Random post for Aunt Becca

Way back at the beginning of the year, before Aunt Becca had left to go back to Iowa, we had a girls night. We put this strange green stuff in our hair that Mommy made from avocados, honey, and olive oil. She and Aunt Becca have been reading this book about Curly Girls...girls with curly hair and it was one of the "wraps" it suggested doing to your hair. I thought it smelled like pumpkins.....

Mommy thought it felt really strange and squishy and we got to laughing very hard about trying to wrap up our hair and Cara had a minor melt down when we tried to rinse her hair without actually getting her in the tub. Thus the reason she has no green wrapped hair.



And in another shout out to my Aunt Becca, look at my neat new outfit that I picked out while thinking of her!



And in a final note, I'll let Mommy tell you a story:
Yesterday while doing random Saturday activities that involved making a bigger mess in two rooms while trying to "organize" (it's still a mess...) I noticed Siena and Cara's new suitcases and backpacks all lined up in their bedroom. Their room was clean and beds made so I ignored the backpacks and so did the girls. Well later on we decided to head to my parents to jacuzzi and I thought the girls would love to use their backpacks to bring their swimsuits over. I went in and started opening Siena's little backpack and she tells me "But there are shoes and socks in there" What? I open it and sure enough two pairs of shoes and two socks. It suddenly dawns on me that when we bought them, Siena had said the big suitcase was for her clothes and her backpack was for her shoes and socks. I open up her suitcase and discover that she has packed several outfits and has done the same in Cara's. Cara even had hair things in her backpack. Siena had packed for a trip to Disneyland which she was sure we were going on that day. She even picked cute outfits that MATCHED. Guess she's hinting at something!

Ahhh Shopping...kind of!

Seriously. Mommy claimed she did not get up today and intend to go to the store. We got into the car shortly before 1 pm this afternoon kind of aimless. She drove around for a bit, dropped some letters off at the post office, and then we magically ended up at a store, DownEast Home. After finding a couple of items at a steal (ones she wasn't necessarily looking for or needing), we of course had to wander in to Kohls. We didn't stay long (although we did make a purchase, again another STEAL but not one we NEEDED) because Mommy got a text that Target had their toys on clearance. We were at Target yesterday. We got a couple shirts for cheap, but now we needed eggs (which funny enough, we still need) and she come out with LOOT. AGAIN NOT ANY WE NEEDED. But come on. Look at this picture.



2 monogrammed mini backpacks
2 monogrammed rolling backpack suitcase thingys
1 full winter coat
2 large dolls
2 Tiana Disney Dolls
1 LeapFrog counting cake
1 set of Tiana twin sheets
2 leotards
2 TeaCup Piglets (yeah I didn't know either but they are cute)
1 Cinderella press night light
and 1 stuffed Kangaroo (not pictured)

Retail total according to price tags: $408
Here's where Daddy gulps and says, "Mommy better have a plan because she's not exactly nice when she goes over budget."

And here's where Mommy says:
Actual price paid at the registers: $91. The most I paid for one item was $13, and that was for the COAT (4 in 1 by the way....)

That's right. 22%, baby! It was a good day. Probably $95 dollars that could have gone towards retirement but now I don't need a coat next winter and we possibly have presents for birthdays.

Plus, those monogrammed thingys. Yeah one actually says Sienna (notice 2 n's but we'll let it slide for a $4.50 backpack) and the other says Cora but in cursive so it really looks like Cara and that one was only $2.99. The big black one has the initials CMR on them...yeah Cara's. And the other one says Arianna which means we'll be ironing on some flowers. :)

Mommy is kind of giddy. But she needs to go change for the gym. So we're going to log off....

My girls....

Guest post by Mommy:

I did it. I made it. And it flew by. What flew by? What did she do? I know. Pretty vague. I'm not talking about the holidays. I'm talking about my first week as a stay at home Mom. That's right. I spent all week playing with my girls, ignoring my girls while cleaning the house, running out to lunch with my sister before she went off to college, etc. And I didn't spend as much money as I thought I would. It's been a pleasure because my girls are growing up. And fast. (Not physically speaking of course, we're still runts over here...)

Some funny things about who Siena is now:

She is a big girl. And I mean this in she went from my slightly uncoordinated, not brave, cautious little girl to my "I know how to skip" run around the playground without Mommy and try all kinds of things that I never would have before and talk in long run on sentences about very complex things that happened two weeks ago. So I guess that is changing physically. She's thinning out majorly. Her little elastic band wrists are finally gone. And those chubby thighs have been saying good bye for a long time. I feel like all these changes happened one after another over night for the last two months. Her last daycare lady, Miss Michelle, was wonderful and taught Siena so much. She can write her name and recognize anywhere (that made presents fun for Christmas.) We were sad to be done there but hopefully we'll get to do preschool there or something.

And do you know what movie Santa brought her? Rango.



That's right. And when she saw it, she exclaimed "MY FAVORITE!!" We've watched it like 15 times (at even Cara's request. We've watched her Santa movie "The Lion King", once.) She quotes it, she laughs about it, she UNDERSTANDS IT. We even saw it in the theaters and she wouldn't stop talking about while the adults with her were a little perplexed and thought it was strange. She LOVES it. (I also feel I could devote a whole blog post just to this because now that I think about it, I like it. A lot. And it's got some distinctive, interesting, and just fascinating characters....) I love that girl. She's just really becoming a person. And it's going so fast I can't catch my breath.

Oh and Cara. Cara, Cara, Cara. I swear she's not growing. I can still put some (not very many) of her 12 month things on her. It doesn't help that she sucks her thumb and loves to cuddle. It's like I still have a baby but one that talks. A lot. And freaks other people out because of how deep her conversations go and she's just this little tiny thing. She also remembers crazy details with accuracy. She understands concepts and time passing. She plays pretend with Siena and says the most awesome things like, "Don't be shy" when Siena's pretending to be a dog and whimpering. They play for HOURS together. Also she finally figured out jumping off the ground with two feet. She doesn't do it often but every now and then magic. She's much braver than Siena ever was. (IF ONLY WE COULD HARNESS HER VERBAL ABILITIES INTO POTTY TRAINING. That child. No interest whatsoever. Come on, Cara, you're killing me...I won't have another baby until you are outta diapers. Wait...maybe this is her plan....)

Sigh...hopefully I'll continue to survive my stay at home momness. In truth, I will actually be teaching 3 group fitness classes a week at Summit Athletic Club so I'll still be earning a W-2 but that's only 3 hours a week. I love it though and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to smother my children all day long!

New Year's Resolutions

Hey there! Hasn't 2012 been wonderful so far? The weather has been scary beautiful here and Mommy is scared that it will mean winter will last FOREVER when it finally rears it ugly head.

Here are some of our New Year's Resolutions (whatever that big word means)

Daddy:
Travel 5,000 miles by his own power be it swim, bike, or run.

Mommy:
(The overachiever set 5 category resolutions and planned HOW to achieve them. I'm only posting one...)
Complete 5,000 squats...she wanted to do push ups but her dang carpal tunnel prevents that....

Siena:
Be able to write the whole alphabet upper and lower case

Cara:
POTTY TRAINED!!!! (Mommy kind of yelled that last one...)

We hope by marking these down we will show some accountability!

And as a side note, apparently Mommy's family loves Toyotas...check it out

Good bye 2011!

Mommy and I have been talking about our final post of the year a lot. She was completely unsure about how to proceed. Last year we did a summary of our year but this year Mommy kept feeling like there were other things she needed to post. Now that we're actually sitting down to post, turns out Mommy can't remember ANY of what she wanted to post....the irony.

Maybe quickly we'll highlight the week since we've posted! We had a wonderful rest of Christmas Day at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We got great presents from them. Flashlights of our own and a tunnel to play in! Mommy also got full workout gear for teaching Group Kick. (Doesn't she look a little scary?)





We mostly just spent the rest of the week playing off and on with family. We've spent a lot of time with Aunt Becca and it's been fun. She went with us to Jumpin' Jacks (also known as the Frog Store/Place) and helped us have SO MUCH FUN!



And our doggy and our kitty (who is still on probation and can be let go without notice for the next 30 days...) have developed a serious bond...

Where's the doggy?



Oh there she is...



Now it's seems appropriate to do a small summary of our year. It's been a great year....

In January, we spent a lot of time with family. Mommy and Daddy played LOTS of Mario on the Wii. And we started the year out with snow!

In February, Mommy got called to work with the youth in our church, we played outside A LOT, Daddy ran in a half marathon, we went to the zoo and the aquarium and I got to go see a gymnastics meet at the U. Oh and we bought a new car!

In March, we enjoyed warm weather, went to California and did Disneyland, the LA zoo, the Long Beach aquarium and played with Grandpa Great and his dog Chloe, and then our Romney cousins!

In April, Daddy completed his first triathlon, I went on my first backpacking trip with Mommy and Grandpa, Grandpa turned 50, Mommy had a birthday and our Preslar cousins came and stayed with US!

In May, we started enjoying the lake and hot weather and we went on a HUGE Disneyland trip with our Preslar cousins and stayed with our Romney cousins and basically had a huge party all weekend. It was awesome.....oh and Mommy started a new job with Dr. Graf.

In June, we had a lot of family time with Mommy's cousins and uncles and aunts. We saw lots of little puppies in Midway at Double Grandpa's house and of course we played at the zoo and had cousin time in SLC.

In July, we got to go see Ariel on Stage (awesome!), I learned how to be brave and jump and swim in the pool (mostly with floaties) and Cara turned TWO!

In August, we enjoyed a terrific trip up to SLC and played at a great water park with Oma. We also went on our second annual camping trip (it rained...) and we tried out the new St. George carousel!

In September, we hiked, we played, we swam (a lot!), and Daddy completed an OLYMPIC distance triathlon! And hello! I turned FOUR!!

In October, we did a lot of fun Halloween activities and spent most of it dressed up. We went to Moab for a weekend with Daddy's awesome friends and they ran in a half marathon together!

In November, we reveled in a FANTASTIC Thanksgiving because Uncle Marty came home from his mission two days before but we also did some crying as we lost Grandma Great a few days before he came home. We did the traditional Angel's Landing Hike and I was amazing and so was the weather for once! And we also added a cat to the family, named Gadget (or Toothless or Jorge or Giorgio or Gadgeter depending on when you ask me). Whoops and Daddy had a birthday in there too.

In December, we said our goodbyes to Grandma Sharon and celebrated Christmas in every way we knew how. We took our Christmas trip up north and loved spending our first night (on purpose anyway) at the Preslar house. Mommy also got a new calling (too soon for her) to be in charge of Singing Time for Primary.

It's been a good year for our family and we only hope that 2010 can be just as awesome!

Merry Christmas!!!

Good morning and a Merry Christmas! Santa came to my house and I was so excited! This was the first year that I came into Mommy and Daddy's room before they were awake. I couldn't sleep when I woke up in my igloo that Mommy and Daddy had built for us. At first, I thought Santa hadn't come because I didn't see the presents on the couch...which is why I woke up Mommy and Daddy! But they showed me where my stocking and presents were! I got a CAMERA! Mommy will help me post pictures later but I just wanted to make sure I got my Merry Christmas wishes out there!!!

Okay we've downloaded some pictures and made some progress including going to church and kind of cleaning up our mess. :) I am going to let Mommy take over and do a guest post from here:

Christmas Eve was pretty much a laid back kind of day. We invited Eric and Becca over for waffles and bacon which was nice until it resulted in all our smoke alarms going off and not stopping. We finally had to unplug them all. Then Pete helped me slick up the house including mopping with my new Shark, something I hadn't done since my old Shark broke (and lets not talk about how long ago THAT was.) Somehow that got us into a cooperation spirit and we delved into making our girls an igloo to sleep in. (Down comforters are great because they already have that white block look!) Of course they loved us!



We then made the trek over to my parents house and enjoyed the annual Christmas Eve pizza and a hot tub. (Ironically I just realized we do the EXACT same thing for New Year's Eve....). It was wonderful and the girls got their new jammies.



We tucked them into their igloo WAY past their bedtime and got everything set up for Santa. And then tucked ourselves in but not before checking in our penguins.



Cara gave a little wail over the monitor at about 2:30 am and so I went and pulled her from the igloo and tucked in to my side. And then at about 5:45, I felt Pete spring out of bed and I began to realize that we were once again being assailed by our smoke alarms. Siena made no movement through the whole thing. She did however come open our door at 7:30 which surprised me because I hadn't heard any noise from her room. She whispered to us, "Mom, Dad, there are NO presents under the tree!" She sounded very disappointed. (A funny side note, Pete's dad told them every year that Santa hadn't come and that they had been robbed and there were no presents. He found it pretty funny that Siena seemed to be playing the same joke!) We pulled a crying Cara out of bed and trudge into the living room to show Siena that Santa had come, the presents were just tucked on the couch!

Siena had asked for a "Purple Camera" very specifically from Santa which had made Cara ask for a "Pink Camera", unfortunately all Santa could find was a "Pink Camera" for Siena. This resulted in Siena and Cara being confused about whose present was whose and they kept saying the pink camera was Cara's. (We've straightened it out now..) The usual flurry of wrapping paper commenced and I think the girls had a very satisfying Christmas. Check out their loot!





We attended our church meetings and enjoyed a lovely sacrament meeting in which both Siena and Pete got to participate in. And of course we had to attempt at least one family picture in front of the tree especially since the girls have such lovely dresses that I ADORE (and paid too much money for..let's be honest...) I remember having a hard time getting these same pictures last year!

Larsen Family!

This is the fun card we did with my Mommy's family! Merry Christmas, From The Larsens!