Life's a beach.

Ahhhhhh. That is the only way I can describe my girls trip to Florida this past weekend. It was a blast getting together with my best friends from high school (and Tasha brought a friend along too, so it was great to meet her. We missed you, Kelly, if only you weren't busy giving birth soon then you could have joined us too!). We're spread out all over in New York, San Francisco, Utah and Phoenix so it's not very often that I get a chance to see them. It was especially fun because 3 of us were pregnant so it was great swapping stories, sharing Tums and complaining about pregnancy sickness and exhaustion together. We decided on Florida because the weather would be great (which it was), but we didn't want to go someplace to "Spring Breakerish" (the wet T-shirt contests just really aren't our thing), so we picked a beautiful beach front resort in St. Petersburg which is by Tampa Bay (the view was gorgeous, but I think that the pictures on the internet of the hotel were a little deceiving). I knew we wouldn't have to worry about the party scene as we were driving through the town and the corners were filled with funeral homes, retirement centers and a place advertising "colon therapy". I asked my shuttle driver if they saw much action during spring break and he replied, "only if the kids are here visiting their grandparents". We didn't mind being the youngin's on the beach and we always got a kick out of everyone's response when they found out that we were pregnant. They all thought we were so young and it was always entertaining to see their reactions when we told them that most of us had multiple children at home as well. When Jason asked what we were going to do the whole time I told him that we were going to be laying on the beach (or for a little variety we might go pool side) reading, sleeping and doing absolutely nothing. He thought it sounded kind of boring, but boring is something I don't get to experience much in my life, so I welcomed boring with open arms. It really was sooooo relaxing and I loved every minute of it. We did venture off the sand a little bit and had fun renting bikes and riding down the beach (okay, so the boardwalk was really like only a half mile, so we mostly ended up dodging traffic and trying not to get lost through the back streets of the city); going to a chick flick (we saw "Miss Pettigrew lives for a day". You can't get any chickier than that. We all agreed that our husbands would have walked out after the first 2 minutes); going souvenier shopping for the kids (and husbands :) and making sure we ate our share of ice-cream atleast every day. We packed so many fun memories into those 4 days like: the magic chocolate pill, staying up all night laughing about anything and everything (my favorite is still Nicole's story about the little "surprise" waiting by her desk), the Blue Fugu and the best fried rice ever (I've eaten lots of fried rice, I should know :), Wes' sparatic sunburn, Wes covering up every square inch of her body when she got in the sun, Nicole dropping the towel on someone else's balcony and then trying to retrieve it, eating breakfast on the balcony and watching the sailboats, the ATM guy, baked potatoes, Tasha's obsession with the sunset (me throwing up in the bathroom during the only sunset we saw), and so many more. It was definately a much needed and relaxing vacation (although I could have done without the nauseating, turbulant filled, long delayed flight home), I totally missed my kids and Jason but I came home feeling refreshed, rejuvinated and re-energized. Thanks girls for an amazing weekend and thanks so much to everyone that I pawned my kids off too--Mandy, Chelsea, Sheba, Andrea, Nicole and Julie, I totally appreciate it!! Thanks also Jason (I feel like I'm giving an Oscar speech or something), I know the kids had a blast hanging out with Dad. He did an awesome job playing Mr. Mom after a full day of work and managed to get homework done, get them to bed at a semi-decent hour, feed them somewhat edible meals (I'm sure TV dinners have some nutritional value?), get them off to school and church on time (it makes me smile trying to picture Jason picking out Kylie's clothes and doing her hair), keep them entertained with neighborhood carnivals and Chuck E Cheese and even had the house cleaned when I got back. What a man, what a man, what a mighty fine man!

Happy Easter!

I love Easter. It is such a happy time with beautiful spring weather, lots of bright colors, oodles of candy and of course, a wonderful opportunity to teach my kids about the spiritual aspect. All of the holidays this year seem to have snuck up on me and Easter was no exception. I found myself scrounging through the few remaining bags of jelly beans at Wal-mart on Saturday night at 10:30. There were VERY slim pickins. I walked away with 2 bags of jelly beans and one bag of miniature candy bars. I found a bag of my favorite Robin's Eggs tucked away on a shelf, but when I got to the register I realized that half of them were smashed and sadly we had to part ways. I definately learned my procrastination lesson, but I justified that they really didn't need more candy.
They went to the ward Easter egg hunt and another egg hunt and carnival the day before. I would have gladly been finished with the candy altogether, but for tradition sake I figured I better have something for the morning Easter egg hunt. After finishing all of my grocery shopping I had zero energy left to find presents, so I opted to just stick with just candy for the hunt in the morning. I didn't even get around to buying them new Easter outfits. I didn't think that the kids would remember that I had gotten them a gift last year. I was wrong. Last year I had put clues inside of the Easter Eggs that led them to the shower where I had a present for each of them. That night before Kylie went to sleep she told me that she couldn't wait to find the special eggs with clues in them to find her present. Oops. The next morning Jayden ran straight to the bathroom shower in search of the presents. Double oops. I simply explained that sometimes the Easter Bunny brings presents and sometimes he brings candy and we're just grateful for whatever we get. I was happy to see that they understood and weren't too disappointed. I've also decided that I really like the simplicity of not over-doing it. The kids enjoyed the egg hunt, but it also didn't distract too much from the real purpose of the holiday (atleast that is what I'm telling myself so that I don't feel too guilty :). It was so nice getting home from church at 10:30 (although it made for a very hectic morning) and having a yummy Easter brunch on the back patio. The weather was perfect and we had fun just being together as a family. We also dyed eggs then that night we had our Easter Family Home Evening. We watched the "Finding Faith in Christ" DVD that came out a while ago and it made me happy to see how the kids were so absorbed in it and asked alot of questions. I love seeing their little testimonies grow. What a fun holiday, even if we'll be eating jelly beans for the next year....

Pretty Dog-on Cute

I have so not been in a blogging mood lately. I'm either too busy or too lazy, so now I've got all sorts of catch up to do, so bear with me. I've been feeling a lot better lately, it seems like the good days are out weighing the bad and my diet is starting to consist of more than just Honey Nut Cheerios. I still can't do salsa and I still can't stand the smells, but we're definately making progress. Although the other day the kids followed me into the bathroom as I started throwing up. Being the sweet, sensitive kids that they are they both stood there laughing at me. What the heck is so funny about my puking my insides out??? Then while I'm in mid hurl, Kylie proceeds to say "um, Mom, I know your throwing up is important and all, but there's a spider right here so could you please hurry up". What a little angel. Without further ado, on to the blogging....

Just like every other kid, my kids are always asking for a dog. Growing up I was a self-proclaimed dog lover (When I was younger I even attempted to start up a doggie club with my friends that included services such as dog walking, bathing and dog sitting. We thought our fees were competitive and our service outstanding, but unfortunately our clientel never reached outside our own families). My all time favorite Christmas was when my parents surprised me with the cutest little Cockerspaniel/Poodle puppy that I named Carson. I always thought that I would be a loyal owner of man's best friend, but once I had kids that all changed. I didn't understand why I would want to voluntarily add another mouth to feed and more poop to clean up after. Not to mention the cost involved and the need to find yet another baby-sitter if we went out of town. My kids were rewarding enough and time consuming enough to get me over any doggie desires. So everything was good until my kids have started asking for a dog. Every mother wants to make their kids happy and I am beginning to feel like I am depriving them of their childhood if I say no to a dog. We ended up with the perfect compromise when our next door neighbor got the absolute cutest little chiuahua puppy. Not only can my kids play with it whenever they want, but we are also the official dog sitters. It's kind of like a "rent-a-pup" deal where they get their doggie fix without the commitment. It was perfect. We had her for 4 days last week and the kids had a blast. They played with her from the moment they woke up until they went to bed and they loved taking her to the park and playing dress up and baby dolls with her. It was cute to see them with her and I began toying with the idea of getting them a dog, until I dealt with certain issues, namely: poop on my carpet; chewed up toys (who knew such tiny teeth could do so much damage); constantly worrying about her (when she was in the backyard I worried about her slipping under the gate or falling into the pool, when she was inside I worried about her bathroom habits); she took over the laundry room and it stunk for the whole week; I worried about her when we were gone for a long time and I had to pack food and water for her whenever we took her somewhere; she whined every morning.....but she was pretty darn cute! So for now I'm thinking we've got a good thing going on here, so we'll just enjoy it while it lasts!

Spring Break

Another fun spring break come and gone. I was worried that I would have a hard time finding things to entertain the kids for the past 2 weeks, but we managed to pack in a lot of fun. The weather has been perfect as usual, so we've been able to enjoy lots of picnics in the park and playing in the backyard. The kids even got brave enough to jump in the pool. The water's still pretty cold, but it didn't stop them from having fun. Some other fun outings were to see "Horton Hears a Who" (totally cute, the kids LOVED it)

Meeting up with Kylie's best friend from school for a park day (thanks Jennie for planning it!)

Meeting up with friends from our old ward for a day of bowling. According to Jayden it was "totally awesome". The kids had a blast and it was fun to try something new. Thanks Andrea! (notice Kylie's crown? Last summer my aunt Angel told her the story of the Princess and the Pea and the other night she was crushed because she had never felt a lump under her bed and was convinced that she must not be a real princess. Much to her excitement, she happened to lay on an Easter egg that I had put under her sheets that night and took it as the sign that she is now an official princess. She wore the crown for 2 days straight, it was cute.) Going to the kids' all-time favorite hangout, "Makutu's Island" with their friends Brayden and Koston. This was the first time that they were old enough to go and explore by themselves with out me chasing them through all of the tunnels. It was kind of nice and kind of sad at the same time. I still did my fair share of tunnel crawling, though and have the sore knees to prove it.
Hanging out with the neighborhood kids riding bikes and playing on the slip-n-slide. The kids were kind of scared of the slip-in-slide. They have no qualms about jumping into a 60 degree pool, but they have issues with a little water splashing in their face, go figure.

We had way too much fun and way too little sleep, and now I am exhausted! I'm already starting to worry about how I'm going to keep these kids entertained all summer long! It will be nice to get back to a schedule, but I'm definately going to miss just hanging out with the kids (and sleeping in!).

Imagination

I have so many fond memories when I was younger and my brothers and sisters and I would always come up with the most creative things to play. Some of my favorites off the top of my head were: the rollar skate cafe ("it's so easy to rollarskate, call 756-5688"--yes I still remember our phone number from like 17 years ago); putting on plays, like "Horton Lays an Egg"; making up ballet recitals and convincing my brothers to wear our sunday tights in order to play the part of prince charming; surprising our parents by decorating the house with a theme and then creating dinner dates (consisting of jello, a can of corn, music for dancing and a sign on their bedroom door labeled "honeymoon sweet"); playing mailman where we would each build a little fort house complete with a mailbox and then we would write letters to each other and deliver them. We spent our free time using our imaginations instead of sitting in front of the tv (of course there was the TGIF exception with 'Full House' and Steve Urkle). A couple of years ago I remember watching my sisters kids play and they were always coming up with such creative ideas and I was always wondering when (and if) my kids would ever turn off the tv long enough to use their imaginations for some good old fashioned playing. The time has now come and I am LOVING it! It seems like Kylie and Jayden are always coming up with the cutest things to play and I just get a kick out of watching them. I've been happy to see that the tv has hardly been turned on at all during spring break and instead they are filling the time doing things such as puppet and shadow puppet shows; playing mom and dad; playing school; having races; and then here are a few of my favorites:

They love taking the screen out of the window in the kitchen and then pretending like it is a drive-thru. Pretty much all of their meals during the break have been served out of that window and then they take turns being the chef and the customer.

While I was cleaning the house, Kylie wanted to pretend like we were on a cleaning show and she got all geared up for the part. I love how she stuffed a cup of water and a rag down her pants for a tool belt.

Jayden, with the help of Kylie, decided that he has a girlfriend. It's his little friend Annalise, and apparently he wants to marry her. Kylie was so excited about the prospect of a wedding and went straight to work creating every detail for the wedding. When we called Annalise and she couldn't come over for the ceremony, Kylie decided to fill in for her and carry on with the vows and wedding dance.And this one is my favorite....probably because in my former life I was a Kiddie Kandids photographer. Kylie set up this whole photo studio and my favorite detail is the 10ft tickle feather. She made tickets for each person and charged a 2 cent sitting fee.

These kids are so fun, I could just sit and watch them for hours. I love their little friendship and how throughout the day they'll say to eachother "you're my bestfriend", "you're my bestfriend too". I hope it always stays that way. I'm going to be so sad when they outgrow this creative, imaginative play stage, but atleast they'll have lots of fun memories to look back on!

Boy's Trip

I was hoping that Jason could enter the blogging world for his first time to write about his guys weekend, but the poor kid is so busy all the time that I figured I better attempt to recap his weekend. I don't have a lot to contribute since "what happens on a boys trip, stays on a boys trip", but I do know that they had a great time. He went up to Utah on a Thursday and was able to stay with his sister, Andrea and her family in Provo. Friday he went snowboarding with his younger sister, Jessica and her boyfriend. Then on Saturday he met up with 3 of his highschool buddies and hit the slopes hard. They had fun hanging out Saturday and Sunday then we were glad to have him back home safely on Sunday. I wish I had more details of the fun times they had on their trip, because I know that he always has a blast when he gets together with his "homies". I was just glad to atleast get pictures this time (thanks, Shawn!) I'm glad he had such a fun time, he definately deserved a break!

Smelling is Overrated

Once upon a time, there was a little third grade girl who was so excited to go to her school's Halloween carnival. Everything was going great, her spirits soared as she even won the cake walk. But it all came to an abrupt end when a heavy duty pan fell off of Johnny Appleseed's head and landed right on this poor little girl's nose. The only thing she could think to do was to spend the rest of the evening crying under the fishing booth table and using wadded up napkins to stop the bleeding. It was a sad day and resulted in a broken nose that left the poor girl with hardly any sense of smell. That is until she got pregnant......I swear people, we live in a stinky, stinky world! I thought I was deprived all these years without my sense of smell, but I'm beginning to think that it was a blessing in disguise! I'm discovering smells that I never knew existed each time I open a box of cereal, the dishwasher, the dryer, the car door, the garbage lid, the bread bag, any canned foods, dresser drawers, my closet, etc. Don't even get me started on farts and bad breath. Poor Jason, I couldn't even kiss him when I picked him up from the airport from his snowboarding trip because the smell of the carmex on his lips was enough to make me want to hurl. I had to drive the rest of the way home with the windows down, eventhough it was midnight and freezing. The worst by far (besides the stinky cows living on Queen Creek Road) is any kind of food. I used to love using the crock pot, but I tried it last week and it made me nauseous just to walk in my house. I'm still airing out the smell to this day. I'm afraid that I've been scarred for life from my favorite Lime Chicken Tacos recipe since that is the crock pot culprit whose scent has now permeated every crevis in my house. Green onions and garlic are my worst enemies. I can't stand walking into restraunts, because of that woosh of smells that attacks you as soon as you open the door. Even my beloved Mangos, I knew I was a goner the minute I walked in the door and my predictions were right as I was throwing up every last bit of my bean burrito when we got home. So you can take back your coveted smelling powers, I'm quite happy enjoying life with only four senses!

Child's Play Fieldtrip

I had so much fun chaperoning Kylie's school field trip to the theater, "Child's Play". They watched the production of Goodnight Moon and it was so cute. It was really well done and Kylie was so intrigued the whole time. I was excited about the idea of taking Kylie and Jayden back another time, until I looked on-line and saw that regular ticket prices are $20-$25--ouch! I'm glad Kylie enjoyed it so much because that will probably be the last time we'll go! Afterwards they went to a park and had a picnic. I just loved spending the whole day with Kylie (thankyou Michelle and Chelsea for watching Jayden!!). It's cute to see her interact with her friends and it made my day when she wanted me to play at the park with her instead of her friends. What a memorable day, thanks Kylie for letting me tag along, I loved every minute of it!

Dance Fever


This past weekend they had the cutest "sweetheart family dance" at Kylie's school. Unfortunately Jason couldn't join us since he was busy tearing it up with his friends on the slopes in Utah, but that didn't stop us from partying. Kylie was so excited and had her outfit and hair planned out for weeks. She was so cute as she brought her make-up kit into the bathroom so that we could get ready together--fun girly bonding time. We got there and I had a hard time convincing Jayden to eat first because he was dying to shake his booty on the dance floor. Kylie took a little time to warm up, but once she found one of her friends from her class, she couldn't stop dancing. It was fun teaching her the dances to songs like "YMCA", the chicken dance, the "Macarena" and other classics. I also took the kids to see "Enchanted" this weekend and it lived up to all our expectations, what a cute show.
We had a fun weekend, but we definately missed Jason! We especially missed him when Kylie found a scorpion in the toy room and I was the one responsible of killing the creepy thing. We've been scorpion free for a year now so when Kylie told me there was a scorpion on the floor I thought it was probably just an earwig. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. She had been crawling on the floor and just about put her hand on top of it, thankfully she's got "eagle eyes" (as she proudly claims).

Jayden was cute, the other morning he was watching me put on my make-up and after a minute he said, "you look so nice and shiny mom! Nobody else looks nice and shiny, only you." It was the sweetest compliment ever.

Today I went to Kylie's class for her student-led conference. It was really cute to see all of the things that she has been working so hard on, I was really proud of her. I think my favorite, though, was a page in their class book titled "My Pocket". Each person drew a picture of something in their pocket and wrote a sentence about it. Some of the kids included things like a flower, toy car, rock, etc. When I got to Kylie's I had to laugh when she wrote "I have a 'hotel kredit kard' in my pocket".

Spring break is coming up and I'm looking forward to just hanging out with the kids!