Four years ago...

we had this cute little baby that totally changed our lives.

She grew and grew
and grew
and grew until she became

a cute four year old.

Happy Birthday Katie!!!!
We love you!

Monday List Day: Things I hate edition

I have neglected my lists. I blame it on school. I blame it all on school!

Things that drive me totally crazy:

• The combination of two words to make one stupid made-up word. Ex: Chillax, (chill and relax) Clackamette, (Clackamas and Willamette) Staycation, (stay and vacation) Brangelina, (you know) and the list goes on and on and on. Please make it stop.
• If I see the word recessionista one more time I WILL... do something. Not stab myself in the eye or anything, but if it's in your magazine, or on your blog I will stop reading.
  
• I get really upset when I get on the computer Monday morning to check my classes, and make my to do list, and the teacher hasn't updated with the next weeks assignments yet. That is something that should be done by Sunday. Not acceptable teachers. I need to write out my list before I can be productive.
  
• Related: some teachers like to feed you one week's assignments at a time. Heaven forbid you should look ahead in your class, or know what you're supposed to be doing next week.
• The 80s comeback. I am adamant that the 80s was the worst fashion decade ever. Ever! Anything from the 20s to the 70s is fine with me.
• I hate pretending to be interested in the discussions on the message boards for my online classes.
  
• Aimee is really into throwing food on the floor. She likes to do it quickly and covertly if possible, to make to biggest mess before I notice and freak out. She even does this with food she likes.
  
• Also, she won't eat anything green (except peas). Or soup. Or potatoes. Or most raw vegetables. She cried when I had her try cottage cheese. She is so picky! She spits things out, and says, "like it" while shaking her head.
  
• Katie is waking up too early. Then she is whiny all day.
  
• Bugs in the house. Especially fruit flies.
  
• My house is always messy now. I clean up the kitchen and bathrooms, but the girls' play area I don't even bother cleaning. It just gets messy again, and drives me crazy that I just wasted time.
• TV shows and movies that announce the sex of the baby at the first ultrasound. This is NOT REAL!!!! You don't get an ultrasound at 8 (or ten) weeks and know whether it's a boy or girl. I'm talking to you Glee.
  

That is enough negativity for today.

Aimee sings ABCs

Pumpkin Patch

Last week the girls, and grandma and I headed to a cute little farm by our house.There were pumpkins everywhere, and all different kinds.I love these cows. They are so cute and so clean.This cracks me up every time I see it.I loved the goat too. He came up and sniffed the camera as I was taking the picture.Going over the bridge.They loved the chickens.

It was so much fun. We got a little pumpkin family (mommy, daddy, katie and aimee pumpkins) and delicious apples, plus some cute mini pumkins and gourds. Our house is all fall-ified now.

Now a couple more random pictures...

They are making the same face!

And finally, my moment of genius.
Aimee's bibs were all dirty, and we were having beets and raviolis with tomato sauce. Their clothes needed protection. So, I took a plastic grocery bag, flattened it out so the handles were on top of each other, and cut the bag to make two bibs. You stretch out the handle a bit, and it goes right over their head. Cheap, disposable bibs! Kinda trashy, kinda cute.

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.