Oh Heaven Help Me and Other Stuff.....

Guest Post by Mommy:

I really should post about what I need the help of heaven for first but I'm going to give kudos to my hubby. Yesterday, Pete ran another half marathon! I'm so proud of him especially considering he spent most of last week in the fetal position with an illness that hung in there for almost a straight week. But run he did in the cold freezing windy drizzle that was our Saturday. And he lived! He was even upright for most of the day. Although his judgement might have been impaired but more on that later.

Siena enjoyed waiting at the finish line and cheering every one on. Of course every man was her Daddy until they got close enough and she would laugh.."that's not my Daddy!" She also cheered extra loud for all the "ladies". "Look mom, there's another lady!"





Now to the confessional part of this post....My name is Sheri and I'm a big spender. At least this week! I started off small, I bought a new duvet cover and a thinner down alternative comforter. Then it stemmed in to us getting a new dishwasher to be delivered tomorrow. And yesterday it exploded and we are now the owners of this.

I'm not kidding. Yes. We are the owners of a 2011 Toyota Prius in their custom pearly-white that costs you an extra 220 bucks. (We didn't necessarily spring for the color, it was just which one was available.) AAAAGGGHHH! We haven't had a car payment for the last year and I was getting used to the extra spending money! It's a good thing we already own a home or I'd be buying one today.

Seriously though, Pete and I LOVE our new car. We didn't get the fanciest one, seeing as how that is 32,000 smackaroons to have the solar roof that powers the ventilation fan that keeps the inside of your car the same temp as the outside and can power the remote start A/C but we finally have our keyless entry that we've been dreaming about and the push button start! We'll post pictures of our "Mozzy" (named for his white color and cheese (Mozzarella) wedge appearance) later but it's just too dang cold and dreary today.

Hello new car! Good bye frequent Target trips!

Great weekend, part 2!

On Saturday of our awesome weekend in SLC, we spent the late morning/early afternoon at the Living Planet Aquarium in Draper/Sandy...one of those southern valley cities... Now I was born in Monterey which has a big aquarium so Mommy and Daddy couldn't believe they had an aquarium where there used to be a grocery store but it wasn't bad. Mommy had taken me there once before Cara was born but we had never made it back. We went with cousins again and even Oma was able to join in the fun. Cara loved touching the sting rays...I didn't want anything to do with it!

We then enjoyed more cousin time at Aunt Rachel's house that night where I insisted on playing with her play dough and every cousin joined me. Very fun. We also watched How to Train Your Dragon with Oma and Apa.

I took it my play dough very seriously.

Cara preferred to pinch it off and tiny sections.

We drove home to Oma and Apa's that night in the snow and it continued to snow all night and all Sunday morning, so Mommy and Daddy decided to make the best of it and we kind of repeated history. This is exactly what we did the day we moved out of Oma and Apa's just over a year ago. We went impromptu sledding without proper snow clothes!

I LOVED IT. And was super excited to go up and down the hill.

Cara liked it but preferred to just eat the snow.

Here I am loving the snow some more by making snow angels.

Mommy and Daddy tortured us with a self timer photo while it was snowing. Cara is not happy as you can plainly see.

We drove home after this completely satisfied with our visit. We love family.

A Great Weekend!

Sorry it's been a week folks. We were a little bit busy in the middle of the week with nothing exciting. :) Daddy got sick and turned into a shivering, coughing, sleeping mess. Cara and I also proved to be goobery messes as well and when we went in for Cara's 18 month appt, Mommy picked up her first ever antibiotic for one of us kiddos. (Cara...she was getting an ear infection.) Speaking of Cara, she shot back up to the 22% in weight! That was up from the 9% back six months ago! Of course she also went down to the 4% for height. Oh well, we knew she was gonna be small!

But we have had a FABULOUS weekend. We took a little mini vacation up to SLC. It feels like it has been forever since we've gone up and really it was right before Christmas. (Who wants to do Northern Utah by choice in January?) It was almost a perfect winter weekend though.

We drove up late Thursday night so that we could wake up and in SLC and just get right to playing with cousins. And that we did! We went to the zoo with Aunt Rachel, Romney and Emma. That's right...we went with six GIRLS. It was cold but not freezing or crazy windy but it was overcast so it felt like the zoo was deserted. It was so great. We had the most amazing animal encounters.



First the spider monkeys were right up at the glass trying to kiss us .

And then Mommy proved tempting to the baby crocodile again. (Every time we go, this crocodile will move up to the glass and stalk Mommy...this time it looked like he wasn't going to and then boom...there he came and even followed her across the glass!)

Can't forget when the giraffe licked Aunt Rachel's shoe!

The baby orangutan, Acara, also came up and kissed us and played with us through the glass.


That night, Mommy took Aunt Rachel, Romney and me to our first ever University of Utah women's gymnastic meet! (Thanks to Uncle Troy and Daddy for watching the two littlest ones.) We got to ride the train "Trax" up to the Huntsman Center and then watch girls do fun dancing and flipping and stuff. It was SO MUCH FUN. I think Aunt Rachel will definitely try and go back. We also have to say thank you to Aunt Rachel's friend, Adam for hooking us up with empty season ticket holder seats in front of him!

To be continued.....

Caves n stuff...

Yesterday we had an amazing Saturday. Mommy and Daddy didn't cross a single thing off their to do lists except have fun with us girlies! That's not true, Mommy and Daddy both took turns exercising (one did Zumba and the other a 10 mile run...I'll let you pick who you think did which) and Mommy did some laundry. Then we went for a picnic lunch at the park again. The park is always fun but then Grandpa called and he wanted to go take us on a little hike into the red rocks. So we quickly finished up at the park and headed to Uncle Eric's game to rendezvous with the family.

We got up on to the infamous Red Hill before Grandma and Grandpa and did a little practice hiking around. We also had to take pictures of the new hair do for Cara...you wouldn't think she had enough hair but it turns out that she barely does. Anyway, the hiking was fun but when Grandpa got there it got exciting. He showed us that there were all these little caves and arches and narrows. We had so much fun hiding in all the caves!







Plus Cara figured out how to crawl through this tiny hole all on her own. She did it with all these rocks in the way and then Grandma moved it and I went back and tried it too.





Grandpa, Mommy and I were the only ones brave enough to go through the "Narrows". Actually, first we found a different little narrows and Daddy did that one.







And then we ended the evening with a nice soak in Grandma and Grandpa's hot tub. Plus we got to talk to one of Uncle Marty's friends who came home from his mission. This friend was lucky enough to get to be Uncle Marty's companion for 3 months! We talked his ear off and it felt a little bit like having Uncle Marty home.

Rubots

Another Guest Post by Mommy:

I swear it has been three weeks since we went in to Barnes and Noble as a family. We were actually going to pick out new glasses for Daddy at the store next door when we couldn't help but wander in. As we were wandering around just outside the kids' section, Siena came across this box:



And she DEMANDED to have them. We let her carry them around for most of the store and then I tried to interest her in a more kid friendly book. She threw some sort of tantrum when I said to put it down which meant that we walked out of the store empty handed with a sobbing girl. I couldn't reward her for throwing a fit and for once...I didn't!

Fast forward to yesterday, I arrive home from work and Pete tells me that Siena's daycare lady, Miss Rubi, told him the funniest story about Siena. While watching a commercial or playing or something, robots came up and Siena started crying and saying that "Mommy won't get me robots" only she says it "rubots'. Miss Rubi said it took her twenty minutes and a piece of chocolate to calm Siena down. I didn't even KNOW that she knew what robots are let alone that she would remember those dang robots from the store! So Family Home Evening turned into a quick walk up to the mall and in to Barnes and Noble where I gave her the choice between a Toy Story book, a princess book, and the robots. She initially chose the princess book but when we were headed to the register and I asked her if she was sure, she quickly switched to the robots.

Pete was sweet and put one together for them last night and she loves it. She woke up this morning and tried to persuade me in to making another one but I told her that was Daddy's department.

Channeling Michael Jackson...

Mommy sincerely wishes that she had taken the time to upload a video that was on Uncle Marty's camera chip before sending it to him on his mission. We had video of me dancing to the Michael Jackson game on the Wii...and I was GOOD. Perhaps we will try again tonight to capture my skills. Wait...today is the Super Bowl. That's probably a little unlikely. So let's just note right now that my favorite songs to dance to is the "Skull" one (known as "Ghost") and the other skull one (known as "Thriller"). I love the scary ones and I'm pretty good at dancing to them too. The above photo was taken on Friday after I insisted Mommy go get the camera and start taking pictures of me on the tramp. We have probably twenty now but Mommy loved this one the most because I clearly am doing a Michael Jackson move.

Today after church we will be heading over to Grandma and Grandpa's to watch the Super Bowl. Grandma and Grandpa will finally be home after being gone to Thailand for the last 10 days We've missed them but they sure had fun stories to tell. Just check out Grandpa's blog! We have also missed our Daddy who has been playing with his buddies for four days down in Las Vegas.

Some of our other shots from Friday.
If you look closely at this one, ignore that I'm pulling a weird face, and you'll be able to see a faint blue goose egg on my head. In all actuality, it's HUGE. Mommy got me with a car door and I actually made her call Daddy on the phone so that I could tell him and have HIM make me feel better!



Cara was being stinkin' cute on the ground. She was eating the dirt but if Mommy would point the camera at her she would straighten up and say "Cheese!"

It needs to be posted...

Guest post by Mommy:

Do you know what we played at our house today? Well as I was preparing a cake for my first ever mutual night as the new 1st counselor of the YW in my ward (I'm petrified by the way...I want to stay in nursery), I overheard these phrases coming from Siena.

"We need to build a ship"
"Here's the Liahona, what does it say?"
quietly whispered in a hunched position Siena said her nighttime prayers
"Nephi, we made it to the promised land!"
"It's raining, get in the ship!"
"The baby hasn't eaten anything in three days."

I walked over to Siena and she was pretending to saw and hammer a ship together. And when I asked if I could play she told me I could be Nephi, she would be Sam and that Cara was Jacob.

That's right folks, she was playing "Journey to the Promised Land". Say what you want about those Living Scriptures DVDs but I love them. My girls beg for the movie Nephi, specifically the Promised Land one. Actually Cara begs for what sounds more like "Firefly" a word she loves. I swear I learned all my scriptures stories from those movies and I will be showing them all to my girls. (Thanks goes to Grandma for being suckered in to buying the whole collection!) The thing I love most about Siena and them though is that she is paying attention to tiny details such as when I tried to make this gold ball our Liahona she told me it was missing the clock part referring to it's spinning hands. Sniff. I was really really proud.