Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Lollipop, Lollipop, Oh Lolli, Lollipop, Lollipop!

Just wanted to share a few recent pics!









Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Saved from the Cannibals

Conversation Makenna had with me yesterday:

"Mommy, when someone eats you, I'll save your legs, and when someone cooks you, I'll save your face. I'll save your face and your legs, okay?!"

She seemed so proud of herself. Oh to be three and completely crazy!

Dishes can wait


I am not very good at throwing what I need to get done to the side and just playing and being with my girls. Sure, I do it for a few minutes at least each day, but not how much I would like to when I stop and think about how fast they are growing up. I get caught up in all the housework and errands that need to get done, and with 3 girls, 4 and under, sometimes I don't get it done as fast or smoothly as I'd like. Here in California people look at me like I'm crazy when I've got all three of them along with me at the grocery store, or Target, or the bank, etc. I don't have a choice though. Jeremy goes to work at 7:40 am and doesn't get home until around 7:00 or sometimes 8:00 pm. I don't know any babysitters yet (we went through a babysitting service for Saturday night - 4 hour minimum is just too long for running errands). So they have to come with me everywhere I go. I don't know how many people have said, "Wow, you've got your hands full." It seems like when we lived in St. George people were more sympathetic to having your children with you and they'd laugh or smile at their craziness. Here it just seems like people get annoyed. My kids aren't horribly misbehaved children either. People just look at me like I am trying to repopulate the world all by myself - come on it's only 3!! Anyway enough ranting! So my baby Ellie has been in a terrible sleep pattern lately. She stays wide awake until somewhere between midnight and 1:00 am. I've tried just sticking her in her bed and letting her cry it out, but after an hour or so the girls and Jeremy just have to get some sleep and so I have to go get her. Last night was no different. I got Ellie out of her bed about 10:30 and finally got her to sleep at 12:30 am. Well, in that time Britlyn came downstairs around 11:30 pm and told me she couldn't sleep. That little girl has so many personality traits like her daddy, and poor thing, occasional insomnia is one of them. Normally I'd make her get back in bed, but for some reason last night I told her she could stay up with me and Ellie. We stayed up messing around on the computer - looking at other blogs. She asked if she could play nick.com for a little while, so I let her while I rocked Ellie and got her to bed. I came back downstairs and asked Britlyn if I could rock her. She said yes and so off to the rocking chair we went. I held her, rocked her, and sang to her. She looked up at me and just said,"Mommy, this is my best night ever. I feel really good right now." Right then I realized I don't spend nearly enough time doing things like that with her. Ellie usually takes precedence and Makenna is more demanding too, so Britlyn usually doesn't get as much. It was one of those moments where everything you do becomes worth it. I told her she'd always be my baby. She asked, "Even when I'm old and you die, will I still be your baby?" I told her of course she would. Then she told me she'd never forget that she loves me. Oh man, you just can't put a price on times like this. She asked me to tell her a story and I was so tired I started to fall asleep while telling it. She was like, "Mommy! What are you doing?" Then she realized I was falling asleep, so she said she'd tell me a story. What a sweetheart. Finally about 1:30 am I told her we had to get to bed. She still didn't seem at all tired, but she willingly went. I really need to be better at letting the dishes wait and having more times like this with my girls.


Now here is one of her favorite bedtime songs - my mom sang it to me and her dad sang it to her, and I'm sure it goes back further than that, but stopping and thinking about the words - it is kinds of a messed up song!


Oh don't you remember
a long time ago
There were two little babes
their names I don't know
They wandered away
one bright summers day
and were lost in the woods
I heard people say
The moon went down
and the stars gave no light
Those poor little babes
how sad was their plight
They sighed and they sighed
and they bitterly cried
Those poor little babes
They laid down and died
And when they were dead
the Robbins so red
brang strawberry leaves
and over them laid
and sand them a song
the whole night long
those poor little babes,
those poor little babes

I know what you're thinking - "What's wrong with you?! Why would you sing a song like that to your kids?!" But you know what? They love it, and I remember loving it as a kids too. So, the messed up tradition continues...

Monday, January 29, 2007

Only in L.A.


Time for a crazy story... Last night Jeremy and I finally got a babysitter and went on a date. We went to dinner and a movie, but I needed to go to the grocery store before we went home to get some things for dinner today. So there we were walk in the grocery store and we're walking towards an older, kind of homeless looking man, who is just standing there staring at the gin on the shelf. As we get closer he looks over and says, "Man, you must be the luckiest man alive. How'd you get her?" We stop for a minute and laugh. Then he says,"My arm is broken, would you mind getting me one of those bottles of gin and putting it in my arms?" So Jeremy bends down and gets him one. Mind you, he already just reeks of the stuff, so Jeremy says, "Now don't you drink that all tonight." The man just gives a sly grin and a little laugh. We start to walk away and he starts with the, "You really are the luckiest man alive" stuff again and starts to follow us. He then says, "You don't know who I am, do you?" We look at him for a couple seconds wondering why we should know, and then admit to him that we don't know. He says,"I'm Henry Hill." Now for those of you that don't know, Henry Hill was a prominent mobster back in the day. The movie Goodfellas is a story about his life. Jeremy just says, "Come on, are you the real Henry Hill?" He said he was. So Jeremy starts asking him a bunch of questions about his life to see if it really is him. (Jeremy has mounds and mounds of useless trivia stored in his head) He seemed to know everything, so I believed him. He stood there and talked to us for about 20 minutes. He was sooo drunk and was standing sooo close to us. He found out we'd just moved from Utah to L.A. and asked if we were Mormons. We told him we were, and he said he's read the Bible, Koran, and the Torah, and thought maybe he ought to read the Book of Mormon to see if there was something in there for him to help straighten out his life. He leaned toward me like he was going to whisper something in my ear, but then he kissed me on the cheek. It was so funny, he was the drunkest old thing you've ever seen. He actually kissed me again probably 5-10 minutes later, on the cheek. He said if he'd known me back in the day he would've taken me to the Copa. He asked Jeremy if he was a Fed because he was asking him so many questions. He also tried to get Jeremy to open the bottle of gin for him right there in the store, but we told him he'd probably better buy it first. I was buying some basil for the spaghetti I was going to make and he about lost it that I make Italian food from scratch. He's half Italian and has an Italian cookbook out, so he pretty much fell in love with me. :) Just what I always dreamed of, having a drunk, 60 something mobster in love with me. lol He asked if I was a TV star - what a crack up. Anyway, he was quite an interesting guy to talk to. I don't think I can ever watch Goodfellas quite the same... I'll be watching Ray Liotta play this mobster Henry Hill and think - That guy has kissed me! I tell ya, this only happens in L.A.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Simple Joys









This just melts my heart. Laughter from my girls is just the best!









Can I just tell you how much I love these girls?!

Which one of these is not like the others

I was doing laundry in my dungeon of a laundry room and I needed to hang up a couple shirts to air dry, but I didn't have a place to put Ellie. Sooo, after looking around for a minute, into the basket she went. She was just way too cute not to take a picture of.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

100 Things about Me

I saw a challenge on another blog to write down 100 things about yourself. I thought it sounded cool, so here's mine:

1. I’ve always wished I was taller
2. I love Italian food
3. I think I am just now figuring out who I am
4. For the most part I am pretty happy with that person
5. I hardly ever get stressed out
6. I am very forgiving, some would say to a fault, but I say where is the fault in realizing
someone’s mistake is not who they are, and looking to see the best of who they really are.
7. I’ve lived in 4 states – all in the west
8. I grew up thinking I didn’t have a creative bone in my body. It wasn’t until I was about 27
that I even realized I did.
9. I think sisters are the greatest thing
10. I get teared up every time I hear the song “Earl” by the Dixie Chicks when Wanda’s friend
Maryanne flies in from Atlanta on a red-eye midnight flight, and feel so stupid about it.
11. I would like to have one more child
12. I have learned so much about myself by being a mother
13. I love being a mommy
14. I’ve never had a female best friend that I could tell everything about me to
15. I have a great relationship with my parents
16. I don’t talk to my siblings enough – 4 brothers, 3 sisters
17. Don’t know who I’d be without my religion
18. I almost drowned when I was 22 and I realized I am not afraid to die
19. I’ve always been kind of a loner
20. I felt so inadequate compared to my sisters growing up
21. I dated far too many frogs before I found my prince
22. I hate getting fat when I’m pregnant
23. I love wildflowers
24. I love photography
25. I get all giddy when I take a picture I really love, andI have to look at it about a hundred
times that day
26. I feel guilty and neglectful when I am on the computer
27. I enjoy being in shape
28. I love clothes, but I don’t have near enough
29. I wish I had an unlimited supply of funds to decorate my house, I love decorating
30. I want to take voice lessons someday
31. I never had braces
32. I love to travel
33. I don’t like soda
34. I’ve gone through way too many hobbies
35. I am horrible at small talk
36. I feel very alone at big gatherings
37. I am shy
38. I have a hard time making friends
39. People have thought I was stuck-up my whole life until they got to know me and then told
me I was one of the nicest people they knew
40. One of my best compliments – I overheard a guy (not one of the toads) tell one of my
roommates in college that I was so real not fake at all. That what you saw was what you got
with me. It made my day.
41. I don’t like to clean, but I hate a messy house
42. Being married has boosted my self confidence so much
43. I am terrible at expressing the way I feel, especially in writing
44. I’m not very organized
45. I hate being late
46. I rarely watch TV
47. The closest I get to reading a book is reading a magazine (photo or decorating)
48. I wish I was funnier/wittier
49. I want a good girlfriend
50. I hate brushing my girls teeth
51. I walk kinda funny (or so I’ve been told)
52. I always wanted to be a model, but I’m 5’4”
53. I’ve never had a flat stomach, no matter how thin I get
54. I call moles beauty marks, and I like the one on my chest
55. I love my hair
56. I have to color my hair because I’m going grey… sad sad
57. I eat tons of fruit, but struggle with veggies
58. I love how it smells outside first thing in the morning
59. I know God loves me because I asked
60. I’m competitive
61. Getting cut from the volleyball team my senior year in high school was devastating
62. I love a good chick flick
63. I detest raw tomatoes
64. My ears sit too high on my head
65. It drives me crazy when people don’t follow through with things they said they would
66. I hate finding babysitters
67. I feel apologetic for things I do too much
68. I love to dream
69. I’m too defensive
70. I don’t own an ipod – gasp, I know
71. I’ve never had my nails done
72. Sometimes I feel like no one really knows me
73. I want to be a funner mom
74. The thought of losing my girls as they get older scares me to death
75. Swimming in the ocean scares me
76. I get in creative slumps sometimes and I hate it
77. I always want dessert when I go out to eat
78. I’m almost never alone, not even in the bathroom
79. I can’t say no to people
80. I hate contention
81. My dad has always called me a leader, but I’ve never seen it
82. I quit college after 2 ½ years because all I ever wanted to be was a mom
83. I met my husband in a job interview (yeah, he hired me)
84. I feel self conscious when I dance
85. Being married is a lot harder than I thought it would be, but also more rewarding in ways I
never imagined
86. The thought of camping is so much better than really doing it
87. I almost always have shoes on – healed shoes
88. I need to stop worrying about what needs to get done, and play with my girls more
89. I was hand-cuffed once for sneaking out of my house when I was 17. I told the cops I was
my sister, who was 18, so they wouldn’t take me home. I snuck back in successfully
90. I’ve never been in a traffic accident when I was driving
91. I hate being hot
92. I sleep with my feet out of the covers
93. I get cold after I drink something
94. I hate foul language
95. I heard my 3 year old say “oh my hell” and felt horrible because she heard it from me.
96. I love to eat
97. I want people to like me
98. I’ve had bell’s palsy twice
99. I never remember to take medicine if I have a head ache or a cold
100. I love being told I’m beautiful

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Loving this

So, I've been feeling like I'm in a creative slump lately - until today. I'm a member of an online photography board and a challenge was issued for shooting fruit. I have to share because I am loving these.


They do listen!

Conversation between Britlyn and Makenna yesterday in the bath.

Britlyn: Ewww! Kenna, why does it stink? Did you toot?


Makenna: No. I didn’t.


Britlyn: Is that the truth?


Makenna: I don’t want to tell.

Britlyn: That’s not good, it’s not good to not tell the truth. And that’s the lesson. That’s the lesson to always tell the truth.

Can you tell Britlyn's had the lying talk a few times? :) It's nice to know she's listening.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Stir Crazy!

So we've been in California for 3 weeks now, and I just barely finished getting the house unpacked, put away, and cleaned. Poor Britlyn and Makenna have been going nuts around here! I have been so busy everyday that we haven't had much chances to play. They die of boredom sitting in front of the boob tube, so the other Saturday we took them to Toys-R-Us and bought them some roller skates, a mini trampoline, and a fort playhouse thing all for their outside enjoyment. Well, they can't complain too much because we have taken them to Disneyland, the beach, and a little carnival thing all since we've been here too. I wish there were more kids around here because they do miss their friends, but I am so glad they have each other.

getting it





nope, not quite!

looks like big sis won this time!

Monday, January 22, 2007

A Few Recent

Here she is at 4 months...





Perfection

This little angel truly is. Ellie is the sweetest little girl ever. Yeah, she is five months old now, but I love these baby shots of her. She is so good natured, I just love to hold and love her. She's the cuddly type. When I hold her, she lays her head on my shoulder and just cuddles with me. I love to look at her; she is so beautiful. I love her eyes and the huge mop of hair on her head. As any parent knows there just aren't words sufficient to say how you feel about your children, but I hope they can always know and feel how loved they are.