Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Let's play a little game


So just for fun, we're going to play a little game. I took this picture two days ago and I can't stop looking at it. So what I'm thinking is I would like to hear what YOU guys think the story is behind this picture. I'll post the real story AND the best fake story later. Game on!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Swimmin' Isabelle

For the past couple of months Isabelle has been taking swim lessons at a local pool. I am completely and utterly amazed at the progress she has made so far. At the beginning of this summer, she was still terrified of getting a single drop of water on her face. Bath time was ALWAYS a scream fest. Anyway, at the beginning of the summer, we had one of the young women in our ward giver her some private lessons to help her get over her fear of water. In the beginning I wasn't allowed anywhere near the pool because she would scream bloody murder if I was there. Well, the lessons paid off and Isabelle quickly got over her fear of the water. We spent the rest of the summer just playing at the pool. She still didn't like to swim without her floatie, but she had no problems putting her face in the water anymore. When summer ended and kelly went back to school, we needed something for Isabelle to do during the week. Preschool was too expensive and every other kind of class (dance, gymnastics, etc...) were outrageously expensive as well. Then we stumbled across these swim lessons that were SO cheap and the class sizes were small. So far it's been fantastic. The two other kids in her class are super sweet and they all get along well together. The other moms that go there are super nice as well, so that's always fun.

So yeah, Isabelle's doing great and I hope you like the video!





Friday, November 7, 2008

Points to ponder

So my poor little Kelly girl is sick. She woke up this morning puking into a bowl. That was exceptionally considerate of her since cleaning up pukey clothes/blankets without a washer and dryer can be really annoying. We are very lucky in that our kids hardly ever get sick. We attribute it to Isabelle's diseased little pillow she carries around everywhere. It's the most disgusting looking thing you've ever seen and it's always smooshed to her face. But I'm tellin' ya, it's better than vaccines! But anyway, Isabelle and I didn't feel like cooking lunch since we had been helping Kelly all morning, so we decided to order chinese. While we ate, I looked over at the couch and it struck me that Kelly was actually sleeping. No kidding, I actually got up to check to see if she was breathing. You see, Kelly was never a good sleeper and she's an even worse napper. She quit taking naps at the age of 18 months -- no lie! Even the accidental naps on long road trips stopped well before her 2nd birthday. So while Isabelle and I are eating I remembered when 2 years ago Kelly fell asleep on the couch during the day. She was waiting for Shane's parents to come for a visit. Her and Isabelle kept talking excitedly about when they were going to show up. I left the room to put some things away and when I came back 10 minutes later, kelly was on her back on the couch with her eyes closed. I completely freaked out and ran over to her thinking I was going to have to start CPR (I'm not kidding folks.... these were my true thoughts!). Right when I was about to shake her, she let out this big breath. The darn kid was SLEEPING! She was about 4 or 5 at this time and I swear to you, the last time she had napped during the day was easily 2 years prior. Totally freaky.

So as I am remembering this story, Isabelle picks up her Hunan Beef and says "Mmmmm... this is some GOOD brown rice!". To continue with her joke, she picked up her brown rice and said "This crab rangoon is DE-licious!" All the while giggling to herself. At that point my mind wondered and thought "What if you could raise your kids totally secluded from the outside world and you taught them all the wrong words for things. So instead of calling beef "beef", you called it rice instead. It's still english, just totally mixed up. But what if you did that with LOTS of things?? "I need to go wash my hair with syrup in the barn" and so on.... Then, when they reached school age, you plopped them in public school and watched the story unfold.

I'm scaring you, aren't I? Well, do you expect much else from me?

Well, you can expect this: I was already partially through this post when Kelly woke up. I really wanted to get a picture of her sleeping (you know, for dramatic effect). So yeah, I told her to pretend to sleep so I could get the pic. Yeah.... that's what you can expect from me.


Well, on a happier and less weird note, Kelly had her birthday this past week. She turned 7 years old! Can you believe it? Next year my baby will be getting baptized! Anyway, this year we decided to really scale back on the celebrations. We normally do a pretty big party at a park, but it was time for something smaller and easier on my sanity. Kelly was allowed to pick one friend to come and she chose her best friend Emma from school. Since we're really good friends with her family, we invited her older sister Bailey to come as well. Kelly really wanted to go to the park to play, and so we did. Well, for a little while at least. Right after we got there Isabelle had to go to the bathroom really bad. The bathrooms were stupidly locked (why have public restrooms if you freakin' lock them all the time?!?!?!?!) Anyway, Bailey and I tried to convince her that peeing behind a bush was cool. She eventually gave in and gave it a try. Well, she did it alright. But unfortunately I didn't aim her right and she peed all over her pants. Ugh.... I tried not to laugh too hard because I knew she was embarrassed. I guess there goes my chances of not scarring my children for life.

So anyway, Kelly had a lot of fun even though we had to bolt from the park early. Happy birthday sweetheart!