Little Things

Guest post by Mommy:

As I read other Mommy's blogs, I realize that I don't take the time to record what silly little things my kids are doing "right now".  Their silly quotes and ridiculous temper tantrums aren't quite getting down in the record book.  I keep you guys pretty up to date on what we DO but not HOW we do it.  (Other than with much enthusiasm!)  And of course part of that issue is that when I sit down at the computer to talk about their funny little mannerisms, my mind is like a blank slate!  However, I shall do my best this morning.

Siena:  Oh my darling girl.  She is a full blown preschooler.  Boundless energy.  Complex conversations.  She's learning how to READ and mostly on her own.  Daddy is a big help, but last night she read an entire Dick and Jane book to my mom.  And not memorized read...actually sounded out the words!  I almost cried!  Her favorite movie right now is just about any movie.  She loves borrowing Angelina Ballerina from the library, Monsters vs. Aliens, and I just introduced The Incredible Mr. Limpet to the girls with much delight.  That movie was one of my mom's favorites and she passed it on to me and now a third generation of Quaife girls will love it.  And what's exciting is that Disney put him in their Ariel ride in California Adventure.  I LOVED IT and can't wait to show the girls this time now that they know who he is!  We've also been watching Peter Pan a lot and combined with Angelina Ballerina has led to Siena talking with an English lilt or cadence.  Her sentences tend to end with an upward inflection and Pete and I find ourselves in giggles two or three times a day.

Her next big accomplishment has been her transformation into a fish.  She loves swimming and is loving figuring out how to actually swim.  She jumps in water over her head so that she can push off the ground at the bottom.  She's getting the motions down!  Her greatest desire is to learn how to swim and ride her bike better so that she can be in a race and be "AN IRONMAN!"  Future triathlete right here....(unless you watch her attempt to ride her bike with training wheels on and then you know we might be waiting awhile!)

Cara: No longer my baby.  And I need to accept this because Angie will have her baby in September and Cara is going to look like a giant even though she is so tiny for her age.  She is definitely in charge.  She pees on the potty on her terms, pretends not to suck her thumb when Mommy comes in the room, and says fun things like "Don't talk to me" and "Leave me alone".  Or lately if you try and help her and she was asking someone else it will be "No.  I was talking to Grandma."  However when that little girl is in a good mood...there is nothing cuter.  She loves to snuggle still and she spins herself on the swings while lying on her tummy.  She has figured out how to work the DVD player for the most part and I'll find her watching Signing Times Zoo Train whenever we can get it from the library.  She will beg you for her thumbs too and just stare at them and say things like "I NEED them!!" And you feel like a terrible person.  She and Siena talk and play all day long.  Elaborate make believe games involving mostly plots from Disney movies but silly points in the plot!

And that child can work an Iphone.  She discovered videos on my mom's phone that my mom didn't know were there and we were all actually worried that she had managed to purchase them!  She has to show Grandma how to work that phone!

Oh how I love my girls.  We aren't quite a complete family.  I think babies are in our future (not our immediate future!!) But I will eek every moment of no school out of these girls.  In fact, we are headed to the opening of Hogle Zoo's Rocky Shores tomorrow!  And then shhhh the girls don't know that Grandma has agreed to come for a quickie Disneyland GIRLS trip right when we get back!!!

It's FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!

Can you hear us giving our daddy cheers?! Our playset is finally 100% finished.  It took a final hour on a third Saturday and the help of one additional person to be done.  The bottom part of the slide proved to be very stubborn.  But it's all connected now and the playset is even staked down into the ground!

Now Mommy is working on getting a patio table and probably a grill.  Because a backyard like this NEEDS a grill.  We love our new playing space.  The swings are a hit.  And Cara will eventually be willing to go down the slide by herself but for now she tortures Mommy by climbing up and then climbing/falling back down.  On a random note, yesterday was unbelievably chilly here in St. George!  Mommy couldn't believe the 58 degree temp that was listed on her phone!

And on a slightly more serious side note, should it concern our parents that they have a one gallon ziplock baggie full of extra hardware from the playset?!  At least there were no extra pieces of lumber!

The Annular Eclipse

This last Sunday was pretty special and I'm sure that anyone reading our blog had to know that.  We got to witness a solar eclipse.  Mommy and Daddy started trying to tell me about it early that day describing a special event with a ring of fire!  Well after church, I started panicking.  I didn't want it to get dark or see the "tentacles of the ring of fire".  I mean I was really upset and trying to bargain my way out.  "No the eclipse is tomorrow."  Luckily, we figured it all out and I participated in the viewing.  We had so much fun with it at Grandma's.  

Mommy pulled out of her memory the way she viewed the last solar eclipse that was visible in the US back from FOURTH GRADE.  You put a pin hole in a paper plate and hold another one below it.  It turned out to be LOTS OF FUN.  We took turns it putting it on our backs and even made Aunt Becca look like she had a tattoo!  

We were lucky enough to be close to the perfect viewing spot (okay like 65 miles away) but our ring of fire was complete and just a hair off center.  It was very neat to feel the temperature drop significantly and the light to get all dusky.  

In fact, Mommy said because we were all gathering outside to witness this phenomenon, she felt like they were in some movie and we were all awaiting the end of the world or something.  It almost started to feel too real when we noticed that all our shadows were off.  Our fingers looked like they had claws and then webbed fingers and fuzzy outlines and then different numbers of fingers.  Actually if you look at the pictures, people who would have driven by might have thought we were off our ROCKERS!

First Cavity!

Well I got bummer news at my last dental check up.  I had to have a cavity filled for the first time.  Right between my back two molars, a little hole was starting to develop.  (I guess Mommy doesn't like to floss!) Anyway, they schedule me for a separate day and I got to wear a special nose mask and get some silly gas.  Mommy keeps saying that I'm a boring drunk because all I did was kind of watch the movie and look at her with a kind of silly smile.  I did great though except for being like my grandma in that when I sat up and was all done, I kind of had the shakes from the numbing shot.  Very funny.  Unfortunately, I did manage to chew a small hole in my lip that is still healing.   Notice how puffy I look in these pictures. I really felt weird.

My Trophy!

Today I finally got my gymnastics trophy.  Bare Foot Gymnastics held their summer games and I got my trophy for my straddle jumps!  (Of course everyone got a trophy for something!)  But I was SO EXCITED.  I had wanted a trophy from the first day I took gymnastics.

Mommy woke me up this morning and surprised me with a new leotard and I was so sweet and thoughtful!  I kept hugging her and saying thank you!  It's even my favorite color.  PURPLE!

I did my best and was the first one in my group to go on everything.  In fact, Mommy heard me asking multiple times if I could go first.  Luckily none of the other kids minded!  It was pretty cute watching a bunch of 3-5 year olds give it their all at doing forward rolls and hopping on a tumble track.  Some of the forward rolls were impressive and some were scary!  I was proud of myself and was glad Grandma came to watch.  We'll post video later of my amazing routines!

The Play Set

My side yard is almost complete!  The concrete is poured and the play set is half up.  That's right our giant Costco play set is taking shape.

Last Saturday, Uncles Marty, Phil, and Eric came over with Grandma and Aunt Hailey to help Mommy and Daddy start to build it.  From the expression on their faces and the fact that Daddy worked on it from 8:30 am until 8:30 pm and we only got to step 30 or something of the 50, this thing is a monster!

Look at all the wood that is still on the ground.  And you don't want to see all the hardware.  We've been allowed to climb up in it but the side where the slide goes is open to the air and so it was only one time.

Hearing Mommy talk about how Saturday went always makes people laugh.  As it turns out, they had to redo step number 4 FOUR times.  They kept getting it wrong.  When Mommy realized the THIRD time, that they had to redo it, she tried to get Uncle Marty and Uncle Eric to leave but they wouldn't.  And then the fourth time resulted in a lot of maniacal and hysterical giggles.  However after stopping for lunch, things went much smoother and Uncle Marty was the real hero and stayed for the full 12 hours.  He helped us push through to step 26!

The big bummer is that Daddy is back in San Francisco this week and can't help work on it.  The other bigger bummer is that Mommy and Daddy realized (after they had staked the playset in) that it actually needs to move over about a foot.  GRRRR!  This means Mommy can't really work on it without Daddy because we don't want to add any more weight on it before we have to slide it.  So it just sits, slightly more than half way done, taunting our neighbor boys.  They keep running over every morning to peek and see if we have put on the slide.  Sorry boys.  That's another 6 hours of work!

Recreating...

Guest post by Mommy:

Well this is an unusual moment for me.  I have access to my computer during the work hours of the day!  Very exciting because it means the Daddy is in San Francisco on his first official day of work with his new company!  That's right.  We've had a job change.  Really it affects only Pete.  We will still live in our house, he will still sit at the computer desk in his office at our house, but he will work with different people (doing mostly the same thing) and travel more!  We are really excited for this change for him though.  It's a bigger company with bigger potential for him!  Go Daddy!

But now on to what the girls and I are up to.  If you will remember, this is my first summer in a long time in which I will not work.  (Okay will still teach classes at the gym but that hardly counts.)  And it has become very apparent to me that I am my father's daughter.  I play.  All the time.  My housework just does NOT get done.  We swim every day.  We get slushies.  We watch movies.

Don't think that's much, well here's the list of "annual passes" that I currently have:

Disneyland (you all knew that one!)
Hogle Zoo (the highest level booster so that I don't have to pay for rides on that dang train or carousel!)
State Parks of Utah
Jumpin' Jacks (okay that's more of a PUNCH pass)
And today I said I would get a punch pass for the PTA movies for the summer.
Oh and if my girls were better swimmers, I might sign up for a season pass to the City Pool.  I love the hydro tube and I loved working there as a teen.
AND I get the feeling I am going to be trying to use my parents' pass to Zion more than once this summer.

But we're not complaining!  (Well Siena might be because we have to keep washing her hair in ketchup!  It's been St. Patty's Day green at least twice and it never seems to get rid of a slight green tint!) In fact, I know that I am very blessed to be able to spend my time this way.  I love this particular stage with my girls.  We have limited obligations.  (Siena does gymnastics one day a week and will soon do swimming lessons but at the gym I teach at so really it will just meld into workouts.)  Sure it might be nicer if Cara were potty trained....hint to my daughter who cannot read and just wouldn't care even she could!!!!! But I'll say it again.  I AM HAPPY.  (Sorry, looking at my recent history I feel like there are a lot of these I AM HAPPY posts, but I feel a need to express my gratitude and to let my Father in Heaven know that I know that this is a sweet spot and I appreciate it.)