My Mommy has a problem

and it's called DIGITAL PHOTOS. Seriously. She just started working on the third volume of our blog book (through blurb.com's software, called Booksmart. Love it!) and found that when just the year of 2010 was slurped over it contained 438 pictures posted!!! That's more than one photo per DAY! Also, our beloved Mac sometimes runs a little slow and Daddy pointed out to Mommy that we must be coming close to filling the hard drive seeing as we have so many photos. She thought about it and looked at some numbers and we're probably averaging 1200 photos a year saved in Iphoto. 100 photos a month. And could some be deleted? Heavens yes! Will Mommy delete them? Heavens no! Why? Because all of them have some minute detail she couldn't possibly delete. (Have you noticed all the mosaics lately as her attempt to not look like she's posting as many?)

I told you. She has a problem. Oh and our camera isn't even that fantastic! You have to know how to caress it properly and press the button just right (I'm not kidding) to have it really be in focus. (It's great though because it goes underwater and can be dropped and frozen and it's still suppose to work!) Imagine if we had a NICE camera like Grandpa's or Aunt Rachel and Uncle Troy's or Aunt Whitley's? Well maybe we'd have less photos because they are kind of big and bulky...but they'd be beautiful and would have the capability of shooting 6 photos a second!

And to brag about my Mommy and kind of show of the technical difficulties we seem to have with the camera...look at this GORGEOUS wedding dress my Mommy got to wear last night at a Wedding Dress Fashion show with her Young Women's group. The picture is blurry because it was snapped hurriedly. But this dress was designed by the gal who wore it when she got married last year and then it was hand made for her! Mommy loved being in it. I think the black and white photo is better...you can't quite tell how blurry it is!

My Oma

Can I take a minute and tell you about my Oma? I think this post has been long overdue. I LOVE my Oma. She's the best sport. She will play tea party with me, swing with me, read to me...you name it...she'll do it. (Remember the water slides from the last post?) She's actually the one who introduced me to the zoo for the first time and is always willing to make a trek up there.



Everything I know about Oma is happy. Her house is filled with love and all kinds of unusual knick knacks that she lets me play with. I love her Russian wood eggs that she lets us pour out all over her floor by what feels like the hundreds. This last time up there she let me play with all these great rag dolls that she has. She is the first to pull out art stuff for us to play with. I don't think any of us cousins can think of AquaDoodle without thinking of Oma! (Actually I don't know if we'd even know what AquaDoodle was without her!) She also got these great tunnels for us to play with and always lets us take them outside and rough house in them. She goes out of her way to show us interesting things and make sure we learn about culture. All of her kids (the grown ups) know about art and musicals and classical music. She keeps making sure we get exposed to it too! I think she makes sure to be silly every day though to make sure there are still giggles in her and Apa's house!

Oh and my Oma loves to dance. Apa takes her dancing all the time. But she also loves to just move to the music and help us just move to the music. She's the first to sing or hum along or just stand up and start dancing.

I've been thinking about my Oma a lot lately because well, things are changing. Clear back when we were living in Oma and Apa's house, Oma and Apa came home early from their church assignment. Mommy and Daddy told me that it was because my Oma is sick. I don't really understand because she's still my same Oma at least to me. She has what the grown ups call "Alzheimer's". She's been really incredible during these last two years though. She's gone EVERYWHERE talking about how she is sick but that she still has a lot of life left. And it's true. We've done SO MUCH since she's supposedly been sick which has been my whole life! I love her and I'm glad that she's got a lot of "life after diagnosis". We're not done making memories but I just wanted everyone else to know that I have the best Oma in the world.

Water Parks and Tour of Utah Fun

We had a crazy fun weekend!! Mommy decided we needed to cross off one more thing on a summer to do list and that was going to a water park. (She debated for a long time whether that also included an amusement park, meaning we would go to Lagoon.) She finally decided on going to Seven Peaks, SLC formerly known as Raging Waters because she got a killer deal on ksl.com for two adult admissions, two tubes, two meal vouchers (with drinks!) and free parking all for $40. Basically a two for one type thing! So up we headed on Thursday night after work.

Before we went to the water park, we snuck in a quick trip to the zoo early in the morning with Aunt Rachel and cousins. (Hey the zoo opens at 9 am and the water park were losers and didn't open until 11 am!) That was fun but this time it felt like all the animals were hiding or their cages were being cleaned...boo! Anyway, we finished Friday out on a high note with the water park! We were so lucky because Oma came with us which was good because turns out she doesn't have to pay because she's such an awesome Grandma!



She even did water slides with us. She went down a couple with me and even one BIG one with Daddy and the tube!




However, Mommy was the craziest...she went down the two REALLY big slides. She didn't quite make it up and over the second hump on the the yellow one and had to go down backwards and crawl out of the middle!



Although I REALLY loved the water slides too. The water was a little cold sometimes but I still went down this red slide over and over even though every time I came out the bottom like this:



So much fun. We went to the zoo every day we were there actually. And so here is one picture from the zoo as a representation and mostly to show off Cara's cute new hairstyle. (Mommy says quick shout out to her friend Iva who always does this cute hairstyle with her little girls.)



And of course Daddy will tell you that the real reason we went up to SLC this weekend was to watch one of the stages of The Tour of Utah. It was really incredible to sit and watch these cyclists fly by. Daddy actually went up next to The Capitol Building where they would be going slower. We'll try and post a video here that will show A. How cute Cara and Emma are and B. How dang fast these bikers were going!

My Annual Ode To Summer

Guest Post by Mommy:

I have not yet made my offering to summer time on the blog so far this year. And some of you are new readers to the blog who have not had the pleasure of one of my glorifications of summer. So let me just say...I LOVE SUMMER!!!!!! I think that the 4th of July might be my favorite holiday simply because of where it falls during our Earth's rotation! Christmas, I might be a bigger fan if we lived in Australia or Argentina! (Don't get me wrong, I actually do love Christmas and the cozy fire scenes that come with it.)

I have long wanted to adopt the ritual of my sister-in-law's friends of having a major summer solstice party every year but so far I have not been able to pull it off. In truth it might be because subconsciously I recognize that the solstice actually begins the decreasing of day time and the increasing of night time! Which conversely means I probably should hold a winter solstice party! Anyway, I digress.

There are very few things that I dislike about summer. I don't like higher gas prices and I don't love paying my energy bill! But that's about it. I love the heat. I enjoy walking out a building and being hot instantly. Water parks and swimming pools are probably my happy place. (Too bad I tend to have allergic reactions to their chemical filled water.....) Okay we all know that Disneyland is my happy place but I'm not really allowed to go there as often as I liked.

I tried hard this summer to make sure my girls swam whenever it was available and I think we've done well! SIena has really mastered the art of swimming with floaties and loves to go underwater. We're still just working on that propulsion thing! She BEGS to go swimming now. She especially loves the pool at our gym. Cara isn't super afraid and will walk in water up to her chest. Of course neither girl appreciates swimming in the lake with their life jackets but maybe we'll make that our goal NEXT year. I think we've done well embracing summer. We've had plenty of snow cones and slurpees. The one thing the girls haven't done yet is camping and luckily St. George heat means we've still got plenty of nights left and actually it's smarter to wait until the cool down is happening! We're actually headed this weekend to a water park to further solidify our enjoyment of summer. I LOVE IT. My girls white bums are so dang cute! I love their tan lines which I know is terrible since I've just aged their skin and increased their risk for skin cancer but gah!

And now to close this blog which has felt a little disjointed, I will post pictures from our girls first rides on the St. George City Carousel. They've been begging to go on it and we kept having the worst luck with closures! We tried to go on it the day after something on it broke and another time it was being cleaned. But finally! We did it! And we even did it in 100 degree heat so I think it's appropriate to post here!



Excitement is just eeking out of her!


In this one if you look closely, you can see how cute I had managed to do Cara's hair...Siena's is done the same way. I kept seeing it on two little girls at church and finally just tried it on them!


Please pay no attention to me in this photo, I don't know what kind of face I thought I was making!


Oh and just to write it down for posterity purposes, Siena quickly named both the horses she rode on "Quincy" and Cara named her horse (all on her own after hearing Siena name hers) "Max". They even pretended to race them! They kill me!

Girls Camp, Get Togethers, and Good Byes

So it's been a full week and Mommy never got around to posting about what she did all last week. I think I better take charge and mention it for her.

Mommy got to spend last week camping with the girls in our ward. She came back smiling and smelly. I think it must have been so much fun and so worth being away from us. Maybe....:)

Of course the trip involved a few hiccups for them including a geyser at their water source and a literally exploding tire.







Ah good times.

And while Mommy was on a mountain smelling like campfire. I got to go up to Oma and Apa's house and see ALL my cousins. That's right...ALL of them. Aunt Whitley and Uncle Adam were in town on their way to moving to Seattle and of course that called for a get together. We got to spend time at a cool condo in the mountains swimming and having a quick birthday party for Cara and cousin Rosey who are only three days apart in age! We also played at Aunt Rachel's house and Oma and Apa's house and had SO much fun. However, Mommy had the camera on Cedar Mountain so I will have to refer you to Aunt Rachel's post for photographic evidence of all 11 grandchildren in the same room! Mommy really wishes she could have been there but it was a last minute get together and she was the only one who could go to Girls Camp!

Finally, last week Cara and I had to say good bye to one of our favorite ladies. Our day care lady for a year had to go back to work outside of her house! So last Thursday Miss Rubi had a party and we said good bye. Mommy and Daddy were pretty bummed and you know what? So were us girls. (Mommy is currently fighting with Daddy's phone in an attempt to get a picture of us and Miss Rubi off of the phone but with NO luck. Grrrrr.) We will miss her but we really enjoyed the last two days we spent at our new lady, Miss Michelle. She even painted our toe nails and she has a dog! We'll survive I guess!

Oh and a quick shout out to Mommy and Daddy.......HAPPY 6TH ANNIVERSARY!!! Which also means we need to shout out to Oma and Apa....HAPPY 46TH ANNIVERSARY!

It's a lot of cereal.....

Guest post by Mommy:



I think it's been two years since I posted my first "look at how much I bought for this price" post. And I think I've only done like two. I am pretty sure it was just after Cara was born. Anyway, I just made a quick trip to Harmon's and was impressed with my booty.

That's:
14 boxes of cereal
4 boxes of Pop Tarts
2 packages of little cracker thingys

For a grand total of $25.00.

Not bad. It was supposed to be better but a very specific type of Special K was not on sale and I had kick butt coupons for that kind. Oh well. I still think I did really great! :)

Happy 2nd Birthday!

And today Cara is officially a TWO YEAR OLD! And boy is she feisty.

She started here:


Got to here last year:


And now look at her! She actually has HAIR!


Of course that's not all that makes her so neat to have as a little sister according to me:

Favorite Movie: Susan (Monsters vs. Aliens)
Favorite Food: Grapes
For fun Cara likes to : Play Games
What color is her hair: White
What game do I like play with her: Chips (meaning chess)
She likes to jump in the pool and use her floaties (Mommy has never seen her do this however so maybe I'm talking about me)

That's a pretty good list but Mommy says she'll help me talk about more stuff now.
-Cara is our eater. If she likes it, she will eat it and lots of it. She tries anything we put in front of her. Recently she has quit eating hot dogs though and doesn't always care for bananas which used to be her favorite food. Mommy thinks Cara's favorite food might be chicken nuggets or "Chick Nugs" because she frequently requests them (and gets them) for breakfast. Oh and she loves lettuce! Go figure.
-She likes to talk and tell you stories. You can understand maybe 3/4 of what she says. She also frequently sings songs. Any song that comes to her head. She knows two verses to "I Am A Child of God"
-She's still signing and likes to do it.
-She knows her colors and gets them mixed up only once in a while
-Still loves her diapers
-Has an okay handle on her letters. She does pretty good but still sometimes sounds like she's guessing.
-She LOVES to be outside and will wander out into the backyard and just stay out there, doing who knows what and singing and talking to herself.
-She is also an animal lover. She will play shy to an animal for about two minutes after first meeting but will then proceed to love and pet and snuggle and try and feed said animal. I never really warmed up to animals like Cara did.
-She re-warmed up to Grandpa. She took a little break from preferring him and now is starting to go right to him again.
-More of a tantrum thrower than I ever was. She can yell and scream and kick her legs...and the strangest things seem to set her off. (However she doesn't whine quite as much as me! :P )
-She has the funniest habit of needing to touch your skin with her feet. She will just push and nudge and press those little bare feet in to any bare skin you have. (Even if the only skin she can find is your face!)

There are a hundred more things that we love about Cara but it is really hard to put it all in to words. So instead we'll end here and just yell:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CARA! WE LOVE YOU!

As an update to this post, Cara had her 2 year well check with Dr. Clark on Monday August 15. She is now a whopping 24 lbs and 31.5 inches! (Yeah..just plugged that in to the growth chart: we are 12% for weight which is awesome for her and a very tall 3% for height. She's such a shrimp!)