Fall Beautiful Fall

I love fall. I love the crisp air and the leaves changing and the cool mornings. I like pulling out my sweaters and boots. I like heating up the house with some good home cooking. I like it all. Even heading back to school. Chris would add to that list FOOTBALL I'm sure. Well, actually I'm not so sure because of how BYU performed against Florida State, but it is still one of the fall highlights for him.

So I've already got 5 weeks down on this semester and only 10 to go before I'm done and I GRADUATE! Yea! I am so excited. I'm feeling ready to give my girls some more time and attention and being able to keep my house clean among other things. My commute right now is so pretty though with the canyon leaves. I love it. We've also been able to do some fun family hikes the last couple weekends to enjoy the colors. Here's some pics of our fall fun.

I had to throw in this last picture of the girls bowling with Chris on their Daddy-daughter-daughter date. That's what Kaylee insisted on calling it. I think Brianna's face is hilarious in this picture. She's such a ham. I love these two kiddos. They are so much fun and such good kids. Well, hope you all have a fabulous fall!

You Know You are the Mom of Two Little Girls When...

• You have a barbie or princess song in your head at any given moment.
• One of your one-year-old's first words is Ariel and she starts to call her older sister Ariel.
• You buy everything in pink so that your child will like it.
• You have seen Cinderella 1, 2, and 3, you know who Melody is (Ariel's daughter in Return to the Sea).
• Your child (age 2) will wear nothing but a size 6 Ariel swimsuit for a full week.
• You have gone through multiple polly pocket princess dolls because they've gotten worn out.
• Your children insists on wearing multiple outfits per day (swimsuit, dance outfit, princess dress-up, and a couple normal outfits).
• You experience a lot of drama each minute of each hour of each day.
• You LOVE being a mom because your kids keep you very entertained.

There's a lot more I could add but I really am supposed to be working on my homework so this will have to do for now :)

Hey Mickey You're So Fine

We decided to get out of town and go to Disneyland for a week. Most of Chris' family made the trip as well. It was a very fun family vacation and fun to spend time with everyone. We had a delightful time.

Our vacation started after Provo because I had to take a statistics final exam there. And I actually passed the class. Hallelujah!

After that, my awesome sister-in-law had planned a family amazing race (like the show) for all of us who had to make the drive to California. It was awesome. She had all of these challenges that we had to complete at gas stations and 12 challenges that had to be completed on the road between specific places. Anyway, a big thanks goes out to Em for keeping us pretty entertained on the 10 1/2 hour drive there. We had to sing in the bathroom stall, dance outside the car while it was gassing up, and Kaylee wore a napkin hat into the gas station that she had made. Here are the hats that Chris and I made. Chris almost ran off the rode, but it was well worth it to accomplish the task at hand. Notice the lovely rosette. Who knew such beauty could be created from a Subway napkin?

Sunday night we finally arrived in Anaheim. We were up early on Monday anxious and ready to get into Disneyland. Monday we did tons of rides. Pirates of the Carribean was our first ride of the day. Kaylee hated it and I thought we might not get her on another ride, but we found the Winnie the Pooh ride soon after and redeemed ourselves. We did tons of rides including It's a Small World which brought back fond childhood memories. The girls loved the Snow White wishing well and were both singing into it. We finished off our day with the parade, which the girls also thought was way fun.

Tuesday we went into Disneyland and met Pluto, Goofy, Mickey, Minnie, and Chip and Dale. The girls lucked out being last in line for Minnie and Chip and Dale. Because they were last in line for Minnie, Mickey ran over and got in their picture too. How cool is that? Unfortunately neither of the girls are looking or acting as excited as their mother was in the picture.

After meeting all of the characters we headed over to California Adventure for a funfilled day. We went on Soaring over California which is my new favorite ride and also did Tower of Terror; it was definitely a thriller. Another highlight was Turtle Talk with Crush where Crush the Sea Turtle from Finding Nemo is on a screen and interacts with the audience. He picked on Kaylee to ask him a question and she asked if he ever had seen Ariel, to which the whole audience responded with an "Ahhhhhh." He told her that he hadn't but that he had met Sebastian. We also found out which Disney character we were most like. I was like Ariel which made my girls think I was so cool. Man it felt good :). Chris was like Gepetto and Kaylee was like Dot on Bug's Life.

Wednesday we were ready for some rest and relaxation. We went to Salt Creek Beach where we enjoyed a beautiful day. It was so nice because Ray, Chris' bro found out a nicer, less touristy beach from a friend of his who lives in CA. Hardly anyone was there. We played ultimate frisby and sand volleyball and saw a sea lion. I love the beach! The kids loved it too. Brianna was scared of the waves and would run away when the water would come up to her. Honestly I think the girls liked the beach just as much as Disneyland.

Thursday we went back into Disneyland and met the princesses. The girls loved it. They saw Cinderella, Jasmine, and their favorite Ariel.

This pic is of Brianna pretending to take a nap on a park bench. She is such a tease. She's always making us laugh.

Thursday afternoon, we went back to the hotel early and all took a nice long much-needed nap.
Friday we went and enjoyed a couple more rides, but it was so busy we didn't stay long. Here's Kaylee on Buzz Lightyear.

All in all, we had such a great time. It was so much fun to see the girls' excitement and to enjoy family time together. Now we're adjusting back to normal life. I went grocery shopping at our small local grocery store the other day and Kaylee asked me if we could go to the Disney section of the store. I just laughed. It might take her longer to adjust. :)

Spring Break

St. George is becoming our traditional spring break destination. We love it there. The sun shines and there's no snow. Imagine that. This year, it actually rained on us one day, but other than that it was pretty nice. We enjoyed two really fun hikes, some pool time, and of course tennis. I'm starting to really love tennis. Chris is a really good teacher. On Saturday, I had the novel idea of attending a community easter egg hunt. It was raining and cold and we thought it started at 9, but it didn't start til 10. There were 14,000 eggs and different age categories so I thought it would be pretty fun, but once they started it it was over in approx. 17.3 seconds. Yeah, it wasn't worth the wait. Oh well. Maybe I'll do Easter better next year. I'm trying to make most of my mistakes while my kids are still young enough that they won't remember anyway. Brilliant, huh? Well, we had a great time and here's the pics to prove it.

That second picture down is Brianna asleep in the hiking pack. I don't know how she fell asleep like that. Oh, and that's Chris sleeping standing up. Crazy huh? Well peace out y'all.

Say Whaaat?
So my four-year-old informed me that she would prefer that I no longer tell her that I love her. She told me that it's embarrassing. When I asked why it's embarrassing, she told me that it's just irritating to her. Yes she used those two words: embarrassing and irritating. Do I really have a four-year-old on my hands or could she possibly be a teenager in a four-year-old disguise? Honestly, what do you say to that? I thought these things weren't supposed to happen til later in life? Do I have reason for concern? I'm a little wierded out right now.
Worried and Wondering in Wasatch

What a Ham!

Our Brianna girl is hilarious. She's always making funny faces and squinting her eyes on purpose when she smiles. She definitely keeps us on our toes. She's starting in with the temper tantrums and the mischievousness, but she is also tons of fun. The way she talks is so cute. She has started saying please, thank you, and love you, along with several other words. She always carries around a little mermaid doll and calls all barbies and princesses Ariel. Here are some pics of the funny girl to show her personality.

This is after she got into some lip gloss. I think she used the whole tube.
This pic was taken after the girls decided it would be fun to get a bunch of toilet paper wet and then fling it all over the bathroom. They had a great time until I made them clean it up.

This is the perfect example of the squinty eyes and cheesy smile.We love Brianna!

Another fun blog game!
The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! (Though I hope you will!)
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It'll be done this year. {might be a little while}
4. You have no clue what it's going to be. I don't even have a clue what it's going to be.
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did, win a homemade gift! It may not be great, but it will be fun!!* * *Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!* * *

Kaylee's Current Activities
So for preschool last week we went to my friend's inlaws in Park City and let the kids ride these little snowmobiles that max out at 5 mph. It was so fun! I thought Kaylee would be to nervous to drive one, but she did it and she had a lot of fun.

Then yesterday Kaylee had her first dance experience in front of a large crowd at the high school JV girls' basketball game (after attending dance class twice). On the way to the game, she kept saying, "This is so irritating." I asked her what was irritating her. I thought it was an odd choice of words given her age of four years. She said that the drive was taking forever. It's 10 minutes. You would think she could handle it, but apparently it was pretty hard on the young thing. When we arrived at the game, Kaylee said she didn't want to dance anymore and started bawling. I told her that was fine, but then her teacher talked her into practicing. She warmed up and then was fine. She came out and danced beautifully with a big smile on her face. I thought she would for sure start crying and run to me in the audience, but she did great. So then as we were leaving, she started crying again saying that she wanted to dance some more. I'm a little worried about what the future holds. I don't know about all this moodiness.

Brianna has also developed some girly annoyances such as only wearing certain clothes. She has entirely ruled out overalls and one-piece pajamas. Apparently they're too confining. She also screams when Kaylee gets to wear princess clothes or pajamas and she doesn't. Isn't 20 months a little too young to care?

Well, I should let you know that I absolutely adore these two girls even if they are a little moody. They are so much fun and they definitely keep me laughing.

Howdy Friends!

Well, it's been a while, but life is going good. I'm sure you're wondering about how our Thanksgiving went. j/k Gosh that seems like it was a long time ago. We hosted Thanksgiving this year and it was lovely. I finished another semester at BYU (after some finals week chaos of realizing a 10-page paper was no longer saved on my computer 2 1/2 hours before it was due and driving on super-nasty roads to make it to a final). Needless to say everything turned out just fine and I'm getting closer to graduation...12 credits after this semester. Hip Hip Hooray! I'm getting antsy to be done. We had a fantastic Christmas and enjoyed time with family. The girls were tons of fun on Christmas morning. I loved picking out their presents this year- I had a hard time stopping. Chris got me some XC skis and we went skiing on New Years Day. It was way fun. I'm sure it would have been quite entertaining watching me. I did not have very good rhythm when I tried to go fast, but I made it all the way up the trail and down again. I'm sure I'll get it down when we go a few more times. On the way down we skiied in the powder instead of on the trail. Granted we didn't have very much control. Here are some pics of our gracefulness.

January seems to always kind of drag on, but because of the nice weather it hasn't been bad at all. I've been able to take the girls out for walks and it's been really nice. We started a preschool with Kaylee where several moms in the neighborhood just take turns teaching. We also started dance class this week. Kaylee is the oldest in the class and she has taken it upon herself to help everyone else do the right moves. It's pretty funny watching her. Here are some pics of Kaylee and all her little princess friends. This is when we invited one friend over and three magically appeared.

Well, life is good. I hope everyone is enjoying the new year!