10th Anniversary Las Vegas Trip

James and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary this April, but due to April being super busy for farmers (that would be James) we decided we needed to celebrate early. We also didn't want to spend a lot of money on our trip, so that morphed into a trip to Vegas.

Logan stayed with his Grandma Idaho so he wouldn't miss school, and Grandma Ward took care of our two little girls.

This cute girl fell asleep on the way to Utah. 

 The view as we drove into Vegas.  It looked much more impressive in person. We stopped to eat at McDonalds before we checked in to our hotel.  A scary looking homeless guy walked in and filled (stole) his water bottle with coke and then left again. We saw him a few times while in Vegas. He was sleeping on the sidewalk at night and the next day we saw him walking around with a pricey looking cell phone. Maybe he took that from McDonald's too.

 The first day we were in town, we went to the temple and did a session. I was happy about it too.

 James felt a stranger emotion about it.

 We found a security guard to take our picture so we could prove we were there together.

 This picture was taken to test the flash on our camera, but I kept it to show off our hotel room hall way. We stayed at the Stratosphere.

 My family lived in Vegas about 15 years ago. It was only for two years, but I still have fond memories of our house, so we drove by to take a picture.

 This is the view from the very top of the Stratosphere. This is the strip. We forgot to take a picture at night.

 This is one of the three rides the Stratosphere has at the top of the building. We bought a buy one get one free all day pass to ride the rides. Lets just say, we got our moneys worth, and the ride operators knew who we were by the end of the night.

 The next day we drove to Red Rock National Park. We went on a couple of hikes and spent about 4 hours there. It was fun and tiring and beautiful.

 I was too chicken to stand up on this rock. James doesn't understand the feeling of vertigo, and he made fun of me.  Jerk.

 After he made fun of me, he picked up a rock and wrote this message for me/us. J+A 2/14/2013. I love him.

 One of the hikes led us to a "waterfall" which was really just a trickle of water. Upon the water trickles landing, it froze. I thought the frozen water was way cool looking, so I had James take our picture together. I was getting dripped on from the "waterfall" during this picture.

 Can you find James?

 All in all, we really liked Red Rock, and we will definitely go again if we are ever in Vegas again.

That night, we got spiffied up and hit Fremont Street. I read reviews of it online and learned that there would be lots of weirdos on Fremont Street. The reviews were accurate. Almost right off the bat, a man dressed as Austin Powers asked James if he could buy his jacket off of him.  We saw a few local people who came with their little "act" as a way of asking for money. This guy was our favorite.

 Yes, this is a guy.

He was dancing and asking for tips. Another favorite was a guy dressed as cupid, with the butt cut out on his pants.

We were on Fremont Street so we could attend a comedy magic show by a guy named Mike Hammer. It was a fun, clean show, which we really appreciated. Mike would include people in the audience to be part of his magic tricks. I got to go on the stage so he could hide my cell phone and make it reappear  Sadly, James was so entranced with the sight of his beautiful wife on stage, that he did not think to take my picture.

We managed to steer clear from any sin like activities, including gambling, and we had an AWESOME time.

18 months of Crazies

We've celebrated a big milestone in our family this month. Siri turned 18 months. All you lds church goers knows what that means!  Of course, we're still working on her to stay in the nursery both hours without us...it will happen soon.

In the spirit of my baby turning into a toddler, I thought I would post just about her. Let me start you off with this cute video of my dancing Siri Crazy Girl.

She has recently discovered that she can start music on the piano herself, so this has been a common sight the last few weeks.

Our little girl thinks that she's a little boy. She plays hard and laughs in the face of danger. When we first moved here, about 2 months ago, she climbed up the stairs on the bunk bed and tried to get off the top bunk without using the stairs. We waited a few days before taking her to the doctor, hoping she would start using her arm, but she didn't, so we went. After a long day chasing down a few different doctors, it was confirmed that she broke clean through her humorous bone. No cast though.

A favorite game around our house is to turn out the lights, run around and scare each other. We call it Creeper. Siri LOVES this game. She runs around the house squealing in absolute delight. One night our creeper game transitioned into dancing like hooligans with the strobe light. Siri ran through the kitchen, screaming in delight, slipped on the linoleum floor, banged her head on the kitchen cupboard, and screamed in pain.

 As you can see, she earned herself a nice sized goose egg.

Oh Siri...you exasperate and delight us. I could give countless examples, but I'll share just one.

Siri has always struggled to sleep through the night, or to sleep past 5:00 in the morning. About a month ago we decided to move her out of the pack n' play onto a mattress on the floor, thinking that it was more comfortable and would help her sleep through the night. It worked for 2 weeks!  She slept like a champ for basically the first time in her life. Then it stopped. She wakes up crying several times a night. We rarely do anything, and eventually she stops crying on her own. (Sometimes she needs a pat on the head.)  This exasperates us. But, what delights us, is when it's 7:30, and time for bed, we tell her to go get in bed, and the good little girl that she is, takes off running for her bed, hops in, and pulls up her blankets. All by herself.  So cute.

 Siri, your dad named you Monster the day you were born. It was a self fulfilling prophecy, I'm afraid. We often comment to each other that it is a good thing that you are so cute. :)

 You are a little obsessed with cereal.

Every morning you get out a bowl and whine to us until we let you fill up your bowl with cereal YOURSELF!

All of your craziness is easily forgiven, because you love us.  You give us plenty of loves and kisses. Thank you for that. And thanks for being our Monster Crazy. We love you to pieces.

Our Family Has Grown...

by four paws.

Lizzy asked Santa for a puppy for her Christmas present. She was totally un-phased when she opened her present that had a picture of our new dog, Twix. Regardless of her dud-like reaction, she loves him to pieces. Logan is always nervous that Twix will bite, but he still loves to play with him and take him on walks. The person who should show the most fear of Twix is the one that shows the least fear of him, and that is Siri. He has nipped her a few times when she's tried to sit on him, poke his eyes, or pull his tale. They are getting used to each other though.

I'll admit that I might love Twix the most. I love dogs. Always have. It just feels right to have him here, but I still feel anxious about his presence because James hates that we have an indoor dog. I think Twix feels James' hate, because he has a tendency to leak pee when James comes near him. He's never done that with me.

Twix is a pure bread shih tzu. He seems a bit dumb, but he is potty trained, and that's all that I really care about.  We have fun with him and I think he is happy here. He likes to check out the cows, and the last few nights he has sneaked into our room to be with us. I think that's a good sign that he likes me at least.

Happy 4th, Lizzy!

My sweet Elizabeth Dixie turned 4 on the 20th. She had her donut tower for breakfast and ate candy for lunch. I think she was happy about that. 

 ...and happy to have Happy Birthday sung to her twice in the same day.

 Opening presents...though I did forget to take a picture of her with all of her gifts.

 That's her Grandma Dixie patting her on the head.

 Lizzy asked for a kitty cake for her birthday, so I went with Hello Kitty. If you notice the picture above, you'll see that Siri stole a pearl off of Kitty's necklace.

I hope you had a happy birthday Lizzy.

Now that you are 4 you keep asking me if you are a big girl. I tell you yes, but then you point out that you haven't really grown any bigger. You asked me why you aren't as big as me yet. :)

You are the biggest Momma's girl I have ever seen. You say you love Dad, but sometimes Dad and I both wonder if you really do. All you want is Mom. Always.

You are a girly girl, but not really. You love to wear skirts, even if it's freezing outside, but you hate to have your hair done, even though you love to admire yourself in the mirror when it's done. You always ask to wear my lipstick and you want your nails painted. All that aside, you love to play hard and when you fall and get hurt, you stand up quickly and get back to playing. You rarely cry from getting hurt, but you always cry if someone looks at you the wrong way. Such a girl!!!

Sweet Lizzy, you have such an attitude and you are not afraid to tell a person that they are making you mad. On the flip side, when you are happy, you have the CUTEST little girl voice known to man. In fact, many people comment on how cute your voice sounds.

I'm sure there are many more wonderful qualities about you that I have failed to mention, but just know how much your dad and I both love you. Our family would not be complete with out our Sweet Stinks.

Filling in the Gaps

These are the random pictures that have no affiliation with any one particular event.  As I was uploading them, I commented to James that we didn't have any of Lizzy. Shame on me. I don't take very many pictures as it is, but she's pretty darn cute, so I should do a better job of taking pictures of her. 

 We call Siri, "Monster" often enough that I guess she's taken it to heart.  Keep scrolling down and you'll see a similar picture to this one. Apparently we think she's cute as the Hulk because I took this picture of her and James took the other one.

 We got together with some of James' family to witness his sister, Becky, and husband, Scott, get sealed. When we went to dinner afterwards, one of the strange topics of conversation was about how James and one of his other sisters, Jenny, put candy corn on their teeth every candy corn season. Naturally, when candy corns became available for purchase, James put them right on his teeth. He's a dork, but I love him.

 Logan got to bring "Pete the Cat" home from school. He is their class mascot. When I went in to check on Logan after he was asleep, I found him like this. He is becoming a big kid, so I thought I'd better record this bit of cuteness before he outgrows it.

 Siri has trouble sleeping past 6:00, but one morning she was up at 5:00 AM.  James got up with her and at 7:00 she was falling asleep again. Go figure. They both took a morning nap together at 7:00 AM.  Again, a bit of cuteness that I needed to record.

 Santa, Siri, Hulk Monster.

Logan and I went to Chick-fil-A's "Mother and Son Date Knight". We went with friends and it was fun. I love that little squirt. Like I said, he is growing up so fast.

He was a nervous wreck when he started kindergarten and even the first day of first grade was a bit traumatic for him. As a result, I was a nervous wreck when we switched schools, moving to Idaho. I thought for sure he would have a break down, or refuse to get on the school bus, but he played it so calm, I was shocked! Prayers are answered and I'm grateful for that.

As I type this, he is tying Lizzy's Sunday dress for her (a little crooked, but hey, he can tie it!) and he found a shrug for her to help keep her warm. He doesn't do the best job of being a protective big brother; he is more of the, pester his little sisters to death, kind of big brother. But every once in a while he does something like help Lizzy get dressed, and it's good to see him taking care of somebody else. One more example of how big and grown up he is getting.

Halloween 2012

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and our Christmas decorations are already up, so naturally I am blogging about Halloween. But, it was one of the most enjoyable Halloween's I've had in a long time, so naturally I'd like to record it. 

My running friend, Kelli, told me on one of our morning runs, that she wanted to throw a Halloween party. I thought that sounded like lots of fun, so I offered to help her with it. If you know me, then you know I volunteered to make all the desserts for the party. This is what I came up with.

 Chocolate cat cookies

 Meringue ghosts and donut hole eyeballs

 Fudge filled chocolate mummy cupcakes. James actually insisted on decorating these himself.

 Kelli decorated the pumpkins to give as costume prizes. I made the white chocolate popcorn hands. I got the idea from a friend, who undoubtedly got it from pinterest, but I'm not pinterest savy. Yet.

 We played a bunch of Minute to Win It games. This is James trying to get the pennies out of a pair of nylons.

 The day after our party, we carved our pumpkins.

 I have such cute kids!  The more kids you have, the bigger your challenge of getting all of them to look at the camera at the same time.

 We all went trick or treating on Halloween night. We called ourselves "The Pirates of the Jordan River".  Siri stayed home with Grandma to sleep.

 While out gathering candy, we ran into a friend that James said hi to, but couldn't figure out who James was.

Seriously, a super fun Halloween season.  The kids still ask how many more days until Halloween again.