Nutcracker Ballet

I got tickets for Channing and I to go see Ballet Forte's Nutcracker. 2 of her friends and their moms went also. She was excited to get dressed up and have a special mommy-daughter date. I wasn't sure if she would like it or not, but she loved it. About 15-20 minutes into the ballet she turned to me and said, "Mom this is really fun. Thank you for taking me." That made my day. It will be fun to take both girls when Chloe gets older.

Through the Eyes of a Child

Every year our Stake puts on a really nice Christmas Concert. This year I decided that we needed to go as a family and enjoy the beautiful music. It was 1 1/2 hours long and the girls actually did a great job sitting still. I love that they sat and listened, while only having to be slightly entertained. I didn't bring our regular church bag of tricks, instead I pulled an envelope and a pen out of my purse and gave it to Chloe. After drawing for a few minutes she handed me this:

And said this, "Mom, I drew a picture of you...MAD!"

Uhhh, what does this mean? Is this how she sees me, with psycho eyes and an intense mad mouth? There's nothing like getting a mood check from your 3 year old. I thought about the day and how it had gone and I guess she was slightly justified in drawing "mad mom" Twice that day she had gone running to the bathroom in a panic, only to make it as far as...right in front of the toilet. One of those times she had her dress on ready to go to church. ARGHHH!

After seeing this sad drawing of myself, I realized I need to try and be more patient with her. Life can be so short and I need to sit back and enjoy every day. I try to remind myself that these are the easy days compared to what's ahead. I hope next time she draws a picture of me it's a little different.

Thanksgiving Day Memories

Ryan's Aunt Janet, Uncle Mark, and 3 kids from Houston joined us in Sugar Land for a memorable Thanksgiving Day. From the top: Sheriee getting sick, and still being a gracious host and cooking Thanksgiving dinner for us. While we ate, she layed in bed, chilled and terribly nauseous. At one point she got out of bed and fainted. On the way down she caught the edge of the nightstand with her head. So off she and Vern went to the emergency room to have it looked at.
While they were gone, the boys went outside to throw the football and Sam, the youngest cousin at 8 years old, threw the football through the dining room window. The pane must have shattered into a thousand itty bitty pieces. It took 4 of us almost 1/2 hour to get it all cleaned up. Sam was so upset. This is him shortly after the incident, you can tell his face is still red from crying. Sheriee got out of the Emergency Rooom with a bandage instead of stitches.

And to top it off, while in the middle of an intense game of Zilch, a really fun dice game, Chloe started yelling my name from the bathroom. I was in the process of rolling what I thought was going to be the winning roll and yelled for Ryan to go check on her. He goes to check on her and starts yelling for me to come and see. I go look and Chloe had made a mad dash for the bathroom only to make it as far as, I bet you can guess, right in front of the toilet.

Despite all the craziness, we ate delicious food, spent quality time with family, and expressed thanks for the wonderful blessings we have in our lives.

Can I Build It? Yes I Can!

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine had a baby shower. Her sister, who threw the shower, asked me if I would bring some sort of fruit tray. She sent me a link to a cute idea that I could try. I opened up the link and this is what I saw.

I thought to myself, "Who does she think I am, Martha Stewart?" "There's no way I can make that."

But it did look pretty cute so I talked myself into giving it a shot.

This was my end result: It's just a little carriage because I couldn't find a big watermelon.

I would like to thank:

1. Bertie for giving me the idea and believing I could do it.

2. Channing for being my cheerleader along the way. She kept saying, "Good job mom! It's looking like the picture."

3. Chloe for taking a wonderful nap. Sometimes it's hard having, not 2, but 4 extra helping hands.

4. And last of all, HEB grocery store for having a decent price on out of season fruit. I couldn't have done it without them.

The girls loved the carriage and couldn't wait until the next morning because I promised them any leftovers. It's funny how in their eyes the ordinary fruit turned into something extraordinary when put inside a watermelon baby carriage.

So if you ever need a cute fruit dish idea for a baby shower, here are the instructions.

Halloween...2 1/2 weeks late.

As you all know, I struggle with keeping up on my blog. Every time I sit down to write an entry I think to myself...I'll just quickly read everyone's new blog entries and then write my own. But by the time I'm finished reading, my computer time is up. That's right, I actually have to give myself an allotted amount of computer time or else my day would slip away with me sitting at the computer while the girls run crazy through the house.

So, today is the day. I'm going to post a new entry!


HALLOWEEN:

The girls were black cats this year.

Chloe originally wanted to be a cowgirl until Channing decided to be a cat. Then, that was all Chloe wanted to be. We tried to talk her back into the cowgirl because my friend let me borrow a cute pick cowgirl outfit and I found a pink trimmed cowgirl hat and some adorable brown and pink boots at Goodwill, but there was no changing her mind. We thought, maybe if she tried on the costume she would see how cute she looked and change her mind.

That didn't happen. So, she got to be a little black cat like her big sister.

Wes, Kate, Logan and Ben came down from Dallas and spent Halloween weekend with us. We went to the trunk-or-treat party at the church. The kids had a great time.

The last part of October and first part of November is a busy time for birthdays in our family. We celebrated 4 birthdays throughout the weekend.

Our little Channing turned 5 years old on Nov. 1st. She is such a joy to have around and is a good big sister to Chloe. Every Sunday she comes out of her primary class with a few snacks folded up in a napkin to give to Chloe. A lot of times it will be as simple as a fruit snack, usually stuck to the paper towel, and 2 or 3 goldfish, or 1 peanut butter cracker, but it's always something. We love her so much.
Ben turned 2 years old on Nov. 2nd. He is a little cutie pie and it was fun having him here to celebrate his birthday. He may have gotten a little ripped off on his cake though(my fault). It doesn't look like a very fun and exciting cake for a little 2 year old. We opted for 1 cake for all the birthdays so we wouldn't have a ton of leftovers and due to lack of time, I didn't even get it decorated. Sorry Benny.

We also celebrated Ryan and Wes's birthday.
Ryan is a great husband, my best friend and a very caring and doting dad. I am blessed to have someone that I enjoy hanging out with after 9 years of marriage.

I guess I should say something about Wes since I said something about the other 3. Let see what is there to say.............ummm.....
Ok, just joking, Wes is a fun brother-in-law and he actually acts like he doesn't mind when I'm on his team for sand volleyball at the lake house. This is a big deal to me, since I'm slightly challenged when it comes to sports. I'm glad they live close enough that we can see them often.

Grandma and Papa had a great time with the grandkids and Papa took advantage of the Halloween holiday and tried to scare the kids with a very creepy mask. Grandma came to their rescue and made him promise not to scare them too bad. Next year they might not be so lucky.

That pretty much sums up our weekend.

A Week of Favorites

My Favorite Purchase:

I love this framed sketch. I found it in the gift shop at Enchanted Forest, which is an amazing garden center. It has already been placed in several different spots around my house. I'm trying to find the perfect spot.

My Favorite Snack:

Toaster Strudels are the best! Whenever I see a commercial on TV for these babies, or when my eye catches them at the grocery store, I secretly wish I had a freezer full of them. What's better than a toaster strudel fresh out of the toaster, spread with frosting that covers the top and melts over the sides? YUM!! I love them but I never buy them...except this time I did. So far no one else has spotted them in my frezzer so they're ALL MINE!

My Favorite Lunch: Chloe and I had a picnic outside. She was so excited for our mommy-Chloe lunch. The weather here is beautiful right now and we're taking advantage by spending a lot of time outside.

My Favorite Conversation:

Lately Chloe has been waiting until the last minute to run to the bathroom and winds up going while standing right in front of the toilet. She has done this several times. Ryan finally suggested that we have her help clean it up and maybe that would solve the problem. So the next time it happened I told her she would have to help me clean it up. She did. Later that day we had this conversation-

Chloe: Mom, do I look like a mom?

Me(totally unaware of where this was headed): No, not yet sweetie.

Chloe: Then I can't clean up my own pee!

What was I thinking!

My Favorite Thing Caught On Camera:

As I was making dinner I looked out my kitchen window and saw Channing and Chloe on the slide with the snorkel gear on. I grabbed my camera and ran outside.

As I watched this on my computer I realize how horrible I sound snickering each time she falls. It just looked so funny.

What are some of your favorites this week?

Catch Up!

I'm a little overwhelmed at how much I have to catch up on and frankly I've been avoiding it this week. I wish I was better at just posting a little here and a little there. Where do I start...

Chloe's Birthday August 31st.
Chloe turned 3 the end of August. She was really excited for her birthday this year. She wanted a lollipop, a clock bracelet(a watch), and a birthday cake.

So she got a handful of lollipops, a clock bracelet, and a brithday cake. She got some other great things from grandparents, and other family members. What a great birthday!

Ryan's brother Wes and his family were here from Dallas so we took the kids bowling as part of the birthday celebration. They loved it!

Argh!!!! The dreaded closed eyes.

First Day of School, Sept 2.

Both girls started school last month. So far...great! They go twice a week for 3 hours. This is such a nice breather for me. I get a few hours to clean, shop, grocery shop, do nothing, whatever. It makes me a happy mom when I pick them up. I actually feel like I appreciate their "sweet" personalities a little more after these few hours.

Hurricane Adventure, Sept 11-15th.

Our story isn't that exciting, but that's probably a good thing. Ryan and I decided to leave Houston and head to his parent's lake house to weather out the storm. We left early Thursdday morning to avoid any traffic. We spent the weekend fishing, relaxing, enjoying the beautiful weather, and taking advantage of our time away with the girls. I felt a little guilty about having such a great weekend while there was a hurricane causing so much damage.

After a few days at the lake house we traveled to Dallas to see Wes, Kate and the boys. The girls love Logan and Benny and get so excited when we tell them we get to see them. They had a lot of fun playing together.

We left for Houston Monday afternoon. It took us about 2 hours longer to get back. Most of the gas stations along the way had lines all the way down the feeder roads of the freeway to get gas. It was a little crazy driving into a dark Houston. Our house still didn't have power but Ryan's parent's house did so we stayed there.

We spent all day Tuesday cleaning up our house. These pictures don't look that bad, but it took us quite a while to get it all done. We were really blessed because our area wasn't hit nearly as hard as expected.

Before the clean-up...

After...
We didn't get our power back until Saturday, a week after Ike hit. I am so glad we had somewhere to stay. We are blessed to now have our life back to normal.

Here are a few pictures of areas in our neighborhood and some just outside our neighborhood:

One quick video...This is a video that shows the difference between Channing and Chloe. We were on a boat ride and Ryan took his hands off the steering wheel and told the girls one of them better come over and steer. Channing got very nervous and eventually burst into tears, and Chloe hopped onto Ryan's lap without a second thought and took over. I love that they have such different personalities. It makes moments like this enjoyable.

How Hard Can It Be?

Those were the words that came out of my mouth as Ryan and I discussed selling our home and me having to have the house "show ready" all the time. I love having a clean house and do my best to keep it pretty clean, so I thought it would be fairly easy to be ready to show our house at any minute. Oh how I was wrong! It's a whole different type of clean when you're showing your house. Nothing can be conveniently put in a closet to get it out of sight. You can't just close doors to certain room if those rooms are a bit disheveled. I did however get a pointer from a friend that if you're in a pinch and need somewhere to HIDE you miscellaneous stuff, go for the dryer or the fridge. These are 2 places that people usually won't look. I discovered that Ryan used this method and found it very successful. When I came home from one of my trips to Utah, I was putting groceries away and found the pan he used to boil his shrimp, with all the shrimp shells in it, in the freezer. Guess who got to take care of it then?

I am happy to say that we closed on our new house and have moved in, which means I no longer have to have our home "show ready" Yahoo!!! I will post pictures soon.

Where Does Meat Really Come From?

Channing and Ryan got into a conversation about meat this morning. Ryan realized that Channing knew meat came from animals but she didn't know exactly how. He asked her how she thought we get meat and these were her answers:
1. You milk it out of them and mix it with something and it makes meat.
2. They lay an egg and the meat is in the egg.
3. They grow it and you pick it off them like fruit on a tree.
4. They eat something and then when they throw up it comes out meat, just like birds do with food for their babies.
POOR CITY GIRL!
We couldn't decide whether or not to tell her the real story. We opted not to. We're afraid we would have a little vegetarian on our hands.

Why I Love My Girls

I love the random things my girls do, say, and wear. Here are a few examples:

Channing does...
She loves collecting pieces of paper, brochures, comment cards, receipts, credit card applications from stores, basically anything that she can use as directions, instructions, an invitation to a special party or a treasure map. I love that she does this. She will find something and carry it around for days. I've posted this picture before but notice what she has in her hand. It's a comment card from Kohls.

Channing Says...
Prayer by Channing: Dear Heavenly Father, We're thankful for our day and our breakfast. Please bless it that it will be healthy for our bodies, well...not the Marshmellow Mateys because they have a lot of sugar in them.

Prayer by Channing: Dear Heavenly Father, We're grateful that we have a nice home to live in so we don't have to live, like outside or at the zoo.

Channing Wears...

My Little Rock Star:

Mail Lady Channing and her helper Chloe:

Girls In Boots:

Chloe Does...
Chloe went through a phase where she licked everything. I am so amazed she wasn't sick all the time. I wrote down a few of the things I witnessed her lick. Who knows what else there was that I never saw?
1. Ryan's IPOD
2. Kitchen floor (it wasn't even freshly mopped)
3. Channing's tap shoe
4. The carpet(I bet that was a sad surprise, a mouth full of fuzz)
5. The entire lenghth of my arm(she's quick, she got all the way up my arm before I could pull it away)
6. Ryan's hand
7. The hairy part of the hair brush
8. Channing's arm(what's with the arms?)
9. Bottom of her own shoe
10. Wal-Mart grocery cart(The worst of all in my book. What is it about Wal-mart carts that make me cringe to touch them and she LICKED it.)
11. Brand new computer monitor. Story: We bought a new computer and Ryan was taking it out of the box and checking to see that all the parts were there. He walked out of the room for a minute and came back to this:



Chloe says...

The girls got balloons at the store and were playing with them in my room. Chloe let hers go and it floated right into the fan. It made a horrible thumping sound as it was getting whipped around and tangled up. There was a small freakout by both girls and then I saw Chloe on her knees: Dear Henly-a-Father, please bless my balloon doesn't get windy in the fan.

Chloe wears...

Her favorite socks:

My goggle-eyed ballerina:

Weekend in Atlanta

I flew to Atlanta last weekend to be there for my nephew's baptism. My brother who was on a mission in North Carolina was coming home that same weekend so he flew to Atlanta to be there with us all. It was a GREAT few days.

Here we are at the airport waiting for Michael to arrive. 3 of my sisters were there, my parents, and of course my sister and her kids who live in Atlanta.
He was really surprised when he saw us all. He was only expecting my parents and Tiffany to be there. We had a great day eating, shopping, and hanging out.

Corbin was baptized on Saturday. He was really excited. I was glad I could be there for his special day.

Channing and Chloe had so much fun with daddy while I was gone. They played in the pool, went to the movies, ate out for dinner, and had a fun day at Grandma and Papa's. I'm not sure how much they really missed me. Ryan had the house all clean and the girls bathed and ready for church when I got home Sunday morning. Everything went smoothly, well almost...

On one of their excursions there was an incident that involed pizza, Chloe, and a chair. The result was this nice black eye.
I am thankful for a wonderful husband who was willing, and loved being Mr. Mom for a few days.

A Week In The Life Of...

MONDAY:
Memorial Day when I was growing up was a day for us kids to spend with grandpa and grandma. We would decorate graves of great grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and cousins we never met. We would hear the story about the aunt who died giving birth to twins. The babies also died and she is buried with one in each arm. After deorating the graves and hearing all the stories we would finish the day with a special treat at the store. I love my memories of this special day with my grandparents.
Ryan and I took the girls to a local cemetary to let them see what people do on Memorial Day. We each told them a story of our grandparents. It was a nice morning.


TUESDAY:
Chloe finished her swimming lessons today. She took swimming lessons from one of my young women and did great. It took her a little while to want to do it, but once she realized it was fun and not torture, she loved it. This is her jumping and swimming at our pool:




WEDNESDAY:
The girls had dentist appointments today. They did great. Channing has been several times and actually looks forward to her visits. This was Chloe's first time. She looked so tiny sitting in the big dental chair. She was a big girl and the hygienist was able to clean her teeth without any resistance. She even let the dentist count her teeth. The best part of course was the new toothbrush and the goody bag full of toys.



THURSDAY:

We had school at our house today. We were learning about spiders so I took the kids outside on a spider hunt. Chloe was screaming that she found a lizard and this is what we saw.

I'm not sure what it is, so if anyone knows, fill me in. It was about 4-5 inches long. I had a jar and I wanted to catch it so we could get a good look at it. As I was trying to catch it, it sprayed some milky substance all over in the jar. The kids and I all looked inside and got the most horrific wiff of nasty I have ever smelled. It stung my throat and all the kids' eyes were watering. Not the most successsful spider hunt.

Channing is on a swim team this year and is really enjoying it. She had a practice swim meet today. Her first real meet is in one week. It's cute to see these little kids jumping at the sound of the horn and racing to the other end of the pool. My camera only had room for a small video so here she is swimming. She is in the second lane from the right. The first time you watch it, watch Channing and then watch it again and pay attention the little girl on the far right...so cute!

FLASHBACK FRIDAY:

I realize now that I don't have as many baby vidoes of Chloe. I guess it's that whole 2nd child thing.

Flashback Friday

Channing 23mo. Chloe 5 weeks.

Channing was such a big helper with Chloe when she was a baby. She loved having a little sister around.

Wonderful Weekend

We had a great weekend at the lake house. Ryan's sister Hayley and family were here from California. The girls had a lot of fun with Carter, who is 3, and they loved playing "mom" to Nolan, who is 7mo.


We took the kids on a fishing trip and after about one cast they were done and wanted to know where the snacks were. Thank goodness Grandma came through with snacks and drinks.



They found a little tiny turtle that was about the size of a silver dollar. Ryan was able to catch it for them and they were all so excited. That poor turtle was carted around ALL day. They made him a home in a bucket with some grass, sticks and water. They named him, Turtle. Channing said she checked on him 3 times during dinner to make sure he was safe. When we finally coaxed them into letting him go, Chloe cried. I tried telling her he had to go back to it's mommy and daddy and she said, "But I love him so much." I have to say, it was a cute little guy.

Chloe's holding the turtle inside the shovel: I try to be very careful about keeping sunscreen on the girls. I'm glad Chloe is learning the importance of getting a GOOD amount on her skin.

We had a wonderful, relaxing weekend away and want to say thank you to Papa and Grandma for having such a fun place for us to go and play.