Tuesday, December 29, 2009

CHRISTMAS

We have been so busy playing with all the toys Santa and family brought us, I haven't had time to post our holiday fun yet. So here it is.

On Christmas Eve, we had Grama, Charise, Ty, Ava and Owen over for dinner. For once, I didn't accidentally freeze the ham, so it turned out wonderfully and on time. Even my mustard ring turned out. Shortly after dinner the Christmas Elf knocked on our door and ran away with amazing speed, as we were unable to catch even a glimpse of him. But he did remember to leave a present for each of the kiddies. And wouldn't you just know it, they all got new jammies! After putting on their new jams, the kids all went downstairs and played MONSTER with Dad/Uncle Matt. Then it was time for bed. Charise and fam went home, but Grama slept on our couch.

Matt heard Elle at like 5am and got up to tell her she couldn't get out bed yet. He couldn't sleep after that, so when he woke me up at 6 he was fully dressed. He said Elle couldn't wait anymore, and Morgan was starting to stir. So we woke up Grama and Miles and all ran as fast as we could to the Christmas tree.

I think it's funny to look back on your childhood and remember how excited you got about what presents you were going to get. Now, I don't think I give a single thought as to whether or not I am getting any presents. I do, however, lose sleep with the excitement of how much the kids will love all of their presents. The expressions on their faces and the things they say is what I look forward to for months. Also, this year I spent countless hours making presents for each kid to make up for the economy. I even sliced up my thumb in the process, which still hasn't completely healed.

Miles' favorite presents were his new Woody and Buzz. They sleep in his bed every night and run every errand with us. He flies around the house in his new super cape and plays a lot in the playroom alternating between his new basketball hoop and his "sock-it rock-it robots," as he calls them.

Elle wears her new princess dress every single day. She also carts around her barbie, who has a matching dress. I keep finding Polly Pocket in different rooms throughout the house, despite picking it up every time I see it. She also got a fur-real puppy who spends most of her time sleeping in Elle's bed. Whenever Elle is supposed to be cleaning her room or taking a nap, I can always hear her playing games on her laptop instead.
Morgan has already used her new knitting machine to knit a scarf for Bear Purse. She rides her scooter on the one strip of tile in the house and is counting the days until the snow melts and she can take it outside. Her barbies drive around in their new car wearing a new princess dress that matches the one she got. We also read her new books together every night.
Matt and I are spending the loads of money everyone was so nice to give us. We already bought two new board games that are fun with just 2 people, so now we can have a fun date night right at home. We are also looking forward to turning in our babysitting coupons with Grama and going to Cheesecake Factory and the movies!

Thank you, Grama, for spending Christmas with us. It makes such a difference to me to spend the holiday with family. Thank you for all the gifts, everyone. We sincerely appreciate each and every one. Hope your holidays were as wonderful as ours was!!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Come see!!

Am I the only parent who starts to panic inside when the kids are giggling out of control downstairs and then run up and ask you to come see what they have built? Well, this happened to me on Saturday. Expecting to yell and scream once I discovered what the had destroyed, um..builit, I walked tentatively down the stairs, only to find that the kids built their own bounce house! They gathered pillows from every single room in the house. And yes, I spent a while bouncing on it myself. New Saturday morning family tradition? I think so.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Candlelight Christmas

Last night we took the kids to This is the Place for Candlelight Christmas. As soon as we got there we hopped on the train and went to see Father Christmas. We call him Santa, but This is the Place is all about old school. So we got a picture of the kids with Father Christmas and they told him what they wanted for Christmas. He gave each of us a candy cane.
When we left that house they had two live reindeer outside. The kids had been so excited all week to see live reindeer, but didn't have much of a reaction at all when we finally got to see them. I thought they were pretty awesome, though.


After that we took the train back to the entrance. Elle and Matt we both too cold to do anything else, so they went and warmed up in the car. My feet were so cold I was in pain, so I was quite jealous. But Morgan and Miles weren't done yet, so we kept going. We went into a couple of the houses and did some crafts and saw a puppet show. It was a really great family night out.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Brrrr!

Just in case anyone is wondering, when we woke up this morning the weather channel let me know it was 10 degrees outside. The windchill made it feel like -4 degrees. We got several inches of snow yesterday. Matt shoveled the driveway at about 7am and I had to shovel again at 8 am to get out. By the time Matt got home, you couldn't even tell it had been shoveled. So send us your warm thoughts. =)

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Take me down to Paradise City

Morgan: Mom, what does that building say?
Mom: The New Yorker.
Morgan: Like New York City?
Mom: How do you know New York City?
Morgan: You know, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty.

Close Morgan, and very cute.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Busted!

If any of you watch Phineas & Ferb, this is from the musical cliptastic countdown of the top 10 songs from season 1. If you don't watch it, you should. It is awesome.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

My Little Sick Kids

On Monday, Morgan walked into the living room and laid down on the couch and fell asleep. She almost never takes naps, so I was a little worried. When she woke up I told her it was time to eat dinner so we could go to tumbling. She started crying and asked to not go to tumbling. That is when I picked her up and noticed she had a fever. Over the next 24 hours, she threw up about every 45 minutes. We got her into the doctor and they put an IV in her little hand and pumped 500ml of saline into her because she was so dehydrated. The doctor said there was such a small chance she had the H1N1 virus, but she looked so sick he ran the test anyway. This morning we went back in and found the test had come back positive. They pumped 250ml more saline into her and sent us on our way.
Now Miles, Elle, Matt and I are all running fevers. The doctor gave Matt a prescription for Tamaflu because his lungs already sound kind of bad. Because the rest of us are all pretty healthy otherwise, we are to just tough it out.
Hopefully we will all be better soon and get to re-enter the real world.

Morgan had to leave her IV overnight so they put an arm band on her. She actually got pretty attatched to it and was sad when they took it off.

Luckily we already took the kids trunk or treating at my mom's ward, so missing Halloween night is not as big of a loss.

Monday, October 26, 2009

When Did I Become the Child?

Morgan: Mom, are you making a cake?
Mom: Yes, but it will be after you go to bed tonight. You can see it in the morning.
Morgan: Mom, here's the deal. I can watch you make the cake or I can help you make the cake. These are your two choices.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Nilla Cakes Update

On the off chance that any of you are following my Nilla Cakes blog, I have updated it with two cakes I did last night. Just FYI.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Bath-tism

Morgan: Dad, will I get baptized in a river?
Dad: No, they don't do that anymore. You will be baptized in a baptismal font; it's like a giant bathtub.
Morgan: Oh. (She starts singing) Jesus came to John the bath-tist, in Judea long ago...

Now I'm not sure if it is as funny in print as it was in real life, but trust me it was hilarious. She actually still sings those words in primary and I think it is too cute to correct her.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Beautiful

Every so often, I realize how absolutely beautiful my girls are. There are those times I look at them and they smile and I suddenly realize they are growing up. Whether it be the look on their face that lets you know they understand a little bit more today than they did yesterday, or the fact that they dress themselves and seem to have their very own sense of style. My girls are growing up, beautifully.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Elle's 4th Birthday

On Saturday, we had Elle's 4th birthday party. She wanted to have a tea party with all the girl cousins and friends. All the girlies were dressed up in their finest tea-party dresses. I had been buying things at the DI and dollar store for a month, so the decorations turned out really cute. We had pretend rose petals scattered over the table cloth and fresh flowers as our centerpiece. Each girl had her own (real) tea cup and saucer.They got to choose from pink lemonade or pink hot chocolate (Fancy Nancy brand bought off Amazon!) There were tiny cucumber sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, and fruit and cheese kabobs. While the girls seemed more interested in the "tea", Miles probably ate 8-10 peanut butter sandwiches. I think he was feeling a little left out that he was the only boy, and found comfort in food. After tea time, the girls all sat around the coffee table. I gave one girl a little present and while music played it was passed around the circle until the music stopped. Whoever was holding the present got to open it. We did this until every girl got a present. Then we played the princess tea party version of pin the tail on the donkey, called Kiss the Frog. It was really cute!

Finally, the adults ate cake and the girlies ate mini cupcakes. (And yes, I made them myself! I stayed up until just after midnight the night before. It was seriously fun for me!)
Elle then opended her presents and we called it a day. Thank you so much, everyone, for coming to the party and for all the presents! Elle is ecstatic with everything and can't decide what she wants to play with first.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Why Are Kids So Cute When You're Mad?

Mom: Elle!! Don't slam the car door! You almost slammed Miles' hand in the door!

Elle: Oh no!! Did his whole arm fall off?

Mom: Ummm...no.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Kid-isms of Late

Miles: "Mom, is Hazel a good guy?"


Morgan: "Mom, what are we having for lunch?"
Mom: "Grill cheese sandwiches."
Morgan pats Miles on the arm.
Morgan: "Don't worry, Miles. You don't have to have a girl cheese. Mommy can make you a boy cheese sandwich."

Friday, September 11, 2009

My New Blog

As some of you know, I have started cake decorating classes at Michaels. I am loving it. So I decided that since my skills in this area are very basic, I would like to watch how I am progressing. With this goal in mind, I created a new blog http://www.nillacakes.blogspot.com/. The posts are probably going to be quite long and maybe even a little boring, so I don't really expect anyone to follow it. But I also expect a plethora of pictures, so if you get bored, you can always just scan the pictures to see my latest creation, or disaster, as the case may be. Anyway, thought I would let you know. =)

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Elle's First Day

Elle had her first day of preschool today. We all walked to school, and by that I mean I walked and pulled the kids in the wagon. My friend Allison stayed outside with Morgan and Miles and I took Elle in. She found her name on the coat rack and hung up her backpack. Then we went over and found a book for her to read. She was feeling a little nervous, but then Mikey from her sunbeam class came over and sat with her. She looked up at me, smiled, and said bye.
When I picked her up, the teacher said she did very well. She would stop sometimes in mid-coloring and say that she missed her mom, but would take a deep breath and go back to coloring. Elle said she had crackers and white-all-over cheese and apple juice for a snack today. She was pretty disappointed when I told her she didn't come back until Tuesday.
I can't believe how grown up my little girl is.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

By Popular Request...

For those of you have enjoyed Night at the Museum 2, here you go:


"Hey baby, check out the gun show goin' on over here. Boom! Bang! Firepower!"

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Ready for Church

...and actually on time for once! Just thought my family looked especially cute today and wanted to share.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Princess Hazel

We had Kristi, Tom and kids over the other night for pizza and Guitar Hero. When they showed up, we were still waiting for the pizza to be delivered, I took Hazel into Morgan's room to play dress-ups. I kept reading on Kristi's blog how she loved to put on different shoes and hats, so I was sure she would love the girls' selection of hats, dresses, and princess slippers. Every time she tried on a different outfit, she would walk out into the living room and walk around the island to show off her new attire to Mom and Dad. She was perhaps the most adorable little princess I have ever seen!
Tom, you were a rock star as usual, and Kristi, you were awesome! I never would have guessed that was your first time playing. We had a blast and can't wait to do it again.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

More Bolt Quotes

Miles was playing with the princess cell phone this morning. It has a pretend camera phone that flashes and makes a shutter sound. He held the phone up to me, said cheese, and pushed the button. Then he looked at the phone and said with a smile, "That's a keeper!" So cute.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Morning excitement

I dropped Morgan off at school this morning at 8:15. I pulled Elle and Miles in the wagon past the construction and at the corner of the street across from my house I started to break up the usual argument of who gets to open the garage door today. Then I hear this little boy yell. I look up to see a little boy of maybe 2 chasing a dog into the street. It is not a terribly busy street, but it is long and straight so people tend to book it down the road. So I called to him to stop and NOT go into the street. He kept calling after a dog who had ran across into the townhomes. The little boy was tiny, thin, dirty, and only wearing a pair of camo shorts.
I made my was slowly over to him as not to scare him. I tried asking him his name, and he pointed to the sky and told me that was a bird. I asked him where he lived, which one was his house, and he pointed to Elle's feet and told me that was a shoe. I could see I wasn't going to get anything out of him, so I ended up calling 911. I had been standing with this boy for almost 20 minutes by the time a policeman showed up. Just as he finished taking the information, a mom down the street came out yelling. Yes, it was his mom. She walked over (I would have been running, but that is just me) and asked where he was. I told her I found him trying to cross the street. She picked him up, no hug, and told the policeman he would have to come to her house if he wanted to talk to her and walked off.
Now, obviously, I only did all of this out of concern for this boy's safety. But would it have been too much to ask for a simple "Thank you"? Thank you for finding my boy, thank you for staying with him, thank you for anything?? I would have even been happy if she seemed happy to see him, if she seemed at all relieved that he was ok.
It is certainly not the way I would have liked it to happen, but I feel like a better parent today.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Crafty Again

I used to feel like I was super crafty, until I started reading everyone else's blogs. There are so many women out there who makes things I could never even dream of making. It actually put me in a craft slump. But with Morgan back to school, I have had extra time on my hands and needed to keep busy. So I decided to get crafty again. Nevermind comparing myself to everyone else. All of my crafts are for my kids, and they don't know if I don't do the best job.
I noticed the other day that Miles still has a dinosaur frame I made for his nursery when he was born. So I put the finishing touches on his new frame today.

My kids are really into file folder games, ever since I made some from the book "File Folder Fun." The bear one I actually found online, but the underwater one I made on Power Point all from clipart. The mermaid, treasure chest and most of the animals are on velcro so they can all be moved around. My kids spend hours playing with these.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

FYI

Mom, did you know that chickens love to eat monster jello? That is jello that is made out of jello.
-Elle

Friday, August 14, 2009

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E


Mickey and Minnie Mouse at the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

-by Morgan

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Stop fighting!

It has been one of those days. No matter what I try to do, the kids are fighting every 10 minutes. I tried time outs, time apart, time together, getting out of the house...all to no avail. Miles finally settled in on my bed to watch an episode of Mickey Mouse when the girls started screaming, again. So I came downstairs to see what the problem was. I told Morgan to tell me the truth, which seems to be all it takes to get her to actually tell me truth, about why they were fighting.
"Well, Mom, I was on the floor cooking 2000 bones for puppy purse and then I got up and walked around to see all the animals at the fair, like the bunny. I was walking around and Elle wasn't, she was just up on your table!"

I couldn't even muster up a little bit of anger to scold Elle for being up on the table.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Temple Square

The girlies have been learning about temples at church, so Matt and I thought they might enjoy a visit to Temple Square. I got the kids and I dressed up and we met Matt after work and all went down there. After walking the grounds we ate dinner at the Nauvoo cafe. So delicious, I recommend the chicken salad sandwich! Then we looked at the temple on more time before crossing the street to the conference center. We were going to take the tour, but the kids started fighting and crying so we decided it was probably time to head home. The kids tell me their favorite part was the angel Moroni on the top of the temple and the temple itself. We had an awesome time and it makes we wonder why we don't go there more often.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Kindergarten

Morgan had her first day of Kindergarten today. There is just something about her having to follow a bell schedule and bring her own snack in her own lunch box that makes her seem so grown up all of a sudden. We all walked to school this morning, and by that I mean I pushed all the kids in the stroller...kind of heavy after a while. Once we got there, Morgan took Elle's hand and they went to play on the playground together. There were a bunch of big kids on the playground, but the girls managed to go down 2 slides before the bell rang. Her teacher came outside to bring the class in as soon as the bell rang, and Morgan all of a sudden froze up. I dragged her in loving mother fashion to the door where, luckily, there was a school official who offered to help Morgan to her classroom. Morgan took her hand and walked inside without so much as a glance back at Mom.
I picked her up three hours later. The teacher said she was nervous and shook a lot, but didn't cry at all. Morgan said they got to sing songs and draw pictures. She is excited to go back tomorrow and already has tomorrow's outfit laid out on the chair in her room.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Ghostbusters

We were driving home from lunch the other day when Elle suddenly got really excited. She saw two Ghostbusters walking down the street outside her window. On closer inspection, I realized they were actually just missionaries with backpacks on. I tried to tell her this, but Elle insisted that they were Ghostbusters because Daddy told her they were real. Morgan then asked me if we might see a giant marshmallow man on our way home, too. I told her he was just pretend, but she informed me that he was in a "real people movie and he lives in the real people world so he is real." I told her there was definitely a chance, then, that we would see a giant marshmallow man on our way home and to keep her eyes peeled for him.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Final Frontier

Don't you just love when you go to the dollar store and discover a great find?! Well the kids and I had been fighting non-stop all morning, from 6:30am. on. At about 11:00 I decided that maybe we all needed a change of scenery. So we made a trip to the dollar store. I usually go to Honks because it is right down the street, but I thought we would trek clear out west to Dollar Tree today. I love that store so much more! First of all, they already have some Halloween stuff out, which is awesome. Elle broke a snow globe in the middle of an isle, and not one person yelled at us, gave us a dirty look, or was angry. I offered to pay for, and the girl almost laughed at me. But my favorite part of our trip was the discovery of wall clings. I have been looking for something to hang from the ceiling in Miles' room above his bed, and these make a great substitute while I search for what I really want. The best part? Only $1. How can you say no to that?! So this is what he will see tonight when he lays down to go to sleep:

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Ah, Sisters!

The other night Elle and Morgan were laying in our bed watching a movie before bed. Morgan fell asleep and cuddled up with Elle, who was still awake. Elle even held Morgan's hand.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Staying up Late

We had a Guitar Hero party last night with Joe & Emily and Phil & Amanda. The kids played so hard and insisted that they stay up. Matt was too fast getting Elle to bed so I couldn't get a picture of her, but she fell asleep sideways on her pink chair in the playroom wearing Miles' shoes. It was adorable!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The 4th

We had a fantastic 4th of July. Friends and family came over for a day of Guitar Hero, board games, pool, and tons of kids running amok. We bbq'd hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner and while the kids were eating at their table on the porch, it suddenly downpoured. It was awesome! The weather did clear up, though, and the guys did a fabulous job putting on a fireworks extravaganza for us.
There was some nervousness...

and some excitement...


and a lot of fun!