Bow Crazy!

That is not a typo. Elese went a little bow crazy today as well as a little yogurt crazy! She decided to turn her PB & Honey Sandwich into to a yogurt Smothered sandwich...yum!

Big Girl bed

On Saturday we converted Elese's crib to a toddler bed. I'm pretty sure that either Steven or Max used the word transformed because she told my mom she was getting a Transformer bed. Here are a few things that have happened during this new adjustment in her life...

Night 1 (Saturday): Elese kept getting up so Steven said, "OK, I'm going to have to lock the door" and he held onto the knob so she couldn't get out. Apperantly just after that she crawled into bed with Max because she was scared. She got up again a while later and when we put her back she asked if she could sleep with Max. When Steven went to check on them they were both sound asleep in Max's bed. I'm still a little mad at him for putting her into her bed before I could get a picture.

Night 2 (Sunday): Elese got up and said, "I don't have to go to bed!!???" This was a great realization to her...we put her back in bed and she came out again saying the same thing.

Night 3 (Monday): I rolled over and felt something in the bed and I thought it was Stevens arm until I realized it had a face...Elese had crawled into bed with us and we didn't even notice her come in. This really freaked me out! When Max comes in he makes his apperance known by crying or just saying, "Daddy? Daddy? Mommy?" and poking us. So last night I closed the door more than usually so that she would make more noise if she came in.

Night 4 (Tuesday): Steven had a meeting so I was doing bed time duty on my own. Elese stayed in bed for a while...got up once and then I put her back in bed. Suddenly she started getting up over and over again. While I stood by the door I heard Max telling her to get up! When I took her back in I told him to stop telling her and he said, "But Mommy, it's funny to watch you bring her back in." She kept getting up! Finally I told Max that this was my time to have to myself and that he had taken that away from me so he had to be in charge. At first he just sat in bed and would say, "Elese get back in bed" while she ran to me smiling brightly. Then I set a chair by their bedroom door and told him to sit on it and to hold her hand and walk her back to bed when she got up. After a while Elese was very upset that she was only getting to see Max so I gave her a choice. "Do you want mommy to give you hugs and kisses and tuck you in or do you want Max to keep putting you back in bed?" She chose to have me tuck her it. An hour or two later she got up again...Steven noticed that she had just peed...then an hour after that she got up again and had just peed again...So it seems that once we can get her to stay in bed we will have to work harder on potty training.

Night 5 (Tonight/Wednesday): Elese did get up once while I was grocery shopping and laid in my moms bed with her for a while and then said, "I want to go to sleep in my bed." We haven't heard a peep since.

Naps haven't been much of a problem until today...she woke up an hour earlier than she should have and just cried inbetween 1-2 minute power naps for about 2 hours...then she wanted me to never leave her sight.

Here she is in her new bed (well "transformed bed".

Back to the Gym

I started working out again last week and it has been great! I went to Step at 6am on Monday, Zumba (check it out on youtube it is soo much fun) on Wednesday, Cardio Interval (kicked my butt) on Friday, Step on Monday again, and yoga yesturday. I'm loveing getting back into shape...sort of. I've gained 5 lbs but I've been eating everything in sight. I figure that I should use this time to increase my motabolism and then in a couple weeks once my motabolism is reved up I will cut some calories. Anyway, if you've been putting off exercising I say DO IT!!! You will feel great once you start going!

Pinching My pennies

So I've tried a few different grocery shopping services to help me save money but I had to pay for them. I'd heard of pinching your pennies but I never really got how to use it. Well with the help of my cousins fabulous website I got the hang of it. Initially I would get very frustrated because the crazy coupon ladies (not me...I mean the REALLY crazy coupon ladies) would clear the place out before I could get there. Plus shopping with my kids was AWFUL!!! Last week I decided to go early in the morning. On one of my trips to Albertsons I spent $70 and saved $90 and got 2 free movie tickets.

Tonight I was making my game plan for this week when I realized that one of my coupons expired today. I had an inner battle...Steven is out with friends so should I ask my mom to listen for my sleeping kids while I shop or should I do the dishes. I chose to go shopping and this is what I got....

Oh and I also got 24 bottles of water but I left those in my car. I like to have water in the car during the summer so that I don't have to end up spending $5 on a bottle of water at the zoo because I forgot. So....once she was done ringing me up my total came to $122.+ Then she scanned my prefered savings card & my coupons and my total came to $59.82. This isn't as amazing as deals I've seen others get but it is still great! I plan my meals around what I can get on sale...so I will be eating Oreos & tortilla chips for dinner this week. :) Don't worry I have more shopping to do. Most of this will go into my very full food storage bins (I only have 2, I need to get more) for when the swine flu takes over the earth. We will lock up in our house and live off of cereal & evaporated milk (that was a dumb caselot to buy).

31 and still counting

Yesterday was my amazing husband Stevens 31st birthday. I love him so much! He opened his present which was clothes. I realize it is very boring. There wasn't anything else that he wanted. There was an action figure that he has been searching for to complete his JUSTICE (a specific line of action figures) collection but he found it on ebay last week for a great deal ($20). We have been searching for it for years and could only find it on ebay and it was generally around $70 + shipping! So...I couldn't surprise him with that. After breakfast he went to work and then we went out with some of our closest friends to Bucca De Beppo for some dinner. We sat at the Pope table and I'm a little annoyed at myself for not bringing the camera. We had great conversation and food. We don't see some of our good friends very often so it was really fun to get together and catch up! After we ate we came back and ate indoor smores (Steven didn't want cake) and watched Dr. Horrible's sing-a-long blog...my new favorite show. I really want to by the DVD and sound track. If you haven't seen it I highly recomend it!!!!

This morning I decided that I should take a picture since I didn't take one yesturday at dinner.


Then we went to breakfast as a birthday celebration so the kids could participate in some sort of birthday festivity. Toy's R Us was having a "play date" with Thomas so we took the kids after breakfast. It wasn't too exicting. We were up until after 1:00 this morning catching up with Derek and Jennie so we came home and took a nap. Right now Steven is turning Elese's crib into a toddler bed and we just got back from Steven getting a hair cut and fixing the tail light on my car. It's been a productive, laid back, and fun weekend.

Steven is not thrilled about turning 31 but not because he is feeling old, just because he thinks 31 is a lame number. He has a thing about numbers. When I was enduced with Max on the 19th of February he was very upset because he things that 19 is a dumb number as wellm he kept asking me to change my enduction date. He is silly. He is loveing his job and that makes me so happy! Today while getting his hair cut at the barber school the guy that cut his hair was an attorney and unhappy with his job so he decided to become a barber. I think that is pretty sad and it makes me so greatful that Steven hasn't spent his life doing something he hates. Steven still collects action figures and comic books. I know it is geeky but it is a huge part of him and has helped him become such a great writer and creator. He is participating in the 48 hour film project again this year which is always a blast! I love Steven and all his quarks, like the fact that he hates Cafe Rio because it is "trendy" and that he will NEVER join facebook for the same reason. We get along so well and I am very blessed to have found a man that I "click" with. We always have fun together no matter what we are doing. Happy Birthday babe! I love you!

Max the kindergartner???

I cannot believe that Max is going to start Kindergarten this fall! Friday we went to Kindergarten Orientation. It was funny to see that the same head lunch lady was there from when I was in school. As long as I ignore the fact that I am living in my moms basement then I think it is pretty cool that he will be going to the same school that I did. Every time we drive by the school Max says, "That is my Kindergarten school!" After going to orientation he got much more excited. Most of all he is excited about the play ground and having a new teacher.

Max's favorite thing to do is dress up like a SuperHero. His favorite SuperHero changes almost weekly. Today we went on a walk and he wanted to wear his batman costume. So there I was pushing Batman around the neighborhood in a stroller...I'm not sure how the "real" batman would feel about riding in a stroller. Most recently his favorite SuperHero has been Spiderman.

Max is truly lucky to have so many friends in the neighborhood to play with. We figured out the other day that there are 6 children who live no more than 3 doors down (counting across the street). While this is a blessing it has also become a problem as well. On the rare occasion (maybe once a week) that there aren't any friends to play with Max gets very upset. He has atendancy to get very upset and emotional when things don't go his way. Once he gets over it he does fine playing by himself or hanging out with me.

Max is extremely tender hearted! If someone is being picked on he takes it upon himself to rescue them. If an older child takes a toy away from a younger one he will do everything in his power to get the toy back and if he can't then he will hug the younger child and say "It's OK, you can have my toy."

Spring finally ariving has been great for Max! He loves spending time in the yard jumping on the trampoline, playing on the slide, swinging, or just playing in the dirt. The other day a bunch of kids were over here playing in the yard. I sat on a nearby chair and observed. All the children began digging holes in the dirt. Max told them that he had seen a skeleton in the dirt. All of them came up with stories about how "Max's dirt is haunted!". After a while they hit something with the shovel. Max was sure it was a bone. They dug and dug until they discovered....a sprinkler pipe. They were all very disappointed when I told them what it was. Max has quite the imagination and loves telling tall tails....

Max's biggest fear is of Golum from the Lord of the Rings. Last night he had a nightmare about him and woke us up. Today at lunch he told his friend all about his dream and even had him convinced that Golum is real and lives in our bathroom when the lights are off.

Saturday night Max and I went on a date. We try to go as often as we can but it only really happens about every 6 months. We went and saw Bedtime Stories and ate dinner at Wendy's. When I asked him where he wanted to eat dinner he said, "At the place with the face on the sign. You know what I mean, it has red hair that looks like this" (he held his hands up as if they were forming pony tails). We had a fun time together. I love just hanging out with him. He is so happy when I take the time to just vist with him or ask about his day.

One of my favorite things is to see Max smile as he is telling me about about his day. He gets a sparkle in his eye when he is truely happy. I do worry about him developing depression. He can be very negative...that is why these happy moments are so enjoyable for me. Max is a good boy and as he says, "always glad to help!" I love him bunches!

Elese the 2 year old

So I used to keep a journal for my kids and I have been very bad about it lately. I decided that to make myself feel a little better I would do a update about each of them on my blog. That way when I turn this into a blog book then it will look much nicer than it would in my Dollar Store makeshift journals....maybe someday I will turn the journals into books...

So here is an update on Elese/Lessee/Ellie/Sissy:

Currently Elese's favorite things to say are: "Oh, Man!" and "No!"
She loves to pull the I'm a 2 year old card by yelling at mommy. For example she will say, "I WANT MILK! MILK! MILK!!!!" Then I will tell her, "Elese, I don't understand yelling. Talk sweet like a Princess and then I can help you." Then she will yell again. "MILK!!!" Then I simply say, "Try again." and she will put on her sweet face, smile at me and say, "Mommy, milk please."

We have a book called Who is Your Hero. If you haven't seen these books they are GREAT! There are 3 different books, we only have one. They tell stories from the Book of Mormon in a very simply way so young children can understand. Then tell you how you can use the examples of the characters today. The kids favorite story is about Nephi. The moral is that Nephi never complains. In the story he gives a thumbs up and says, "OK!" So imagine the same senario as above but I am asking her to do something, like get in the car. There is yelling and screaming...murmmering even. Then I remind her to be sweet and she will say, "OK. I say OK like Nephi."

A few months back, before I hurt my ankle Elese loved pretending that I was a horse and riding on my back. Once I hurt my ankle and wasn't as mobile I convinced her to give her baby dolls rides on her back. It worked for a minute but then the baby would just fall off. I solved the problem by attaching the baby with a belt...this kept her busy for a while.

"Sissy" is Max's new nick name for Elese. She doesn't mind at all. She loves Max and wants to be just like him! She can play Superheros with the best of them although she almost always has a baby doll in tow (or a grocery basket).

Just like with mommy Elese can also be very temperamental with Max. They will be playing nicely together and then she will bonk her head or something, start crying, and then Max will come to her rescue. Then the real yelling begins! "AHHHHH!!!! Max is talking to me! Stop it Max!" This always results in Max feeling very hurt and Elese being reminded that Max loves her and is just trying to help her feel better.

Ellie, as daddy calls her, loves her daddy! Steven was out of town last weekend and everytime Elese would wake up in the morning or after nap she would jump out of my arms and start running around the house yelling, "Daddy!!??? Daddy!???" She loved talking to him on the phone and telling him all about her days while he was away.

Not only does Lesee (what I call her) keep me on my toes she also keeps up quite well with all of her nick names. If you ask her her name she will say, "Lesee." Ask her what her other name is and she will say, "Elese", ask her again and she will say "Ellie." She hasn't quite picked up Sissy yet but I'm sure it will catch on soon enough. I just hope she doesn't have an identity crisis with all of these names.

I'm trying to be more consistent with the potty training thing. She keeps telling me just after she goes. We got some potty books from the library which has given her a little more excitement about it but mostly it has just made her want to change her baby dolls diapers. Because of the sudden interest in the potty she is also becoming interested in bodies and at least once a day she asks, "Mommy, I have a penis?" We are working on that one. Yesterday while I was cooking dinner Elese was playing very nicely by herself. She said, "Baby needs a diaper change!" Then she got a diaper, played quietly in the front room for a minute or too and then came running through the kitchen holding a rolled up diaper saying, "Ooooo, baby is stinky poopy!" The next thing I heard was the toilet flushing. I ran in and sure enough she had tried to flush the diaper. Fortunately I was close enough by to stop the potential flood. The photos bellow show Elese diapering her very tiny baby in her very big diapers.

Elese is definatly 2! No doubt about it. She will be perfectly happy one moment and then throwing a major tantram the next. I don't remember Max ever being quite so unpredictable. Grocery shopping has become even more difficult than before. My mom used to quote this poem and it is definatly fitting for Elese!

There was a little girl
And she had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead,
When she was good,
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

Despite her unpredicatable behavior I love her! She is my princess and not in the oh so spoiled sence. She is my Daughter of a King...my gift from God. The joy she brings into our home definatly out weighs the drama!

Easter Weekend

Saturday was a fun and crazy day. We went to the Cottonwood Heights Easter Egg hunt and that was a lot of fun. Unfortunatly Max was so excited about hunting eggs that he didn't notice them falling out of his basket. By the time Steven relized it Max didn't have any left. Steven saw a bunny whistle on the ground and snatched it up for him. Max's group was for kids 5-8 years old so the bigger kids were expert egg hunters. Elese and I did the one for 0-2 year olds. She had fun. They always have great items in the eggs and the best part is that it is FREE!

I left them at the Rec Center (with a spare car) and ran home and changed my clothes. I had my Broadway NATS competition (singing competition). I felt pretty good about it but I wasn't sure how I would score because I had a cold (I still have it, going on 3 weeks now). A neighbor was there watching me and told me that she could tell I was sick and that my bravado was a little out of control but she said it isn't usually like that so it must have been because I was sick. One of the judges also mentioned the bravodo thing. Well desipte not being in my best form I won 3rd place & a check for $45. I was the only girl to place...so had they split us up I would have placed 1st...pretty cool!

Then Steven and I went shopping and we went with his parents and sister to dinner. Elese was not very cooperative at dinner but what can you do.

The kids woke up and started searching everywhere to find there Easter baskets. Max was sure that the Easter bunny had hide it in the same place as last year. He was wrong. His Easter basket was in the dryer and Elese's was under the TV. They were both thrilled with what the Easter bunny brought them. Max got a black Spiderman costume. He wears it everyday and even keeps it in his backpack when he isn't wearing it, "just like Peter Parker". Else got a guitar and she loves it! She plays it and sings "Rock Chick" from her Dance Baby Dance DVD. Of course they got a ton of Candy as well. Elese is wearing a silly hat to keep her from pulling out her curlers.

Max sang "I Wonder When He Comes Again" as a solo in sacrament meeting. He did a great job. I could tell he was a little nervous or maybe just excited. He is really good about singing on pitch but when a note is too high for him he resorts to singing the alto part without realizing it. I changed the key of the song so that it would be in his range but in his excitement he didn't really sing the melody much and skiped around from part to part. All in all he did great and I was very proud of him. Once he finished he decided that it would be a good idea to jump off of the stool (you know the one they have for kids to stand on during the primary program?) he was standing on and he went flying. I reached out to catch him but the Bishop and his counselor were closer and helped him come to a safe landing.

It turns out that I'm not great about taking lots of pictures when I should be taking lots of pictures. I had choir in the morning and I'm the choir president and I was leading one of the songs in sacrament so I had to go. I decided that I would take pictures of them all dressed up for Easter after choir and before church, but I didn't. So what you see is what you get (Thanks Lithia). My neice showed up a couple days before Easter with this cute dress! My brother and his wife decided to by my neice Violet (not their daugher) an Easter dress and the thought that they should get Elese one too. My sister-in-law Suzy is very stylish and I love it when she buys things for Elese. My favorite of Elese's outfits are all from her! In these photos the dress is covered in chocolate as well as her face but at least she is having fun. Also, her hair looked much cuter pre-nap. Max opted out of wearing dress clothes and just stuck with his Spiderman costume.

Dance Baby Dance

After Elese was born I bought this exercise DVD. There are two of them. One is called Dance Baby Dance and the other is called Baby Reps. The purpose is to exercise with your baby. It was a lot of fun and got me moving just after she was born. In fact sometimes I even dance with her now...she is much heavier so it is much more effective! Well...Dance Baby Dance is now Elese's favorite movie. She watches it at least once a day. She sings along with all the songs and dances with one of her baby dolls. It is the cutest thing to watch. On one of the songs, "Rock Chick" the dance move basically turns the baby into the guitar...you hold them like a guitar and strum their belly. This is her favorite part and she constantly says, "Mommy, I be the guitar!"

How come...

... no one told me how pretty I looked today?



After a day filled with grocery shopping, cookie baking, organizing the filing cabinet, two loads of laundry, and playing with the kids this is how I look at the end of the day.

Now to make myself feel better here are some of my head shot photos I had taken a few weeks back. My friend Heidi did them and she did a GREAT job! It was really hard to decide which one to choose. Here are a few of my favorites. (sorry for those of you that already saw this on facebook).