Yay!

I got FREEEEEEEE tickets to see the Utah audition of So You Think You Can Dance 2011!!!!!!!!

 You can too if you go here.  

You're welcome.

Bed Time

Attempt #1: 10:15 pm

Say personal prayers with girls.  Fill sippy cups with ice and cold water.  Blow kisses.  Say good night.  Maya insists on sleeping in India's bed.  India acquiesces. Go wash dishes.

Attempt #2:  10:30 pm

India gets out of bed because Maya keeps unplugging the heater and everything else that plugs into the wall.  Maya comes into the kitchen and greets me, "Good Morning Mommy!"  Put girls in their separate beds.  Tell India that Mommy and Daddy need to spend time together so we can practice being in love.  Go downstairs to watch TV with Ammon.

Attempt #3:  10:50 pm

India comes downstairs.  "Mommy?  Maya pooped in my room, and Belle ate it, and now Maya is wiping herself off."  Head upstairs. India asks, "Did you have enough time to fall in love with Daddy tonight?"  Change Maya. Fabreeze the crap out of girls' room. Exile dog to kitchen.  Put girls in my bed.  Maya keeps sitting on India's head.  Ammon downstairs.  No one  is sleeping.

Attempt #4:  11:20 pm


Put Maya's zip-up jammies on backward.  Put Maya in bed to scream herself to sleep.  Snuggle with India.  Story about a gassy witch by India.  Maya still screaming.  Change Maya's jammies to frontward.  Ammon come in.  Kicks India out of our bed.

Attempt#5:  11:45 pm
Maya still screaming.  Ammon gets mad at her.  Intense crying for 24 seconds.  Silence.

Moral of the Story:  Ammon should put the girls to bed every night.

Christmas 2010

The best part of our Christmas Break was having Ammon home.  We took the girls ice skating, watched movies, built gingerbread houses, played games, spent as much time as possible with our fun families (those of you who haven't left us yet), exercised together, and had our surprise Nutcracker Piano Recital for my parents via skype.The girls were so disappointed when he told them he had to go back to work.  Now we're back to our usual Monday mournings. (Ha ha - get it?)  

India and I went to see the Nutcracker on Christmas Eve afternoon.  She enjoyed it, but not as much as last year.  In the second act, she loudly asked me if someone would turn off the music so she could go to sleep.  I might be soloing the Nutcracker next year.  

It was totally worth seeing Santa Claus pushing Clara's sleigh at the end and then getting candy canes afterwards.  Do you see her purse?  She is rarely without a stocked purse these days.  Such a pretty princess!

Here is the Christmas picture I did not send to everyone.  

India's curls were PERFECT ringlets that day, and I LOVE their cheesy smiles.

 The day after Christmas Maya turned 2! 

 The silly girl actually found and unwrapped all her birthday presents on Christmas! 

New Year's Eve our best, best, best, best, best friends the Reddings came to visit from Biloxi!  We MISS our Sara Circle times.  And this is the picture of the most kids smiling!  Good times you lovely people !

I love these two girls.  Maya is obsessed with India and begs every night to sleep in Dida's bed. India goes back and forth whether or not she wants to share her personal space with Maya.  When she decides she can handle it, my heart melts.  As a mother, all I want is my children to love and  to be there for each other even after I'm gone.

 

 Usually they stay up and play together, but this night they actually fell asleep.  Miracle!

Maya and India's current obsessions are Barbies, books, princesses,  the candy witch story Ammon made up, puzzles, Barbies, the horridly creepy cartoon Yo Gabba Gabba, and anything Barbie.  Ammon likes to tease Maya by saying, "I'm Pocahontas (or any other princess Maya has decided to be that day)."  Maya screams at him and gets really mad and cries or punches him.  Ammon laughs. And then they repeat it 15 or 16 more times.

These girls are so good at puzzles. While I was taking a phone call, Maya went shopping in my purse and  found my ipod. Then she laid on the ground and just listened to the music --- so much like her daddy!

Reader's Digest Version of What I'm Feeling

These punks make me happy.

And so does this sweet monster (even with her I'm-so-busted face). 

There were a lot more tacks in the chair before I grabbed the camera.

I don't want India to become human someday

India to me as we are sitting down to snuggle and watch a TV show for our girls' night:  Can we watch something appropriate for kids and humans?

Bryce: Where are you going?
Me: Sariah's house.
Bryce: Who's Sariah?
India: Dada's sister, my aunt, and mommy's friend.

India:  I think we both have the same hair.

Me: Oh yeah?  Is that cause we both have dark brown hair?

India (as she's combing her hair with water): Yeah.  And we both have sticking up hair.  

Sorry for the frizzy hair gene babe.

"Dammit!"  India's frustration when she couldn't get a puzzle piece to fit.

I'm mortified that she learned that awful word from me.

Ammon: Go brush you teeth India.

India: Not till you say you're sorry first.

Every night: "Mommy, I will come snuggle you in the morning, so you will have no bad dreams."

"I am going to marry my best friend.  I think I will have a contest."

India: I want makeup for Christmas.

Ammon: No.

India: Then I will not invite you to my wedding.

Ammon:  I wish you would spend as much time thinking about where you want to go to college as you do about getting married.

India: I'm not going to college.

Ammon: You go sit in time out right now.

Time Out

Ammon:  Why did you have to sit in time out?

India: Because I said I'm not going to college.  But princesses don't go to college!

Ammon:  Well, you're not allowed to be a princess then.

Tears

Me:  Princesses go to college.  I'm a princess and I went to college.  (Then I list all of the princesses that have gone to college in our family. Come on Disney!)

Ammon: And you can go to college in a castle.  

Ammon and India go look online at uber expensive universities that have gorgeous campuses.   

"When I grow up to be a human, I will go to college and work at the dog groom."

She's a miscreant

I should submit video footage of Maya's life to the TV program I Shouldn't Be Alive.  I have so been overreacting this week.  She really is cute and sweet and adorable, and I love her so much. Then I turn my back for 34 seconds, and she's turned into a wild woman.  I've lost my sense of humor this week, so no pictures to prove how crazy she's making me.

• Broke the cookie jar where I was keeping the Halloween candy.
• Holds Belle's tail and chases her around the house while yelling at her.
• Put all of the pens and pencils into the printer.
• Stuck 200 stickers all over the dog.
• Chews on choking hazardous toys.  Found her hiding in my bathroom with the door closed chewing on something.  When I held out my hand, she spit a plastic Halloween spider into my hand.
• Rips out pages and/or draws in every library book we check out.
• Pinches India's cheeks.
• Mopped the bathroom floor with toilet water.
• Stole all the yogurt puff treats from another kid's diaper bag while I was babysitting.
• Pulls clumps of India's hair out.
• Tried to go potty after bath but said it was stuck.  Was finally able to get poop unstuck on her bedroom floor.  At least she came and got me and didn't hide.
• Hides behind doors without saying anything until found.
• Tears off the plastic covering of DVDs and pulverizes the paper inside.
• Tore off decorations to all of the pre-made birthday cards India made.
• Dumped the dog water out on kitchen floor.
• Drank the rest of the dog water that didn't get dumped out.

I did substitute as the singing leader in Maya's nursery class though, and she was so stinking cute!  She loves the sunbeam song!  And she even did all the actions and took turns and folded her arms.  Sigh.

Good News & Bad News

The good news:

India's Indian costume is so much cooler than the one I got to make in school. I had to bribe her to put it on, so I could take a picture of her.  

The bad news:

Maya is teething and in a particular moody, moody, bad mood. 

Also, my best piano student just got engaged.  (She's 23, so that's probably ok).  I totally called it too.  But she's probably not going to be in my Winter Recital.

Bummer.

What's better than eating Halloween candy?

Eating Halloween candy n a k e d.  

Why won't she keep her clothes on?

     I had a great weekend.  And of course, I didn't have my camera with me. So the pictures are from a few days ago.  Friday the girls and I picked up our friends, Kiersten & Morgan and headed to Orem to party with  Sarah Circle friends.  I kept the kids up waaaaaaaay too late, and they fell asleep in the car.  But our little friends apparently live in a different time zone in West Jordan because they were up at 6:45 am.  Well, probably earlier than that because that's what time I finally woke up to investigate the mysterious booms and giggles.  My work day doesn't usually start before 8 am.  Then Ammon and I took the kids to the zoo for trick or treating, which was SO MUCH FUN!  India loved the real cow (yes, "real" as in the guy dressed up in the cow costume giving away chocolate milk).  Then we went home and took a long nap.  When we woke up, it was pouring rain. However, Ammon and I ditched the kids with Uncle Bryce who took them trick or treating for an hour in the downpour while we went to the ballets The 4 Temperments and Carmina Burano.    Aside from the music which was AMAZING, this was the gayest thing I've ever asked Ammon to do. Think male dancers in flesh-colored spandex undies.  Or male dancers in banana-yellow spandex undies with asymmetrical spandex shrugs.  He was dying, and I was trying so hard not to giggle.  I loved every minute of it.

Maya's dragon costume.  Look familiar?  She kept to the dragon theme by eating the candy and the wrapper.   How do we know?  We found the wrappers in her diaper the next day.

Miss Maya waiting for Baby to come out of preschool.  Maya has had weird attachment issues this week.  She has cried and cried and cried after ANYBODY leaves her.  She cried the whole hour trick or treating with Uncle Bryce except to accept candy and say thank you.

Preschool pumpkins.

Practicing walking in a line with her preschool class and teacher Mrs. Kamille.

Finallly!  Baby is ready to come home!

Gross Candy Party, Witches, Pumpkins

I had so much fun at Hailey's Gross Candy Party last year that I threw my own.  We played games, tasted gross candy we brought, and then feasted on brain bites (sweet & sour meatballs), monkey hearts and alligator eyes with pus (strawberries & grapes with fruit dip), bone marrow and mud squares (pumpkin rolls & brownies), mummies (pigs in a blanket), and a candy corn veggie platter (cauliflower, carrots, and yellow bell peppers shaped like a large candy corn). And it was so fun!

I carved our pumpkin this year!  Go me!  The girls would have nothing to do with the pumpkin guts.  Maya kept saying, "ewww, yuck, yuck."  I can think of plenty of grosser things that Mookie still does.  India cried when I made her stick her hand in th scrape out the seeds.  I'm pretty sure my parents made me do the same thing.  Our pumpkin was supposed to be a princess.  Hmmmm.  At least I have a year to perfect my design for next year.

Check out my hair!  It's not a wig, and the dye did come out before church.  Josie and I bundled up and went to Witch's Night Out at Gardner Village.  I was so proud of myself because I only shopped with my cell phone, meaning I took pictures of everything I wanted to buy because just maybe I can make those things for a fraction of the price.  Or at least find a killer bargain.  My favorite part was the dancing!  I have not been to a dance for way too long.  I looked like a dork, but I had fun!  

Halloween Sunset

Thursday night we went on a pumpkin walk in the park.  While Ammon and India ran through, Maya told me what kind face each pumpkin had: scary, happy, silly, witch, cat . . .

I didn't take any pictures of the pumpkins because we were only there for six minutes.

But don't worry.  Ammon made up for it big time Halloween weekend.

Halloween Week

Cinderella & Aerial

Monster Mash at the library with Katie.

These sisters are so bossy to each other!  I asked India to take four more bites of yucky Cheerios this morning. Maya chimed in,  "Baby, bite. One, Two . . . bite.  Eat!"  Or I laugh when Maya grabs India's shirt collar and demands, "Baby, play with me!"

I grabbed my camera as fast I could to snap a picture of these girls playing the piano together.  

I really hope they will play piano duets together as they grow up!

Glittering herself for her party at preschool today.

Ammon and I ask her nicely to please stop growing up everyday.  

No Napper

photo from Zazzle.com

It's official.  India does not take naps any more.  Not because she won't.  Because she will.  She's so obedient.  She naps a minimum of 2-3 hours.  But then she stays up laaaaaaaaaaate.  Trying to wake her in a middle a nap is as deadly as roasting a jumbo marshmallow over an erupting volcano.  And so not worth it.

So, she doesn't take naps anymore.

Fresh Food

My favorite thing to do with lots and lots of garden tomatoes is make salsa!

This stuff is good enough to drink.

And we go through homemade salsa like gang busters.

(That's the phrase my mom always uses).

Chop tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, garlic, and your choice of hot peppers.

Drain or save excess tomato juice.

Add a bit of salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, chili powder, vinegar, lemon juice, and tomato paste to thicken it up.

I also added our favorite sauce "Jamaican Me Crazy" for extra spice!

Josie and I made bread together.

I'll let you guess which loaf was mine.

Unsupervised

An entire roll of toilet paper.

Dogfood in the mopping solution.

Nakedness.

Came home from store and found Maya changing her very own poopy diaper.

Face painting with eyeshadow.

I thought whatever I was doing was more important.

How wrong was I?

More Parks

Parks really are the best. We can't ever get enough play time in. Maya screams and throws a fit every time we leave. I take it as a token of gratitude. But it really hurts when she uses her head as a battering ram against my chest.

Preschool

First day back in September.

Why does she look so old?

She's only four.

One month later.

Every Thursday we walk India across the street to preschool.

And Maya screams every week when "Baby" (her name for India) leaves her.

But then we have Mommy and Maya time for two and half hours.

Or Maya plays with all of India's toys without India yelling at her.

It's awesome.

Last Days of Summer

It Should Be A Law

That soccer fields ALWAYS have playground equipment nearby.

Congrats Rachel on your soccer season!

We Rode the Gondola to the Top of the World

And this is what we found:

Clouds descending.

Appalachian Trail

Grandma Elizabeth

More of the Appalachian Trail

Cold, but still cute, girls.

Grandma Elizabeth & Nanna JoAnne

A point where you can see the Atlantic Ocean 97 miles away on a clear day.

Grandpa Jim

And more waterfalls back at the bottom of the world.