My baby is three!

Happy birthday to the cutest, most mischievous, lovable little trouble maker in the world.

I thought it would be fun to write down what she did all day so she can look back when she's older to see what her third birthday was like.

To start, Aimee couldn't keep still all day. She roamed around the house looking for things to do, and couldn't sit still for more than a minute. She was a more restless version of herself all day. And she couldn't take a nap. I tried twice, but she was too excited!

We started out with our own little family, and opened presents. She got a couple of things, but the hello kitty gumball machine from Katie overshadowed the rest of them. The gumballs were gross, and Aimee just swallows them anyway, so I told her we could go to the store and buy some candy to put in it instead.

We went to Costco to get the huge jar of jelly beans to put in the gumball machine. Jelly beans are one of her favorites. They were giving samples of fudge there, and when they found out it was her birthday, the sang happy birthday really loudly to her. It scared her a little! :) We bought mini lava cakes, and she wanted flowers, so she picked them out.

We came home, and had lunch, and I tried to get her to nap. That didn't work, so the girls played until it was party time! Aimee informed me she was having a kitty party, so that's what we did. They played hide and go seek, had a scavenger hunt, opened presents, ate dinner, then had cake.
We used trick candles, and Aimee loved them. I wish I would have gotten a video of her, because she was so excited every time she blew them out, and they came back on. It was very cute. Then all the girls did the exact same thing: they ate the middle chocolate, and left the cake.

Then we went to the zoo to see the lights. We braved the really, truly horrible wind, and we rode on the train (the max). Aimee was delighted with the whole thing, and loved seeing all the lights. She didn't want to have me near her though, she much preferred Gramma or Aunt Kelsey. When we went inside to get hot chocolate I saw that she had hives! She gets hives when she gets cold. (she gets the random hive thing from me) They faded as she warmed up. Then she ate cotton candy by the handful, and shoveled it in as fast as she could. I had to make her stop, and she was not happy. She drank some hot chocolate, but then she spilled it, and got very sad. We decided it was time to go, so we put hats, gloves, scarves, etc back on, and braved the cold again. Aimee had a couple meltdowns on the way back, but she was so tired. She was good though, and didn't complain about the cold at all. She was very excited to ride the train back to the car, and fell asleep on the way home.

I think she had a pretty fun day. I wonder if she will remember any of it!

We are so glad to have our Aimee. She is not an easy kid, by any stretch, but she is so lovable and adorable most of the time. She does get into a lot of trouble, and I have never seen a kid who loves getting into things more than her, and she can throw some awesome tantrums, but she is sweet, and I can't imagine what I would do without my Aimee girl.

Vacivity!

I just adopted the word vacivity! (not to be confused with vivacity! Totally different, and actually kind of the opposite.)

The Oxford English Dictionary is trying to save a whole bunch of words that aren't commonly used anymore. You too can save a word! There are still so many awesome words, like tortiloquy!

My kids sometimes drive me completely insane, but without them my life would be full of vacivity.

party and halloween and some deer

so yeah, all that happened. here's the evidence:



Zombie Ballerina


I made it look like it snowed! It most definitely did not. But it looks pretty.

Birthday Girl!

I don't know how it happened, but I have a five year old!

Happy Birthday to the cutest little five year old we know! We love her so much!

Old McDonald's

Today after I got back from school, Ane, the girls and I went to the farm.

These first two pictures crack me up.
Katie is obviously having fun, but Aimee...
Same here!Here's Katie fulfilling her dream to "ride a white horsey"

And to show that Aimee did have some fun too.

Then we had a minor tragedy- we went to feed the goats, and they swarmed Aimee and Katie, and for a few minutes we had screaming kids, goats butting and licking, and I accidentally hit one right in the head with my camera. It was very traumatic for Aimee especially. I really wish I could have gotten a picture of her surrounded by goats, but I think that would have been too mean. We had to literally shove one of them back in when we were leaving.

Ane offered to buy the girls happy meals at McDonald's and they were excited. Aimee really wanted to go to "Old McDonald's" and she even started singing the song. She was disappointed when we got there!

***

So I started school again, so the posting will probably be sporadic again. I feel bad, but I really love school, so I guess not that bad!

It's been a while!

So this is going to be kind of a long catch up post. I hope you're all okay with that!

So first up is this awesome little video that Jon made for our anniversary. (Seven years!) I had class that night, and he made it all while I was gone!

I realized while watching it that my kids apparently don't know the numbers after 11 :)

School is over now! It's been done for two weeks now, but I've been busy taking the kids to do things I didn't have time for when I was in school. So we've been going to the park, OMSI, and stuff like that. The girls love it!

We had Jon's little brother's wedding reception last week, and the girls got to wear their cute white dresses. (Everyone's looking! I had to switch out some heads from other pictures. There weren't any of Aimee really smiling)

Then they all jumped on Uncle Tyler!

And I got to take a few pictures of this adorable guy:I could hold him all day!


We went to the beach one day:
And at OMSI they got their faces paintedThis isn't the best picture, but it's the only one where you can even kind of see Aimee's caterpillar.

And they had fun with the bendy mirror.

Aimee's being potty trained now. Grandma got her some princess pull-ups and she's been doing okay with them. I'm hoping she'll be completely day trained by the end of the week! I may have just jinxed myself though.

Oh! And we have a new (to us) car! My parents left to go on a mission for our church for 18 months to Tahiti, and they sold us their car! Since our car totally died a few weeks ago, it was good timing. We're all very sad that they're gone for so long, but happy to have their car. Aimee is still not convinced it's ours though!

Okay, I believe I'm all caught up. I'm feeling like a little kid again, excited for summer break! I have about a month off before classes start again, so I'm going to enjoy it.

Look what I found!

I took was looking through old pictures on my camera and I found this gem:
More pictures coming soon, but this one was too funny not to share. It's amazing how it shows their personalities.

This is my last week of school, then a long break!

So I got on here yesterday to post, but then I got distracted by the new designs blogger has. I saw the books, and I had to have them. Then I had to fix all the colors, and by the time I was done with that I ran out of time for blogging. But it's okay, because it's so cute!
This is catch up for June, so it's going to be kind of a mammoth post. Sorry! I'll try to spread it out a bit more this month!

So the other day my friend Leah invited us to OMSI with her, and the girls had tons of fun.

Flubber kept them entertained for a long while:

Then they played in the water:

And the sand pit. Of course my kids are the ones inside the tub in the middle.

We went to see a move at the huge IMAX screen. The last time I went I was just a little kid, and I threw up. Luckily this time was not as bad for me. The girls hated the first 10 min of it, and I had to give Aimee her pacifier and Katie a tootsie pop before they calmed down enough to watch. But it was awesome! It was all about the Hubble Telescope, and we saw amazing stuff like this:(This is the jellyfish nebula)

Then I saw a photo booth, and I am a total sucker for those. And it let you use a debit card! So we got these:Aimee kept getting distracted before the picture.

Then yesterday I was checking our bank account, and there was a charge from Foto Fantasy Inc. I thought for sure someone had gotten my card number and was buying dirty stuff. Then I remembered the photo booth. Really, legitimate businesses should not have the word "fantasy" in them.

Just some other of the kids' shenanigans:

An Aimee Photo Essay

May:

It started like this.(The "Mommy Accidentally Takes a Nap and Wakes Up to a Huge Mess" Incident #37)

Aimee loved sleeping on the floor.
She doesn't get to any more. Why? We had to throw away her rug.

(The "Mommy Accidentally Takes a Nap and Wakes Up to a Huge Mess" Incident #38)

This is the only photographic evidence of the mess. This one involved painting the walls with poop, and I really would like to clear that from my memory forever.
I had to do about four loads of laundry to wash everything that was in her room, including the babies. When I threw them in the washer I had to take a picture because it looked so creepy.

Aimee found a headband, and put it on like this.
Adorable. She wore it for two days straight.

The girls ran up to me one day and told me they were ready to go. This is what they looked like:
Also Adorable.

And finally, I was straightening my hair, and Aimee came and asked me what I was doing. So I straightened her hair too.
My real life troll doll.

She is a pain, and makes messes, and hits me when she's mad, but she's also the goofiest, cutest, silliest two year old, and I love her so much. I wouldn't change her at all.
(Okay, maybe an aversion to poop would be nice.)

Aimee-isms

pooky = spooky (as in pooky monsters)
spider-wib = spider
What's happening? = every time she hears a noise
It's not my favorite = when she doesn't want something
My eye is mean! = she got something in her eye
That's not fair! = always used in a way that doesn't make any sense
I'm a kitty = roughly 100x per day

Happy Mother's Day!

This is what Aimee gave me:

Blogging Drought in Effect

I have nothing to say lately. I don't want to complain too much on the blog, so I've been avoiding it instead. I'm on my second ear infection, I haven't been able to hear out of my left ear for almost a month, and I'm tired all the time. And grumpy. As you can tell, I'm a joy to be around. Everyone has been so nice to me though. My mom took the kids for a weekend, my sister took them for an evening, Jon's parents watch them regularly, and Jon has been awesome. He lets me sleep in on the non-school days, and watches the girls so I can go to class and do homework.
Being sick is really hard. Especially when you're wimpy.

So you may not hear from me again until I'm better, and by then I'll be in the midst of A&P and Medical Terminology, and British Lit.

So I'll leave you with pictures of the girls.
(And proof that they sometimes go outside)

screaming, a decision, peace, then not so much

This morning, I grabbed my camera, and followed the girls around and recorded as they cried at different things. I'd post it, but 1) my house was super messy, and 2) you don't really want to hear them scream and cry that long. They are torturing each other, and in so doing, are torturing me too. I'm waiting waiting for the day when Aimee won't see a cup and immediately dump it out regardless of what's in it, or where it is. I'm waiting for the day when Katie will not turn into a limp noodle when I ask her to do something. I'm waiting for when Aimee will eat a meal and less than half of it will end up on the floor, on a regular basis. I'm fairly confident those things will happen. I'm also confident that torturing each other won't stop any time soon.

I'm okay with that. (As long as they occasionally get along. Or go hang out at friend's houses to give me a break.)

Today, Jon went and got his hair cut. While he was gone the above mentioned screaming/crying/torture ensued. After the kids were fed/changed/put in their rooms, I confessed to Jon that I was totally done. I don't want any more kids. He confessed the same. Then he pointed out that Aimee is older than Katie was when Aimee was born. (Did you follow that? I had to have him repeat it.) So we have officially dodged the bullet that is another kid two years apart from the last one. I could cry I'm so relieved. If it weren't totally sacrilegious, I would worship my IUD. I would marry it. I would probably not have its babies though. (I have to draw the line somewhere!)

We are totally done.

Then we talked about maybe in 2-3 years from now we'd think about it.

So obviously nothing permanent has been decided, but I felt such a profound peace when I declared I didn't want any more, and Jon said the same. It's right for us, for now.

After that, the day went much better. Katie was kind of charming when she was supposed to be having quiet time, so she got to hang out with me instead.

We tried to get her to name a Barbie. Her babies are all named baby, dolls are all named dolly, etc. So we tried to get her to name the Mariposa Barbie. Then she remembered that her name was Mariposa! So we got her to name the boy fairy. After like 20 minutes of suggesting names, she picked Jared. It's the first thing she's named! It was fun.

Then I went in Aimee's room, and she had taken off her diaper. And she was stinky.

So the peace was short-lived, but still, it was there. And I'm grateful for it, because all that crap about enjoying the moments is totally true.

Now, for another perspective on not being ready for more kids, go read An Announcement on my friend Morgan's blog. She is awesome, you won't be sorry!

And special thanks to my mom and Jon's mom who have watched my kids a lot recently. I don't think they will ever know how much I appreciate it.

Also, special thanks to the girl scouts outside of Fred Meyer that allowed me to buy their Samoas. Sweet sweet Samoas.