The Doggie Visitor

Only one post last week. Daddy has been spending a lot of time working and when he's done, Mommy and I don't want to go hide in the room that he just came out of. We'd rather play with him!

We've had a a visitor at our house for a little while...at least a week. Uncle Eric's dog Roxie is living with us while Grandma gets a new backyard. (The end of a long sad pool saga.) Gabbie loves the company (except for now she is almost strictly an outdoor dog) and Roxie seems to enjoy having another dog around who actually enjoys her presence. Grandma's other dog Beanie is kind of a grouch. Roxie and Gabbie just play all day. It's great. Only both dogs are probably a little more neglected since it's too hot to go outside and play catch for very long. Plus Mommy has a terrible arm and keeps throwing the balls over the fence in to the neighbor's yard.

Grandpa has also been taking us to the lake without Mommy. Very brave. We're not always the best behaved and Cara tends to become unmanageable when she is too hot. I am a perfect angel of course. We did get to discover the beach at the lake this time and I was content to throw wet sand around for hours but Cara didn't want to get her feet dirty in the sand so people had to hold her mostly. Oh well we all had fun and added a nice golden tone to our complexion.

250 Posts...holy cow!

This is our 250th post. That's a lot of posting. And a more accurate statement has got to be...that's a LOT of pictures. It's true. And to celebrate our 250th post let's talk about ME, oh and we can talk about Cara. But we'll be talking about her in just two short weeks when she turns ONE. So let's talk mostly about me.

People always talk about how babies change so much week by week and do so much growth and development in a month. Well guess what, I think I can compete. Sometimes I wake up and Mommy thinks a whole other part of my brain has begun to work. Just like that. Overnight. It feels like I went from talking in mostly two or three word sentences to telling Mommy plots of movies and playing pretend out loud by myself.

I love playing with Cara. I make sure she gets her turn when it's time to wash our hair and also that she gets a popsicle too. Which is a good thing because Cara is all about equity in the present moment. It doesn't matter that she's almost two years younger than me, I have something, she has to have it too. And she'll scream for it. Definitely the louder temper that one. Unfortunately, much to Mommy's dismay, the fighting has begun. Really it started almost four months ago but Cara is getting more and more strong willed. In fact, you know the double stroller cart monstrosity that Target has? (Mommy's posted pictures of us in it before.) Well, Mommy won't use it anymore because it puts us within arms length of each other and sets off a war of slapping,screaming, whining, and crying. (Really any shopping cart will do this, but this one feels especially confrontational like you're putting us in opposite corners of a boxing ring and saying "Fight!")

Some other silly facts about me.
When Mommy brought home a Cinderella purse and gloves from Disney World, I exclaimed "Oh Mommy! It's my favorite!" which is what I also said about the big Sully and Mike stuffed animal, the Cinderella pez dispenser and Daddy's silly t-shirt. Favorite phrase anyone?
I am learning to ride a tricycle. I get the concept at least a little bit, but somehow steering is not coming naturally. It's too hot outside for Mommy to sit and work with me very much because you can't ride bikes in a pool, but in the fall...we'll get it down!
I love to play pretend bird show. Mommy's potato masher is even the perch they bring out the parrots on. Clever girl.
Whenever Cara is crying and I want her to stop. I just tell her what Mommy says to me. "Cawm down. Deep brefs". (Breaths.) It doesn't work for her, but it sure works for me.
I am coming up with signs for my aunts and uncles and constantly correcting Mommy's signing form whether I am right or not.
Also Daddy is my favorite. I picked him for all the rides in Lagoon and any sort of adventure, I want to be on Daddy's lap. Not Mommy's. Ah well. It all works out because Cara picks Mommy.
Oh and I am MOSTLY potty trained. I have been dry at night ....well always. The occasional accident when I am having way too much fun which is why I request Pull Ups. The big thing is number two. I need to have privacy to do it but I won't let Mommy leave me alone in a public place or at unfamiliar houses. This presents a lot clenching problems and little bits getting a way at a time. Sometimes this leaves Mommy and I very cross with one another. Other days not an issue but it happens often enough that we can't claim potty trained success yet. (This is apparently hereditary from my Daddy's side as we have a cousin with a similar issue. Everything bad seems to come from Daddy according to Mommy.)

On a surprising note, Mommy and Daddy took us for an impromptu trip to St. George City Pool. Grandpa worked there when Mommy was born and it was where she went swimming as a little baby. Mommy also worked there all through high school. It had been a LONG time since she had been back. They have a big water slide called the "Hydro Tube." It is an enclosed slide. Mommy and Daddy bought the unlimited passes but were really unsure of whether or not I would like them let alone Cara liking them. Previous trips to the lake this summer have been filled with moments of screaming and panic and Lagoon-a-Beach wasn't a huge success so they were not hopeful. Um boy did we prove them wrong. Uh we LOVED the Hydro Tube. And the baby pool was the awesomest. Cara was even trying to run around and walk by herself. She went under quite a few times and still wanted to play. She also learned how to sit on the edge and scooch/jump in at the count of three. SO MUCH FUN.

And of course, what would a post be without gratuitous pictures.





(You know what Mommy should learn how to do before she uses up all her free picture space...those neat little photo collages! )

Guess what Mommy did?!

She ran in a 5K. That's right. You read the words correctly. SHE RAN IN A 5K. I think I remember hearing her say that running in any type of race was never going to be on her list of things to do. Well too bad because she could have crossed something off!

You see, back in the summer of 2008 family friends suffered the tragic loss of their eldest daughter, Chelsi. Chelsi was special. She used to do gymnastics with Aunt Angie and lived across the street. Her mom and grandpa went to high school together. Chelsi was a gifted athlete and extremely driven. As a freshman at BYU, she was one of their top performing track stars in the decathlon. In fact, I think she wanted to go to the Olympics. Unfortunately, she was killed in a car wreck just before her 21st birthday. To honor her, family and friends organized a 5k memory run/walk on her birthday, July 15. And every summer since then (okay so this is just the THIRD race) they hold it. What makes it neat is that it's around Grandma's neighborhood. Two loops is exactly a 5k. It was meant to be. This year Mommy had agreed to do the run, but was really sidetracked by vacations and wasn't really focusing on running so much as doing strength training routines at the gym. Needless to say, she almost didn't do the run, but she came through.

Her time wasn't great. 31 minutes exactly.
It was still 100 degrees outside at 10:00 p.m. (Oddly, even Daddy didn't realize it. It just didn't FEEL that hot.)
And Daddy left her in the dust even though he promised to run with her. (He was even pushing the stroller!)
But it was fun.
Grandma, Uncle Eric, and Aunt Becca did it with us.

Three hot mamas (okay two hot mamas and a babe) before the race.

Mommy holding me at the end of the race as I told her "Mommy I so proud of you!"

The family portrait. (Not pictured: Cara...asleep in the stroller.)

And some silly fun after rehydrating.

Siena's Sayings

Mommy at the helm. I think it's time we added a bit to the blog entitled Siena's Sayings. Seeing as how she is coming up on three years of age and her verbal skills improve by the hour, I think it most appropriate to share the funnyness that now persists out of her mouth.

First off, Siena is still signing. She is now coming up with her own signs for things sometimes maintaining consistency. We now have to do the proper sign for drink with Cara because Siena is specific about drink vs. water. Crack up.

She actually just came up to me and told me to dance and when I started shaking back forth in the chair she told me "No not shake your bum dancing". Yes I have taught her to booty shake.

Anyway, this section of Siena's Sayings is entitled Cousins.

-When trying to teach her that her name is Siena Romney, she would respond "Yeah, I Siena Romney" and then we would point to Cara and say "Cara Romney" which always engenders this response:
"No Cara Chase!"
Who knew that having a cousin with your last name as her first name would cause so much confusion. She understands Aunt Becca's last name is "Larsen" but still not moving forward with Romney. I guess I should also note "Romney" is said much more like "Rawmey" but hey it's kind of a hard sound.

-While at Target (which is where Siena insisted upon going that day), I showed her two new pajamas set. One was this cute butterfly ensemble and the other was a dinosaur/monkey ensemble. She picked the dino and said "Like Chase." Upon putting them on at 3 pm that afternoon, she also proclaimed loudly "I like Chase, Mommy!" I think she has a crush on her cousin.

-One of Siena's favorite shows on the TV is Super Why, today while watching it she proclaimed that Smith was just like Whyatt. And you know what? I would agree except for the almost football shaped head. This is mostly exciting because I have never really heard her talk about Smith before.

And here we have Siena and Romney pretending to sleep together in their pretty dress up dresses.


I also got adventurous with Siena's hair since she has been so willing to "make her hair pretty". I think this turned out quite well!

Stuff

Since we only posted about the Lagoon part of our trip up north, I've decided to grace you with more pictures of the zoo. We've only got a thousand. :)

Of course here we are playing with the big wet globe.

And then here is Chase with photographic evidence of the elusive (and yet somehow massive) iguana. Isn't he hideous?


And look Uncle Eric came and played with me at the zoo too!

Lagoon!

First off, Mommy got a new camera! The old new one (just barely six months old) bit the dust or rather the water, it was sacrificed for the photographic evidence of her rainstorm saga in Orlando and never recovered. Ooo however we also got a new router so we can actually upload video of the rain!

Anyway, she got the new camera (and a new couch for the office and spent WAY too much money in one weekend) just in time for our trip to SLC. Should I bother warning you that it's another high photo content. I should only warn you when it's high written content since that would NOT be the norm. This is how Mommy taught me to scrap book so be patient! The pictures are more of our posterity than for you.

We got discounted tickets for the 4th of July weekend to Lagoon and so Monday the 5th found us waiting in line with smiles on outside Lagoon. Turns out they really don't open until 11. Mommy thought it must be a typo and that traffic would be worse and so we stood waiting for it to open for oh like 40 minutes. Good thing I was in a good mood.

We decided to hit Lagoon-A-Beach first because everyone waiting with us had huge coolers and towels and swim suits and we were afraid it would reach capacity on a holiday and didn't want to wait in line to get in. We turned out to be wrong and there really weren't that many people but we snagged some chairs because we were early and that was good. I had to warm up to the water slides and Cara would tolerate them only in Mommy's arms. The water was FREEZING which really bothered Cara and me but only if I stood still long enough to realize I was cold.

I promise I'm wearing a swim suit in the above photo even though it looks like I'm naked eating a box of chicken nuggets.

When we were done swimming, I requested to ride an airplane ride. Well lo and behold right outside the water park is a space ship ride. Turns out, this space ship ride is the same ride my Aunt Rachel traumatized my cousin Chase on. History was to be repeated. I was doing great. Daddy said I had to go alone. No big deal.

Then they kicked the adults out of the inner circle. Not okay. Then the ride went high and then it dipped. No more rides for me.

Of course that wasn't acceptable considering even with discount tickets it's not cheap. Mommy got me on Puff the Magic Dragon at least four times. I looked this excited each time.


Then she bribed me with a snow cone to get on the boats. (Yes this is how traumatized I was. I know I did the tame little boats last year but you never know.) However, they wanted Cara to join me and that was NOT okay with her. Same scenario. Fine until they kick the parents out of the inner circle.


She even hated the carousel. The next pictures on the camera were of her arching herself of the rooster into Daddy's arms and then crying at the camera for Mommy to pick her up.

I did really like the Jumping Dragon ride even though I always looked like I'd been hit by a truck coming off.

Mommy also tried to take Cara on this fish ride that you could get wet while being in harmless little fishes that you could maneuver up and down. Yeah...Cara didn't enjoy being strapped down and as soon as the ride started moving she wiggled out and in to Mommy's arms. Awkward. Here Mommy was trying to distract her with the camera.

All in all a good trial run for a Disneyland trip in September. I think it will go well.

Holy cow...11 months!

Cara Post:
I'm 11 months old! And darn it all if you're going to get me to walk on my own. I am completely aware of the fact that I have great balance and a daredevil attitude. I'm not ready to walk on my own and prefer a crab walk lookin' thing. You can try and force me, Mom and Dad, but I'll just tuck my legs up in to my chest when you try and get me to stand. HAHAHA!

Other ways that I'm awesome:
-I now grab faces for fun, with a kind of fierceness normally found in red heads. I seem to find pleasure in the squeals.
-I love books. I love to turn the pages of board books, and turn and rip pages of non board books. I like the pictures.
-Food is my best friend. I could eat 24/7. However, I am very forceful when I don't want what you are offering. I push it away and slap it to the ground. There is no questioning whether or not I didn't want it.
-I still take a bottle, but I love drinking out of the CamelBak Canteen that Grandma bought me. Straws are the best.
-I am spending a lot more time in my crib than in Mommy and Daddy's bed.
-Gabby is my second favorite thing to wake up to, Siena is my favorite. If I hear Siena's voice in Mommy's room (even over the monitor), my eyes spring open and I start to smile.
-I love our kitchen cupboards and the drawers...ooo and pulling out the DVDs.
-I still have no hair, but hey can you say low maintenance? And besides I love the scalp massage that comes from getting sunscreen over your whole head.
-Oh and I still have no teeth. Well you can feel and barely see the sharp edge of my first bottom tooth but it's taking it's time actually pushing all the way through. You really kind of have to know to see it.

And look Mommy cheated. I get to ride frontwards! Shhh. I'm not one year old and I'm not twenty pounds but in the St. George heat, it's seemed unbearable cruel to have me pointed AWAY from the air flow.