One of those days

Have you ever just had one of those days where you wish you could crawl in a hole and hide from responsibility? Today's one of those for me. Everything that has gone wrong has. We had a tire blow out on our van last night. Dallan was taking his scouts hiking and on their way, it blew. The saddest part, was we were already needing new tires on our other car and it was in my plans today to take that car in and get those tires. Not knowing a lot about tire replacement, Dallan and I forgot that you have to replace two at a time, they won't just sell you one. So today we had to buy four new tires. Ugh! I really have a love/hate relationship with cars. Gas is so pricey its hard to go anywhere, but without a car I don't know how I'd manage, and THEN there are the repairs, insurance, blah blah blah... the costs feel endless! This week is already crazy for me, so Dallan decided to take the cars in for me allowing me to keep the girls on their schedule, get them to and from swimming lessons, and hopefully just have an easier day. I'm playing in "The Secret Garden" at Chandler Gilbert Community College this week and next, tonight being my first rehersal with them. It was supposed to be quick to get all the tires replaced, but the place Dallan took the car of course was out of its specific tires, so they sent him to another store further away from his work to get it. So his morning was shot, he will most likely get home in time to high-five me out the door, and now I'm feeling guilty for pawning that responsibility off on him. Ugh! Money, Time... there is never enough of either one. And the painful realization of responsibility and choices made and their consequences is just rough some days. Se la vi.

Happy Birthday Little Buckethead!

Happy Birthday Amelia! My little girl is 3 years old today. I can't believe I have been a mom for 3 years. You know, its interesting celebrating an oldest child's birthday, its a celebration of survival for the parents as well. Hooray! We survived 3 years of parenthood and our children are still alive! Anyway, I think (THINK being the optimal word in this sentence) I'm going to enjoy having a 3-year old. It was fun today to have her truly recognize it was her birthday. She's always been so smart and quick with thinking and words, but for some reason she seemed older in her dialogue this weekend. For instance, at dinner tonight, we were all so hungry and tired Dallan and I started eating and forgot to talk. Don't worry, Amelia reminded us. She said, "I know! We could talk!" Wow! What an amazing idea. So she started a conversation and we talked about nursery and she informed me she had pretended to be a puppy and the lady told her to not be a puppy anymore. Or like last weekend, we went to Wilcox AZ to visit Dallan's sister and Amelia got to have a sleep-over with her cohort in crime cousin Meghan. We caught those two at 3 in the morning chatting about the dreams they had had and about our kitty Tula, and who knows what else. But those are such big girl things to do, my little girl is no longer a baby in any way. I love how smart she is, how grown up but yet childlike she feels, I absolutely love the conversations we have. I have learned so much from that little buckethead, I'm very grateful to have her as part of my family and to have her be my oldest. She is truly the best big sister in the world to Lucy. Anyway, enjoy the pictures from all our birthday festivities!
Since her birthday was on Sunday, we told her she could invite a couple friends over on Saturday for cake. She said "five friends". So we told her to start naming that many friends and she named "Max, (we insert his mom's name and brother), yeah, and Ashlyn (we insert her mom and brother) yeah." Ok! Five friends! This is Amelia with Timothy and Ashlyn Laughlin, her favorite girlfriend.

At Amelia's request, a pink cake, with pink frosting with a mother bird and her babies in a nest! Voila! I thought I did pretty good!


Best quote of the night, "Look mom, I'm dressed as a shoebox!" A box still proves to be the best present a kid can get. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! The toys inside are pretty fun too.

She DECIDES to walk! Finally...

Well, folks! Lulu decided to walk yesterday. It was a busy day starting with a very small yard sale (mostly to get rid of 2 strollers and a couch... we sold two strollers and are pending on the couch. So, it was a success!) Anyway, we were talking to our neighbor and Dallan says, "Lucy stood up!" I'm thinking, big deal, she stands up all the time. The catch was she stood up with nothing and no one to hold on to. So my assumptions with Lucy's personality were correct. She had to decide "I want to walk" and she would. So, she then walked a good distance in the grass toward me! We cheered and applauded and made a HUGE deal of it! So of course she did it again, and again and again! And voila! She is walking. It's still faster to crawl, so unless she is wanting praise, she still crawls. But I'm so happy she is walking now! Mostly because it seems less dirty to walk than to crawl. Like the other day at the zoo, we were in the goats petting zoo and Lucy crawled right into a pile of goat poop. It was so disgusting, but if she were walking, I would have been cleaning a shoe and not racing to the sink to wash her hands before they got near her mouth and face. So anyway, all you who say, "You don't want her walking.... its better they don't walk." I just don't believe you. I'm so EXCITED that my Lucy is a walker! Take a look:

Emily Noxon is AMAZING!

I'm so excited for this friend I had to share. It's fun to see people you know and went to High School with do amazing things, and this Emily Noxon is one of the most amazing people I know. I'm proud to say I was in choir at one point with Emily! :) Way to go Emily! This video won her a competition against nearly 400 other people competing to sing with the band Rascal Flatts, and amazing Emily WON!!! I just think that is SOOOO cool! Take a look at her video:

Be a Milk Rock Star with Rascal Flatts! Brickfish

Traveling like crazy

After looking at my friend Kellie's blog, and after her saying how bad she felt for not posting things often enough, I felt REALLY bad! But I have a legitimate excuse for that. We had a crazy fun April, with family visiting and us going all over the place, I am kind of shocked by it being May already because, wait, where did April go?! Anyway, thought I'd at least share some photo highlights of our adventures. First we went to Utah to celebrate our upcoming 5 year wedding anniversary. The girls stayed with Grandma and Grandpa while we played most of the week like we were newlyweds again. Lucy had her first birthday while we were in Utah, so of course we spent that day with the girls. Best moments included a wonderful blizzard in Park city, (and I thought I'd missed my chance to see snow this year) getting a pedicure, Lucy's birthday of course, a chance to go to the Salt Lake Temple, and I finally got to ride the historic Heber Valley Railroad. I learned on this trip that 4 days like without my girls is much too much for me. I really missed them the second half of the week.




When we got back from Utah, we had a trip to the Whiting homestead planned for the following weekend. Dallan defended this vacation saying it was planned before all the rest, and at first I thought it was to fulfill YM President duties. I was under the impression he needed to take his advisor up there to plan an upcoming superactivity. Really Dallan just wanted to go to the Homestead. So we went Simper style "camping" Friday and Saturday. It was cold but beautiful!



And now, we are planning to leave in two days for Idaho to celebrate my Grandma's 90th birthday with the rest of my family. I am very nervous for this because I will be flying alone with my girls. We have bought magic markers and papers to color, along with stickers and I plan to take the girls favorite toys along, but there are so many restrictions on airlines now, and cranky people who don't like or understand kids. I mean, my girls are good, but can I really demand them to stay still and quite for 3 hours of flying. I can't even get that in church!! Anyway, if there are any other experienced child flyers out there with some suggestions let me know. And hopefully you'll get to see pictures from that event (but don't hold your breath)... no, life calms down again after this trip. So I promise, I'll do better!!

Potty Trained

Bedelia is officially, 100% potty trained! Two weeks ago today, Bedelia woke up and declared, "I am big now, I want to wear big girl pants". I had heard that children each have their own wake up call of sorts giving interest in potty training, but I didn't expect it to be this sudden. We immediately went to the store, bought a little toilet seat cover to ease the fear of falling in, some big girl panties, and pull-ups. And then my little girl was potty trained. We spent the first 2 days of this adventure with her pant less, and had an eyeopening experience when she was sent to time out that first evening of potty training wearing her big girl panties. All of a sudden, the crying stopped and she says "the floor's wet right here." I went over to her and instinctively giggled. She had no idea what "tinkle"was! I mean, she knew she had to have her diapers changed, but I honestly believe she didn't understand it until that moment. I took her to the bathroom and happily explained in two year old terms what had happened, so as not to scare her from the experience. That was a big moment, from that moment we would cheer and dance and run around in circles when she would tell us she had to go tinkle -- and it worked. She got excited about it, and minus one or two minor accidents she hasn't had any accidents, can wear panties all the time and wakes up most mornings with a dry pull-up! I'm amazed with her self control, and with her decisiveness! I imagine that this trait will continue with her throughout her life, as it has manifest itself in speaking, memorizing books, walking, not to mention her impeccable memory when it comes to things that are important to her. Anyway, if you are ever in need of a good smile, let me know and I'll have an excited little girl call to tell you how exciting poop can be!

Digital Scrapbooking

I haven't put up a new post in a while because I've been busy! I discovered a fun new way to scrapbook, that I can do WHILE being a busy mom of two. It's the wonderful world of digital scrapbooking! I discovered a great, FREE software online called Scrapbook Flair, which has given me a new scrapbooking freedom I haven't experienced since Lulu was born. In two and a half weeks I completed a 90 page book. The two weeks was partly due to a deadline of sale through winkflash, which by the way was a killer deal. They were offering their digital 8X10 book printed for $19.95 with a limit of 100 pages. Normal this would be a $50 book through winkflash. This sale motivated me (to say the least) and I got to work putting together a fun book I titled "Simpering Along January-May 2007." I just got the finished product in the mail yesterday and it looks FABULOUS! I can't tell you how much it felt like Christmas to look through that book yesterday! Well, I want to tell you all, even though I know a lot of people (scrapbook guru's...) who think paper scrapbooking is the only way to do it or not at all, digital scrapbooking is cleaner, faster and just as nice looking. I do like paper scrapbooking for my kids, but that's because I love them. It takes a LOT of time, planning, money, TIME... to make a full on scrapbook, and I hardly have any of the above!!! The only downside I found to my new found art is the printed books from places like shutterfly and winkflash are unprotected from tiny hands. The pages bend as easy as their story books and can smudge, so not as child friendly to pull off the shelf and look through unsupervised, but I am just so excited about the idea of actually getting caught up in my personal family history. I have decided I will still make paper books for each of my children for them to take with them later in life, but these digital scrapbooks make it possible for me to journal and make my own book of life with very little money or time! I love it! Here are some of my pages.