January 2012

A little leftover Christmas stuff. These are the pajamas I made for Katie and Elayna for Christmas. I just sewed a skirt on the bottom of oversized shirts, but I think they turned out very cute. I put ruffles on the skirts so they worked better.

Alisha's family gave our family a box of crafts for Christmas. These are some of the finished projects:

Puppets:

Dog made with clay, and cardboard pieces:

Pig:

Horse/cow and Cow/horse. (the legs and tails are switched. Katie and Elayna thought this was hilarious.)

Farm animals. They start with a basic shape, then the box had a ton of different types of material to glue on. Buttons, feathers, crepe paper, die cuts, stickers, pipe cleaners. Very fun.

Katie and Elayna have had so much fun with these crafts. There were 16 different projects with all the necessary items included. In fact, there was quite a lot of stuff left over, that we can use for other projects. It was such a great gift! Thanks again Alisha!


Us girls at Christmas time, by our tree.  I think I had Ryan take this picture because we ALL actually had our hair done.  :) 

Annalisa's cute little smile:

Jessica and Annalisa. They are 6 weeks apart, and really look alike. Some of their mannerisms are the same, and their features are also. I love that they are holding hands.

Another cute picture of Annalisa. I think she looks so adorable in hats! 

I was putting a jacket on Elayna, and this is the conversation we had:
Elayna- I want my hat on for so I can be like a doctor.
Me- Ok. Do doctors wear hats?'
Elayna- Yes, in the rain, but we don't see them. 1-3-12

Katie explained, correctly, the Plan of Salvation to Elayna. She talked about how we lived in Heaven before we came to Earth, that Jesus was crucified, and Resurrected, and that we can be together as a family after we die.  Ryan and I were pretty impressed. 1-5-12

Katie is so creative and comes up with fun and new ways to do stuff. We were talking about seasons, and she explained this project to me. She wants a string, then she will put a hole in a flower, then get dead leaves and put the flower and dead leaves all around the string and make a crown. She wanted to do the same thing with fall leaves.

Katie's thoughts on the digestive system:
The drinks go down a straight line because it goes down fast. The food line is zig zaggy and that's why it takes longer to get to your tummy. Katie and Elayna talked about how they can feel liquids going down so fast. 1-5-12

Elayna got 5 pennies from my Mom for something, and she got so excited!! She was jumping up and down and gibbering something about Chuck E Cheese in a high pitched excited voice. It was quite the reaction!

She says "car" when identifying the letter "r". 1-5-12.

Annalisa pats me on the back when she is happy to see me. She started using "da, ga, ma, ba" sounds today. 1-10-12

Katie was discussing the weather and how they watch the news at school. She said "we can only watch the news on a disc."  (I don't think she understands the concept of TV stations. The only time she watches cable or satellite or whatever is at other's houses. Radio and Cable are very foreign to her. She just thinks everything should be available when she wants to see or hear it.)
Katie wants glasses so bad! Abby and Hannah, the two cousins that are almost exactly her age, both have glasses. Plus, I went and got new glasses also. She really wants me to go buy her some fake glasses so she can just wear them around.  So I did:

 She actually didn't seem to like them much at first. I think maybe she wanted to choose her own. But a couple months later, she started wearing them all the time, everyday, for about a week.  Funny girl.

Elayna- This book is like Grandpa Jerry! (pointing back and forth between pictures) Gray, Gray, Same, Same! 1-11-12

Elayna was playing a game with me, and she wanted to go play by herself. I said, "I thought you liked to play with your mom." Elayna replied, "I do, but sometimes I want to do stuff that is really really fun." 1-18-12

Katie and Elayna, having a picnic outside, on January 20. Is it more crazy that they did it, or that the temperature was nice enough they could? 

Annalisa said, "Dadada". She's also been using "ga, ba, da". 1-13-12

Conversation between Katie and I:  1-20-12
Katie-It's Mr Argyle's birthday today!
Me-Who is Mr Argyle?
Katie-the guy that talks in the morning.
Me-He's the principal. That means he is in charge of the school.
Katie-No! Mr Goudy is in charge of the school! (Mr Goudy is the custodian, and also, our Bishop)

Annalisa said, "Mama" today. I think she says, "na na na" when tired. She also says "Ma!" when she is trying to get my attention. 1-22-12

 Irma did her hair all pretty:

 Annalisa looking at a picture of her dad: 

Loving the mirror:

Annalisa can scoot backwards and can turn in a circle. She wants to pull herself up on anything. She's very close to doing it by herself. She loves real food and loves water in a sippy cup. She loves Mangoes. She saw a picture of my parents and visibly recognized them. She grinned and pointed. Annalisa dances by moving her torso up and down or back and forth when she hears music. We have a book called "Touch and Feel Baby Animals" that has different textures. She loves to read it over and over. If you put the book down before she is done, she will grunt "heh!" or yell till you pick it back up. She loves to touch the different textures. There is one that says, "scratch the baby elephant's ears" and she has heard it so much that she will scratch before we even read it. Her feet are sticking out of the car seat already. She loves baths!! She hears the water running and gets so excited.  She will grin and wave her arms and wriggle all over.

Katie was Student of the Week, which meant she got to wear a paper crown with her name on it, and bring a Show and Tell on Friday. She was pretty excited about it. 
She was sick, and I was trying to explain how antibodies work. It boiled down to, in her words,  "the fighty bugs (antibodies) beat up the bad bugs (germs) and make them leave".

Elayna is still struggling with potty training.      She is so dramatic about everything! She gets incredibly excited with something simple, like, she gets to have a pink cup for lunch. Of course, the opposite is true also. She will burst into tears if she doesn't get the pink cup for lunch.
After Katie goes to school in the mornings, I put Annalisa down for a nap, and Elayna and I just play for a bit. We play games, read books, or put puzzles together, or she helps me do work (like cleaning bathrooms. Why is that so fun for kids?) It has been nice to have the one-on-one time to spend with her. 1-31-12

December 2011

My messy and happy Annalisa:

I wanted some closeup pics of all the girls. Elayna's fake smile:

Her "real" smile-when I ask her to smile pretty, this is what she does. Leans her head into her shoulder and smiles sweetly.

Katie's happy smile.

 

 Then I kept taking pictures while she was talking, and I thought this was cute too:  

Katie did her hair all by herself:

Ryan put blue icicle lights on the roof line of our house, then lights up the center of the tree, with nets on the branches. I think it looks really fun. The picture didn't turn out great, but trust me, it looks good.

My cute girls, snuggling in a blankie together. Well, Katie and Elayna are snuggling. It looks like Annalisa is trying to escape:

I love seeing Annalisa's feet like this. I remember Katie and Elayna doing this also. It's so cute!

One night, we were downstairs, and the girls thought it would be funny if we took a picture of us all "asleep". This is the result:

Katie loves to collect anything and everything. One day I went in and cleaned out all her drawers and shelves. These are some of the things I found:
-jewels, -necklaces, -bracelets, -pictures, -beads, -a "special" cup from Kylie (I had written Kylie's name on it so she would know which drink was hers ) -pictures colored and given to her from cousins, -a bag of different colored corn from Hannah, -pieces of broken hangers, -moldy carrots, -candy wrappers, -grocery ads, -bandage wrappers, -paper snowflakes, AND the pieces from the holes in the paper snowflakes, -and my favorite, some little rocks.
I wasn't sure what they were, until I remembered one day, when I was grinding some wheat.  The wheat bag that I was using had small rocks in it that I would fish out one by one so it didn't ruin my grinder. I had a little pile of them to the side of the machine. Katie took them, and, you guessed it, kept them.
These things are all important to Katie for some reason or another. I'm not sure why, but in the past, whenever I've tried to throw away wrappers, for instance,  she will start crying and say she really wants to keep it. So I was a little nervous to see her reaction when she came home from school. She went into her room, and it was silent for a long time. Just as I was bracing myself for a crying fit, she came out and said, "Thank you so much for cleaning my stuff and doing my chores!" That wasn't exactly what I wanted her to get out of it, but I'm glad she wasn't upset about it. 12-19-11

When I ask Elayna what book she wants, she usually replies with something like this, "I don't know...I don't know what one, do you know where is it? The different one? not the other book, the different one?" Or if I ask her what song she wants me to sing to her before she goes to bed, "You choose". I'll start listing some songs, and then she will say, "No, no, the other one?"  And I'm always expected to know the right answer.  12-19-11


I've had Urinary Tract Infections for the last year and a half. I was on antibiotics the whole time I was pregnant, and I've had 3 or 4 since then. I finally went and saw a Urologist. After I had emptied my bladder (I thought), they did an ultrasound and there was still 10 oz in there. That's a lot, so Dr Kronmiller scheduled a cystoscopy and dilation. That means he can look at my bladder to see what is wrong, and then dilate part of the urethra that might be keeping the fluid in my bladder, instead of emptying it like it should. I went and saw him on the 27th of December, and he said he was keeping the 31st of December open for people who wanted to have procedures done this year. Since we had met the deductible with Annalisa's birth, we decided to do it then. I was only under for about an hour, and I didn't have any pain. It took me a day to recover because I was really tired, but that was the worst thing, thankfully. I'll go back in 6 weeks to see if it worked.

Christmas 2011 is on a different post. Too many pictures to put them both together!

Christmas 2011

Katie's school had a "Polar Express" day on Dec 20th. They all read the book together, then each child decorated a "train" and they parade through the hall in their pajamas. This is Katie's:

 And Abby's, since her Mom couldn't come:

The next day, the Kindergarteners had a program for parents and families to come and watch them sing. This is one of the hats they put on. She's such a cute reindeer:

A picture of some of her class, with their hats on:

They also made and wore this Santa hat. Elayna really wanted to be in the picture also.

 Katie and Elayna really wanted to decorate sugar cookies this year. If you click on the picture, it will show a bigger picture, which shows how messy they were.

 Plus, then they started licking the bowl, and kinda having a free-for-all. I think they had lots of fun. I did too.

The next day, after all the cookies were frosted. Some of the cookies are completely covered with sprinkles. When I told them I wanted a picture, they wanted to put ribbons in their hair. They were good helpers, and we made some fun memories, I hope.

Annalisa, surrounded by toys, and happy to be sitting and playing: 

For some reason, these are the only two pictures I have of Christmas. These are the pajamas I made this year. It is just a too-large T-shirt, with some shimmery purple stuff sewn on the bottom. My next-door neighbor gave me 10-12 yards of the stuff, because she wasn't going to use it. I also made some flowy circle skirts for them. They all turned out really good. The fabric was kinda hard to sew with. It works really well if all the raw edges are covered. But if anything starts to fray, the whole thing falls apart. I didn't make the pajamas ruffled, at first. They tore through them right away, because their stride was too long. Then I ruffled them and put them on again, and they are lasting really well.

Getting ready to open their Play-doh sets, I believe. 

We celebrated Christmas Eve at my parent's house. We didn't exchange gifts that day because Michael and his family will be here the first of January, and we will do it then. Christmas Day was nice. We all woke up around 9 am, did stockings, ate breakfast, and opened presents. Then my parents came over to visit, I made some lunch, and we went to just Sacrament Meeting for church. Then we rushed to Bowman's and opened our presents quickly so we would be ready when Palmers and Coronados came over. We did White Elephant gifts with them, ate, sang some songs, and came home around 9 pm. It is a crazy busy day, but we love it, and wouldn't want to spend it away from our families.

Annalisa does this all the time. I can't believe she can just bend in half like that! 

We actually decorated this after Christmas, but it was still fun. 

The finished house: 

Pretty girls in pretty dresses: 

 Working with Grandpa Jerry:

November, part two

Some notes that didn't get put into November's post:


We got a new roof on Nov 7, 2011. There had been some wind damage, and Mom suggested I talk to my homeowner's insurance about it. After they sent out a claims person, and he walked all over our roof, he said they could pay to have the front half of the roof re-shingled. (old shingles off, new ones on)
So we had a roofer come give us a bid, and it turned out that he could just put new shingles over the old ones, and it would all be covered by the amount the insurance was giving us. He said the warranty for 40 years would still be fine, and it would be a great roof, even with old ones underneath.
What a blessing: to get a brand new roof, and not have to pay for it at all!! Of course, our premium will go up, and I won't even know by how much until May, but for now, it seems great!


Katie is so great about helping and wanting to do what is right. Katie is so smart. She is doing so wonderful with reading, and she amazes me with all she learns in school. When I put Katie to bed, she wants me to rub her back and neck and sing "Love One Another". Then she falls asleep almost instantly.

When I put Elayna to bed, she has  a large variety of songs: "Song of a bird" (My Heavenly Father Loves Me), "that one Katie does?" (Love One Another), "Heaven" (I Lived in Heaven),  and "not the heaven one" (My Savior Loves Me). Sometimes she will just say, "think about it Mom" which means I need to list songs until I say the one she wants. After the song, I'll say, "I love you, sweet dreams, sleep well." I repeat it until she smiles or laughs. The last couple of days, after I repeat it, she will say "You only have to say it once Mom".  Then she blinks her eyes at me-which means I need to tickle her with my eyelashes, and she tickles my face with hers. She's fun to put to bed, and she is getting to the point that she almost only needs naps ever other day, or else it is hard to get her to go to sleep.

Annalisa likes to eat some baby food (peas, green beans, or applesauce, for now) mixed with cereal, drink some water, nurse on both sides, AND have about 3 oz formula before she goes to sleep.
Ryan usually gives her the bottle while I get the other two ready for bed. Then Ryan listens for all 3 of them until he comes to bed around 2 am. This helps me sleep so well for the first half of the night. I know Ryan will take care of anything that happens, and I don't have to worry about it.  Annalisa usually sleeps until 6, then goes back to sleep after I nurse her, until about 8 or 830. She'll go back down a little after 9, for 1 and 1/2 or 2 hours. Then she sleeps after lunch also, about 2 hours.  11-10-11


Ryan was released from the Elder's Quorum Presidency. I think he enjoyed being in the Presidency, but he is the Ward Choir Pianist already. Plus, with me being in Young Women's, he can watch the girls while I'm fulfilling my calling. He's so supportive! 11-13-11

Annalisa got her first tooth (bottom) on Thanksgiving Day. 11-24-11.We had a really nice Thanksgiving. We are blessed to have so much family around. We ate at Mickie's house, and ate dessert at my parent's house. We had a wonderful day.


Elayna will say, "What the heck-o?"
Elayna drew on a desk that I was trying to sell.  I was pretty upset about it and made her clean it up. When she told Irma about it later, she said that "Mom was just yelling and yelling and yelling."

Katie and Elayna were in the tub, and they were being noisy. I told them to be quiet because they were right next to the baby. (her room is right by the bathroom) They both gave me blank looks, then Katie said, "well, there is lots of space in between us..."  11-24-11

Ryan put up Christmas lights. We worked and played outside while he was doing that. The weather was so nice and warm. Ryan worked from home so that Katie, Elayna and I could go up and see the Temple Square lights with John, Emma, Irma, Denora, Kelsey, Taylor, Jasmine, Shelise and Lexy.It seemed like it was going to be too much work, but Irma and Ryan convinced me to go, and we had fun. Everyone helped me keep track of the girls, and it was a neat experience. When we got too cold, we would go into the Visitor's Center to warm up. 11-26-11

Dad sang the Bass Solo for the Messiah Sing-a-long again this year. I love going. I love to hear Dad sing, and I love to sing along, with Ryan by my side. 11-27-11

November 2011

It snowed tons on Nov 1. It broke some of our branches.

This poor tree was just resting on our roof, it had too much snow on it to stay up by itself.

The power was out for about 2 hours on Nov 2. Katie was at school. The sun shines right into their room, so they weren't even affected by it. Ryan had worked late the night before, so he was still home when it went out. So he got to sleep a little longer, since the power was out as far north as Springville. Elayna was so funny. She would try a light, then say, "It doesn't work!" I would say, "nope, the power is out. None of the lights work at all." We did this with EVERY light switch upstairs. "This light switch doesn't work either!!"

 It snowed again a lot on the 5th. This is Katie, clearing off the driveway:

A cute picture of Annalisa and Elayna:

Amanda, Alisha, and Mom ran a half marathon in St George the first weekend in November.  I got to come along, and bring Annalisa also. They did a great job! When they were about a mile from the finish line, they called me, and I went and walked from the finish line to where they were, then back to the finish with them. Annalisa was in a stroller. It was kinda windy and cold. Mom, Alisha, and Amanda were freezing. After the race, we went back to the hotel, and they sat in the hot tub for a long time, trying to warm up. Annalisa just sat in her carseat and watched us sitting in the hot tub. We did a little shopping, watched the movie "The Help" -very good-- and ate some dinner. Then we left the next morning. Poor Alisha. She flew into Salt Lake on Friday afternoon, drove to St George Friday night, ran a half marathon Saturday morning, then had to drive back to Salt Lake to fly home to the East Coast on Sunday. A very short and busy trip for her. I'm really glad she came though. It was so much fun to just hang out with my sisters and mom. They are my best friends. And Annalisa was so great. She had 4 "Moms" seeing to her every need, so I don't think she cried the whole weekend.

 At a restaurant after the race:

 Katie has been saying for a while that she wants bangs. So, Nov 10th, I asked Amanda to come and cut some for her. These are the before:

 and after pictures:

11-14-11 Apparently Katie  was getting too much attention for having her hair cut. It was one of those days where I wanted Katie to take a nap because she had gymnastics today, and she is usually pretty tired from the weekend anyways. Neither Katie nor Elayna took a nap, which makes us all grumpy. So I was doing my best to ignore them while they played in their room, I thought. Katie came out with a handful of blond hair and said that Elayna was cutting her hair. I went into the den/Annalisa's room, and saw Elayna sitting on the floor, scissors in hand, and hair stuck to her clothes. Thankfully it wasn't much, and it was long enough I can pull it back into clips. I asked her why she did it, and she said she was big, and her hair needed to be short because she was growing up.

I also wanted Katie to take a nap on the 14th, because my parent's went and saw Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella at a high school in Spanish Fork called ALA. I love R&H Cinderella, and they said it was an amazing show, mostly because of the costumes and scenery. I wanted to take my girls to go see it, and Ryan convinced me that it would be fun to just take Katie on a date and go. So as soon as gymnastics was over, we hurried and got dressed up, grabbed some food at Wendy's and rushed to the school. We got seats about 4 rows back, but on the very left side. It was so fun to watch Katie's reaction. She had no idea what a play was, and it was hard for me to describe it in a way that was different from TV. After the first lights darkening part, she said, "It's not over yet!". She said that each time the lights went down. And when the spotlights were on, she looked back to see where they were coming from. She wondered how they all knew how to do the dance at the ball. She was excited that we got to buy a treat and eat it while watching and waiting. (We got there about 15 minutes early.) She was physically jumping out of her seat during parts. I had her sit on my lap for a lot of it, because it was hard for her to see the stage really well. When the Fairy Godmother appeared, they made a loud popping noise and shot some confetti out, right in front of us. We all jumped! It was quite startling, and fun. Katie got all cute and excited when the Prince and Cinderella were walking in the garden and falling in love and about to kiss. It was like a physical manifestation of how my insides feel when a romantic and cute part in movies (or plays) happens. She was clutching my hand, kissing my cheek, and sitting on my lap. When we were leaving the school, Katie asked if we could watch another play soon. She was just so cute about the whole thing. She kept giving me hugs, holding my hand, and telling me she was having fun. What a sweetheart.

Ryan and Elayna had a date at home. Ryan brought some Taco Time home, and they watched Power Puff Girls. I guess one episode was about magical chalk that turned into whatever was drawn. Ryan said Elayna's face looked amazed and excited. A bunny bringing magical chalk to Bubbles, and then the chalk turning into something real? That is like Elayna's dream come true!

After Katie and I got home (around 945), we put her in bed, then Ryan and I just sat on the bed and compared notes about the night and the girls. It was really fun to just sit there and talk and laugh about how cute our wonderful girls are. It was so much fun to just watch their reactions to something new and different.

Annalisa in her high chair-eating some toys: 

Elayna's hair is getting so long: 

Annalisa  really wanted to touch those little animals that kept moving around:

Another snow picture (from the 19th):

Annalisa held her bottle all by herself for the whole feeding last night. I gave it to her in her crib, then put new water in the humidifier, moved some blankets around,  and Annalisa was still holding the bottle, even though she looked asleep. She is laughing so much more. Katie can get her to laugh almost anytime she wants.

I've been helping with Katie's class-it's been fun. Elayna and Annalisa came with me today (11-15-11) and Elayna seemed so in awe of it all. She followed Katie everywhere. Mostly because Katie kept dragging her places and telling her what to do, but you know. She sat quietly and walked in line to the library quietly. I think they both had fun with it. Katie is doing so well in school. She is reading the Sam Books. She is at Book 33 right now. It is amazing how she can learn 2-3 new words each time she reads a story. She is so smart!

Elayna knows all her letters, can count to 5, almost 10, with a little help.

We were going into a store, and I mentioned that we would need to go to the bathroom. I asked Elayna if her pants were dry. She said "No, the car water got them wet." What?? I clarified, "Is your underwear wet?"  "No, my pants are wet, but my underwear is dry." Okay, I guess I'll check that when we get inside. Then, as we are walking in, I noticed that the bottom of her pants were soaked up to about 3 inches. The "car water" must be puddles.  11-22-11

Annalisa's 6 month appointment was Nov 16, 2011. She weighs 17 lbs (66 percentile) and is 27.5 inches long  (94 percentile).  We took her for a well check up, and while the doctor was checking her ears, (almost as an afterthought,) he said she had a really bad ear infection in both ears! What?! I didn't even realize she was hurting! He gave us some antibiotics, and when we saw another doctor after the antibiotics were gone, he said the infection was all gone. Thank goodness for medicine!  Otherwise, she is growing and developing just as she should. She is eating a little baby food, and nursing a lot. She's a happy, fun baby.

Putting decorations on the Christmas tree!! I actually let Katie and Elayna put most of the ornaments on this year. I usually "forget" and decorate the tree while they are asleep, but I decided they should experience it.  I think they had fun. I put the most fragile decorations on by myself, but I thought they did a very good job of spacing the ornaments out pretty evenly, and making the tree look good.