In Celebration of New Software!!!

About 3 years ago Tyler and I bought a video camera so we could document our children's lives. Since then we have been unable to acess these home videos due to computer problems, for about 2.5 of those years.

Well I finally found and purchased a program that allows us to convert the files so we can finally watch our videos!!!

It's been like Christmas the last few days, watching all the footage of events and things long forgotten. I am especially excited because this will allow me once again to post videos of the kids so that Mom in Montana can watch them grow!

I told Heidi the good news and she was equally enthusiastic.

The Joys that come with little girls

I remember proudly posting a few months ago that I was the lucky mother of a two year old who had no idea what a princess was. Then I made the mistake of dressing her like a princess for Halloween and chaos ensued. Yes Princesses are nice and lovely, but I want my kid to play in the dirt with trucks and wear mismatched clothes while she can pull it off. I want her to do gymnastics, dress up like superman and climb trees. I know these things arn't exclusive, you can play princess dress up AND climb trees but Alex is only 2 and I feel like she spends WAY to much time prancing around calling herself a princess with a blanket wrapped around her. When we tell Alex she looks pretty she says "Like a princess?" Any picture of a pretty lady is a princess, and on and on. This excerpt from"Cinderella ate my daughter" describes it so much better than I am. Like she says "what I want for my daughter seems so simple: for her to grow up healthy, happy, and confident, with a clear sense of her own potential and the opportunity to fulfill it. Yet she lives in a world that tells her, whether she is three or thirty-three, that the surest way to get there is to look, well, like Cinderella."

I am not a princess hater, I love seeing her twirl in her dresses and talk about Snow White like they are friends. I love that it inspires her to let me do her hair, and just the simple joy that shines from her eyes when she gets a Belle sticker or watches the little mermaid. I just think the Disney has done a far too fantastic job of marketing princesses these days, I can't walk down the cereal isle without Alex begging for more princess paraphernalia in the form of cereal, clothes, shoes, dolls, movies etc, etc. She loves it and it makes her happy, it's not like she has that much, a barbie, a couple movies, and a book or two. But I digress.

When shopping for treasures to put in Alex's potty chart redemption box (once she fills a page up with stickers for using the potty, she gets to take the chart to Grandma's house and pick a prize out of the box) I was trying to broaden her horizons a bit and search for non-princess themed things. Cue My Little Pony.

I never really had any My Little Pony figures as a kid, but as an adult, I want them badly. The cute colorful little pony's with the long hair, who wouldn't want one?! So I found one at the store and thought it would make a great prize for Alex. A few weeks later Alex earned her prize, picked the pony and brought it home to play with. Out of the box and into her arms, true love. When the excitement had worn off I was able to snag the little thing for a closer look and I was actually a bit appalled.

Have you seen the new My Little Pony's? No longer are they the chubby cute little pink horses with tufts of hair to brush. Now they have an unsettling "come-hither" type makeover. They somehow made a horse look skinny with a gigantic head and excessive waves of styled hair, oh and a mini skirt to boot. It's weird. A bit too much. It's sort of a horse version of a BRATS doll. Which reminds me of a funny story I heard.......

A lady was with her young daughter on a bus in Amsterdam. The bus went through the red light district where a "call girl" got on the bus. The mother was a bit uncomfortable and looked down at her daughter who was staring at the "call girl" with stars in her eyes. "Mom" she said "Isn't she beautiful? She looks just like one of my BRATS dolls."

So I took my quest for non-princess, age appropriate potty training rewards online. It was futile, the only reasonably priced non super sexy pony I could find has a mermaid tale. This was more confusing to me than pony eye liner and liposuction, which the mermaid pony also has had done. I know kids like horses, and I know kids like mermaids, I just can't fathom putting the two together. Horse and fish are an odd combination.

Perhaps I am crazy though, and in another 6 months the normalcy of it all will hit and I will once again be choking on my words. I don't know which is worse, happy, sweet, sensitive, nice, always optimistic princess Cinderella, or borderline too sexy pony?

Be warned mothers of infant girls, and start searching DI and garage sales for some old fashioned G rated little girl toys now. Alex is going to be 3 in a month and I won't be able to buy her coloring books and blocks forever. I'm starting to think we aren't going to even make it to the teenage years before makeup, modesty and morality issues come pounding on our front door. Thank you world for trying to help my baby grow up so fast, but I want to keep her young and innocent while I can.

Before (doing the best with what nature gave you)

After (Welcome to the age of the plastic surgeon)

Face Paints

Last week I was feeling a bit crafty. I decided to paint wooden clothespins for a project I'd been thinking about for awhile. While sorting through my craft stuff I found some water colors. Thinking back on my youth I remember water colors being lame. I could never get the colors dark enough, they never did what I wanted, they were just too.... watery.

Perfect I thought. Alex can paint with watercolors while I'm painting with Acrylics. Everyone wins. So we started to paint.

Not to long after starting, Heidi woke from her nap and was allowed to join us at the table with cheerios to entertain her. Between Heidi, getting more cheerios, painting, phone calls, and everything else, apparently I didn't do the greatest job at supervising Alex.

Alex has mastered the art of getting in trouble while sitting right next to me. I realized this day that I am a peripheral vision mother. If I can see their bodies and know what they are playing with, I guess I make an assumption that they can't be getting into trouble.

I should know better. Alex paints her face with yogurt whenever she gets one, and can't be trusted alone at a table with any food for fear she will get artsy with it.

Luckily it was just watercolors!!! Although I will have to quiz her on how she was able to paint her body such vibrant colors, when I was never able to get the white paper that pretty.

This is Heidi's "MOM, GET ME OUT OF THE CHAIR" look. If you could only hear the noise that goes with it. Heidi is officially all grown up. 9 months and WAY too tall. She isn't a baby anymore, walking along the furniture, teasing Alex, giving me sassy looks. This is my silent but stubborn child, I'm almost more afraid of her teenage years than Alex's.

Birthday's, Hotdogs and Museums

Thursday we got to Celebrate the births of two of my sister in laws, Kara and Kate. I discovered that planning parties, games and decorating was a lot more work without them.

Susan came up with the great idea of an island theme. We had a FANTASTIC meal, also prepared by Susan. It was so fun and festive.

The birthday beauties.

The night before I made Tyler help me make coconut cups for the birthday girls. It was a bit harder than you might imagine, but totally worth it.

Desert was Fondue. Alex discovered that Fondue is the most wonderful thing in the world.

Heidi even dressed up for the occasion.

Afterwards we just chilled. Heidi adores Archie, especially when he pushes her around on the scooter.

Heidi just couldn't stop playing dress up.

Saturdays have once again become my favorite day of the week. For SO long it seems Tyler has either had to work on the weekend or go to school, but this semester Saturdays are family days!!! This past weekend we got to hang out with Michael again.

He treated us to J-Dawgs and then we went to the Bean Museum on Campus.

Unfortunately the BYU Basketball game was a home game and located right next to the museum. So we had to park and then do some walking, mostly up 3 flights of stairs.

We were glad Michael came.

This is very similar to a picture of me and my brothers taken at that museum when I was a kid. Alex wasn't very excited to recreate history.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Alex loved the Museum again. We go often.

Alex commented on the scariness of the Jaguars eyes, but not his teeth.
Yay for the weekend!!!

Angels and Garbage Bags

I rarely spend money on clothes.

I mean very rarely, I still have clothes from high school. And honestly most of my clothes are from when I was in college. The past few months I've decided that it's time to start looking my age. It was this thinking which sort of prompted the haircut.

Anyway, I was looking through my closet and decided it was time to revamp the wardrobe. The problem with this is I have a really hard time paying what the store seems to think those clothes are worth. So I spend hours searching tons of stores only to come home either empty handed or having spent the equivalent of our grocery budget for the month on like 3 items.

So I had been brainstorming ways I could earn a bit of cash to improve my image when a friend texted and said she had some pants she was getting rid of if I wanted them. Bingo, I really needed some new pants. So she brought them by and I was so busy it was a week before I got around to opening the bag. But when I did GOLDMINE!!!

While I may be as style conscience as a newt, I happen to be related to and friends with some really stylish girls. While trying on each pair of pants, skirt and shirt it finally struck me that the reason I've been able to go so long between shopping trips is because these amazing women have been willing to give me their old, unused or less loved clothes!!! Just about every time I've been ready to go shopping in the last 9 months, I've had a trash bag of beautiful clothes given to me!

It seems like I often hear stories about how blessings come to those who pay tithing. In our church we give 10% of our income back to the Lord through our church. The money is then used to help others in our ward or stake, pay for chapels and temples to be built and also used for humanitarian causes as well. Tyler and I have always paid our tithing and I know we have been blessed for it, but not in any outstandingly shocking and obvious way. Or so I thought until today. The more I thought upon it the more I realized how abundantly we have been blessed. We have probably purchased 2% of the clothes that Heidi and Alex now wear. The rest, heaven sent trashbags of love.

So thank you to my wonderful sister in laws, neighbors, friends and family who have kept Tyler and I from going threadbare or broke. For helping us look a bit more classy than we would otherwise, and saving us hundreds of dollars. Your generosity has truly been a blessing in our lives.

In other news today we got a letter in the mail from Stephen who is currently serving a mission in Sao Paulo Brazil. My favorite part was.... "By now you should be gearing up for Halloween and the temperature should be dropping." Yes, apparently he sent the letter on October 11, 2010. Crazy

Inlaw Birthday Week

I just love this picture of Heidi's eyes. She was cuddling with me as I lay suffocating from congestion on the couch last week when Tyler took this picture. We just adore her.

So This week we get to celebrate 3 birthdays!!! First was Susan's. We decided to try and make things exciting by planning a surprise party!!!! Tyler and I were on the cake committee and so I decided to try something new and.... odd.

This was the strawberry cake. REALLY yummy with delicious strawberry cream cheese frosting and white chocolate on top.

Then because that didn't seem like enough for 10 people, I made a chocolate one to go with it! Then I experimented a bit and stacked them on each other. It looked weird, but it was fun.

We all showed up and decorated like crazy while Susan and Pat were out shopping. We actually pulled off the surprise! The party was a lot of fun thanks to Devin and Kara (decorations) and Ben and Kate (games)!

You wouldn't believe it, but the girls actually dominated in the shooting contest. And not because we all stood 4 inches away like Alex.

We were all so exhausted and full that we only played the one game, but it was a winner.

The kids LOVED the hats. Especially Heidi.

We learned a few important things.

1. If you eat the cake first and then the pizza, then the cake actually gets eaten and enjoyed and you get leftover pizza for breakfast.

2. After indulging in cake and pizza, you don't really feel like running around and playing games.

Sunday after church we continued the celebration with family dinner and lots of balloon fun.

I just can't get enough of Heidi. In that hate she reminds me of that old cartoon "The world of David the Gnome".

I'm suddenly a fan of party hats. I don't know that I could say that before seeing Heidi in one.

Of the time she isn't sleeping, Heidi probably spends 80% of her day pulling herself up and standing. She is growing up too fast.

They both are.

Monday we celebrated Susan's actual birthday with a yummy dinner and FANTASTIC cake ordered from Tennessee by the missing family members in Sam and Natalie's group. It was Cold stone, and it was wonderful. I'm drooling thinking about it.

So now we try and save the decorations until Thursday when we get to celebrate Kate and Kara's combined birthday!

So here is the last picture taken of my hair before the chop. Not a real great example of length, but you get the idea.

And here is the only picture taken so far post hair cut. I was teaching Alex how to use my camera, she did a fairly good job although neither Heidi or I were ready.

And as long as we are talking about hair. I've been trying to convince Alex she looks and feels so much better when she lets me do her hair. So we decided to try and see how many bands we could get in her hair as a game. It looked great, but only lasted about 20 minutes until Heidi was finding them on the floor and choking on them.

Yesterday she told Kara she wanted her hair cut short like Uncle Devin. I have since hidden all the scissors in the house.