Goin' to Carolina in my mind...

Hey Ya'll. So a few weeks ago we took a fabulous (though entirely too short) trip to NC, and here's a musical version of what happened. Enjoy.
Miss Susy had a baby. She named her baby Claire.


Butterfly in the sky. I can fly twice as high... (at the NC Museum of Life and Science!)




Everybody do the dinosaur.






Ridin' that train. High on... life and science!






I scream, you scream, we all scream for Sunni Sky's ice cream!






Lying in the (grass) you found me, you found me...






We are family!








The End. (applause.)

Holly enters a Yevgeny Plushenko look-a-like contest

Ok, she didn't really. But she could. She would totally win. She cut her hair and now looks unfortunately like a certain spoiled Russian male figure skater. I am devistated. I let Holly have some safety scissors to cut up a piece of paper and I stupidly went upstairs to fold clothes. When I came downstairs I found this.
If you hadn't noticed her hair use to be cut into an ADORABLE bob cut. Now....well, it's not. See for yourself.

So, I accidentally stole a dog...

We live out in the country and as we were driving home from dropping Sophia off at preschool, Holly and I noticed a dog running around all over the place. He was running across a field, then down a side road, and finally through someones yard. I decided to stop because I always feel bad for strays and this one was obviously someones pet at one point. I pulled over, got out, and called to the dog. He ran back across the yard to me and jumped up all excited. The little guy had a collar but no tag and was pretty dirty. So we decided to take him with us, clean him up, and give him some food. I went to the store and bought some dog food and dog shampoo. Brought him in and gave him a bath, then made him a doggie bed in the garage with some fuzzy blankets. We took some pictures and made up a flier that we planned to post around in the countryside near where we found him. He was a really sweet dog and Holly was having a BLAST taking care of him, even though she's allergic. I just kept making her come inside and wash her hands and that seemed to help her not get a rash. Eventually we went and picked up Sophia from preschool who was equally excited about taking care of her new dog, Gabriella (no amount of saying, "but this is a boy, not a girl" could change her mind on the name). Then that evening after dinner we drove down the road and decided to stop at the houses near where we found him to ask if anyone recognized him. Our first stop was the house that was in the yard that we picked him up from. Yeah, he was theirs and, no, I didn't tell the people that we "saved" him from their front yard. Shhh... it'll be our secret! :)

Also, here's the picture we took of the girls with Santa. We're pretty sure Lucy's freakin out about the guys eyebrows. Enjoy!

New pictures, New paint, and Pneumonia

Ok, so it's been forever since I've blog. Thus, I have about a zillion things I need to put up here. We'll start with the girls new photos. We had these taken in September and just got them. I LOVE them!!! Here there are.






There are a few others, but I couldn't get them in here right side up instead of sideways. Not sure what that's about. Anyways, yes we LOVE them!!!
That same week we got to see my little brother, John, and his wife, Amanda, and their daughter, Abby, while they were on their move from Idaho to North Carolina. We had a great visit and are so glad to have them back east of the Mississippi!


A few weeks later I got to go down to NC with the girls to visit our family and friends there. We had a great time! We got to visit some old friends at a baby shower, attend the Relief Society General Broadcast with my mom, my 2 sisters, and one of my sister in laws, watch all the sessions of General Conference, and visit with other good friends during that week. In case you didn't know, my sister Heather is a fabulous seamstress and whipped up these cute little bags for Sophia and Holly while we were there. She sells lots of her bags and things on Etsy and I follow her blog, too. Super cute! All in all it was a much needed southern soaking.



One of the perks, however, of living above the Mason-Dixon line are the beautiful colors you see on the trees everywhere you go. These are the trees in our front yard. Beautiful! I love it!!



So, it was Halloween this past week! We had several days of celebration with preschool party's, church trunk or treating, trick or treating in town, and a MOPS playgroup party. Here are a few pictures of the girls eating the banana "ghosts" we made for the playgroup party (allergy free! just bananas, raisins, and popsicle sticks!), and dressed up for trick or treating as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and a baby fairy. And just in case you ever wonder what Halloween is like for a kid with food allergies, I took a picture of all of Holly's Halloween loot and then another one with it divided into "allergic" and "not allergic" piles. :( You'll notice most of the really yummy stuff is on the left/allergic side. (Also, remember that she's not allergic to dairy anymore or the pile would be even smaller and contain no chocolate.) :(





And lastly, I am currently recoving from a fabulous case of pneumonia, which is pretty much just as awesome as it sounds. I'd never had pneumonia before. It was freaky. It felt like a carnival worker was sitting on my chest and everyday he got fatter and fatter and I could breath less and less. It sucks. Literally. One of the reasons I think I kept getting worse instead of better for so long is that I didn't know what was wrong with me and decided just to keep going like nothing was wrong. So I painted our front door red. It didn't help the pneumonia, but I think it definately helped our homes aesthetic. Here are before and after photos. Likey or no likey? Should I paint the 2 side thingys, too? Let me know what you think.

Big day of firsts

A few weeks ago as I was filling out the necessary forms for Sophia to start preschool I got really teary-eyed. I can't believe she's going to school. Not that she isn't ready (She's more then ready.) I can't believe she's gotten so big. I know she's as tall as a 6 year old, but she's still only 4 1/2! But now a days (I say that like I'm 100) all the kids start sooner than that. There's a little girl just her age in her class who's been there for 2 years already.
We're only sending her for 3 hours on 3 days a week and I still feel weird about having her gone from me for such a long time during the day. Crazy. But the ladies at her school are vigilant about keeping the kids safe and know that only Travis or I are allowed to pick her up. So that makes me feel better.
Well, she loved every minute of it and can't wait to go back.

Here she is posing before we left this morning. (she picked the clothes out herself the night before.)

Walking hand in hand with Daddy up to school.

Hanging up her school bag on the hook for the first time.

Her smile just before she walks into her classroom.

Holly's face when she realizes (even though we explained it many times!) that only Sophia was going to school and she couldn't stay too.

Holly, later on, before going to her first tumbling class.

So we had a busy day! A big day of firsts. And ready to do it all over again tomorrow. :)

Hams

Here are some recent pictures from our trips to St. Louis (Wade reunion and the Magic House), North Carolina, and just hanging around the house.
ps- yes, those ARE deep fried pickles. And they were freakin AWESOME!!!

Adventures in Babysitters

Last night Travis and I were able to go to the temple together in Columbus, so we got a 16 year old babysitter who is in the branch and had come highly recommended by several people. This was her first time babysitting for us, so I got her a little early so I could show her around and run through our bedtime routine (since we'd be gone from 6 pm-12 pm). I was very specific that our kids aren't great sleepers unless you follow the routine and I showed her exactly where everything is, what time to begin, and what order to go in. I had also just cooked up some taco meat and cut up/shredded the toppings and put them on the counter so they could eat right after we left, so I showed her all of that, too. She and the girls all seemed excited and we left confident that thing would go great. The temple was wonderful as usual, and when I came in I didn't hear any crying and noticed that the young lady was sitting on the couch texting, so I thought "hooray! everyone really did go to sleep!" However, I then noticed that ALL the food was still out on the counter. Taco meat, cheese, sour cream...all just sitting there for the last 6 hours. "hmmm..." I thought, "Not good. I had cooked up a bunch of extras because we love leftovers. Tacos for lunch, taco salads... So now I'm just going to have to pitch all that meat and cheese, thanks kid." So then I asked her how it went and she was just a little too slow when she said, "It went great!" So I probed further.
"Everyone went to sleep just fine...no crying?"
Again a little too slow to answer. "Well, the baby cried a little."
I wanted details. "How much 'a little'. When did she go to sleep?"
"Umm..." she said, "at 10:20"
Our kids go to bed at 8. "So she cried for 2 1/2 hours?!"
"Just on and off." she said.
Then I noticed as I'm writing her the check for her 'services' I notice that the bottle and premeasured formula that I had set in the middle of the counter and shown her and given instructions on how to use it, especially if she's having a hard time sleeping she likes an extra bottle, I had told her all of that before we left, was never used. I started to swell up. I had to just get her home. It was already past midnight, and she lives far enough away that it would be an hour before I'd be back home.
An hour later I find that Travis has pitched/put away the food and is not any happier with the situation then I am. So I check on all three kids because if she never even gave the baby a bottle, who knows what all happened while we were gone! The older 2 were sleeping soundly, had on pajamas and were in their beds with covers on, so I guess they were alright. When I check on Lucy I notice that she did at least change her diaper before she 'put her to bed'. But didn't give her any blanket, after I took pains to make sure she understood that Lucy still likes to be swaddled when going to bed. No wonder she didn't go to sleep and just cried and cried!! Did she even listen to a word I said!? I was under the impression that she was a frequent babysitter! We've asked her to babysit before and she's always been busy babysitting for others!
So the next morning when I started to change Lucy's diaper and was feeling grateful that at least she HAD changed it before putting her to bed, I find that she put the diaper on... backwards.
I will never call that girl again!!!