Happy FIFTH Birthday!!

This amazing big sister turned FIVE today.

Since it is Siena's birthday, I thought I, Cara, should take the helm and tell you what makes her great.  According to me:

Favorite Movie: Alice in Wonderland
Favorite Food: Cake
Favorite thing to do for fun: Play
Favorite Disney Princess: Snow White

I love her and we love to play together.  I think I'll let Mommy finish the post though and tell you other neat things about Siena.

Okay, Mommy here.  And let me tell you, it's very difficult to believe that Siena is already FIVE.  She has grown up so much in the last six months and it's very fun to watch.  I love talking with her.  She has her own ideas about how things work and will tell you story after story.

Siena is very into drawing and coloring right now. She begs to go to the gym because of the awesome child care center that lets her craft and color to her hearts content.  I think I've recycled a whole forest...good thing it's recyclable!  She enjoys preschool and I'm sure she talks too much because she's just full of enthusiasm for EVERYTHING she wants to say.

She was able to move up in gymnastics to the next level this week and now is in Mini Gym 1
She is very good at scootering.  She doesn't love to ride her bike so we're still on training wheels.  (I think we might have a Calvin and Hobbes situation).
She puts away all the dishes for her and Cara.
She puts away her own laundry.
She makes her bed.
She loves to help me sweep, mop, vacuum, and dust.
She is a very good listener and most days completes each task I ask her to do right when she was asked.
She loves to sing songs and make up her own.
She can turn on Netflix for herself and DVDs especially if they have Disney's Fast Play!
She loves to cuddle in our bed in the morning and if I have to wake her up for preschool she will always ask me to cuddle with her first.
She was lucky enough to spend her birthday in Disneyland and was very brave.  She liked showing off at the Disneyland Hotel pool by going on the big slides without a life jacket.
She is very good at relaying information to me and remembering that grown ups asked her to tell me something.
She loves to play Temple Run on my phone or the Ipod especially the Merida version.
She can now snap her fingers.  She worked so hard on getting that down and was so persistent.

I find myself relishing in her presence on just about any day.  She's so funny and delightful and for the most part cheerful.

I LOVE YOU, SIENA!  Happy birthday!

Birthday Plans!

Hello there!  Just a quick note before our adventure begins this week.  I bet you can't guess what I'm doing for my birthday.....how did you know?!

DISNEYLAND!!

Mommy really wanted to go for ALL our birthdays, but Cara's was in the middle of summer 1 week before they went off on their "grown ups only" adventure.  So we'll just have to make up for it in the next three days!

Watch for Facebook updates!

That's What She Said...

Guest post by Mommy:

I think it's time once again to write down what my girls have been saying to me over the last few months.

Siena:

Okay this is a kind of confessional thing for me, but about 4 months ago I went to see our family doctor regarding my hands/wrists.  I have been suffering from what appears to be carpal tunnel and have had a couple of steroid injections that were sent from heaven.  However, I'm not completely healed and in a joking manner I asked the doc if giving up Diet Coke would help.  To my horror, he said YES! So on the way home I told Siena I shouldn't drink Diet Coke because it will hurt my hands and at some point her Daddy also mentioned that it might give her nightmares if she drinks it at night.  This has led to repeated conversations that go something like this: (especially since I only managed to give up Diet Coke for like 3 days...)

Siena: MOM! Is that Diet Coke?
Mom: Yeeesss......
Siena: You know you shouldn't drink that.  It will hurt your hands.
Mom: I know
Siena: You need to drink water.  You might get nightmares.

She also catches me saying "Shut up" "Stupid" and "Crap" which she informs me that we are not allowed to say.  She's the rule police at our house.  And I'll be honest, she's pretty dang good at following the rules.

Cara:

Conversation with Grandma while watching a Blue's Clues episode about the doctor.

Cara: I go to Dr. Clark.  He's a doctor.
Grandma: Who else is a doctor?
Cara: Dr. Graf.  He checks my eyes.
Grandma: Who else?
Cara: I don't know.
Grandma: Is Grandpa a doctor?
Cara: Nooooo! (While laughing and shaking her head.)
Grandma: Yes he is!
Cara: No, he's not!

Apparently Grandma did manage to convince her that Grandpa is indeed a doctor, but I find it funny because Grandpa diagnosed Cara with her first ear infection and she actually went down to the ER to see him for it.  Selective memory I suppose!

Exciting News!!

I've been dying to post this exciting news...and it's not exactly our news.  My Uncle Marty and Aunt Hailey are pregnant!  And not just kinda pregnant...pregnant with TWINS!  She's not due until the first of April (so sometime mid March!) But we're already getting so excited although Aunt Angie and Mommy did seem to cry for Aunt Hailey at first.  Luckily they live here and all of us love holding babies.  Especially Cara and I.  We are great helpers!

And of course one photo of me at the lake new boarding with the proud soon to be papa!!

More Camping Pictures

These are a few pictures that Grandpa took from his camera!

And one picture of the most spoiled baby...we fight over who gets to hold her!

Camping 2012

We finally made it on our annually camping trip up to the Kolob Plateau.  This time Grandma and Grandpa were invited!  Grandma drove Mommy and us up Friday afternoon and Daddy stayed back with another truck until his work was finished.  Grandpa was doing a canyon in Zion and had his friends drop him at our camp site.

Unfortunately, Lava Point, our usual haunt, ended up being full of campers!  No open spots.  This created a problem since we were meeting Grandpa and Daddy at different times and would have no way to communicate with them!  A nice gentleman, named John, offered us his campsite for the night.  He sleeps in his truck and said we were welcome to the tent sites and use of the fire.  Well we hung around and waited until Grandpa got there.  John was very nice, but we decided to run up to Kolob Reservoir to find a camp up there.

Mommy and I stayed and talked with John since we were still waiting for Daddy.  John was very nice and let me help him start a fire! Just as Grandpa pulled back in to tell us they found a camp spot, one of the campers packed up and left...at dusk!  It was so rude! But Grandma and Cara had already started a fire and set up a tent at the Reservoir so instead we found a crappy cell connection and managed to meet Daddy on the road to Kolob.

It was fun with the fire and hot dogs and marshmallows, but it got cold and we all snuggled down into our tents.  The weather was perfect.  No wind, bright sunny skies, no campers next to us and a bathroom which we weren't sure the Reservoir would have and we were lucky too because Cara unfortunately spent a lot of time in there.

Forgotten pictures

What happens when Daddy takes pictures on HIS cell phone?  They stay on his cell phone and get forgotten.  He recently ran out of "picture space" on his iPhone which set Mommy into "erase picture mode" and what did she discover??? So many pictures and videos that never made it on to the computer.  Never got documented.  This is a crime in Mommy's world.  (Her iPhone recently started having issues with its camera and Mommy is now even more annoyed that Daddy won't simply switch phones with her.  Clearly he is not using his camera to its full capability or for the right purpose. She's not eligible for an upgrade on her phone until May of next year....and she doesn't have a cool $600 lying around to upgrade to the new iPhone 5 next week....boo!)

So here you go.  A myriad of pictures from throughout the year....with possible captions....

Camping with Daddy and Grandpa back in April...look at that face!

I am pretending to be a skeleton in a box with jail things over my hands....creepy.

Favorite sibling picture from WA

These grew wild in WA.  The color was so rich in person.

Daddy went to San Francisco for work last week.
He went on a run and took this gorgeous picture.

    

As it turns out, it was mostly videos that Daddy hadn't given to Mommy and guess what blogger is refusing to do?  Upload the videos from Daddy's phone.  Boo on blogger.  Maybe it has a personal vendetta against videos taken on an Apple product?  We'll see if it will upload the video of me trying kneeboarding for the first time last week.  I try and hang on to the rope myself but Mommy and Grandpa took turns dragging behind me.  

Apparently it was just the videos from Daddy's phone that it doesn't like...go figure...it's the newer model!

First Week of Preschool Down...

Well here we are at the end of the week and I was able to go to preschool three days.  I wish it was more! However, I have had a little tummy bug that randomly affects me at different times of day and causes my tummy to hurt this week.  I actually came running out of preschool on the second day bawling because it hurt so bad.  So basically my excitement has been kind of tempered by not feeling quite like myself.  Mommy wasn't even really sure that I liked it, but I was upset that I only got to go three days so she figured out that I love it.  Plus my daddy was in San Francisco all week and I missed him.  Hopefully next week I'll be bouncing off the walls to go!

We also got to spend lots more time with Lexi.  Cara has varied between ignoring Lexi, loving on Lexi, and out right expressing dislike for Lexi....maybe it is a good thing that Lexi's not OUR baby.  (That and we have discovered that a lot of our baby things are actually broken including our swing that had battery acid everywhere...)

Grandpa and I were fighting over who got to hold her!

A little hint of a smile, so precious

First Day of Preschool!

Finally!

Because I have a "late birthday", I have been watching all my friends go to their first days of school and I was a little bummed.  However, Labor Day finally came and I got to start preschool today!

Hurray, Hurray, Hurray!

We can't just pick just one picture...heaven forbid! Cara even got in on some!

Labor Day Weekend

It's been more than a month since we were able to head up to SLC and see my cousins and the zoo!  We were so excited to take off Thursday night and drive up to Oma and Apa's house.

Friday we, of course, started our day of with a trip to the zoo to enjoy the animals.  We just love it there.  And then Mommy took us to explore the new shopping center, City Creek.  It was overwhelming and Mommy felt ridiculously underdressed in shorts and flip flops (where were her heels and designer jeans?!! The horror) but it was amazing and such a pretty place and we enjoyed the play place that everyone has been raving about.

Saturday we took the time to jaunt up to Midway for Swiss Days!  Of course, we were supposed to jaunt up there crazy early at 5 am so Daddy could run a 10k but thunder and lightening and cold rain caused us to stay snug in our beds until 9 or so!  Wished Daddy could have run, but glad we still went later.  It was nice to see Double Grandma and Grandpa while watching the parade.  And of course we added to our iron Halloween decorations...they were just too perfect to pass up.  Afterward we hung out with Aunt Lisa and Adalee and played in the yard.  We didn't want to leave!

Once again, we ended up going to church with the Preslars (it's embarrassing when the RS knows your mom and they don't even sing Hello to you in Primary anymore!)  And we once again got talked into staying an extra night.  Well worth it though even if Cara had intestinal difficulties because of the antibiotic she had been on!

Photo Highlights:

She wouldn't pause to take a picture....

Swiss Days started out rainier and colder than two years ago!

Siena did this awesome ride that simulated a hot air ballon ride...

She loved of course!