Swing

Can you see how much Molly is loving her swing lately? I just love the face she is making. It is like, I am resigned to being in here because I can't do anything about it. Oh they grow up so fast!

Welcome Home!

From This ....

To This .....

Welcome back to Pocatello Idaho!

Going home

We had a great time in Santa Barbara and just relaxed and enjoyed the weather. We left Santa Barbara at about 1:30 pm on Saturday. We got food and gas and went on our merry way. We traveled pretty easily for the first half of the trip. Molly slept and Lilly watched movies. We stopped in Baker for dinner, fed the girls and got on our way. We wanted to go a little further so that we wouldn't have to drive so far on Sunday, but we only made it to Cedar City. We got to our hotel at about 12:30 and went to bed. We got up, had breakfast, and got back on the road. This half of the trip seemed to take a lot longer. You know how it is with the home stretch! The girls still did a fantastic job and I think that Aaron and I were pleasantly surprised by this. In Utah we ran into high winds and the biggest dust storm we had ever seen. We made it through safely and arrived home to snow!

Driving into the dust storm. We could watch as it came and crossed the road ahead of us. It was huge!

Here is a view as we arrived closer. It was really tall

Only in California

Aaron and I thought that this was pretty funny....

Only in California would there be spaces reserved for those privileged enough to have one of these cars!

Santa Barbara Zoo

On Thursday we headed out to eat at Longboards. It is a fun place to eat and right on the water. We had a great lunch and then headed out to the Zoo. Lilly was so excited about it all. We rented a wagon so that Molly could continue to sleep most of the time and showed Lilly everything the zoo had to offer. It was really cool because almost all of the animals were awake and playing right up at the edges of their cages. The snow leopard we saw was just sitting on a log looking out at us behind his glass cage. We thought it was super cool until he yawned and we saw his massively large chompers! Then we walked some more and saw the Lemurs wrestling and the flamingoes running around. Lilly kept asking to see the snakes! I don't know why she wanted to see the snakes but she was fairly insistent about this. We found them and she thought they looked pretty cool! Then we walked around some more and took a train ride around the zoo. Lilly was really excited about this and that always makes things more fun. We had a great day and we were all really worn out by days end.

Aaron and Molly at Longboards

Lilly at Longboards. See her hair? By this point I had fixed it like 10 times and it kept falling out. I had to give up after a while!

Aaron and the girls with the wagon

The monkey in the tree. It was really cool to watch her climb it. Doesn't she look eerily human? Creepy!

Can you find the monkey?

Aaron and Lilly in front of the penguins. It was feeding time!

The elephants. I know they are dirty, but I still think they are pretty cute!

Aaron and Molly on the train

Lilly on the train

Lilly and Mom ready for our ride

Solvang

On Tuesday we headed to Santa Ynez and Solvang to stay the night with Aaron's sister Lauren and her family. We had a great time just relaxing and hanging out. At about 9:30 pm it was discovered that her son hadn't finished a huge project for his English class. Let's just say, he hadn't even started it and he had to have 25 projects done by the next day! So Aaron and I went to work and helped do everything that we could on a huge Romeo and Juliet project. We stayed up until about 1:30 am, but got it done! The next day we had dental appointments with Aaron's brother Adam. I had a cavity!! Can you believe it!?! I have now had 2 cavities ever! Anyway. After Lunch with Adam and Camene we headed to Solvang to do some window shopping. We found the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and of course had to treat ourselves. Then we dropped off our girls and headed out to dinner with Adam and Camene. We had a great time and stayed out late. It was nice to come home to the babysitter and hear that Lilly was just fine. One thing this trip has taught me is that I can leave Lilly more with a babysitter and I don't need to worry about it!

Aaron and Lilly in front of the Chocolate Factory

Lilly found this little flower and had the best time carrying it around!

Taffy's, Stearn's Wharf, and Surrey

Here we are in Santa Barbara!! We were so excited to go visit with Aaron's family. We hadn't been there in a year and a half! We started our journey on Friday afternoon at about 5:00 pm. Many people told us how crazy we were for driving with a 2 1/2 year old and 3 month old. We left our house with a movie on for Lilly and Molly freshly fed and drove as far as we could possibly go. We stopped for dinner, fed the girls and kept on going. Our drive was awesome! Molly slept from Salt Lake to Primm (the Nevada/California border!) It was so perfect. Lilly just watched movies and was a really good girl. We arrived in Primm at 2 am and found out that the hotel we usually stay in was full! Ugh, we were so exhausted by this point. We got back in the car and drove back 11 miles to Jean and stayed at an interesting, to say the least, hotel. Well, there were no bugs and a bed. By 4 am we were all asleep. we awoke the next morning at 7 am and just decided to get going. By this point I just wanted to be there! We hopped in the car, got breakfast and gas, and went on our way. We arrived in Santa Barbara in time for dinner and just had a relaxing night with Aaron's parents. At church on Sunday we had a great time visiting with people we hadn't seen in quite a while. It was fun to introduce our girls to the people at the ward. On Monday we met up with our friends, Marlena, Ryan and their 15 month old Quincy, and Deneane. We had a great lunch at a place called Taffy's. It just seems to be the place we always ended up with them. The kids had a great time playing and the adults had a great time talking. Ryan loved feeding Molly because he is a little bit baby hungry. I hope you got your fill Ryan!

After lunch, we headed down to the wharf and walked along just soaking up the sun. Lilly really enjoyed seeing the ocean and all the boats. When we finished there, we weren't quite ready to go home, so we rented a Surrey and rode all along the beach. We had a great time and Lilly really had fun waving at all the people and ringing the bell.

Aaron and Lilly on the Surrey. We had to take a pause because Molly was really hating the snuggli. It was quite a work out to pedal and hold my own with a little 15 pound bundle of joy strapped to me!
Here is Lilly on the Surrey

Aaron on the Surrey

The whole fam on the surrey. We were so excited to get going

Molly and Mom on the wharf

Lilly, Molly and Mom on the wharf in front of all the boats

Aaron and Lilly. She wasn't so sure about being on top of this wall.

Looking at the water

Ryan feeding Molly

Quincy and Lilly

Tinkerbell

Lilly's cousin Claire had a princess party for her 5th birthday this year. It was so fun and we had a great time deciding what Lilly would go as. She chose to go as Tinkerbell! She was so excited about it, and was so cute. She even asked if I would do her hair up like Tinkerbell. Oh, they grow up so fast!

I Can't Believe She Said That!

My monthly gift from Mother Nature has resumed it's monthly delivery! Not so fun! But for a Mom who hasn't had a visit from Aunt Flo in a year it is a big deal. The first time I pulled out the lovely box above, Lilly promptly thought that it was candy! Yes, you are reading it correctly. She came up to me with a tampon in hand and said, "Mommy can you open this, I want candy!" She was upset to find out that it was indeed not candy. How do you explain to a 2 year old what it is? I think I came up with something along the lines of, this is for mommies and maybe someday when you get older you can have one too! Oh boy, it will be interesting when that day comes!

My New "Sassy" Haircut

After numerous requests here are the first pictures of my new haircut. I was really feeling the need for a change and April's sister-in-law does hair. So I told her to chop it off and give me something "Sassy". Here are the results......

I love it and it is nice and short!

I have never done any kind of "crazy" haircut, so it was about time

Here are the colors that I had done. We did Caramel high lights and Copper low lights... Love It!

Disney On Ice

On Friday April, Claire, Owen, Lilly and I headed to Utah to see Disney on Ice. We had a great time. The kids just absolutely loved it. Lilly was so loud and talkative the entire time. The theme was Mickey and Minnie's Traveling Adventure and so we heard stories about The Lion King, Lilo and Stitch, The Little Mermaid, and Peter Pan. Lilly just kept cheering and laughing and singing with the words that she might happen to know. She especially loved seeing Tinkerbell. We had a great time and I would recommend that if you have the chance to see it, you should go, definite fun for the kids.

My stage pictures didn't come out as well as I would have liked, but here you can see Captain Hook on his ship

Here is Peter Pan and Tinkerbell saying goodbye and flying away to Neverland

Lilly and I just before the show started

The kids could hardly wait to go inside

Lilly ready to go on our trip

Family Home Evening

We have been working really hard at making sure that we are having Family Home Evening each Monday night. I confess that it doesn't always happen, but hey, it wouldn't be the real world if it did. I wanted to post about it because Lilly just loves to color a lot lately. She will color for a really long time. It is just getting to be so much more fun now. It is especially nice because we are using the nursery manual for our lessons. We are a few weeks behind the nursery and so it is nice to be able to reinforce what she is already learning about in nursery.

Here she is showing off her masterpiece

Here is Aaron's and the one on the table is mine. I was just trying to be different with the whole green hair thing!

This is what Molly did during FHE. She just loves that corner of the couch!

Bowling

Last night we went bowling with our friends the Blauers. We had a great time and it was the first time for both of our girls. They absolutely loved it! Lilly would cheer for everyone while she waited patiently for her turn to come. She was just so excited about the whole event! I am sad to say that everyone beat me big time (even the little girls)! I think I ended with something like 70 points! Even with the bumpers I just wasn't on my game! I guess I will just have to go bowling more often so I can at least try and beat my 2 year old! When we finished bowling Lilly just kept saying "Mommy I had so much fun!" When we finished bowling we went back to the Blauer's home for brownies and ice cream. It is so great that Lilly has someone her age to play with. Thanks Blauer's for coming out to play with us!

Britton and Logan

Lilly cheering after her turn. She got something like 4 spares in the game!

Jeff and Hannah

Aaron helping Lilly get ready to bowl

Molly and Me

Bow Mania

Lately I have been really into making bows for Lilly. It is probably just because we did some shopping for the girls and now of course I have to make some matching bows - right?!?

Here are the bows that I have made.

"Pip Squeak"

We just absolutely love this outfit....

...And here's why!

nothing says adorable like words or ruffles on a babies bottom!

Thanks Adam, Camene and Kids for this super cute outfit. I am so happy that it finally fits!

Sick

We have gotten the stuff around here. It was so sad because Lilly was so obviously miserable for a few days. She had a fever for 4 days and was so sick of taking medicine by then that we just didn't even force the issue anymore. She got sick on Friday and I got sick the next day. Of course, as a mom, you don't have a lot of down time for yourself, which makes it much harder to get well faster. Molly had had her shots the Thursday before and has been fighting this stuff for days. She unfortunately caught the cough and is sleeping better than ever trying to overcome it. All in all I think we are just about over the worst and we are all on the mend.

Here is Lilly looking a little better. I have been making bows a lot lately and she really wanted to put several of them in her hair. I think we ended up with somewhere around 10 bows in her hair!