call him Tucker doggie. He called me mommy doggie all day. He ate like a dog and wanted "doggie treats" not food. all day. ha ha ha. I loved it.)

All the good ones were out of our reach. I climbed the tree to reach them, but Maizie freaked out (huge mamma's girl these days...i don't mind one bit. I love her so much!) So Vicki held Ethney up to grab them.

We kept saying, "we need a ladder!!" and when we were just about done, we found one. ha ha.

At one point T decided that he needed his blankie. (read with whiny voice..) "key key KEY!! I need my key!!!!!!!!!!!" So that's why he was bummed out in this picture.

While I'm on the subject: we were going to have his key start staying at home when he turned 2, but Maizie was born just 2 days before his 2nd birthday so we decided not to rock his world too much and let him take it everywhere still. Anyway a whole year later and he still wants it all the time. It's time to start leaving it at home. Not because I'm trying to make him grow up or that I think it's baby-ish, I simply have too much to gather together each time we leave the house anyway and sometimes (like today) I just don't grab it. Then it's always a huge deal that we don't have it. SO-the key is going to stay home. I'm expecting some rough days, but I'm sticking to it.

Apple picking is fun.

10.13.2011

2011-10-13T16:57:00.001-07:00

Wish I could take credit for this genius idea, but I can't. Ever since seeing it on pinterest a few days ago I've been wanting to try it.
Fishing for magnetic letters. How genius is that? I knew T would love it, so tonight after the kids bath we tried it out and he did. (love it) ha ha.

I had him tell me each letter & color as he "fished" them out, he was so into it. It was super fun.

10.12.2011

2011-10-12T17:52:00.001-07:00

We made playdough today. T helped me from start to finish. I think his favorite part was putting the food coloring in. Well, that and playing with it of course.

...and done!

I have the best homemade playdough recipe. It's so easy and I like it way better then the stuff you buy in the store. It's much softer (and if Maizie wants to have a taste, which of course she did...eh oh well) ha ha.
I wish I could give someone credit for it but I have no idea where I found it. I've had it for the past few years, it's the only kind I make anymore.

1 C. all purpose flour
1 C. warm (not hot) water
2 tsp cream of tarter
1 T. vegetable oil
1/4 C salt

food coloring.

Combine all the ingredients, stir until you get all the lumps out (that's key...no lumps!)
Add desired food coloring.
Heat your mix on a medium temperature. Stirring the bottom of the pan slowly. As you scrape the bottom of the pan you will see your mix start to thicken up. Keep stirring. The mix will continue to lump and become harder to stir. As it becomes more solid, press out the blob to make sure you get all the liquid headed up. When you feel like it's a good consistency, remove your play dough from the pan and knead it to finish smoothing it all out. When it cools...PLAY!!
and store in an airtight container or a ziploc baggie.

10.11.2011

2011-10-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

we found a great farm just 10 minutes away from our house today. We've gotta take Sam back there this weekend or one day after work. The kids (and I!!) loved it.

(making sure she didn't fall off the bench swing..aw)

We love Vicki. She's the closest thing we have to family out here. She's really amazing. She takes care of my kids, makes us (fantastic) meals, gives us treats, lets us go hang out at her totally fun house (we go almost everyday), and T loves her kids. Thanks Vicki. we love you! (I need to get a picture of your face next time! ha ha)

10.9.2011

2011-10-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

Sam found T a hardly used kid 4-wheeler on craigslist and got it for him for his birthday. (great find babe!) We had good intentions to keep it in our neighbors garage until the big day, but Sam couldn't wait...ok, ok, we both couldn't wait. Anyway, he got it a few weeks early. And he LOVES it. We took it out this morning for a spin. We were out early enough to see the sun rising, it was so beautiful.

Weekends rock.

10.7.2011

2011-10-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the Pumpkin Patch with some friends. (there are a TON of pumpkin patch's up here. woah! We're going to a different one every Friday this month, so brace yourself for lots of cliche pumpkin patch pictures.) Maizie is at a really great age for the pumpkin patch because she gets really excited about the pumpkins..."ball! ball! ball!" and can crawl around & pull herself up on pumpkins and she doesn't want to be held.
We went up with some friends in our ward. Here's the whole gang, most of them are in T's nursery class.

T is really into climbing these days. If he sees something tall he figures out a way to get up to the top. (It's actually kinda scary. This past week I've found him up on top of the car, and up on the top shelf of his closet. Sorry grandparents, does that scare you?) anyway, here's my climber.

We took a ride on the pumpkin train! It was actually pretty fun, the pumpkin spun around like the tea cups at Disneyland.

They both love animals, just like their daddy. T told me the animals were his favorite part of the pumpkin patch.

Now, both kiddos are napping. Ahhhh. Thank you pumpkin patch.

10.6.2011

2011-10-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

She loves the tub and would stay in there for hours if I let her. (I think...I always say that but I really don't know, as I've never tried.) All I know is that she's never ready to get out when I take her out, and sometimes (like tonight) she takes really looooooong baths.

a movie:

10.5.2011

2011-10-06T06:58:00.000-07:00

This little man is going on day 3 with no diapers! He did have one accident while riding his bike yesterday, but he was pretty torn up about it and as my tennis coach always says...you're allowed one double fault per match, to learn from your mistake. I surely don't want to jinx it, but I think this kid is done with diapers.
(during the day anyway, we're not quite ready to try night yet. One step at a time, right?)

I'm proud of my guy!!

(so-he gets a mini marshmallow every time he goes on the potty. Is it bad to reward him with junk food? I first tried stickers and he wasn't as stoked about stickers as marshmallow's. I probably should've tried something else, but in a desperate situation, I offered the marshmallow and now he'll go sit on the potty, squeeze a little out just for a marshmallow. Any advice?)

10.3.2011

2011-10-03T19:39:00.000-07:00

Today we went the zoo. T loves the fountain there because he gets to throw pennies in the water. Whenever he finds coins laying around at home, he picks it up and says, (very excitedly) "I can save this for the zoo!!"

...I can't believe how long her hair is getting! It was blowing all over the place in the wind today. I love it.

love her.

I'm happy it's October. October is an exciting birthday month around our house. This month my baby will turn a whole year old, and my other baby turns 3! I'm not one to throw huge parties for my one year olds, but I made T a boy birthday banner before his 1st birthday, so I decided I'd better make a girl one for little miss. I dusted off the old trusty sewing machine tonight and made it. I haven't been able to sew much since I had Maizie, but I think I'll be able to start working on some more projects now that she's such a big girl. Hopefully. I had forgotten how much I enjoy sewing.

9.30.2011

2011-09-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

I was recently informed by both sides of grandparents that they love when I post movies on the blog. (I really need to change the name of this blog to something like: 10 pictures a day and some movies too.) Anyway, here you go grandparents, here are some more movies.

T is really into the Polar Express right now. He'd watch the movie 8 times a day if I let him. (I think, I've never actually tried it because I'd feel like the worst mom ever.But I'm pretty sure he would) Anyway, he likes reading the book too. He's pretty stoked for Christmas already. I showed him the calendar to explain that we still have a while before Santa comes but there are a lot of fun things going on in between now and then like his birthday....he was unimpressed, he just wants Santa. ha ha.

mom: T thanks for the cute red shirt. T was being silly in this movie, but he knows it's from you. It looks great on him. Perfect for Utah game days. Thanks a ton!

9.29.2011

2011-09-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

She got some new clips and they look so cute on her!
(she pulls headbands right off, but she'll keep a clip in all day, as long as it's the kind that snaps. She's pretty picky about them. ha. I'm so glad she keeps them in though, I love them on her.)

She has quite a clip collection now and we needed somewhere to put all her new clips so I made this super easy clip board to hang up on her wall.

I was prepared to be totally "homesick" for Ithaca, especially this time of year, but Ohio actually has a lot of the same things that I loved so much about Ithaca. Today we discovered this great apple orchard just 10 minutes away from our house, with tons and tons of apple trees for people to pick apples from. They also make doughnuts, right there for everyone to watch. They were making pumpkin doughnuts while we were there, so course we got one...ok ok, we got a dozen. They make apple cider doughnuts, T's favorite and even blueberry doughnuts, Sam's favorite. On Saturday they're going to run the apple cider press, churn honey butter, and have pony rides so you can bet we'll be back on Saturday. We had so much fun today. I brought our Nikon but realized when we got there that I didn't have a memory card, so I just have pictures taken from my phone, but oh well. I'm really loving a new picture app on my phone so I wasn't too bummed. Plus, we'll be back.

Good thing "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." We came home with tons & tons of apples, and they're so good. Yummmm.

9.28.2011

2011-09-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

People are probably sick of seeing pictures of T on his scooter. And I don't blame you. If he weren't my kid I'd be sick of them too. But this one is for the grandparents who beg to see more movies. T was crusin' down the driveway today on his scooter. I tried it later and it's pretty scary! This kid is getting brave. He's not as wussy as I used to think he was. (ha ha) Really though, Sam & I thought he was such a careful little dude, but he's got guts!
Here's a video.

(oh and if you look really carefully, you'll be able to see Maizie laying on her tummy on the sidewalk, with her face in the garden, eating dirt. I'm an awesome mom.)

(I love at the end when he says "did you see that?!" So proud of himself. ha ha. I love it.)

I love my little scooter dude.

9.27.2011

2011-09-27T18:02:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to the best guy I know...

T took a turn too...

(I know, I know, I'm disappointed in myself for not making a cake too...I really like making cakes, but this year I took the easy route. Sorry babes. It wasn't a bad carrot cake though.)

Maizie was already sleeping for the birthday party so here's a picture of her from earlier today..

I'm kinda bummed that Sam had to work and that we couldn't hang out with him all day, but we got a sitter tonight for the kids and went out to a nice dinner. It was fun, and relaxing.

Happy Birthday Sam! You're really are the best, I'm so lucky that you're mine.

9.25.2011

2011-09-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

happy Sunday.

9.20.2011

2011-09-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

She says words. Lots of them. Among her favorites are "Dada. Mama. Doggie. Tucker. And her favorite, Ball."

..and T still just wants to ride his "sewer" all day.

9.19.2011

2011-09-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

He got a scooter & he is in love.

i love him so much. My good friend Wendy always says,"why does he have to be so darn cute?!" ha ha. I agree.

He was cruisin' with the older kids in our neighborhood last night. They were amazed with his awesome scooter skills. Our next door neighbors mom called her kids in shortly after T went out and cute 8 year old Lilly goes, "but mom! Tucker just got out here!" ha ha. It made me smile.

Here are some videos of him riding.
(I love his little voice so much.)

He took a pretty good spill last night. And I happened to catch it on video. Oh man, I hesitated posting this one. My poor guy. Good thing he had his helmet on because he took a good hit. He walked away with a fat lip & a little chipped tooth. He still woke up this morning begging to ride, I guess he still loves his scooter. (watch with your own digression. This is a bad one) It broke my heart.

9.15.2011

2011-09-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

Both around 10 months old.

She has more hair & her eyes are just as blue although it doesn't look like it from these photos. I've never thought they looked like siblings, but I think I'm changing my mind. I think....

..and for fun, here's one of me around that same age, probably a little older. I tried to find one of Sam but was unsuccessful. Maybe you could send me one Robyn?? :)

9.14.2011

2011-09-14T17:12:00.001-07:00

Okay, I need some serious help. I don't know what to do with my Maizie's hair. She's starting to grow a serious mullet.

And while I think this girl is totally adorable, mullet and all, I don't want her to see pictures of her when she's older and ask what the heck I was doing with her hair. When T's did this, we just cut it, but I want her hair to grow out and be long. So, what do you do with girls? Do I just put up with the mullet until the phase is over or should I even it out? HELP!!
(Roo, I need you)

9.13.2011

2011-09-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

We went to the zoo today. It was our first time going since school started and I'll tell you what...it was like a whole new place. Not crowded at all! So nice. We loved it.

When we left I asked T what his favorite part of the zoo was. He said, "ummmm......the merry-go-round and the train." ha ha. I could've guessed that.

Here are some more pictures from the last 5 days, sorry, I've been slacking on the blog.

We certainly got our money's worth with this little bike we got for T last year. He goes on at least one bike ride a day. Usually more. And he can cruise on this thing. He has to stop and wait for me when I'm walking. ha ha. Yesterday I was so proud of him. He rode fast for over an hour straight. We went at least 2 miles, I guessing closer to 3. He never even said he was tired or done. I wonder how far he would've kept going? It was really impressive.

ha ha. (I didn't actually let him go down this way. I just thought it was a funny picture)

She's not afraid of anything. TOTALLY different from her big brother.

The invisible fence is working. I love that we can just let the dogs out anytime now. It's fun to have them come play in the front yard with us whenever we're out there.

Fall is really nice here. We're loving the cooler weather and the tress are beginning to change. AHH I just love it.

I can't believe how fast my little girl is growing up. Here's a video for the grandparents. She's pretty interested in walking, and like I said before. She has no fear.

9.8.2011

2011-09-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

It's been freezing here since Tuesday! I mean really really cold. I love it! I love the change in seasons and I especially love fall, so I've loved the cold, cloudy weather. We've been doing lots of fun things to welcome the new season.

First of all, we dusted off T's old trusty green boots and they still fit him! ha. These boots have probably been the best 10$ I've ever spent in my life. I can't believe that they still fit him and they're still his #1 pick when he chooses his shoes. Fall is actually really pretty here! I thought I'd miss Ithaca like crazy this time of year, and I do, but I like it here too. There are cider mills, and apple orchards to go pick our own apples at. My friend Vicki and I discovered an awesome trail yesterday on our walk. It was fun in the rain with the beautiful fall colored leaves.

After our walk we spotted a small fruit & veggie stand on the side of the road and I came home with some raspberries, blueberries and fresh green beans. YUM!

We invited ourselves over to Vicki's house to sit in their hot tub. Not much beats sitting in the hot tub on a cool fall evening in a backyard full of the tallest trees you've ever seen. It was so fun. I'll be inviting us over again soon I'm sure. ha ha.

We made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies the other day and they were so good! They lasted about 3 1/2 minutes. (We shared them with some neighbors) but T, Maizie and I could've eaten the whole batch I'm sure.

T's real Halloween costume came the other day. We ordered in online and it's so so cute. He wants to keep the dragon too, to play dress up's. But for the real Halloween night he decided long ago that he wanted to be a mailman. I tried to convince him that the dragon would be great too, but he was set on being a mailman. ha ha. Good thing too, because he looks so cute in his mailman costume. I love it and so does he.

As if our chilly fall days haven't been fun enough...yesterday while I was out with the kids, Sam snuck home from work and left these beautiful roses for me on the kitchen counter. It was so fun to come home to. I got the best guy. I love having fresh flowers in the house, they just make me smile and ones that are from Sam are even better. Thanks babes.

9.6.2011

2011-09-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

People have been asking for pictures of our house. I've been ignoring the requests because our house is never clean enough to take pictures of and share. ha ha. Really though. It was finally pretty clean the other day so I snapped some pictures while I had the chance.

We really like it a lot. We especially love our neighborhood & neighbors. They're the kind who brought us all kinds of treats when we first moved in and have invited us over for meals & parties. They look our for each other and are always willing to help out. We're lucky.

9.3.2011

2011-09-03T17:21:00.000-07:00

We went to the Fulton County Fair today with some friends. Boy, it was so much fun!

9.2.2011

2011-09-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all the "hand me downs" Vicki! I love all Maizie's new clothes, and they'll get used a lot, a lot!

I love these two so much!

so pretty.

8.31.2011

2011-08-31T16:40:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of pictures I've been meaning to post. They're from the last few days.
Sunday morning Sam, T & Winston went on a bike ride. (This was taken just moments before we got our Ollie news! Boy, that was such a fun morning)

T mimicking Sam's sweet moves. ha.

Every Saturday when Sam mows the lawn T HAS to help him. It's really cute. He'll be out there, face all red & sweating and honestly I don't know if he's even enjoying himself, but he just loves to help. ha ha. Hopefully he's this anxious to mow when he's a teenager.

I LOVE skeleton jammies. T gets them every year in the fall and this year I got Maizie in on the tradition. They're so dang cute. I'm such a sucker for cute jammies, and these ones are my favorite.

Yesterday we went to the zoo with some friends. Boy it was fun!

Whole gang

Ryker loves Maizie and she loves him.

I saw it and couldn't resist. I don't even know if this is what he's going to be for Halloween, but I had to get it because he's so into dressing up right now, I know it'll get used. He wore it all afternoon.

I decided to once again get Maizie in on the action and put her in T's Halloween costume from when he was her age. She hated it.

...after ditching the hood she was fine.

8.29.2011

2011-08-29T09:30:00.001-07:00

Oh man there are so many things that I want to post about but first of all....

A couple of weeks ago, our dog Oliver hopped our fence and never came back. Remember how he always used to hop our fence but always came back?? I couldn't blog about it because we were scared to tell Sam's parents because of how close they are with our dogs. Ollie & Winston lived with them for the 2 years that we lived in Ithaca and so they're practically their other owners. Anyway, I was talking to my mother in law on Friday and she asked about the dogs so I felt like I had to tell her about Ollie. They took the news pretty hard and I really regretted telling them. Well now I'm glad I did because yesterday morning, they called and said they found a dog online at the Bowling Green dog shelter that sure looked a lot like him! We were excited and skeptical all at the same time and got on the computer. He looked sad and like he'd been through a lot but sure enough, we knew it was him! They had renamed him "Spikey" (I guess done randomly in the computer..ha ha) This was the picture of him online..isn't it so sad?? :(

The shelter is closed on Sundays,(I couldn't sleep at all last night, I was too excited!) so we went down first thing this morning. We were so excited and he was so excited to see us! We have had such a fun morning at our house. The workers said they'd never seen him that happy. He was picked up just running around in Perrysburg, about a 20 minute drive from our house without his collar. So we think that someone must've gotten sick of him running around their yard, took off his collar, drove him down to Perrysburg and let him out there. Someone called the animal shelter and they came to pick him up. Here's the crazy part...he was adopted from the shelter by a family a few days after that! The family that adopted him took him home, gave him a bath and let him out in their back yard but he kept hopping their fence so they brought him back to the shelter! AHHHHH! Good thing they did or else we wouldn't have found him!
I wish he could talk and tell us about his adventures the last 2 weeks. It was exactly 2 weeks ago today that he disappeared. We missed him so much. We are so happy he's back home. The invisible fence is coming to instal a fence in our yard on Thursday. He seems really happy to be home, and he's getting really spoiled. Here he is relaxing on his new bed after a nice warm bath with his shiny new red collar on.

Winston's happy that his buddy is back.

Welcome Home Ollie! We missed you so much!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH to Sam's family!! You guys found him! We wouldn't have found him without you guys!

8.27.2011

2011-08-28T03:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of friends and I organized a babysitting co-op. So, we all take turns watching all the kids once a month. It's nice because Sam & I know that we get a least 2 (free!) dates a month. And then we watch all 7 kids one night a month while the other couples get to go out. Last night was our turn to babysit and it was so crazy but it really was so much fun.
We kicked off the night by making place mats & masks. They turned out so cute.

Here's T's place mat..

They painted "skyscrapers & buildings for a city" outside. (and got paint ALL over themselves...I brought out smocks but it was a little too late. I really apologize to their parents.)

Sam brought home McDonald's happy meals for everyone. He was the hit of the party. ha ha.

Maizie loved all the attention.

And we finished the night off with the movie Rio and popcorn. (Winston, our dog's, favorite part of the night. He got a lot of popcorn out of the deal.)

We had fun. It's fun & crazy one night a month, I don't know how people have that many kids of their own & have to entertain them all every night! I really would be a crazy lady. ha ha.

8.26.2011

2011-08-28T03:04:00.000-07:00

We went out for ice cream tonight! YUM!

Even Winny got his own cone.

8.25.2011

2011-08-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

We went to fossil park today where the kids dug for fossils. Maizie loved eating all the dirt. She cried & cried when it was time for us to go home.

8.24.2011

2011-08-24T04:43:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to play tennis with a friend and left Sam with the kids. ha ha. I got home around 9:00pm...this is what happens when Dad babysits. ha ha.

Here are a few videos of Maizie crusin' in her car.

8.22.2011

2011-08-22T17:36:00.000-07:00

We played hotel yesterday. (and loved it!) The booths left around 2pm and the McLennens came around 7pm. ha ha. We loved seeing so many Ithaca friends all in one weekend. T loved seeing Taylor and Graham. McLennens stayed the night, they're headed back to Ithaca for one more year of school. I loved seeing Lindsey & meeting their new baby and T loved hanging with Graham. They were busy!
They gave Winston a walk.

and worked on T's truck.

and did lots of other things that I didn't take pictures of. T is pretty worn out from all the weekend fun. After Graham left he slept from about 1:00-4:30. I didn't have to heart to wake him up. He was too tired. ha ha.
Thanks for coming guys. It was so fun to see you!

oh and Uncle Cliff! Maizie looks adorable in the new shoes you sent her! Thank you so much. She loves them. Here she is checking herself out in them. (are you trying to tell her that she should start exercising a little? ha ha) I love her rolls. love love them. anyway, thanks!!

8.21.2011

2011-08-22T04:41:00.000-07:00

We had so much fun with the Booths while they were here visiting us from Chicago. We were bummed that they couldn't stay longer. We really only had Saturday to do stuff because they got here late Friday night and left Sunday, but we sure packed in a lot of fun things on Saturday. We went swimming, we took them to our favorite ice cream place and went to the mall to ride the train.

They stayed around long enough on Sunday to come to church with us, which was pretty embarrassing because Sam & I spoke in Sacrament meeting. ha ha. The kids looked so cute all dressed up though.

Thanks for coming to visit guys!! We had so much fun with you. Tiff, I miss you already!

AND..Thanks for T's new truck baba & grandpa! He loves it so much. It's all he wants to play with anymore.

We ended up getting a car for little sis too. She might love it even more then T loves his truck. She cruises on it. She can only go backwards but man she goes fast! I'll get in on a video.

Tucker & Taylor also had a lot of fun playing with the cars while Taylor was here.

8.19.2011

2011-08-20T03:55:00.000-07:00

Guess who's here visiting!?
I'll give you a few clues...

The Booths! They stayed up until 11pm last night, catching up :) (look how much these two have grown!)

It's so fun to see them back together again!! We lived just across the hall from each other our whole 1st year living in Ithaca. We saw each other everyday. I think the kids thought they were siblings. ha ha. We're so glad they're here!!

8.18.2011

2011-08-20T03:46:00.000-07:00

T has been really into dressing up lately. He wants to be a pirate for Halloween, well either that or a Post Man. He can't decide. (this is the first year that he's had an opinion. I love it!) He found his Halloween costume from when he was just barely 1 and wanted to put it on. He loved running around like a monkey and didn't want to take it off. ha ha ha.

Halloween 2009...

8.17.2011

2011-08-19T03:46:00.000-07:00

pictures from the last few days...

8.14.2011

2011-08-14T16:48:00.000-07:00

Spaghetti!!

8.11.2011

2011-08-12T06:07:00.001-07:00

Today we met Sam down at his office for lunch. Can you believe what a beautiful building he works in??

They have a chef on site who prepares breakfast and lunch daily. The food is so good! We love meeting Sam for lunch.

8.10.2011

2011-08-10T16:29:00.001-07:00

Sometimes T rides his bike & I push Maizie in the stroller down the street to the coffee shop and we get smoothies. Today it was especially fun because it was so hot outside!

8.9.2011

2011-08-10T04:46:00.001-07:00

She's crawling all over the place....
so help me.

She had her 9 mo. check up the other day. She weighs 20 whole pounds! ha ha I love that I have such fat babies. And she's tall. And her head size is in the 90%. ha ha. Love it. I love her so much.

8.8.2011

2011-08-08T17:30:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, Sam picked up this dresser at a consignment shop for under $100...

He sanded it & refinished it, and now....voila!

It looks so great in our bedroom.
Thanks Sam! I'm so lucky that I married such a handyman.

8.6.2011

2011-08-06T19:19:00.000-07:00

T and Ethney looked cute tonight, eating their dinner at T's new table.

Little sis likes it too :)

8.5.2011

2011-08-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight we went out with some of our good friends (and ditched all 4 kids with one 16 yr old babysitter...she was totally great! She's our friends regular sitter and I'm thinking about stealing her away from them. ha ha. Vicki, I'm kidding.) We had a blast. We went downtown to an event called Smoke on the Water, where all the BBQ places in town had vendors and there was a live band. It was totally fun.

8.4.2011

2011-08-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

Every Thursday my kids and I go to a family time music class. It's really fun, we all love it. Today we were learning about farm animals and the teacher had the older kids be the farmers & push their younger siblings on a "hay ride" (in laundry baskets). It was so super cute. Both my kids loved it.

...and a movie.

Also, thanks for the new shoes Uncle Cliff! How did you know that T needed new shoes?? They're perfect!

8.3.2011

2011-08-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

He makes her laugh so hard. I love it.
(turn your volume way up, it's kinda quiet)

8.2.2011

2011-08-02T16:15:00.000-07:00

Friends

7.31.2011

2011-08-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

My good friend Mary gave us this dress the day we found out we were having a girl. It was the first thing we had for little miss Maizie and I loved it but I remember thinking "man, she's going to be so old when she fits in that!" ha ha. And now she fits. I love it. Thanks Mary :)

Also, my parents had to leave yesterday. It was sad and hard to say goodbye.
(It's way hard to get a smile out of T for the camera these days.)

(Me looking like a total dork saying...."cheeeeeeeeeese!" ha.)

Thanks for coming to visit mom & dad. It was so fun to see you. T woke up this morning and said "shhhh baba is still sleeping." It broke my heart to remind him that you guys were gone :(

7.30.2011

2011-07-31T10:26:00.000-07:00

We pawned the kids off on my parents and went just me & Sam to Cedar Point for the day. If you've never heard of it, it's an amusement park with tons of huge & scary roller coasters. It's geared more towards adults then children. Anyway, we were totally pumped to go, but after the 1st roller coaster, we were totally sick and wanting to go home!! ha. We realized we aren't the dare devils were thought we were. But after our stomachs returned to normal we decided to try out another one and I'm glad we did because the rest of the day was totally fun. It was super busy (but we knew it would be. It was a Saturday in the summer...). The shortest line was 45 min. and the longest was about 1hr 45 min. Here we are waiting in line to ride Millennium Force (my favorite ride all day).

The best part was spending the whole day with Sam alone, and not having to worry about the kids. I missed them. But I knew they were in good hands. Thanks mom & dad!!

7.29.2011

2011-07-29T17:36:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of a weirdo about sunglasses. I've always wanted to be a "sunglass person" but I never feel like I can pull off the look. I don't know why? I feel like I look cuter in my normal glasses then contacts so I'm not sure why the sunglass look has never really caught on with me. Anyway, my mom got me some new sunglasses today and I really like them! I'm bummed I have to wait a whole week for my prescription lenses to be put in. I took this picture to send to Sam to ask him his opinion, I had no intentions of posting it but I really like them. What do you think?

Thanks mom & dad!

7.28.2011

2011-07-29T06:16:00.001-07:00

Today while we were in the car, T got a hold of my phone and took 178 pictures. HA!! Most were of the back of the seat and the back of my head but this one's my favorite. ha ha ha.

I love this kid.

7.27.2011

2011-07-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

My mom & dad flew in today! We're already having so much fun with them here! Tonight we went out to dinner (we very rarely go out, so it was a real treat!). Here's T with my mom.

The restaurant was really hip, and was playing some awesome dancing music. Here's a movie of T getting his groove on :)

(not quite sure why he kept falling to the ground, ha ha ha, I think he was showing off his break dancing moves..ha)

7.23.2011

2011-07-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight (Saturday..I'm a little behind...) Our friends needed help moving their hot tub so they had us over for a "hot tub moving/BBQ party" ha. What?? You've never been to one of those? Well, you should go, because it was a really fun night.

(I'm loving living here. I didn't expect myself to love it here this much this quick. I don't even feel new anymore. We've met some great friends, Sam is loving his job and he's really working hard. I've gotten quite involved in the tennis club here, and T is taking a super fun music class and starting soccer in a month or so. Life is good.)

7.22.2011

2011-07-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

I can't get over how quick my little baby girl is growing up!

7.21.2011

2011-07-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

we love summer.

7.20.2011

2011-07-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

They looked so posed, ha ha. So I took a picture.

Glad Ollie is around to be in this picture. The fence in our backyard is short enough for him to hop right over, and every time the dogs go out, Ollie hops over and runs around for a while, but always comes back. This afternoon he was gone for the longest he's ever been gone for. (45 min?) and I was meeting a friend to play tennis so I almost had to leave the house with him gone. Right before I left, I opened the back door to call him one more time and he was laying down in the shade where I couldn't see him. Poor guy must've come to the door but it was closed and I was getting the kids ready to go, so he found a shady spot to hang out. Anyway, glad he's home.
We're currently excepting donations towards our invisible fence fund :)

7.18.2011

2011-07-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

We're having lots of fun with Grandpa Gene! On Friday night, the girls stayed home and just the boys went to a baseball game. T has so much fun with the guys, when he got home, I thought he'd be so tired, it was like 10pm, but all he wanted to do was play baseball.

Saturday we went to an African Safari animal drive through. It was pretty sweet. You drive your car through and animals come right up to your car and stick their heads in the window and eat carrots right out of your hand. I'd never been so close to a giraffe or any of the other animals there. It was so funny!

Apparently Maizie didn't think it was that cool....she slept through most of it. ha ha.

The ice cream truck has been driving around our street quite a bit lately! It's so fun! When T hears the music he yells "ice cream man! ice cream man! I hear the ice cream man mom!!" ha ha. I think he actually slows down at our house, because we run out each time we hear him diving by. ha. So fun!

7.14.2011

2011-07-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

We're so lucky!
Grandpa Gene came to visit us!! We're having so much fun with him!

7.11.2011

2011-07-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

We had so much fun with our friends today at the zoo.

T trying to pull a funny face. ha ha ha.

7.7.2011

2011-07-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

We had so much fun golfing last night!
(thanks to my friend Vicki who watched the kids!!)

I already can't wait to go again!

7.6.2011

2011-07-06T18:25:00.000-07:00

I joined a tennis club here, and I'm having a total blast playing a ton of tennis. This tennis club has been so much fun for me, and the day care is great. T loves it, and little sis hates it, but she's getting more used to it and hopefully is starting to understand that I always come back.
Anyway...the club offers a kids tennis class, targeted for ages 4-6. Well, T loves tennis and his new friend is in the class, so although he's a bit younger then the other kids, the teacher said to bring him to the class and see how it goes! ha. So tonight T took his first tennis class. He did love it. But he was just running around trying to hit balls instead of doing the cute little drills the teacher had planned (balancing the ball on their rackets, running from the base line to the service line....etc) so I think we'll try again next year. Oh and half way through he walked off the court and came up to where I was sitting. So I took him outside and hit some balls with him until the class was over, and I took the kids to the day care so my new good tennis buddy Wendy & I could play. We had a blast. I'm addicted to playing tennis and I haven't been able to get enough lately. It's too fun.

T & his friend Sadie before their class started.

This picture is very misleading, it looks like he's actually listening to the teacher, but right after I took this picture, he was off. ha.

Here's when we left the class and went outside to play on our own. ha ha.

I'm proud of my little tennis man.

7.5.2011

2011-07-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

Library today!
we checked out 12 new books...and read every single one of them tonight before bed. So fun!
(T discovered a love for Mercer Mayer books, I remember loving them too when I was little. We checked out: Just me and my puppy, Just me and my mom & Just me and my dad, and he wanted to read those 3 over & over again. haha.)

After the library, we had a dance party in the kitchen. (Sorry, I need to work on my filming skills.)

Even little miss started shaking her stuff while snacking on watermelon. ha ha.

7.4.2011

2011-07-05T05:42:00.001-07:00

4th of July this year was the most fun 4th of July I can remember. At 6:30am, my friend and I left the kids with our husbands and went to hit a few tennis balls. We started playing games and then ended up playing a match. We had a total blast, I loved it. (it was a great match too...went to a tiebreaker)
Then we went to lunch with that same friend and her family. (Sam and her husband work together, and they have 2 young girls) After lunch we came home, the kids took naps, Sam and I watched a movie. Then we had some friends over for swimming and a BBQ. Super fun day. I love summer.

7.3.2011

2011-07-04T03:28:00.001-07:00

Our neighborhood is so much fun! ha ha. You guys would've died if you saw the firework show right in front of our house last night. It was so great! We live like 3 miles from the Michigan border and right over the border you can buy the big light up the sky, baseball game type fireworks. So every 4th, everyone in the neighborhood crosses the border, buys the goods, brings them back and they have a big party in the circle. So we went up to Michigan the other day, and bought our fireworks to contribute. Last night was so much fun, we had a great time. Everyone brought out their lawn chair and just hung out. (I took this picture early, there were about 5x this many people out by the end of the night...)

T was terrified at first, but after a few minutes he was ok. (This was the only sparkler he held though...after this one he was done. And either Sam or I had to be holding him for the rest of the night.)

Little miss Maizie didn't like the noise one bit. She'd look at the lights, but all in all I think she had a pretty stressful night.

Around 10:30 the kids were tired enough to put to sleep, even with all the noise going on outside. So we put them down & Sam and I stayed up.

The cops showed up around 11. But that still didn't stop our crazy neighbors! ha ha. Our next door neighbor (who's a firefighter..haha) and who's driveway we were all hanging out in, said the cops have to come say something if they get a noise complaint, but that they're not going to do anything else about it, so anyway they didn't let that ruin the big grand finale. ha. It was probably the best firework show I've ever seen, and it was right in front of our house. No traffic, no crowds, it was great.

(Apparently Halloween in the neighborhood is an even bigger event. I already can't wait! ha.)