December

We had a great December. First of all I had my birthday which was great. Zach made me breakfast in bed and let me sleep in (the best gift ever). We also celebrated our 4th anniversary I can't believe we've been married that long! Unfortunately, someone kept Zach late that night so our plans to go to Nicklemannia were foiled but we enjoyed a nice dinner anyways.

The real fun of course was all about Christmas! Zach found a place to fit our tree in-I honestly didn't think it was possible but he did it. May had lots of fun decorating and undecorating it and redecorating it through out the month. She loved telling me all the colors of the lights this year. I think she REALLY loved it because it was put up in her time-out corner- this made time outs pretty minimal because there really is no where else for her to go. As soon as we took it down though she went and put herself in the corner-I guess to make up for missed opportunities.

We made gingerbread houses and watched the first presidency devotional for family home evening one night. May actually did pretty good at putting the candy on the houses- except for her treasured m&ms I think those mostly ended up in her tummy.Remember this picture from last year? Probably not which is why I posted it again. Well this years was even better...Pretty sweet huh.
Sad story time. So I got a sub for Santa thing that was a girl who wanted some shirts. So we went to the mall to get them and May really wanted to ride the train. I told her next time we come back Dada will come and we will see Santa and then ride the cho cho train. "Ok mama." I get home and realized I didn't pay attention to the size of one of the shirts I got this gal so I had to go back to exchange it. Before we were even parked May said, "Mama cho cho train!!" and I had to say, "No I'm sorry next time Dada will for sure come and we will see Santa and ride the cho cho train." " Pease mama pease." "No not this time, next time." "Ok mama." I felt so bad. So then we finally made it to the mall with Zach the Tuesday before Christmas it was packed. We honestly would've been in line for 3 hours so we decided it wasn't a big deal if Zach wasn't there for the pictures and I would just bring May back in the morning when the line wasn't so huge. But then we went to go ride the train the person that drives it was just leaving on break so we would've had to wait for 1/2 hour to ride it-we decided that wasn't worth it. Poor May May, "No cho cho train? Please cho cho train." I felt so so so bad. She was so good though she didn't throw a fit at all which made it even worse. Anyway so we went back the next morning and just before it was our turn to see Santa the train drives by and I think May had just had it she wanted to ride that cho cho train. So she started crying for the train before she even sat on Santa's lap. So we might have had a smiling picture this year if we had driven our poor daughter to tears by telling her she would ride the train and then not riding it. Anyway here is her all smiles on the train.

Zach's family had a great Christmas party. We ate lots of yummy food. Zach's mom had everyone play a pass the present game, May didn't want to play with the kids so she passed the extra adult present. Then Zach's mom read the kids "The Polar Express". Zach's step-dad dressed up as a train conductor and surprised all the kids with his train whistle. May's eyes lit up it was so cute.

Christmas eve we spent with Zach's brothers and dad. We played cranium which was pretty darn fun. Here is May and her best bud and cousin Kamrie in their Christmas dresses.
Christmas day we spent mostly with my family. My mom buys us matching shirts every year and this year she got us army shirts in honor of my brother. We went to breakfast at my grandmas and then spent most of the afternoon with just my parents.
I must put in a plug for my amazingly talented friend Elise. She painted a custom painting for me that I gave to my parents for Christmas. They loved it! Check out her website here.

May's favorite presents this year were her bike and her kitchen. She walked out and saw her bike and said, "Oh! May May's bike!" and climbed right up. It's a little big for her and she can't quite peddle yet but she has until summer so I think it'll be fine. It was actually warm enough Christmas to go try it out. Zach is such a good Dada helping her. Aww.
My parents got her the kitchen and my mom bought her dishes and food to go with it along with a cute hat and apron. Her favorite things to cook up are soup and chocolate milk. She also made some cookie robots the other day (like from Despicable Me) it was pretty funny.

Well I'm sure I missed something cool but good enough. I hope everyone has a great New Years! We are so excited for the fun changes 2011 is bringing with it.

More Exciting News

We have had such a busy December but I can't get pictures up so I'll have to post about it later. But I have some exciting news... drum roll please...
We finally got a house! Can I get a woot woot?!?
This is the house we have been waiting for. It is by far our favorite one that we have looked at in our few years of searching and really has everything we wanted. My favorite parts include the large kitchen with plenty of cupboard and pantry space, the media loft to keep all the toys in, more than one bathroom, a wall that is purely bookshelf, a 2 car garage for poor Zach who has let me have the covered parking space for 4 long years, and the thing I'm most excited about (which really is quite sad) a back yard to let the dog out in. That's right. No more tramping out in the snow in my PJ's with the whole complex watching, and no one can fine me for not picking up the dog poop right away. Not to mention not having to deal with other irresponsible people's dog's poop.
Hurray!

Hurray for Baby

We are pregnant! Hurray! Due at the end of May. I'm 15 weeks and time has just flown by.

This pregnancy has been oh so much harder than my first one. I'll spare you the sob story details but everything about this pregnancy has been painful or at the very least annoying. And I'm only 15 weeks!!! I've gone to a water aerobics class a few times and it seems to really help my back. My wonderful mom is giving up her evenings to come baby sit for me. May and I are so lucky to have her!

I know a lot of people say their girls were really easy and their boys were really hard or vice versa so we're thinking it may be a boy. Also it would be terribly convenient if it were a girl due to the fact that we already have everything we need and we have already agreed on a girls name-so doesn't that automatically make it a boy??? Guess we'll find out in a few weeks.

I must share one experience for my own journaling purposes. This was planned but as soon as we knew we were pregnant I think Zach and I both kind of went, "Hmm, why did we decide to do this again?" First of all I've been so miserable and on top of that I was worried about how we were going to pay our deductible, worried that we aren't going to have a house by the time it gets here and will have no room for it, worried about neglecting May or being a bad mom to her because I'm so tired from being up with the baby, worried that this baby is going to be so much harder than May was, and worrying that I am not going to love this baby as much as I do May. I just wasn't excited or happy about it at all. This of course made me feel bad for being such a terrible mom to this baby inside of me that we have been blessed with.

When I went in for my first doctors appointment and they did the ultrasound and listened to the heartbeat I just felt this overwhelming feeling of peace. I know this baby is being sent to our family now for a reason and that we were right to try for it. I know we are going to love it just as much as we love May. I know May is going to be a great older sister. I'm still worried about the other things but it's not consuming me like it was before. I am really excited now and can deal with all the pregnancy aches and woes for this little one with a good attitude (even if it doesn't show to the outside world my inside feels better:).

Festival of Trees

My amazing mom and I (and my Dad did all the securing hard stuff) decorated a tree for the Festival of Trees this year. Holy cow! Lots and lots of work! My mom said next year we're just going to buy a tree :)

Here is our tree it's a Snowman can you tell? It's hard to see in the pictures but he has lots of little snowman ornaments all over him. It's definitely not the grandest tree but everyone told us it was "cute" and "creative" which I think is pretty good.

Here is the info for the festival be sure to check our tree out! http://www.festivaloftreesutah.org/File/View/9de9a937-0a3a-4214-9ac6-ccc2d42026d0

A Nice Morning

I rarely get an opportunity to just go out and take some pics with my camera. Sunday morning though I was taking the dog out and the trees along the back of our complex mixed with the sky were just beautiful! I was in luck because it was a Sunday so Zach was home and could watch May while I went out and snapped (what a good husband huh). I've always loved snow pictures despite the fact that I hate the snow. Since getting this camera I've realized the reason good snow pictures are good is because they are edited. It's good to be in on the secret. Anyway here are a few of the fruits of my half hour of quiet time with the camera. It was so very nice.

Do you see the little black dots at the top leftish middle of this picture? They're birds! I didn't even notice them until I was uploading and I'm like, "How did this picture get spots on it?" I wish I had seen them so I could've gotten a better picture of them.

So...how about that "blizzard"? It was like nothing. It made me giggle in an annoyed way that all the schools closed down and people got off work early to get home. The reason for the annoyance is I still remember a few years ago (2008 maybe?) when there was that huge storm and it took me like 4 hours or more to get from Orem to Murray. I was actually even lucky to have made it home. If I had been about 20 mins later than I was I wouldn't have been able to go over the point of the mountain and probably would've spent the night at a church in Lehi somewhere. Worst drive of my life. Anyway, they didn't cancel school or work that time and it was way worse! Zach got home about an hour early though so I guess I can't complain to much.

My brother flew in last night for Thanksgiving. The army let them go home for a couple days if they paid their own way. I'm glad we got to see him another time before he ships out.

I can't believe that it's almost the end of November already. I'm not sure if I'm ready for the craziness of December! Zach has had us listening to Christmas music for a couple weeks now. It makes me happy because it's the only time of year he sings along to songs at the top of his lungs.

Disney On Ice

For May's birthday my mom bought her tickets to go see Disney on Ice. She of course loved it. I was a little worried that she wasn't going to sit through it but she was totally enthralled. They had a bunch of their shows smushed in to one big one but the ones she knows were The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan (she just knows Tinker Bell but you could tell they were catering to the girls who only know Tinker Bell because she was pretty much the star of the Peter part), and of course Mickey and friends. She was most excited to see Mickey and Minnie. Which is pretty interesting because I thought she would be most excited to see a princess-but maybe she didn't realize the girl on the ice was supposed to be Ariel.

In the picture she has her Mickey spinner which she has almost had for a week and she still looks for it when she wakes up. Also, please note the flounder bowl that the snow cone is in. Ask me how many times a day I've washed this thing because she doesn't want to eat out of anything but this. My answer will be far too many!

For a couple days after we went May kept getting her shoes and coat and going to the door saying, "Mickey Mouse, ok lets go!" apparently she thought Mickey and moved in next door and we could now go see him anytime we wanted.

We had a really good time-thanks mom!
Okay camera savvy people I have a question. We have our SLR camera which I love love love. I find myself not taking it places though because it's big and I don't really have room for it alongside the kiddos necessities or because I'm afraid it's going to get ruined. But then I miss out on some great pictures that I really wish I had had the camera for. Case in point the picture below. It's taken on my phone because I didn't have my camera and there were some even greater shots that were completely missed because my phone is so slow. I'm kinda glad I didn't have it though because before this May took a huge dive in the mud and on my way to get her to the bathroom I was covered and if I had my camera slung around my neck it would most definitely have gotten kicked and covered as well.

Anyway, so my question is for those of you with nicer and/or bigger cameras do you just buck up and take them and how do you protect them without a huge camera bag or do you have a smaller camera you take places you don't want to take your nice camera? Seriously, please answer this question-I thank you ahead of time.

Pumpkins

Zach's family has a fun tradition of getting square pumpkins at Arctic Circle when you get get your pumpkins. So when Zach got off work we ran to the pumpkin patch close to our house to get some pumpkins. I'm a little sad we didn't get any cute pictures but it was dark and they were closing. Afterwards we got our square pumpkins. May was quite enthralled with the spiders that came with.
We decorated our pumpkins a different day. I got some cute sticker packs from the dollar store that we used instead of trying to carve them. Zach refused to put stickers on his pumpkin and insisted he was carving his-but Halloween is over and it sits uncarved still. Not to worry though May pulled all the stickers off mine and hers and divided them up evenly amongst the 3.
May loves pumpkins. It cracks me up. She spots them everywhere and when she sees the big stack at the grocery store she gets all excited and has to touch everyone. She is so funny.

Ok, funny Halloweenish story. I looked at costumes at target this week because they are on clearance for 50% off. They had a really cute Dorthy costume. We have our little black dog Goob. And we are planning on having a baby by next Halloween who can fill the lion costume May wore last year. And then Zach and I can dress up like the scarecrow and the tin man. Cute right? Well May is super convinced that we bought Snow White's dress (she has no idea who Dorthy is obviously). She wore it around all day. I literally had to wrestle her out of it so we could go play at the park and as soon as we got home she put it back on. It'll be interesting to see if next year she realizes she isn't being Snow White...and how big of a fit she'll throw when that realization kicks in. It was just too perfect to pass up.

May turns 2

May turned 2 can you believe it?!? Unfortunately her birthday was kind of lame due to sickness and doctors appointments. When Zach got home we took her to ride the train at the mall and get a smoothie (I refused to make a cake that would only have 2 1/2 pieces out of it-so smoothies it was).

We had a Minnie Mouse party for her on Saturday though and I thought it turned out pretty good. I got a lot of my ideas from At Second Street but I changed a lot of them because she is way more creative than I am.

Here is her cute Minnie outfit. She is wearing this for Halloween too. I made the skirt (the tutorial is in the link At Second Street) and the headband and then just bought her a pink shirt. And of course she is wearing her sparkly pink shoes-can't leave home without them

Here are the invitations. The inside was basically the beginning lines to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse but we changed it to come to my party and "Maylie Mouse" instead of Mickey Mouse. If I had a bigger budget I would've got pink M&Ms but regular ones just had to do.

I made the cake. It turned out WAY better than the crazy cupcakes last year. For Minnie's face I used a 10" round and her ears are 2 6" inch rounds. I used 2 cans of chocolate, a can of vanilla, and a can of cherry frosting. Zach did not want me to make my own frosting because he hates how the dyes turn your mouth colors. It was so much easier using premade anyway so I was glad for the request!

I made this banner with much instruction from Caytee (thanks Caytee) at our little craft group thing. It was a lot of fun. I think I might just put the Maylie part up in her room.

Aren't the poofs adorable? So easy and pretty cheap. They are just made out of tissue paper and I love love love them. The tutorial is At Second Street but she takes you to the Martha Stewart website.

This is our pinata. The kids were such good sports about going in the rain to hit it. We don't have any pictures because cameras don't mix well with rain. We made the kids wear Mickey Mouse gloves ( you know the big squishy ones you get from Disneyland) so that it was hard to grasp the bat. Funny story. Morning of the party and I'm looking everywhere for the table clothes I bought and suddenly I realize that I probably glued them into the pinata. Way to go. Everyone was a little confused about them when they came out.

Zach shaped the pinata but I think he did the hard way. Check out At Second Street for the easy way. She also tells you how to decorate it this easy peasy way with crepe paper. The bow I sewed from material leftover from May's outfit.

We gave everyone a "toodles" bag that had mouskatools in them that we used throughout the party. For example-stickers and markers to decorate hats, blindfolds and tape for pin the bow on Minnie, candles for the cake etc. This will probably make no sense to you unless you've seen Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so go watch it and realize what cute idea it was. :)

Here is everyone in their mouse ears hats. I love our family. Everyone decorated and wore a hat. What good sports.

We played pin the bow on Minnie. This is May's 94 year old great great grandma pinning the bow on Minnie. What a sweetheart huh. This is the great great grandma May's middle name is after (Linnie- it rhymes with Minnie sweet eh?).

May was of course spoiled with gifts from everyone. She got several princess things. Zach's mom gave her a Minnie card that sings Happy Birthday when you open it-guess how many times that was played throughout the next week. Below is a picture of her working on her birthday ball. My grandma doesn't wrap presents-she birthday balls them. You put everything in crate paper and as you unroll it you find lots of little surprises. It's one of my favorite traditions.

We had a great time. Thanks to our amazing family who came and had lots of fun with us!

Boo to blogger

Can I just tell you how many posts I've tried to write and given up because blogger is making me so frustrated. Currently I cannot move the picture above without freezing my computer. So the picture above is the Lion King. We saw it courtesy of my mom- and it was amazing. The music, the costumes, the puppets all amazing. The Capital Theater ought to be renovated though. The seats are terrible as is the restroom situation. I made some nice friends in the men's bathroom though...nice eh?

May is going to be 2 next week. Ahh! Can you believe it? I can't it's just crazy crazy crazy. We have a super sweet Minnie Mouse party planned I'm very excited.

We pulled May out of gymnastics. She has started asking me if we can go home about half way through the class. It's pretty pricey so if she doesn't like it I decided it's not worth it to pay for it and make her go. We started going to a little music class at the library though and so far she seems to really like it-plus it's free so can't beat that. The gal that does it is very good at what she does but she is always in sweats. Like really- I know you're working with 2 year olds but you can't find 5 seconds to put on a pair of jeans to go to your job? I don't know people that go places in their pjs without a really good reason bother me in general.

We ordered Beauty and the Beast from the Disney Movie club and it came yesterday. We got a copy and to give May for her birthday and my mom ordered her copy with us so we could get a better deal on it. My mom let May watch her copy and May got so excited. She loves all the princesses but hasn't ever seen Belle in anything. There is a part right after Belle gets her room at the castle where she starts crying on her bed and then they cut to a scene with Gaston and May was so sad. "Oh no Belle crying" "You ok?" until they came back to Belle and I could reassure her that Belle was smiling now. After watching the movie though she gathered up her couple figurines she has of Belle and they were the only princesses allowed in the little people castle. She is so funny.

I just watched last nights Glee. I'm done. I'm not watching it anymore and I'll just get the music when it's released. And frankly I don't think I'll be a worse person for not knowing the happs at McKinley High. I will miss Harry Shum Jr. I just love his dancing-he is amazing. They don't show case it that much though so it's ok.

Speaking of TV I miss Parks and Rec. Fit it in somewhere NBC!

My brother left for Wisconsin Sunday. He'll stay there for a bit and then he'll be headed straight to Afghanistan. I hope he stays safe!

Family Reunion

We had our annual reunion with Zach's family this weekend. It was so much fun but I gotta tell you I am beat! Zach's grandma was able to come up so she, Zach's mom and step dad, and us (of course) all cramed into our apartment. It feels huge now that it's just us again!We did a field day sort of thing. Zach got to stay for breakfast but then he had to go to work. What a lame-o. He looks nice in our pink shirt though eh?We had a crab walk competition. I have a picture of it but this photo of Gwen (Zach's mom) doing a bear crawl, after the race was over and for no apparent reason, is much funnier. We did a 3 legged race. The funniest part was the people not doing it yelling on the side lines "3 legged race-don't fall on your face!" what critics.

Other activities included an airplane fly, a grueling game of red light green light (May's favorite activity), puzzles, a hula hoop contest, 3 on 3 basketball, a craft, and the most memorable part was my nephew pulling the fire alarm at the church we were at. Oh yeah. Good times.

After all the activities we went back to my sister-in-laws house for dinner and to watch slide shows. I loved this part it was so fun to just see everyone's pictures from the year. You miss a lot when you live far away and it's fun to see the little things you aren't there for with the people you see all the time.

A May Update

I have had zero motivation to blog since our trip, 1. because our computer has been spastic so I haven't been able to upload pics and 2. because we have been so busy with such fun things. My mom asked me the other day when I was going to blog again so I thought I'd get something up. We have had a great summer. We have such great family and friends we are so blessed to have all of you!

May is continuing to grow up too fast and frankly is too smart for her own good. She has a pretty big vocabulary and says several sentences. The other day we had been at the Aviary for a couple of hours and I asked her if she wanted to go back and see the ducks. She responded with, "No. Bye Ducks. Home Goober." I was pretty shocked. She also consistently will tell me "No (insert whatever food was presented to her). Raconi (macaroni)."

We've started pre-preschool stuff. She is picking up on it so fast. She can sort all of her colors out but names them either blue or pink. She also can pick out a circle and a triangle and if she is really trying she can find squares too. The program I'm using for letters is super sweet and super simple. We've been doing it for 3 weeks (a letter for each week) and May knows the sound for them although not the names. (We are blogging what we are doing at http://todowithtoddler.blogspot.com in case ya'll want to check it out).

She isn't handling nursery terribly well but I can't say I blame her- I don't like the leaders in there either. She has a friend that lives across from us and she is constantly asking to go play with him so I'm hoping eventually she will be better because he is there- a familiar face is always helpful.

She is still going to gymnastics. She loves doing the high beam and "scooping icecream" with her feet on it. There is a new boy in her class though and I just want to bop him on the head. For some reason he has latched onto Maylie and he chases her around and tries to hold her hand and give her hugs, not in a soft nice way though. It was funny the first week but now it's just super obnoxious. His mom does try really hard to keep him under control but he is a big kid and she is super pregnant so there isn't much she can do. I've just been going and picking Maylie up before he gets to her- but it's like we pay to take this class not spend our whole time avoiding this kid. We are going to change classes next semester if he ends up being in there. May is so good at saying "NO NO NO!" That's my girl.

Her favorite game is the "chase me" game. She will get food and run up and down our hallway so the dog chases her. She will also take a toy from her cousin Kams (who is 2) and run around laughing histarically because Kams will chase her for it. Unfortunately Kams doesn't think it's funny- quite the opposite. Also, Mama and Dada have spent many hours racing her around the house- it's okay we could use the exercise.

And my super exciting news- dun da da dun....

Yes folks she has enough hair to go up in a pony tail. Sweet eh?

In other news we have been looking at houses. Agh I hate it! House hunting is something you think would be fun and exciting but it is for sure one of the worst things ever. Hoping to get one soon!

P.S. I am super sad that Steve Carrell is leaving The Office. I have mixed feelings about them continuing the show without him. I want to keep watching new episodes but what is Dunder Mifflin without Micheal Scott? Lame.

San Diego-Scholars Maintain the Translation was Lost

About 3 weeks ago Zach started arguing with me over the order of June birthdays in his family. Knowing full well I was right about what we were discussing I went to my blackberry calender to show him that I was right...again. Anyway, in my June calender someone had put "Vacation to Cali". That sly Zach surprised me...and obviously knows me too well if he knew I would go to my calender over birthdays. We just got back from our trip and we had a blast!



We had a long drive. May actually handled it pretty well. Here she is mixing business with pleasure.



Zach on the other hand did not handle the car time so well. California is a crazy place to drive in, I'm glad we made it out a live.

We stopped and stayed a night in Mesquite on the way down just to break up the drive. We planned on swimming for most of the day. This was May's first time in a big pool and she HATED it. She is not a child that is scared of much but man she did NOT want to be in the water. So we spent most of the time in our room-which was okay because it was a nice room. Below is May starring at the pool with a fear that we're going to make her go in again.

Monday we finished our drive to San Diego and took the rest of the night to recover. We were at our hotel for about 10 mins and May broke a mug...that was sweet. One of the nights we were at the hotel (my memory fails me on which night) we felt an earthquake. The actual earthquake was on the border of Cali and Mexico but we felt it in San Diego, Scary!! It was the biggest earthquake I've ever felt.

Tuesday we went to the San Diego Zoo. That place is SO big we were completely lost at one point. May's favorite were the duts (ducks), monteys (monkeys), and gaf (giraffes).

Wednesday we went to Sea World. This was probably our favorite thing we did. We were worried May wasn't going to watch the shows but she was totally enthralled with them. Zach tool a million pictures of shamu so if ever you find yourself wishing you could look through someones shamu photo album we are the ones to call.

Disneyland which was our most expensive excursion was probably the least fun...in fact it was totally miserable. May slept a lot, I think we just burned her out by Thursday. We rode only a few rides her favorites were the carousel and the Snow White ride (which we rode 3 times).

We had to be selective about who we stood in line for because May kicked and screamed the entire waiting time until she could see the character. We decided the most important were Snow White (her favorite princess) and Minnie. May was so excited to see Snow White and wanted her to pick her up but... after hours and hours in the same diaper, lots of sunscreen and dirt my child was admittedly pretty gross and I'm sure Miss White didn't want soil that dress.

We waited in line for Minnie and when we were one away Minnie had to "go check some pies" and May was so upset and when she came back she got so excited, "Min! Min! Min!" She loved going through Minnie's house. We caught a picture with Goofy too but she cried that one.

Friday we went to the beach. Oh how we love love love the beach. But...remember how May was scared of the swimming pool, well she was just as terrified with the ocean. She was having an absolute blast until we got about 10 feet away from the water and then it was like her worst nightmare. Below is Zach chasing May we could have a pretty sweet flip book of him chasing and falling after her.

Despite all the fun places we went I am positive that May's favorite part of the whole trip was playing with her cousins. She was running and screaming around crazy and just having a blast.


We had a great trip but it's nice to be home for sure. I've been trying to get this up for like 3 days so I'm not reading through it again so if parts don't make sense...meh.

Things I've done that I said I would never do.

I was thinking today as I ripped open a box of fruit snacks in the middle of Wal-Mart about all the things I scoffed at parents for doing that I now do, mostly for ease and a little bit for my sanity.

Then: I thought opening things in the store before paying for them was rude and a little weird. Now: Whatever reasonable thing keeps May from throwing herself out of the cart and or screaming at the top of her lungs will be done.

Then:Let my kid sit in the big part of the shopping cart, with no straps.
Now: May starts in the front with the straps on then the straps come off and then she moves into the big part. Reason: the same as above.

Then: Buy things for my kid just so they will stop whining for it.
Now: Bad habit I need to break, I think my problem mostly is I love to buy things for her. She gets so excited over stuff and I love it. My goal is to go back to the then.

Then: Just letting my kid throw a fit in a public area without doing something about it.
Now: Really? What can you do? Spank them so they cry harder? I just ignore it, exactly like the parents I scoffed at before.

Then: Let my kid walk around with a dirty face.
Now: I swear May has traveling shmutz on her face, it really is impossible to keep clean all the time let alone most of the time. I've given up.

Then: Allow my kids to eat in the car.
Now: May probably eats (and when I say eats I mean what actually makes it to her stomach not what I offer her and she throws on the floor) the most in the car, mostly because she is strapped in and can't go anywhere, plus a bowl of Cheerios is a great form of entertainment.

Then: Let the front room be overrun with toys.
Now: The whole house is overrun with toys, I'm not sure why I thought the front room would be special.

Then: Let my kid be a picky eater.
Now: The way I see it now the choice is not let your kid live off the one thing he'll eat or make your kid live off of the many things it's let your kid have the one thing they will eat or let your kid starve herself to death. I do try to give her different things but in the end she always gets that yogurt.

Then: Put my kids in a "leash" backpack.
Now: We just bought one of these. May does not like riding in her stroller and she does not like holding Mommy's hand. Also, she is not a child that pays attention to where she is, she gets a little spacey, like running into walls spacey. We are going to places such as Disneyland and Sea World and frankly I'd rather feel like a fool with her in a "harness" backpack (sounds better that way) then have her run off and be lost forever.

Then: My kids would not be allowed to watch TV everyday.
Now: May watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse every morning while I shower and I usually put on a movie around 6 or 6:30 so I can cook dinner. It's either that or her throwing an absolute fit on the kitchen floor and dinner taking twice as long to cook.

Family Pictures

We took some family pictures on Saturday. Due to some miscommunication with the gal that was going to take them for us didn't make it, which is too bad because she is really good. Anyway we grabbed our camera and decided to take them ourselves. 1. Because we have a limited amount of time before Scott leaves and the weekends are packed. 2. Because it was a miracle my dad got ready and showed up for one photo session and asking for two miracles is pushing it. The pictures may not be the greatest but for taking them ourselves I think they turned out alright. Zach is a master of setting a camera somewhere and jumping in a picture. We didn't have to do quite that because we bought a fancy shamncy remote a while ago so that was nice. The best part was I got some practice with photo shop. I know there is tons to learn on that program but I felt a lot better about learning it once I realized how easy it was just to brighten the colors. This one is my favorite one of the whole shoot. It looks good in color too but I love the faded look.

I won't tell you what I said to get these two to ACTUALLY smile but it was good.

This one was the toughest to photo shop and I still don't think I did that great of a job. In the original photo you can't see Scott's eyes at all so I had to figure out just how to lighten his eyes. It is much better than it was but I'm sure someone who really knows what they are doing could make it better.

My dad actually smiling again. This hardly ever happens so catching twice on camera is pretty darn good. Aww aren't they cute.

The end. So what do you think? Are they okay enough to put on the wall for a couple of years?