meeeeeee

Lily: Who dabba cana la too fana? (short pause as her hand shoots up into the air)
Lily: Meeeeeee!

Repeat several times in a row.

We don't know what Lily is asking, but we do know that she wants us to raise our hand in agreement and shout "meeeee" with her. Hopefully we aren't agreeing to anything too absurd.

Christmas 2009

I thought it was weird this morning that Ella was wondering around the house without asking to open presents. Finally after a while, she asked, "Did Santa Claus come last night?" Somehow she missed the presents that were practically sitting in the middle of our family room.

We had a great time at Nana & Papa's house for a late lunch.

Lily took her clothes off every time someone opened an article of clothing in hopes that she could wear the clothing herself.

A day or two ago I wished upon Facebook for a bicycle mustache. Thanks to Tyler's brother, Ryan, my silly wish was granted.

Cherese brought an array of fashionable shoes with her from Las Vegas. The girls had fun putting on a fashion show wearing her shoes.

Lily was reunited with her fun friend.

Ella & Lily are so lucky to have so many fun cousins to play with.
Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve Party

Emily & Justin hosted our Christmas Eve party this year. The theme was "Christmas Caroling." Emily made cute customized place settings that looked like each of us, and held yummy candies.

The girls loved watching Ryan dance.

We made our annual Christmas Eve book. We each made a page with a "new" Christmas Carol. Some were cute, others were very silly. Our white elephant gift exchange was fun as usual. Thanks for a fun night everyone!

Lily got socks, we got a new ornament

Lily got a pair of socks for her birthday. A few days later we found this handmade ornament hanging on our tree.

Following the rules & achieving the impossible

Right now it seems more impossible than achievable but we are determined to achieve the impossible. It's time for us to REALLY start getting ready for a trade show we are attending. We’ve been trying to get ready for it for months, but there is still a lot to do. We have 101 press kits to write & put together, 500 promotional notebooks to make, 1,500 catalogs to design & put together, postcards to design(10,000), put together & print order forms, 6 new stamp sets to design, have produced, & package, New business cards to design, booth flooring to find & order, 50+ card samples to make, and an entire booth to design, book a hotel, figure out kids schedules & babysitters.
So, my list above seems overwhelming, but possibly doable. (We have about 20ish days to get it all done.)
Here’s the impossible part:
While reading the 144 rule page for the convention we are attending, we discovered the following;
Items above (Including our entire booth walls) must all fit on one wheeled 3 feet by 4 feet pushcart, 8 pieces or less can sit in cart, weighing less than 200 pounds, we may use only one trip from our car to booth area, we must use an approved qualifying vehicle to deliver our booth materials, we MUST set up in less than 30 min. Only ONE person may set up... no tools can be used for set up. So, what happens if we exceed our time limit? We must pay a union worker $250 an hour to finish setting our booth up for us, paying the minimum of 1 hours time. What happens if we exceed our weight limit for our booth materials? If it weighs more than 200 lbs, we must hire a forklift & 2 union members to bring our items in costing us another $417, plus then we can no longer set up our own booth, we have to pay the union worker!
Does this make anyone besides me nervous? Has anyone ever done a trade show before that can give us any pointers? Our walls alone take at least 10 minutes each to set up. We have 3 walls, plus some sort of flooring (we haven't figured that part out yet.) We are very nervous about the 200 pound limit. So... as I'm busily working on my list of “things to finish for the show” creating promotional products & etc. I not only need to weigh it all, but I somehow have to figure out how to fit it into 5 boxes that can fit next to our 3 large display boards on the 3 x 4 pushcart.
As you can tell by my posts lately... I'm very needy right now. Help? Suggestions? Anyone done this kind of a show before?
Between getting ready for the show, building a house, running the businesses, and church/service/daycare/cookery this month... Tyler and I are ready to be declared officially insane.

Which one do you like?

My whole purpose of starting & keeping a blog, is a way to keep a record of the fun things our family has done, along with all the silly things Ella says. While that is still my main purpose... I can't help liking the fact that I have an audience (although small) that I can get an opinion from every now & then.

It's almost time for Tyler and I to start choosing & ordering lighting for our new house. Although this is my favorite part of building a house, I'm having a hard time deciding which chandelier to choose for the ceiling above the dining room table. What's you're opinion? Which do you like the best? Have you seen one somewhere else that you like better? I've been trying to find an affordable "ALL white" one with no success... have you seen one somewhere? Are my choices above way too fancy?

We have decided to put our $25 chandelier in our bathroom... thanks to your earlier voting.

Your interior design skills & opinions are greatly appreciate!

Ella on Ice

Ella has been begging me to take her ice skating since she was 2. Her day has finally come. We were invited to a fun Ice Skating birthday party. I thought for sure that this would end Ella's consistent nagging for me to take her ice skating. I thought she would find it too difficult. I was wrong. Ella loved it and she did very well. It looks like we'll be making a trip to our local skating rink very soon.

4 minutes of peace and quiet

I wish I could say that Lily’s body art (shown above) is just her getting into everything as usual... but I'm sorry to say that it just isn't the case. I purposely gave Lily a permanent marker. Tyler and I were attempting to run "construction" errands yesterday, and I just couldn't take her crying any longer. With Tyler's approval I handed a black permanent marker back to her, knowing that she would color on herself & the car. I regret doing so. She obviously colored on herself & the car as I had predicted she would. I don't like that I just taught her that it's okay to color on herself. I had a nightmare last night that she got an ugly tattoo, all because I taught her it was okay.

Please tell me I'm not the only mom who’s done something lame for 4 minutes of peace.
The whole purpose of this blog post is for you to leave your "bad" mom stories (if you have any) below so that I don't feel so bad about mine.

*Note: Lily gave herself that black eye, I just didn't want you all to think I'm the WORST mom ever.

Dance Recital

Ella & Katie warming up for the recital.

Brielle, Katie, Lily’s legs/Ryan’s head, & Ella.

Ryan & Ella

Ella cried because she didn't want to wear her costume. Lily cried because she wanted to wear Ella's costume. Luckily we had this purple dress up skirt for Lily to wear. She insisted on wearing the (too large) boots with it. I was glad that she left her swim goggles at home, however it probably would have prevented the black eye she got last night.

Studio 5

I got a phone call yesterday from Studio 5 asking me to come show my snowflake banner tutorial. Although I'm not a fan of giving talks in church, public speaking or being on T.V. I couldn't turn down free publicity. Trisha came with me. It was difficult to find something to wear that fit with their requirements. The sweater I'm wearing above lost a button on my way to the show. I had hoped to be able to stop at the mall beforehand to buy a cute green cardigan I had my eye on, but time didn't allow for it. I was glad that I had not had time to buy the piece of clothing since, Brooke, the lady who interviewed me was wearing the exact cardigan I was planning to purchase and wear to the show.

Happy Birthday Lily!

The Nutcracker

Last year we went to the nutcracker ballet (for kids) with Ella’s preschool class. We all loved it! Tyler’s parents gave me some money for my birthday this year, and I just couldn’t resist spending it on tickets to see the ballet again. My sister-in-law Jami & her kids, along with my mom came with us this year. Ella was thrilled that the dancers “sorted themselves into the right color groups.” Lily almost cried during the intermission because it was too long, she wanted to watch the performance again.

Thank you D.J. & Karma for the fun birthday present!!!

If anyone wants to come with us next year, let me know... I think this is becoming a tradition for us.

Yay for the weekend

This week has been crazy. Besides being sick, I was assigned to tend Ella’s friend every day. I didn't get very much work done this week. Although Ella adores her friend, she has a hard time unwinding after being around friends for a long period of time. Ella's friend also LOVES to torment Ella... and for some reason Ella seems to LOVE to be tormented by her. After a full week of complete messes and lots of tears & screaming by both Lily & Ella we were very excited to drop the girls off at my mom & Trisha's annual Christmas Cookie Party. They had a great time making mini pizza's and cookies. Tyler and I went and ate dinner in peace. Thank you mom & Trisha.

The next morning was our “Nogger Party.” Aren’t the mini hats Emily made for it cute?

Lily's favorite ornament

Ella & Lily decorated the tree. Lily quickly found her favorite ornament.

I didn't grab the camera fast enough to catch her sucking on the glass Binky while still hanging from the tree.

Lily also likes to hang it from her toes.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a nice Thanksgiving. Tyler's parents invited us over for a yummy dinner. Tyler's brother Ryan, brought his 2 dogs up from St. George. Lily instantly became best friends with the Pit Bull. She didn't leave her side the entire day or night. I couldn't quite make out what Lily was talking about, but she defiantly had a lot to tell her new friend. There was a time when Tyler's brother left for a while, and locked his dogs up while he was gone. Lily was devastated throwing numerous temper tantrums, and running around the house crying, "My doggie, where's my doggie?" We finally had unlock the dog, and I don't think I've ever seen Lily so happy to be reunited.

DIY Snowflake Garland

If you are looking to make some affordable winter and Christmas decorations, these snowflake Garlands (similar to my leaf garland) are very easy and inexpensive to make. CLICK HERE for my tutorial and to download my snowflake pattern. Feel free to share it with friends and family on your own blog.

An early Thanksgiving & some good news!

We celebrated Thanksgiving early tonight. As you can see by the gifts below, Trisha-Claus made an appearance at the festivities.

Ella and Cait had fun making and decorating ornaments.

Trisha-Claus gave all the girls cute matching silver skirts. Lily LOVED hers. She carried it around most of the night, until she got tired of carrying it around and finally just put it on.

Lily & Trisha

I couldn't get Lily to take her new skirt off tonight when I put her to bed... she insisted on wearing it to bed.

Speaking of bed and Thanksgiving. I am soooo thankful that my kids are officially sleeping through the night! YAY! They still have a night here and there where they have bad dreams or don't feel well, but for the most party they are sleeping! Not only are they sleeping through most nights, they are going to bed early and sleeping until morning. I know I keep going on and on about it, but I thought this day would never come. I just can't tell you how happy I am. Ella has always had a hard time sleeping for most of her life due to her high anxiety. She finally started sleeping better this Spring... but Lily was still not sleeping through the night. In fact, Lily refused to sleep most of this year, probably because she was teething? Sometimes I don't think she was really in pain though, she just wanted to play during the night. Then, this summer Ella stopped sleeping again as well, due to her case of Roundworm which made her cough all night & her tummy hurt. Well, we think & hope that Ella's roundworm is finally gone & Lily has most of her teeth now. So YAY! Now Tyler and I just need to teach ourselves how to sleep again. We are so used to being up all night for the past Five and a half years, that we have a hard time settling down at night.

Happy 88th Birthday to my Grandpa

I love listening to, and reading all about my grandpa’s life stories. There’s the time he wanted to trick his roommates by telling them a fugitive was hiding in their room... to his surprise there really was. (apparently this was a story he told about his dad... I was corrected.)

Once, when he was young he put a mouse in his teachers desk.

On his wedding day, with just 3 hours before he was to be married, he was flying a plane, trying to pass a test, and didn't know if he would make it to his wedding. He was in the air-force and could only get the day off if he passed his test. This was the only day the temple would be open for the rest of the year. Luckily he passed and was able to hitchhike a ride from an ambulance who turned on his red lights and and his siren so that my Grandpa could make it to the temple on time.

The stories are of course more interesting & detailed when my Grandpa tells them.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Proper utensils

Lily likes to use a fork & a spoon simultaneously to eat her soup.

Here is a picture of her enjoying a bowl of Cheerios. She does not use a spoon nor a fork, but rather a red pen.