I forgot...

Holy Grail = Paul Mitchell Fast Form

Love this stuff.

Story of my life...

Here's a story with a moral: Never ever bring my kids to a college bookstore. Ever. Actually, this applies to nearly any store, but today's story involves a bookstore.

I went and turned in some papers, and got my school ID card on Monday, and I decided to get my books too, since I was there. Insanity ensued.

First of all, who in their right mind buys stuffed animals with their community college logo on it? Why do they have toys in the bookstore? I do not know, but I do not agree. Bad idea. The girls ran up and down isles, grabbed toys, pulled down books, screamed, and cried. I was so embarrassed. Aimee has started throwing herself on the floor, face down when she is upset. While at home, I find this funny. In public, I find it mortifying. To top it off, as I dragged them to the check out to buy the books, Katie stopped whining long enough to ask me for a treat. Um, no.

What saved them was a tv screen on the floor. They stopped and stared, and they were quiet. I used to think screens on floors were silly. Now I know- they are magic.

Now that I have my school books, it marks the end of my summer reading. I have been reading like a crazy person, knowing that after reading textbooks, reading isn't going to be fun for a while. I read three books last week, and I still have four more I wanted to get to. But I started reading a textbook instead.

Last night I had a sudden craving for home made noodles. I have made them before and I am totally in love. They aren't very hard, and they're only a bit time consuming, but they taste so good. Instead of using white flour, I tried semolina flour, and it was just so good.

I made them into bowties just for Jon :) Huge bowties.

Katie had her first ballet class last week, and it did not go well. She sat on a stool and refused to do anything most of the time. So we have been practicing all week, and I have hopes that she will do better this time. My idea of her loving it and staying by herself was crushed, but I think we can as least work on liking it. Tomorrow is her next class, so we'll see.

Sept so far

Some exciting things happened/are about to happen. They are:

I got my hair cut last week, and I LOVE it! I didn't think I would ever love my curly hair, but I do. It is the best haircut of my life. I wash it (still with baking soda and honey, which I also love) and add some curly hair stuff that was referred to at the salon as "the holy grail", then I let it air dry. It is amazing. And so shiny! I love my hair! That sounds so very vain, but I have hated my hair for most of my life. These pictures are for my mom, and only for her would I put a picture of me with no makeup on the internets. The second one Katie took this morning, before I had gotten ready, but I wanted to show a picture of it less curly too, Anyway, there you go mom!

Katie starts ballet tomorrow. We are all excited for her. I am a little nervous that she won't want me to leave, and by extension hate the class. But it will be good for her. And she can't wait to start.
I start school in two weeks. I am finishing up my AA for now, since I have no idea what I want to do. I am thinking about maybe teaching, but it's a long way off still. It would be so fun to be a chemistry teacher, but we'll see. I am taking a swimming/aquatic exercise class, and I am super excited about it.
I guess that is it for now. I leave you with a picture of my cute little trouble maker.

Coast Trip

Here I am, finally blogging about our trip to the coast (#10 on the list). I finally stole Jon's computer long enough to upload and crop the pictures. My poor computer decided it's USB ports don't want to work anymore, hence not many pictures on the blog of late. Anyway, here we go!

The beach we went to, from up high.
This is Aimee about 5 seconds before she got soaked by that wave. She was not happy.
Playing in the mote someone else built.
Why I love Oregon:
Aimee chased birds most of the time.
Katie, me, and Aimee not wearing pants.It was really fun, and the weather was nice! We were worried it would rain, but it didn't. The girls played for a long time in the sand, and Aimee walked around with a cup full of wet sand that was too heavy for her to hold, but got so upset if I tried to take it. She needed a nap.
Thanks to Heather for going with us, and driving us! It was a fun trip.


And one more picture:
This is how Katie falls asleep most nights.

Guess where I'll be soon...

Aimee had a rough rough day yesterday, which means I also had a rough day. That's just the way things work. Plus, Katie had her cousin come and spend the night. They had a ton of fun, including staying up really late, talking in bed, and waking up waaaaay too early.
We got kind of spoiled with Katie. That girl will eat almost anything, loves fruits and veggies, and the list of things she won't eat is very short. Aimee on the other hand, is picky. It drives me crazy. She has an aversion to anything green, and will pick them out no matter how small. She won't eat soup. She gags on things regularly. Plus she throws her plate or bowl on the floor when she's done eating.
So Aimee decided she would only eat cookies, mee-toes (tomatoes) and rice yesterday. I got her to eat like two bites of tofu, and one tiny piece of broccoli. I had to bribe her with more rice. Anyway, for lunch we had mashed potatoes and ratatouille. She ate one bite, I think and the next bite she spit out. Then she dumped her food on her tray, dropped the bowl still half full of food on to the floor, then proceeded to spread the food around and squish it between her fingers. This happened in about one minute. So I got her and the floor cleaned up, figured she wasn't hungry, and I went over to finish folding a load of laundry. Aimee runs over to me two minutes later with the empty bowl of mashed potatoes. The problem is, there was some leftovers. Aimee had gotten them off the counter top, dumped them out on the carpet, then squished them in. While I was cleaning that up she opened up a tomato bouillon cube, and started crumbling it up.
I put her down for a nap. It was almost 2 hours earlier than normal, but I was ready.
While I was cleaning up the mashed potatoes I was feeling very grumpy, and wondering why I wanted kids so badly in the first place.
The nap didn't improve Aimee's disposition, and Katie got grumpier as the day went on. So by bedtime I was happy to put them to bed early, and try to forget about the day. A couple of hours after they went to sleep, Aimee woke up, crying for mommy. She had dropped her pacifier. She was standing up, and reached out for me. Normally I don't pick her up, I just hug her and lie her back down so she doesn't wake up too much. But I picked her up, and she cuddled with me for a few minutes, and gave me a kiss. Then I remembered, that's why I had kids. My life is not always easy, and my kids are not always cute. But it's the little moments that make life good.

Bringing back memories... Scandinavian Festival

Growing up we went to the Scandinavian Festival almost every year. If I remember correctly, I used to kind of hate it. But, as I got older I appreciated it more, and now I think it's awesome. So on Thursday we headed down and went with Nana and Grandpa and Halli and Nick.

We drank fruit slushies

Shared corn on the cob

Bought ridiculously cute souvenirs and ate ridiculously expensive (but good) elephant ears

Took pictures with the wood cutouts

And the kids' favorite: watched Scandinavian dancing

That is (as Jae would say) the cutest picture of my life.

The only part I didn't enjoy was the meat pies. They were everywhere! And it didn't really have to do with being vegetarian, it was mainly the association with Sweeney Todd. Ew.

Anyway, good times! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Six Years

Today was our 6th anniversary.

We started out like this:(so young, so skinny)

Then came this:(sweet little Katie)

And then this:(sweet little Aimee)

Life has gotten much harder, and much more stressful with two kids two years apart, and Jon dealing with anxiety. It's not ever easy, but it is so so worth it.
Jon is my one. The only one who makes me truly happy. He makes everything worth it. He treats me like a princess, and I sometimes forget I'm not.

For our anniversary we watched two movies in the theater, then decided we should never watch two movies in the theater in one day. We ate noodles from Zao, coconut gelato, and a box of milk duds. We went to bed at a (for us) ridiculously early hour, then Jon let me sleep in ridiculously late. (11am)
It was a good anniversary.
I also got a super sweet note. Somehow Jon knows exactly the best thing he could possibly say. It's what I wanted him to say without knowing I wanted it.
I, on the other hand, write impulsively, and never perfectly. So I will just say, in reply:
Jon,
I love you too. Me too. You're welcome. Me too. I think so too.
Thank you.
Love Forever,
Amanda

How could I forget?

My sister reminded me I forgot one of the best parts of the concert. This guy:
The pictures don't even do him justice. The mustache and mullet were spectacular. He is a dark haired Joe Dirt.

Thank you mustache man for making my night even better.

Decemberists!

I have kind of neglected my List a little but I did #14! My sister Lisa and I went to see the Decemberists on Saturday night. It was just so awesome. I sang along and danced the whole time without feeling like an idiot, because everyone around me was doing the same. And we found Jim and Melanie there, so we stood next to each other. I'm afraid they might have heard me scream a few too many times. Anyway, it was definitely the highlight of my summer so far, and I loved it so much I wanted to go again Sunday.
Around 7pm Sunday night, I thought, it takes less than an hour to get there, and we're not doing anything, let's go! So I took the girls, and we sat out on the lawn (outside the concert) and ate snacks and listened. When they would start a new song Katie would yell out, Mommy, that's our song! Then Katie wanted to walk around, so we found a place where you could see through the fence, and we watched it for a while. Then Katie announced she wanted to go to her house, so we left during the last song. And we didn't have to wait to get out of the ridiculously crowded parking lot.

This picture is so blurry, but Aimee looks just like Danny! It's crazy!Cute Katie