Miss Sickie-pants

Poor Eve! She has had a fever for the past several days and then yesterday I noticed she had a sore in her mouth. I became worried after I noticed the sores because a few years ago I had the same symptoms and it lasted forever and was miserable!!!! Well sure enough, after our visit to the doctors this morning, we learned she has the same thing. It's called viral pharyngitis and I feel so bad for her, especially since it is a fight to get her to take medicine.

This is what she spends her time doing lately, watching Whinni the Pooh and Dora on the Kindle

Hopefully she will get better soon!

Cute Kids= Happy Life

I wish every day were like this. Mmoments like this make it all worth it though......

Then we are back to messes and kids who don't listen!

Halloween (2011)

We had a great Halloween.... last year;-) I had fun making the girls costumes, and I did have some ideas for all of us but I am not as motivated as I would like to be sometimes, or most of the time. We went to Nelson's Pumpkin Patch too and it was so much fun. I have actually never been to a pumpkin patch before so I didn't know what to expect and I was very impressed. They had a hay ride, haunted house, corn maze, billy goats the kids (and Chris) could feed, and lots of other fun little things around the property to see.

 We met up with our good friends Chelsea Steven and Quinton, and John and Elaine. When we got there Quinton had to share his wagon with Eve and they both didn't like that so much.

 I am really looking forward to going this year and the girls will be even older so it will be even more fun.

For the girls costumes I saw the cutest mermaid made out of a long tutu tied around the ankles to look like a fin, and then a cute swimsuit looking top. Well I needed something much warmer than a swimsuit top since we are in the frozen north, so I just sewed some material onto a onesie and it turned out.... ok. I made the tutu way to short and with Eve walking around it just turned out to be a big mess and didn't look like a mermaid tail at all. Also apparently the material doesn't stretch like the onesie, and I couldn't really get them on the girls so I had to cut some slits in the sides. It also didn't help that I made them the morning that I needed them and I had no time to do anything else. You can really see in Eve's picture that when I cut the material it started to fall but o-well, live and learn. (the little stinker didn't want a picture, but now it shows her personality and she is still so adorable :-)

This little girl is all smiles though, and she is so cute! Her costume turned out GREAT, because I didn't make it, haha. My good friend Shalon chroched the fin for me because she is so nice and amazing. I was so pleased with her finished work, it looked so adorable!

We went to a ward Halloween party and also went out on Halloween night to take Eve trick or treating for the first time. She obviously didn't really get what was going on, but I am sentimental and like holidays and the memories that come along with them. So we went to a street that has a couple of  houses that go all out on decorations, and I mean all out. The picture doesn't even do it justice. Anyway apparently everyone else had the same idea too, It was packed! But still a lot of fun.

Just getting CANDY!  

The last house we went to had a lot of statues all over, but one of the statues was actually a real person waiting to scare people. We found that out because there were a lot of people standing around waiting for him to scare someone.... which kind of ruined it. But anyway as we were walking away Chris said lets take Eve up to him and see what happens. I was against it, but still thought it might be funny, so I we did. I think the guy didn't want to scare a little girl though because he wouldn't move. Probably thinking we were terrible parents for doing such a thing. He finally did though and it did scare Eve quite a bit, and then I felt so bad and terrible because everyone was looking at us like we were morons!

Eve on the way home having a GOOD time :-)

It was a good Halloween all together, especially since it has been such a nice winter and the weather was great!

4th of July 2011

I love that I have to specify that I am writing about 2011, since it is already 2012. Wow, right?

I don't have much to say about this Independence day. We were in Stockton with my family and we had a good time with the fireworks and stuff. Eve is very afraid of any kind of fire or heat though, which is a good thing that I hope lasts, so it took her a few tries to warm up to the sparklers. PS: Love her rockin the diaper.

My AWESOME sisters!!! (Andrea and Rashelle)

Bath Paint

I saw this idea on Pinterest. You get shaving cream and food coloring and mix them together to create bathtub paint. I was a little worried at first that it might die our bath tub, but so far no mishaps; with the bath tub. We do have a porcelain tub though(I think) so everything just washes away.

I have done this several times now and Eve LOVES it every time. It is great for a boring day when she is being a bit of work. Normally when I do it I put like one or two drops of coloring in and then mix and the colors are good and nothing gets died. But one day I thought "I think I am going to try more food coloring, maybe it will make the colors richer." So I did and the colors looked the same and nothing got died...... then I got Eve out to dry her off and she was red and blue everywhere! It looked like she had been beaten! It was really funny and I was nervous to change her cloths in front of anyone for a few days. 

Layla is still too little to play in the tub, and she can't sit up in there either because she just slips and falls over, but she still likes to be in there. The chunky girl.

These kids are so much fun. They are growing to much too, go figure. Eve is so busy and a little toddler! She likes to be independent with some things. I can't feed her, and if I tell her what to do all day long she gets very frustrated. I have learned that she needs some time to herself to do what she wants. As long as she is not making trouble!

She always climbs into the oven in her kitchen set she got from Santa.

Don't ask me why she likes to get in Layla's car seat so much but she does. We have a winter cover thing and she likes to get cozy in there with her binky and blanket and just sit there. (Please disregard the cluttered closet. It is our only closet in out whole apt and so it if full to the brim)

She is getting smarter and smarter too. Her vocabulary is growing fast, and I am having a lot of fun learning what she has to say. The things she says aren't even that funny, it is just funny to hear her say normal things, at least to us.

She calls Layla, Wawa.

She likes to say "No." Really? Surprising right.

When friends come to our house she gets possessive and is always saying "No, no mine!" We work through it though and she is doing ok with sharing. I can tell she doesn't want to, but when we tell her to, she will do it.

Sometimes I hear her jibber jabber in her sleep.

When Layla cries she says to her "Your ok, your ok, your ok" Hahaha my favorite!

Well actually my favorite is when she says "I love you" She only says it at night but it is so rewarding to hear.

 She is the sweetest girl.She says thank you, please, and she is so funny about saying sorry. If she bumps into you or anything she says "Sorry" Haha it is hilarious. 

The last thing she likes to do is name us all. Picture her confused and trying to name us in the right order in her cute little voice; "Mommy, daddy, daddy, Eve, dad, mommy, Wawa. Daddy, Mommy, Eve, Wawa" 

(She is eating a red Christmas Oreo in this pic)

Eve also still loves to wear shoes. Our shoes, her shoes, any shoes she can find. Lately her favorite pair to wear are some water boots someone gave us. 

Layla is adorable. She is already 6 months old, what!!! She has still never rolled over from her back to her front. She can sit up though and is trying to crawl, but still can't move, haha. She laughs, not a lot, but she is  smiling constantly. She is so happy, as long as she is fed! She loves to eat and we can't get her to sleep through the night because of it, which is no fun for us. She found her tongue and feet a while ago and still likes to experiment with them. And she is getting better at controlling her arms and grabbing toys and hair and such. Eve is never mean to Layla except when Layla grabs her hair, haha.

We started feeding Layla baby food and she really is not catching on/ liking it. We need to be more diligent about feeding her more and then maybe she will get better. I feel like she just can't figure out what were doing. I did get some pictures when she first had rice cereal. 

Then Eve wanted a picture too.

They are both so cute and it is so fun to watch them grow and learn, which is the best part of being a mom.

Stockton Days

Cotton Candy

Dunking Tank

Bike Rides

Sunny Days

Karaoke

Dancing

Food 

All my favorite things I remember about Stockton Days growing up. I used to go every year and last summer we happened to be visiting right at the time of Stockton Days. I think Eve liked it as much as I did. They had a lot of fun things this year though, or I guess last year. There was this fun bounce house and they had and a few other big blow up toys too, and who doesn't love playing in those? Eve also LOVES playing with her cousins, the kids in the back ground.  

 Rashelle, Andrea, and I were going to do Karaoke but they wouldn't let anyone do duets, yeah lame! There was no way we were going to have enough courage to get up there one at a time. I was really sad though I thought it would have been a lot of fun to humiliate myself, haha, I mean that is what i would have ended up doing.

Obviously Eve liked the cotton candy too, and her and Abby were sticky messes afterward. 

Even though this is the most mild winter in my memory, I still miss the warm summer so much. I also am worried I am turning into a ghost, which you will see in up coming posts.

Old Friends

It is always a good time to get together and catch up. It seems like everytime I come to Utah I have a million things to do, but it is so fun to see some friends from college again.

 

Oregon

I guess 5 months after a trip is an appropriate time to write about it. I mean that is when everything is fresh in your mind right? I think I have been putting it off because there are so many pictures and so much to write about. I have to admit I am not a fan of uploading pictures, it takes forever. But anyway it was a big trip for us. There were 14 adults, 11 kids, 5 cars, one with a trailer behind it traveling 14 hours together! maybe for some of you that is not a long trip but for us it was. Especially Eve.

I am making it sound like it was a bad trip, which it was NOT! We had a lot of fun. Chris and I have actually been wanting to go to Oregon for a long time. When Chris and I first met we both happened to go on a trip together with a bunch of friends. (I remember walking out to get in the car and seeing Chris walk around the corner with his bags and I was excited. This was like the 3rd time we had ever seen each other) We were all going to Grouse Creek, which was a coincidence in it's self. I used to go there a lot as a child with my good friend Kenzie and then for this trip we randomly went there because we had a place to stay. Anyway on our way to Grouse Creek, Chris was like we should just got to the Oregon Coast instead and everyone wanted to except me, because I was supposed to go camping with my family when we got back so I didn't have time. So ever since Chris gave me crap about that. I will have to tell the rest of the Grouse Creek story another time because that was a fun trip too.

Chris and I really like Oregon. I honestly wouldn't mind living there one day.... maybe. While we were there we rented a house on the Siuslaw River, and was 15 min from the town Florence Oregon which was right on the coast. The river was very interesting to see at the different tides. It seriously rose and fell like 10 or more feet every day. The first day there we went to Mo's. It was supposed to be a good seafood place. I am not a fan of sea food, not at all, so I actually didn't like it at all. But it is always good to be with family, so it was still fun. After dinner we walked around Old Town. Which is a small part of Florence that is historical and had a lot of shops and stuff.  

I can't really remember the order we did things since it hasn't been very long since we went. But we went to these tide pools that were fun. I wish I had some kind of baby carrier because we had to lug Layla down this big hill and over all these big rocks in her huge car seat. She was only like a month and half when we went though so maybe the car seat was good.

There were a lot of sea life in the tide pools that were cool to see. All the older kids LOVED it. I honestly didn't know any of the things I was looking at though, except all the star fish. Which I was surprised to learn were very colorful. If you look closely there are purple star fishes all around us and then there is the orange one right in front. I can't remember if there were other colors, but they were bright.  

Chris found a hermit crab, and he was actually holding it! Yuck. Yes I know I sound like a wimp, but he tried to get me to hold it and I was not  having it. It was cool though when he first showed me, the crab was in his shell and then he jumped out and started to make a break for it.  

Here is everybody again, except Dave who is taking the pic, and two random people looking at the sea lions behind us. The sea lions, who I wonder why differ from seals, were just lounging on other rocks that were not accessible to us. But they were fun to see. 

I loved the scenery there. The mountains with all the trees and then the cliffs on the coast were so beautiful. Really I forget how much Utah is a desert and how North Dakota doesn't really have that many trees! Also Andrea is standing next to Chris in this picture. We realized after I took it that it looks like me next to him, haha.

I love my family!!!!! And I miss the summer.

At lunch after the tide pools Eve decided to help Jason push Abby around.

This is on our way up to the Heceta Head Light House. It was only like 1/4 mile walk but it seemed like forever. I was so tired when we made it, but Layla was only like 6 or 7 weeks when we went so that is my excuse. 

When we did make it up there, we had to wait our turn to go on the tour of the light house and this is what Eve ended up entertaining herself with. Playing in the dirt, just what I love ;-)

This is Chris's favorite picture (and not just because I am in it) he loved the view up there. He still talks about it.

Inside the light house it was a lot smaller than I though it would be. The tour was interesting, I liked learning about light houses but I can't really remember much about what the tour guide said. He was good though and I would love to see more someday.

I love old architecture and history. I just wish I had loved it when I was in school.

The 4 of us outside the light house.

And the whole fam again. (The light house is right in front of us)

On the "hike" down.

We went to the beach a few times but unfortunately they were way to cold to do anything but sit next to the tall grass because it would block the wind. The cute kiddos had fun playing in the sand too, Chris included. 

The beaches we kind of fun though since they were empty because it was so windy and chilly. Then poor Eve fell in a puddle of water; she was mad and freezing after that.

So we gave her a sucker and she fell asleep on the way home :-)

The rest of the time we just hung around the house and had fun together. The house we stayed at had a lot of great decks with lots of seating. So we spent a lot of time out there, which I loved. And I am not sure what Chris is doing, hes a goof ball.  

We also had a bbq and played lots of games, and the kids loved playing in the yard. My sisters and I are always good just talking though.

We really had a good time with everyone. On the way home Chris and I decided to drive home along the coast with Rashelle and Jason which was so so beautiful and fun to see but I will never do it again with kids. The trip home ended up being 22 hours long. And that is driving time, it is not including the time we stopped, slept, and ate. It was long!. We also drove through the Sierra mountains on the way home and that road was windy and slow, we were in it for 4 hours. I was so sick when we made it out. It was funny too because Chris and I kept thinking we were out and then there was another range to go through.

It was great though because we drove through the redwood forest and I have never seen those trees before. If you look close in the pic you can see the end of the trunk of the tree and then there is another one behind it. They were big though! 

We also stayed in Reno Nevada on the way home and man that town is kind of dumpy. No offence. We went to McDonalds in the morning and we had a crazy lady ask us for a ride to the airport, a hooker walk in, and a man talking under his breath at a table alone about how he hated someone. Yikes. We probably got a bad bunch of people all at once but it was pretty funny.