Peer Pressure

Ella: Mom, If Lily tries to get me to smoke [a cigarette], I will tell her "no" and I will run around the table very fast, and even faster.

Apparently Lily is always chasing people around tables trying to get them to smoke. Luckily Ella has practiced running around our kitchen table, and is quite fast.

Quick Update

Tyler and I find and try to secure a rental almost daily. We had a great place secured, but found out a couple of days ago that the owners of the home decided they wanted to do some fancy landscaping, and increase the rent to $300 per month above what we had agreed on. Obviously Tyler and I were not willing to pay an extra $300 a month for landscaping that will most likely be covered with snow most the time we live there. We looked at some foreclosures, but wouldn't be able to move in for another 60 days. We've looked everywhere from West Jordan to Lehi. Yesterday we filled out a credit report for a home in South Jordan, but still haven't heard back from them when we'd be able to move in. The home still has lots of repairs, broken windows, & etc. Today we found a fabulous house, but it doesn't have carpet yet, and still needs to pass an inspection. We are supposed to start moving Monday. We are closing on our house Wednesday. I have a feeling we might be renting a U-Haul to store everything, and camping out a few nights until we are able to find a place. Ella asked if we could drive by the house we will be moving to, we told her we wanted to keep it a surprise.

We're moving

In case you haven't heard, we are moving next week. So this will be my last post for a little bit. We still don't know where we are going. We had plans to rent while we built a house, but yesterday Tyler decided there are lots of other options he wants to look into, so I guess it will be a surprise! There's nothing more exciting than waiting until the day before we have to move out to make a major decision.

Summer's over

I feel like we just celebrated the last week of summer. We are going to be so busy moving the next two weeks, we won't have much time to enjoy the weather. I hope it will still be nice in September so we can go swimming. (I finally have a swimsuit, now that summer is almost over. ) Yesterday Ella's new preschool teacher invited us over for a water party & picnic in her back yard. Ella & Mayci came too, they had fun in the little kid pool. We are very excited for Ella's new preschool this year!


Later, Tyler's Parents took us out for Mexican food. Tyler's brother and wife were in town & we were also celebrating "Papa's" birthday. Don't ask me what Ella's doing. She's doing this in all the pictures.

Dance Dance Revolution

Ella had fun playing Dance Dance Revolution today. Later, Tyler took her Miniature golfing with a bunch of dads and their daughters from the neighborhood. He was having too much fun to remember to take pictures.

Last Dance

Ella's Last Dance class was on Monday afternoon.
Ella is on in the front on the left, Cait is on the right of this video.

t-rex drawings

This first drawing is of T-REX. He has bloody teeth. Ella is standing happily next to him.

This is a drawing of T-REX. He has just eaten Ella's Nana. Tyler is about to rescue Nana from T-REX. Luckily Tyler has lots of spikes & sharp claws to make the rescue a little easier.

Funny Friday Memories

This incident took place almost exactly 2 years ago.

Tyler came home from work one day with some interesting news. Some guys he worked with told him about an old underground spider colony located just a few miles from where we lived. There were thousands of spiders living underground. They were huge, giant spiders. Incidentally, homes were starting to be built upon this spider colony. Holes were being dug for basements, and ruining the spiders homes, where they had lived underground for hundreds of years. The giant spiders were now free to run around above ground.

Next to this new neighborhood, were some apartment buildings. Many of the giant spiders decided to call these apartments their new home. The guys at Tyler's work told him that the spiders were so big, you could actually see them climbing over all the buildings from the road. Of course when he told me that, I insisted we get in the car right away and drive out to the apartment buildings to see them. So, off we went. It was already starting to get too dark to see anything. Before we knew it, we were there. I was so scared! At first we didn't see anything. It was too dark. We thought they would be crawling on the ground. Finally we looked up and saw one near the top of the building. Then we saw another, and another! They were huge! There was a spider above almost every window.

I worried that they would make their way to our home eventually. Tyler assured me they wouldn't, but I just knew a spider that big could probably travel fast. I worried about the spiders every day. Every time we went anywhere near the apartments, I insisted Tyler drive past them to see if the spiders were still there. They were. This went on for 3 to 4 weeks. The constant worry and fear of the giant spiders was building in me.

Eventually I told my brother Ryan about the over sized spiders. My brother was freaked out, but was determined that he was going to catch one. He talked my mom into driving him out there so he could catch one. Ryan had everything he needed, a net, a jar, gloves, & etc. He had his net out, and started digging through the bushes in hopes to find one lurking in the dark. People started giving my mom and Ryan funny looks. Finally my mom asked an onlooker, "Do you know anything about these giant spiders?" the apartment tenant replied, "Oh yes, they put those fake spiders up to scare the birds away."

Picturing Ryan (net in hand) running after fake spiders with my mom right behind... It cracks me up!

Dinosaur Conversations

Ella: Mom, I wish I had plates [like Stegosaurus] on my back. Then I would be able to scare off predators.
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Ella: Mom, guess what I'm thinking about.
Me: hmmm, could you be thinking about Dinosaurs?
Ella: Nope. Try real hard. Use your brain to figure it out.
Me: Candy?
Ella: Ha ha, I tricked you, I was really thinking about Dinosaurs.
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Ella: Mom, I have a good Idea.
Me: Like what?
Ella: How about a Dinosaur bathroom?
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Sorry about all the dinosaur posts lately. I'm not going to promise this will be the last one. We are living during the Cretaceous period in our home. I'm quite certain I could ace a 2nd grade unit on Dinosaurs.

Ellasaurus

Ella: Mom, I have a very good Idea.
Me: What is it?
Ella: How about if we get rid of everything in our house that isn't Dinosaur?
Me: Even our couches?
Ella: Yep, we could get new dinosaur couches.
Me: But it might be really hard to find dinosaur couches, I've never seen one before.
Ella: We will have to look very hard, and for a very long time to find one.
Me: What about all your toys that are not dinosaurs? Should we get rid of those too?
Ella: Yes, we should get rid of them all! And if Santa brings me toys that aren't dinosaurs, we'll have to get rid of those too.

Wow, she's really serious about this idea. She has been talking about it all day. We are getting rid of extra things since we are getting ready to move, but I don't think we can survive on just our dinosaur things alone.

Later today Ella told me it was my turn to make up a dinosaur game.
In my game, I issued a challenge. The object of the game was go 15 minutes without saying the word, dinosaur, T-rex, Tyranosaurus, Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, etc. She actually lasted longer than I thought she would. A whole 3 minutes.

When I pictured my life with children, I imagined girls. However I did not imagine them playing with cars and dinosaurs all day. Lily is almost as silly about it as Ella. I try to give her dolls, but she just wants Ella's cars and dinosaurs.
What happened to cute little pink fairy princess girls? Like the ones in my header? I guess I had better design a new (more accurate) header for my blog.

Big baby in a little stroller

Ella had fun pushing Lily around the house in her doll stroller today. Lily loved it too. But, I think I enjoyed it the most! 15 minutes of quiet time to get something done. Too bad the stroller broke from Lily's weight. We were able to fix it, but I'm pretty sure that was Lily's last ride.

Lily's growing big

She got her two bottom teeth last night.