Christmas

Clint says I'm crazy.  But last month I had a fun moment that made me realize something I didn't really know before.

You know all the hoopla about "Christmas in July"?  I honestly thought it was all a commercial thing to get you to start spending money NOW on Holiday Cheer.  Lo and behold, I have discovered that Christmas in July is, in point of fact, a natural desire.  How else can you explain my 5 year-old singing Christmas songs, begging to watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "The Year Without A Santa Claus", and bugging over and over to make snowflakes to hang in our bay window?  There's no way that she could read my inbox and know that Better Homes and Gardens has been sending me Christmas Craft ideas, nor could she really understand the random advertisements on the sidebars of websites...  ESPECIALLY since she only is allowed to get on starfall.com and fancynancyworld.com. 

SO... I decided to follow her lead and actually opened one of those pesky emails from BHG, and you know what?  I'm suddenly SO excited for Christmas!  I've started my list, and am hoping to have the bulk of my projects and crafts finished by the end of September.  I SO want to be finished with Christmas prep by December 1st, so that we can ENJOY the Holidays without all the stress.  I've done it in the past {once, in 2008} so I know it IS possible!  I'm doing a 1/2 homemade Christmas, and I'm SUPER stoked for what I have up my sleeve for this year. 

Am I totally nuts?  Yeah, probably.  Am I totally excited?  You BET!!!!!  Anyone care to join me??

4th of July Reminder...

For all the locals out there -

Don't forget about the annual 4th of July Breakfast at the park between the library and the fire station at 6am!!  I personally won't be there at 6 {I'm pretty sure on that one!} but will definitely be showing up for it!!  This year they're having an authentic chuck wagon come on down for some show and tell while we eat yummy pancakes, bacon and eggs.  Sound pretty cool to anyone else?!?

See you there!!!  {If you come closer to 7 that is!}  :O)

Oh, and P.S.  Maelee's birthday post is in the works, PROMISE!!!

What a week!!

Saturday:  Photo shoot in the cold, cold, cold wind.  I felt bad for the baby I was snapping photos of!  And my last piece of pizza WITH the crust for 2 years! {see previous post if you're lost}

Sunday: Surprise birthday party for Brian that started pretty great, the middle was pretty rocky and ended pretty good.  Let's just say that as a note to self - scavenger hunts shouldn't involve permanent markers!

And, I really REALLY hope someone got a pic of Brian with "I love Michele" on his forehead!  And, yes, I wrote on Clint and Michele's heads and yes, it was WEIRD!!  {Don't worry, I have stuff that takes off permanent marker}  :O)

Monday:  Valentine's Day!!  This year was the best V-Day in 6 years!  Kid you not.  It was the first in 6 years that Clint hasn't been at high school state wrestling, so we made the best of it!  We went back and forth between going on a date just us, and going on a family fun date... We both decided that the girls needed some Daddy time too, and not just me.  :O)

In the morning, I got up and made the girls and I heart and flower pancakes with buttermilk syrup {yummy!!!}, then we did our chores.  I let Madi pick a craft out of my Family Fun magazine and we worked on that for a while, then ran to the store.  I let Mads pick out a new umbrella as her present from me and Clint {we got Maelee a flashlight}, and she also picked out the complete Chronicles of Narnia for Clint.  {I thought that was a pretty good choice for a 4 year old!}  We came home and had heart-hot dogs for lunch, then watched a fun movie together.  Clint got off work early and when Maelee got up from her nap we headed to the duck ponds! 

We LOVE that place.  It's where Clint and I first told each other that we loved each other.  It's where he proposed, and it's where we always go for special dates - either just us or as a family.  I know, totally sappy but we love it!  :O)  The girls had a blast feeding the ducks and running from the geese.  Usually when we go there the ducks are so full that they're pretty lame but this time they were all starving which made it really fun.  We always take our roller blades and usually push the girls in strollers, but Madi has a bike now so she had a great time riding around herself.  Be sure to watch the videos on the Slidebox, they're pretty cute.  I have to apologize for the crappy quality of the pictures, I used the piece of junk camera I found in a closet until we get a new pocket camera.  I love my big camera, but sometimes it's SO inconvenient!  Thus, we had a convenient camera, and crappy pics as a result...  Oh well, at least they're pictures, right?!?  And, FYI you can click on a pic in the Slidebox, and it will get big so you can see it better.

This scrapbook design customized with Smilebox

For dinner, Clint and I picked up burros from this little Mexican shop {where we met, again, sappy I know!}, and he let me get chips and salsa since I can't have them for 2 years {see previous post}.  We got chicken nuggets for the girls, and while we were eating at home, there was a mysterious knock on the door... {When I was growing up, we had a special tradition called The Phantom.  The Phantom would come sometime during Valentine's Day and leave treats for everyone.  It was always so fun and it's something that we're carrying on for our kids}  It was The Phantom!!  Madi and Maelee each got a new book and some chocolate, and Mom and Dad got a box of chocolates each.  Love that Phantom!  :O) 

I know most couples watch lovey-dovey movies on V-Day, but Redbox was out so we chilled to "Red" instead!  LOL  It was a GREAT Valentine's Day!!

Tuesday:  Pre-school, photo shoot, feed the missionaries {who didn't show, I think they thought we forgot and didn't want to be rude and just show up...}

Wednesday: Photo shoot

Thursday:  Pre-school, appointment with the periodontist to have 2 holes cut in my head.  It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Serious!  Having my wisdom teeth pulled was FAR worse, and the pain lasted MUCH longer with those.  I'm pretty tender, but that's about it {of course, I'm making sure that IBProfen stays in my system...  That's probably helping!!}.  The teeth were hidden under a very thin layer of bone, which he had to drill and chip away at to expose the teeth, and they were also partially impacted in the bone on the roof of my mouth, so he had to drill and chip away at that also.  You would think I would be in more pain, huh?!?  He was able to attach the brackets, and I have a follow-up app with him next Thursday to make sure all is well.  Then Monday the 28th it's braces time!!  I have this horrible feeling that once they start pulling these teeth backwards, THAT's when the real pain will start...  We'll see, eh?  But as for now, I'm living on milk shakes and pureed... everything!  {I even pureed stir-fry last night...}  AND, the "don't eat this and that" has already begun {hence the no more chips and salsa!!!}.  I enjoyed my last chips and bagels this week, and Madi is pretty upset that I can't have pizza crust anymore, but she's stoked that she gets all my suckers for the next 2 years!  LOL  It almost felt like I was on death row, saying goodbye to those few things that I love {really all I'll miss is chips and salsa, pizza crust and bagels}, but I do have to say that I am definitely looking forward to less snacking and therefore hopefully some weight loss!  :O)  Who knew?!?

I'll have Clint take a few pics of the holes in my head with my good camera later and post them for you.  It's pretty gross looking, and definitely worthy of the good camera!!!

Funny ha ha

So I'm standing in line in the evil Wal-Mart last night and was bored so I let my mind wander.  Evidently I let my ears wander too cuz I started paying attention to these two ladies' conversation behind me. 

Lady number 1:  "Oh my gosh!  A secret wedding?  They got married?!"

Lady number 2:  "I thought they were already married!"

Number 1:  "No, they've just been living together."

Number 2:  "Wow!  I can't believe they finally got married then.  They have kids together and everything!"

At this point I take a peek back at them and realize who they're talking about.  On the cover of one of those celebrity trash talk magazines is the headline "Inside Brad and Angie's SECRET WEDDING!" {or something like that}.  I giggle and listen on as they go back and forth about this celeb and that celeb who are married, divorced or "just living together".  I guess the headline "Jessica is a home wrecker!  Details on how she stole her new fiance from his wife!" caught their attention because now they're saying,

Number 1:  "Wait, I thought he was already divorced when they started dating!"

Number 2:  "So did I!  I can't believe she would do such a thing!"

Number 1:  "She must have been just trying to out-do Nick because HE got engaged, like a month before!"

Number 2  "Wow.  What a tramp!  I always thought she was so nice.  What a shame..."

Number 1:  "I guess it just shows you that no matter how well you think you know someone..."

Number 2:  "I know it, I know it." {as she sadly shakes her head}

This next bit made me literally laugh out loud and be very grateful that I had the girls with me so I could pretend I had found them amusing instead of the 2 women behind me...

Number 1:  "I don't really follow celebrity gossip though, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised by all those headlines."

Number 2{as she stares intently on yet another celeb trash mag}:  "Yeah, me neither.  It's really none of my business what they do with their lives."

Were they joking?  Did they then laugh at how ridiculous they just were?  Did they even realize how stupid they sounded and how ironic their whole conversation was?!?

Nope.  No-sir-ee.  Uh-Uh.

Wow.  Then they moved on to gossiping about "real" people and "important" matters.  Too funny.  Made me giggle, I tell you what!

***

Moving on!  The girls helped me make butter pecan toffee right before Christmas, and helped us eat it too!  Poor Maelee's teeth got stuck together and made her make some FUNNY faces while she chewed!  LOL  This first pic is Madi showing me the tiny MnM's and thinking they are so cute and "just my size!  Can I eat ALL of them?!?"  Yes, she is my child and no, I didn't let her eat ALL of them.

This is Maelee's "my teeth are stuck together" face

This little girl does NOT like her hands to be dirty, but the chocolate WAS pretty good...

I love these girls, and they made the Holidays so much fun.  Hope you enjoyed yours as much as we enjoyed ours!!

Christmas Eve lasts FOREVER!

Why is it that the weeks leading up to Christmas speed by, and then Christmas Eve gets here and draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags on? 

And on?

And on?

And on?

It's only 3 and already I've slept in {thank you girls!}, eaten too much, taken a nap, played lots of games, watched a few movies... And I know that tomorrow will zip by and be over before I know it!  *Sigh*  I don't want the season to end but this day is ridiculously long!  :O)

Merry Christmas everyone!

I agree with the Grinch

It's true.  I honestly do!!  There is one line from that story that keeps running through my mind...

"I MUST stop this Christmas from Coming!  ...But how?"

Christmas is only 4 days away!  I'm SO {get this!} bummed!!!  Most of the magic of Christmas is the anticipation of it.  Next week we'll be surrounded by fun new things, and my girls will be entertained with all their fun gadgets and gizmos... and I'm the goober who doesn't want it to be here yet.  I want to prolong the season.  Once it's over, life goes back to normal.  We find a home for everything, put all the decorations away until next year, throw the tree out on the burn pile, and then it's just cold without anything special to look forward to.  *Sigh*  Maybe the Grinch and I will go on strike!  Ha ha.

We've had a nice December so far.  I've tried really hard to not get stressed out and to not over-do it.  {Thus, I am still undecided as to whether or not I will send out Christmas cards... they would really be more like New Year's cards at this point... LOL}

Madi and I did a fun project a few weeks back, I taught her how to make paper snowflakes. 

It was hard for her little hands to cut through so much paper, but she did a great job

and we made quiiiiiite a mess!

It took about a week to finish up, not because it was hard or anything, but more because it just took me that long to get my iron out! We ironed them so they would be nice and flat,

then we sprayed them with glitter spray and hung them over our bay window in the dining nook. So fun!!

Next came our ward party. It was CRAZY!! There were so many people that we ran out of tables and chairs! They had to pull some out of the classrooms and seat people out in the foyer. The Primary did the Nativity, and as you can see, Madi was VERY interested...

LOL She actually really DID get into it, and was basically sitting backwards in her chair the whole time. It just got a little long for her... Ha ha Evidently it did for Maelee too cuz this is how she watched the performance

Clint is SUCH a trooper! He gets the Super-Dad award! Then the girls saw Santa, and I'm so annoyed at my camera and flash that THIS was the best pic I got. Grrr!

The guy had actually grown out his beard and bleached it so it was white. Very cool! The kids were SO excited, Maelee almost jumped out of my arms to get to him, then they both stroked his belly while Madi told him what she wanted. When I reached for Maelee, she defiantly told me, "NO!!" and turned back to Santa to pet him some more. He thought that was GREAT, and rewarded her with a few tickles - to which she cupped his face and gave him a love. Too cute!

Last week was the last this semester for pre-school, so we had a party during the last hour on Thursday. The girls were SO adorable. {Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to Michele for the pictures!} First, we played "Hang the Ornament on the Christmas Tree"

All the girls got a few turns, and even Maelee and Marshall got a turn. :O)

Then we attempted to play the white elephant gift exchange game... Note to self, don't, repeat DO NOT play this game with 4-year-old girls! It's just not fair to the poor girl who gets her present taken! I felt so bad for Bentlee! Whoops!

Next, we had a junk break and decorated cupcakes to look like Rudolph. So cute!

That afternoon, Clint and I cashed in on some hour-massage gift certs he had gotten us for our anniversary back in June. HEAVEN!!! Then we went out to lunch {"This is like a REAL date! Wow!!"}, and got ready to head down to see my family for the weekend. As always, we were spoiled there and came home with heartburn from all the good food, a trunk full of fun toys and goodies, and lots of memories. I didn't bring my big, nice camera and forgot the SD card for my piece-o-crap-but-very-small camera... SO, I didn't get any pics of my family festivities. We also had a visit with Kiki, and I was able to get some from that before my internal memory was full.

Madi and Kapuai ran crazy dressed up like fairies, fun fun!

Maelee may look like she knew what she was doing, but she didn't stay on her feet for too long...

It was a great visit, and we are so happy to see Kiki and her family doing so well.

Merry Christmas too all, know that we love and are thinking of you!  And props if you made it through that!  :O)

I love... winter?

Before I get into all the hoopla for Christmas, I have to pass on the info that Madi had her staples removed this morning and it was quite the traumatic experience {almost more so than getting them IN!!}.  The nurse came rushing in to make sure we weren't killing her, that's about how loud her terrified screams were.  Of course, if you were being pinned to a table by your mom while a doctor came at your head with scissor-looking things, you'd probably be pretty freaked out too!  SO sad!  Trent, our family doctor and friend, did it as fast as he could - one staple actually flew across the room and the other fell and got caught in her curls in the rush.  Blah!! 

You MAY be able to tell in the pic, but rest assured that it's healing well and as a memo to all for future reference - he said that if you or your child ever have a head trauma like Madi's and you're out where you can't get to a doctor quickly, you can grab 2 pieces of hair from either side of the wound and tie them together.  He said that that works really nicely to close the wound back up until you can get medical attention!  Who knew?!

Last week was CRAZY 'round this place!  Aside from Madison's head-splitting adventure, she also had her performances for her FIRST play!!  They did "It's a Small World" and it was adorable!  She was a London Bridge - basically a cute kid in a school uniform who came out and sang the song.  Too cute!  I went to every show {except Friday night, I helped out back stage} and enjoyed all the little moments that the kids brought to the stage that weren't supposed to be there!!  LOL  Madi did great and I'm so proud of her!!!

I also did the HS Wrestling pics and Clint helped out at our local HS's Invitational.  Needless to say that by Sunday we were pretty exhausted and the girls both took a 3 hour nap... at the SAME time!!  LOVED it!

NOW FOR CHRISTMAS!!

The weather has been so screwy around here lately, we had a freezing cold front move in around Thanksgiving and stay for a while, but thankfully it has since passed on.  This week it's been back to flip-flops and short-sleeves!  Crazy.  And yet the mountain is starting to collect drifts of snow!  Gotta love the dessert!  :O)

We finally got our tree up and it's so pretty!  Madi did a great job helping me decorate it this year.  I told her the cardinal rule of tree decorating: You never, ever put 2 things that are alike next to each other.  You need to spread them around so it looks nice and even.  This was her plan of action: Place her princess ornaments all around the bottom of the tree {good}, then place a fairy ornament right next to each princess so that they all would have a friend.  "They're not the same, Mom!  Princesses and fairies are different!"  Well... sigh... yes, that is correct.  Can't fight that logic!  LOL  It's adorable and I love it.

Since our tree was up, Madi insisted that it meant our presents needed to be wrapped, so I made a trip to the devil's store {yes, I mean Wal-Mart.  We SO need a Target!} and knocked out a big chunk of my shopping, then spent a few hours wrapping... the large amount of time was mainly due to the fact that I was half wrapping, half watching a movie.  :O)

We got our house lights up right after Turkey-Day, and our other house decor up before that.  It's been so fun to see it slowly come together, and now we're all decked out, narrowing down those last few purchases and almost ready for the big day.  Of course, Madi keeps insisting that we open the presents right now cuz Santa will bring us more and we need room under the tree for when he does... Oh, she is SO my child when she thinks like that!  Ha ha ha!

Holy WOW cow!!

I mean that with all the fiber of my being.

I am sorry for the slacker-off-er-ing of my blog posting.  I have had 15 photo shoots in the last 6 weeks and have 3 more this week!  NOW you understand the "WOW", eh?  :O)  It's keeping me busy and has totally thrown off my sleeping schedule... Instead of going to bed around 9 I've turned back into the night owl I was before I had wee ones.  11:30pm is about the norm nowadays.  Thank heavens my girls have been sleeping in until 8!!!!!!!  LOL

I love it though, {not the staying up late part} I'm having SO MUCH FUN with these pictures I've been taking and with the whole photog business part of my life.  It's been just enough to re-charge my Tiffany batteries, enough of a break from being Mom that I really look forward to finishing up my editing and spending the Holidays spoiling my girls with attention.  I think everyone needs that once in a while, you know?  Click here to see what I've been able to post so far of the chaos that has been Simply Photography!

Halloween was super fun this year, I made the girls matching lady bug costumes!  They were frickin' adorable in their wings and skirts {which will double as their Christmas dresses, how smart and thrifty am I?!}.  I saw the idea in Pottery Barn, and their costumes were $70!  EACH!!  Just for the wings and skirts!  I made both girls', with fabric to spare and having bought a shirt for Maelee and a leotard for Madi and their skirts, for under $20.  GO ME!  LOL

We went to the trunk-or-treat and they had a blast dancing, singing, twirling, getting candy, riding the train ride {Madi rode a horse-train that bounced her all over the place!  Her curls were priceless boinging like that!}, and eating cotton candy.  Love my nerdy children!  

I know there was something else I was going to post about but my brain is fried.  Love to all and hope you're doing well!

Clint is aaaaaaalmost old!

Haha, aren't I funny?  :O)  Ok, ok, ok... he actually has been aaaaaalmost old for over a month now, but I'm barely getting around to writing about it and I figure better late than never {that's kind of my motto for life, and plus it's always fun to poke fun at the fact that he will forever be older than I am!}  >:O}  That's my evil smiley face!

We were lucky enough to go camping for Clint's 29th birthday this year {I KNOW!  I said he was getting up there!  LOL love you babe!} and since he works 4 tens, we left Friday morning instead of evening.  This was good... and bad.  Good in that we were able to escape the heat earlier, but bad because we had 2 girls with lots of energy and no other little kids to help them burn it!!  Seth and Courtney came up an hour or 2 after us, but were at a different cabin so it took a few more hours to settle in before we got to play.

Saturday morning we thought we would be so adventurous and hike a mile trail up to a tower on top of the mountain... Let's look at the logic... rather the ILLogic behind this expedition:  6 adults.  Two 4 year olds, one 2 1/2 year old and three itty-bitties 14 months and under.  Does anyone else see why we thought this was a good idea and then quickly decided it wasn't so much?!?  LOL  We actually had a great time; the hike was beautiful, the weather was nice, the kids did awesome even though the hike turned out to be more like 2 miles and it was all uphill.

Aw, they're holding hands!!

See?  Maelee gave the hike a "thumbs up".  LOL  Of course, she got carried the whole way...

Such troopers!

Courtney showing off her tough muscles

My girls LOVE dogs and Jess {the pup} liked the way Maelee tasted  :O)

On one of our breaks, we stopped to play stickball with pine cones.  Logan did pretty well!

Clint found this seat cut out of a stump and I took advantage of 2 excited 4 years olds who needed a break and were willing to pose ever-so-sweetly...

When we reached the top, we were greeted by thousands of lady bugs!  The kids were so excited to hold them by the handful.  I've heard about but hadn't ever seen so many at once so it was pretty cool for me too.

Chloe has one on the back of her neck!  That little bug got nice and cozy and stayed there for a few hours.  Too cute!

Madi is getting a handful from under the rock in the above pic.

Then we climbed the tower.  Madi was beyond ready to go all the way to the top, but Clint was the wise Daddy and stopped her at the first landing.

Logan was more than content to keep his feet on the ground and instead enjoyed swinging an Aspen tree around.

I climbed all the way up and had an amazing view!!  I was sad that Clint didn't come up when I went up {he stayed with the girls}.  It would have been fun to give him a smooch in that shaky old tower!  :O)

On the way back, Clint saw this HUGE tree.  Isn't it cool?

Madi ended up hiking all but about 15 minutes {she was just TOO tired and Clint carried her for a small stretch so she could re-charge and we could keep moving}.  I was so proud of her!  She slept VERY well that night!

You may have noticed Logan's cap gun.  He was so stinkin' cute with that thing!  Madi wanted to have a turn shooting it and so he very carefully showed her how to line up the bump of black powder in the right spot.  Then {just like in the movies!} he hands her the gun and puts his arms around her, scoots in close and tells her "you hold it like this and then shoot it like this..."!  OH MY GOSH!!!  I was dying!  It took every ounce of strength to not bust up giggling!  When he saw me watching, he quickly dropped his arms and looked down, SO embarrassed!  Yeah, he KNEW juuuuuust what he was doing!  I wanted to tell him that he's 4 and so I'm not too worried about him hitting on my daughter, in fact I would have LOVED a picture of it!  :O)

It was SUCH a fun weekend for us, and Clint got spoiled {hiking backpacks for him AND our dog, Bear - I know... a pre-order for Halo Reach, money, a dutch oven and a peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream}.  I love my boy and I can't wait for his next birthday when he turns 30!!!  I'm TOTALLY planning a funeral party complete with teeth-shaped ice cubes, a grave yard cake and an invitation for everyone to wear black so mark your calendars!!  LOL