Bright Ideas

So this past week I had two really great ideas...
1) as seen above was to put mascara in Lyla's make-up kit for her birthday. GENIUS!
2) Having the senior primary play battle of the sexes for music time. Really when I thought of the game I was so impressed with myself. I would read a line from the song the a boy and a girl race to guess the name of the song, for 2 points. We would sing the song and then the team that didn't get the title would have the floor to sing the line following the line I read for 1 point. Easy enough game and it made them think about the words and the title to the songs we were singing. I thought the girls would wipe the floor with the boys, but as it turns out the girls were not great at the game. They lost and not gracefully at all. There was screaming, "this game isn't fair, your not fair". WHAT? How did things turn on me so quickly. I never would have imagined this outcome. I had brought treats for the winning team, but didn't dare hand them out for fear of a riot. Those girls were scary. I don't think the Primary President will be asking me to sub any time soon.
I am now getting my lesson together for Relief Society on Sunday and am hoping not to have the same reaction from the crowd.

The Most Depressing Day

So I guess that today is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year. The day when the happiness of the Holiday's wears off, but we were lucky enough to get this beautiful little girl 3 years ago today. We are so happy to celebrate this little ones birthday each year and really I can't believe my baby is 3. I know everyone says that, but seriously I feel like I just had her yesterday. Plus if she really is three, why do I still consider this last 5 lbs baby weight? (okay really it is 10 lbs, Holiday treats were good this year)
This morning as I was getting Lyla out of bed and hugging her and telling her happy birthday she insisted on two things for her birthday:
1. A present (she didn't care what she got, but she wanted to open something)
2. To go to Red Robin. (I love birthday's because it means I don't have to make dinner)
We went to the dollar store and bought a ton of make-up, fingernail polish, dress-up shoes and candy. She loves having anyone put make-up on her and paint her fingernails so we should have lots to do tomorrow when the kids go back to school.
We love our little feisty, loud, almost always yelling at someone, dancing, singing and bossy little 3 year old. Plus the weather is beautiful out today a warm 58 degrees outside and sunny for our little girls birthday, so how could anyone consider this the most depressing day of the year.

Buying Friends

Give me all of your candy and I will let you pass

So I waited for just the right moment, just after Phil had covered his lips with Miya's chap stick to say, "Miya we really shouldn't use chap stick we get from friends at school." I saw Phil's hand fly up to his mouth to quickly wipe the chap stick away. He followed up with, "yuck, that was her friend's chap stick."

This is only one of the many things Miya keeps bringing home from school. I am sure she is a nice kid, but with all the loot she brings home I am hoping she isn't secretly the school bully taking away their only treats, lunch money and of course their chap stick. Today she had a full size bag of m&ms from someone. I told her that it was nice of all of her friends to give her stuff, but that next time she should say thanks, but you can keep it. (especially the chap stick! Right?)

Well I guess if she is learning nothing else in school she is at least learning that friends give you stuff. Another one of life's super important lessons.

New Year's Eve

So we got invited to a party at the neighbors for New Year's Eve. It was followed by the usual, "there will be alcohol". We love these neighbors and have been friends since we moved in. We have family game nights together and they know all about the things "we crazy Mormons" do or don't do as they see it. They are great at trying to accommodate us. We even played poker that night (I have never played before and had no idea what I was doing) we didn't play for money, but she had purchased prizes for the winners so it wouldn't be gambling. I won the second game and we had a great time.
As we were getting ready to leave Lyla climbed up on the lap of our other neighbor and was talking to him (I am not sure he will remember this). After talking to her he laughed at how weird it will be when his children get married and have kids. Okay so this guy is my dad's age and his kids are my age. My dad has 21 grand kids with another on the way and my neighbor can't imagine being a grandpa. This would be another one of those "crazy Mormon" things, but I am so happy to have so much family.
I do so appreciate great friends who really love us and also see our differences as something interesting and fun. Plus there daughter is our babysitter and we all know how important that relationship is!!!

Christmas Break

Well we started off this month long party by going to California for Phil's company Christmas party. Phil works for three days and I hang out with Ashlee. We took her girls to Disneyland and only took this one picture the entire trip. It was great to get to hang out with her and meet Olivia who was born in July. Arleigh and Emery actually liked me this time and Emery wanted to go on all the rides with me at Disneyland.
Then the next week we loaded everyone up and headed down to Portland for another company party with Phil's crew in Portland. I sent a random email down to my cousin Angelica to see if she would watch my kids that night while we did the dinner. It is so great to have family all over that are willing to watch my kids at the drop of a hat even when I haven't seen them in years. They loved playing with her kids and Miya was super excited to learn that she had even more cousins...they are like 3rd cousins or something?
Christmas was great and we spent the morning here at our house opening presents then went over to Vashon to spend time with Phil's family. We spent the night and played the whole next day too.
We have the world's easiest kids to please (they have learned not to expect much I guess). They were so excited about everything they got and were smiley and sweet all morning.

I didn't take any picture of Cannon with his yo-yo, but he loves it. He is always trying to learn new tricks and he has been bringing it up to quiet-time everyday to get better at walking the dog.

Lyla got a stroller and she has been pushing it around the house for the past week. She always wants the one at Nana's so we thought it was time to get one around here.

Then this past week after parties at neighbors and friends we had to take a little time to clean up one of the rentals since we had a tenant move out the end of December. Nothing like cleaning up after people leave to top of the Holidays. The kids were good though during the cleaning and it didn't seem too bad. Phil put insulation under the floor in the crawl space and came home needing to shave his arms to get the stuff out. We decided to try just combing it out and it ended up more like a wax job when we were finished.

I had to wake up Miya and Cannon for school this morning because we are a little out of the habit of getting up early. Plus with the rain clouds it was super dark still at 7:00. I am trying to get caught up on things this morning and will head over to volunteer today in Cannon's class.

Can't even believe it is 2010. Phil said, "yeah, and just think we were married in the 90's." We are so old! Happy New Year.