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!

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!

Halloween party time

Our ward had a halloween party this past weekend and the kids had a ton of fun. The girls enjoyed getting dressed up in their costumes and getting tons of free candy (I mean, come on... who wouldn't???)

Kelly is a black kitty cat. I know she looks like a mouse right now, but she DOES have a cat tail on!


Isabelle went as a pink bunny rabbit. I'm not sure why she wanted the weird smiley face painted on her, but she was adament that she needed it.



Shane went as Gob the Magician. I'm going to assume most of you don't know who that is. He's a character from Arrested Development. Basically Gob is the worst magician of all time. Shane kept doing stupid card tricks all night that didn't even work, but the kids thought they were so cool. My husband IS cool! (And for those of you who DO know who Gob is, we even brought a CD player to play his theme music -- The Final Countdown!)


I wasn't sure what I was thinking when I got this costume. Yes... I am a california raisin. Okay, I guess I DID know what I was thinking when I bought that costume, but my thinking was definitely flawed. I saw it in a thrift store for $4 and thought "Hey! That's an easy costume and really really funny!" I was especially sold when it came with it's own "I'm drug free" ribbon. So yeah, in theory it was a great idea and very funny. However, in practice it was NOT a great idea and NOT very funny. It smelled really bad even though I washed and febreezed the heck out of it. It's made of foam, so it wasn't exactly breathable material and the two eye holes it gave me provided very little vision. The only thing funny about it was that it scared the little kids half to death. Literally. I had two 3 year olds that were seriously on the verge of crying I was freaking them out so much. That possibly could have been worth wearing it.

Well, before I go I will leave with you a short video of Shane doing one of his card "tricks". I wish I could have gotten a video of some of his funnier tricks, but this will do. I think the Young Women were slightly confused by the trick.... lol!

Gallrein Farm

Last weekend my dad invited us to join him at the Gallrein Farm (I think I spelled that right). Anyway, it was loads of fun picking pumpkins, riding a horse-drawn hay ride, riding ponies, and playing in the hay. Oh, and don't forget the awesome music! (My dad and his friend Joe provided the music that day)





If you look really close, there is a worm in that sucker. And yes, it's supposed to be there. For some reason my dad thought the kids or I would like it. Um.......... So yeah, if anybody wants a sucker with a tasty worm in it, give me a hollar! I've got one I can spare.

Mark Wahlberg talks to animals 2

Have you ever seen that SNL skit called "Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals"? Shane and I thought it was SOOOOOOOOOO funny that when we went to a petting zoo today, we just had to make our own! And yes, we know we're ginormous nerds.

These are a few of my favorite things

Seriously, So Blessed


and


Cake Wrecks



Many thanks to Tracy and Emily for enriching my life in the most beautiful of ways. I'm pretty sure I'm complete now.

Just the good stuff....

So if I haven't mentioned it before, I'm going to mention it again - Kelly's school is AWESOME! The school offers Tae Kwon Do after school 2 days a week for only $20 a semester. How awesome is THAT? So far Kelly is loving it. Several of her really good friends are in the class and she loves getting to hang out with them after school. She's only gone three times so far and has learned a lot from her instructor. Maybe I'll get a chance to sneek in and take a video of her in action. She's so cute when she punches! lol!

Okay, so something else that I didn't get a chance to post about was Shane and mine's 8th wedding anniversary. That's right -- 8 years ! We had a really nice anniversary weekend. My sister-in-law watched the kids for us the whole weekend so we could have a break. Shane planned the whole thing and did a fantastic job! First we got all dressed up and went to a Mediterranian restaurant to eat and watch some live Flamenco music and dancing. That was really really cool. The food was incredible and the dancing was fun to watch. Shane and I couldn't help but laugh when we told the waitress that we wanted water to drink and instead of just bringing us a glass of tap water, she asked what kind of water we wanted. Well, the spring water was really nice (though it tasted just like regular water), but it came in a really cool bottle.

But anyway, after dinner we were both EXTREMELY tired and didn't really want to go out and do anything else. Instead, we went home and Shane pulled out his next surprise: a Wii! No, he didn't buy it for me. He borrowed it from a friend. We had SO much fun playing all of the sports. I kicked his butt at bowling which made the night even better! The best part, I think, was when I gave him his gift. Now, Shane and I aren't exactly the most romantic people. We're just too nerdy and goofy for that. So when I saw Shane's gift at a local thrift store, I knew I HAD to have it. It was like a choir of heavenly angels were calling to me -- beckoning me -- to buy it! Behold, the greatest present of all time:



I mean, come ON. Who DOESN'T need a 2XL Notorious B.I.G. shirt with a crown made out of glitter paint? And the best part? I didn't add the crown. That baby was already on it! I am the coolest wife of all time.

Everybody's got a little gangsta in them!