Sardines

    Well, we have all of our stuff now. We have put as much as we can in our little 2-bedroom apartment and crammed the rest into the garage. I am gradually unpacking boxes and repacking anything that isn't something that will be needed everyday. I plan on needing to hunt things down from time to time as the need for something packed away arises. I am still missing some things so I will have to go through the boxes in the garage I thought could just be stored. We were able to fit both our black couches and white furniture in here. The white couch and the black couch and loveseat are tightly fit into the front room. The white chairs are in our room. They all took a beating in the move. Luckily we wrapped the white ones or they would have been much worse. The black ones definately wouldn't sell for what they could have before we moved. Fortunately most of the damage is in the back so you can't see it went it's set against a wall. 
   I have found that with only one car that is with Ben all day and only the bank within walking distance, for a 5 and 3 year old, that I am spending much less money. We do our shopping on Saturday only so there are much fewer impulse buys.
   I have been running still a few days a week and find it a nice way to de-stress in the evenings when Ben gets home and can watch the little hooligans that are our children. (You can keep up with my running on my running blog, but you will need to be invited, so just leave your email in a comment here if you would like to read it.)   My mom used to always say that she just didn't understand women that couldn't wait to be away from their children; she always wanted us around and there were seven of us. I think now that she has had my kids under the same roof with her for nearly a month, she understands the need to have at least an hour without them.  Don't get me wrong, I love my little boogers and do miss them immensly when I am apart from them. But they have so much energy and just can't seem to release it all no matter what they do. Thankfully, they still require naps everyday to keep them from getting grumpy during the second half of the day and they sleep for ten hours every night. They are almost always very happy and loud and very inquisitive. They have to know everything that is going on with everybody. And now they are stuck in our tiny apartment with few chances to go outside because of all of the rain we get here in the Seattle area. When they do get to go out, we have only a small common area for a yard and you can never be sure how long you will have because even when it is sunny out, it could rain at anytime. This only intensifies the effect of their energy.
I told Josi this morning that it was the first day of summer today. She was very excited and asked, "does that mean it's not going to rain all the day?"  I didn't want to crush her spirit, so I told her that it probably wouldn't rain as much. Well, I best get back to unpacking somemore.

Worth 1000

She is going to kill me when she grows up, but this is one of the privileges of being a parent!

She was in the middle of changing into her jammies when nature called. I snuck up on her and was able to get this picture. This is definitely one of those that is worth 1000 words. She can't read them, but she loves to look at them because Papi does it. He actually had left these next to the loo.

Josi's Birthday

Since Josi's birthday was on Sunday, we had her birthday dinner on Monday. We would have done it on Saturday, but Ben was out at PIR for the NASCAR race 'til 11 that night, working. Her choice was Sushi again (that is what she chose last year). We tried a new place called Li's Bowl. The prices were really good, ie. 16 piece California roll for $5 and 8 piece Gyoza (potstickers) for $4. It tasted pretty good too!

those are chopsticks in her left hand. She insists on using them when she eats sushi.

They have this tank set up in there with a huge cichlid. It would follow the kids back and forth across the tank and they had a blast with it. The lady behind the counter laughed when Hyrum "kissed" the fish.

Afterward, we went home and had birthday cake. I attempted an icecream cake again and have decided it just isn't my thing. It melted way too fast while I was trying to frost it. And the frosting wouldn't stick to the icecream on the edges.

I did decide to try making frosting roses, which I haven't done since I was in high school. They turned out pretty well. Some of them aren't as good because the frosting kept getting too warm in the bag in my hand and the petals would kinda melt together.

I was going to put the roses all around the base to hide the ugly sides, but my hands got too tired so I just put them on the worst side. Overall, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. And Josi was just thrilled with it.

Birthday Party

My little Josi is growing up so fast. She got invited to her first non-family birthday party yesterday. It was for a little boy in her primary class. She played at the park and had cupcakes.

They also did a three-legged race. Josi did surprisingly well, considering her lack of coordination. Her team were the slow and steady ones, they didn't fall down.

Gymnastics

You may remember the tu-tu I made Josi a while back. She later picked out some sparkly, tie-dye, pink fabric so I could make her a leotard to wear under the tu-tu. I finally finished it yesterday, I kept forgetting to buy the elastic for it everytime I went to Joann's.


Here she is testing it out and showing her stuff. She loves to tumble. She can do a pretty good cartwheel which she learned from Harley Quinn playing Lego Batman on the Wii. I wish I was in better shape so I could better show her the proper forms.

She does an excellent bridge, she just needs to build those scrawny little biceps so she can do it from a standing position instead of starting on the floor like she does now.

And here was her best twirl.

Readin', Writin' and 'Rithmetic

I have been testing out homeschooling Josi. I have found a couple of websites that have lots of worksheets you can print for math and writing. I have also gotten a few booklets from the dollar store that have different themes like Disney or Carebears.
Here she is working on addition using M&Ms. She loves using M&Ms because she can eat them afterward.
You can see by the look on her face how much she enjoys doing her schoolwork. She really gets into it. She has a backpack she got from Hailey (her cousin) and she keeps all of her books and pencils in it.

She is quite good at math. She really understands it. She is still having a hard time understanding adding and subtracting zero, though. But it is coming to her.

We have also started learning to read. She is mostly just memorizing short words and we work on sounding out the bigger words. We will have to get a video of her reading up soon. I can't believe how big she is getting!

All Aboard

Yesterday, for an hour or so before Ben got home from work, Josi developed a random fascination for train stations. She kept asking Hyrum and I if we wanted to go to the train station. Then she got her little step stool out of the bathroom and sat on it next to a dining room chair with a paper and pen and started asking again if we wanted to go to the train station, with no takers. Finally, Papi got home so she started asking him.
Papi is more fun than mommy, apparently, because he had the great idea to find a train station around us. There was one in downtown Phoenix, but it was no longer functioning and we couldn't go inside. We just drove past it, then found a park and ride for the metro train. Josi got to carry $7 in change in her little purse so we could purchase the tickets and then we waited on the platform for the next westbound train. The first one to come along was so packed, we couldn't even fit inside. We decided to wait for the next one and hope for better luck. It came 15 minutes later and there was at least standing room. We were able to get a seat after a few stops. We rode it to the last stop in North Phoenix, which was about 45 minutes. At the end was the Christown Spectrum Mall, which isn't a typical mall. I don't know why they call it a mall. It has a WalMart in it for heaven's sake! Anyway, we found a Carl's Jr and had some really yummy Oreo and Orange Cream Shakes. Then we got back on the train and rode back to our car. The kids had a blast and it was a first for me too. It was kind of fun to just sit and watch all of the different people that got on and off. On the ride home, Josi said she would rather ride the train everywhere than drive our car. Everyone else prefered the car.

Monkey See Monkey Do

A few weeks ago I (Ben) was making the ball disappear for Hyrum by putting it behind my back and pretending to throw it. Josi caught on, grabbed the ball, went behind the couch and then came back and asked him, where'd it go?

Favorite Inventions

Today they are rubber gloves, Clorox wipes and Febreze Air Effects (although Limited Edition vanilla & baking is not my favorite scent).

Josi, tummy ache, too slow, "Oh great, I pooped on the floor!", cried from the bathroom. Enough said.

Photo Shoot

These are a few of my favorites from the Photo shoot Andy did with the kids. They are just raw images, so they need a little editing done.

I need to crop this one a little, but I love his face.

This one is really cute. I just wish his undies weren't showing.


Josi was being a stinker for a little while so she isn't really in this one, but Hyrum looks so cute. Sorry Josi, I am going to have to crop you out .

This was actually Alysha's turn. She had Andy do her Senior pictures and Hyrum decided he wanted in on the action. They look show cute.

Thanks, Rooster

Summer Fun 2

On Wednesday we drove to Astoria and Seaside, OR. We stopped at The Flavel House. It's an old house built in the 1880's by a ship captain named George Flavel. It was kinda neat. It wasn't as cool for me because I had been to that huge mansion in Canada last fall, but still neat. Hyrum and I did get special treatment though. Hyrum needed to go potty and when I asked the guy that worked there where the bathroom was he told me it was clear out by the carriage house, then said we weren't supposed to, but I could use the staff bathroom so we didn't have to go so far for the little guy. I feel special :) I didn't get any pictures of it.

Then on to the beach. We stopped and had lunch at Fultano's Pizza. Josi had been talking about going to the beach for the past few months, since I had started thinking about coming up here. The day was finally here, she was so excited. She came down in the morning already in her swim suit.

Since she had her swimsuit on already she was the first one to get in the water. While the rest of us changed into our swimsuits, Josi headed down with Grandpa. We played in the water for a while, my sisters looked for shells, with not much luck. They saw a crab in the water that was about 6 inches across, then we saw a couple of jelly fish that were a reddish brown color and we quickly got out of their ways.

This is a video of the kids playing in the water. Sorry, it gets a little hard to watch at the end, because I was zoomed in and the tiniest movement was very drastic. Josi was my usual little water baby. Hyrum tried to be tough and would run toward the water, as soon as he saw a wave coming toward him, he would turn and run away.

After a while freezing our buns off in the frigid water, we decided to go up and play in the sand for a while. Andy, Amy, Janae, Alysha and Tonya buried Josi and turned her into a mermaid, which I got on film. Later they buried Hyrum and made him a lobster. Alysha was also a mermaid and Tonya became a big fat person. I didn't get those pictures, but I am sure Andy or Amy and my Dad will share them later. :)

It was a very fun trip. It was the first time seeing the ocean for Alysha, Janae and Hyrum. And Josi had only ever seen the New Hampshire beach in the middle of December. Tonya and I were the only ones that had been to Seaside once, but T had never played in the ocean before. We all decided to save our pennies for the next couple of years for a trip to Florida and a warm water beach as well as Disneyworld, which none of us have ever been to.

Super Hero

This morning Josi has been running around saying "I'm Super Josi!" It all started when Hyrum dropped his fork on the floor at breakfast. They were sitting at the bar eating pancakes and Hyrum can't get up and down himself. Out of nowhere Josi just busted out " Super Josi will get it"
She didn't even remember she was wearing this hand-me-down Superman Underoos t-shirt.

Girl's Night Out

Last night our ward had a girl's night out salon/spa because this weekend was the father/son campout. We did our nails and had facials, had snacks... girl stuff. Josi was so excited to go. As soon as Ben got home she was in the garage telling him what we were doing and that it was just for girls, no boys! At the end we had a Project Runway style fashion show. We broke into 5 teams and each team got 2 bags of items that we had to create 2 outfits with.

Josi was one of the models. She fits better into a garbage sack than any of the adults did. Here is in the middle of the design process. This was a face she was pulling all night long. She had gotten laughs the first few times, and like any 4 year old, she kept hamming it up. Our bag consisted of garbage sacks, tissue paper, double sided tape, toilet paper, clothes pins, ribbon, yarn, hawaiian leis, and safety pins.

Part of our team was a lady that I met while we owned our video store. I hadn't seen her since we sold the store, but she was there last night. I was really good to see her again. She and I worked on this dress together.

There is Josi 5th from the left or 6th from the right. Our other model is to her left. I had little to do with her outfit. This was the judging of the designs.

Here is our finished product. Josi was a great model. She got a chocolate bar for it. Our design won! That is a garbage bag and tissue paper on her head, held on with a rubber band. Her dress is a garbage sack held together with clothes pins. Her belt and sleeves are tissue paper. She has a toilet paper train that you can see in the top picture. She was ready for a day at the Kentucky Derby or a night at a grand gala. Such a cutie. I was told I was in charge of Halloween costumes by a lady in our ward. It was really fun. Josi had a ball.

Water Fun

It has been really hot this week. Upper nineties and it is just getting hotter. Yesterday I got an email inviting us to go play at one of the parks near us this morning. I decided we should go so the kids could have a little social interaction with other kids. We don't get out much. So at 9:30 we got all lubed up with sun block and in their new summer outfits we got yesterday.

The park had a splash pad that sprayed water up in the air. The "floor" was made of recycled rubber so they wouldn't slip or get hurt if they fell. At first they were a little wary of the water. It had been a while since we had been to a water park. But the other kids quickly showed them what to do.

They got the hang of it pretty quick. Hyrum would jump in the puddles in the intervals between the water works.

They both ended up going all out. Josi skipped all around singing.

Hyrum eventually would even stand in the streams of water.

My little water babies were the wettest kids there. Next time we will have to wear our swimsuits and I would get out there too.

Easter

I finally took the time to get the easter pictures off of Ben's phone. We took them at the church on our way in. We (of course) were late and didn't have our regular camera, but I wanted to get some pictures while they still looked fresh. I am glad we did, because after church Josi's curls had relaxed some and Hyrum's hair was all fuzzy. I made Josi's dress and Hyrum's tie. It was so fun to make. I even hand mad all of the pink edging, bias tape and piping for the dress and dyed the lace under the skirt to match. It surprised even me at how well it turned out. It is my second favorite that I have made.

They do love each other sometimes!

The best part about this dress is that Josi loves it. All of the others I have made her, she was either too young to care or she hated wearing because she said it was itchy. I think because all of the seams were unfinished. This dress I finally had a serger to finish the edges. Thank you mommy and, ultimately, daddy for giving my mom a new serger for Christmas that made it so my mom had 1 serger too many!

What a handsome little dude! I was going to make him a bow tie at first, but I thought it would be fun to try a necktie. I just took apart a clip-on that he had and use it as a pattern, then put it back together. Instead of this one being a clip on, it has a strip that goes through the tie and clips in the back. It made it look more like a regular tie.

It was so sunny they couldn't open their eyes, but they just look so cute!

Future hair stylist?

I really hope not! Every once in a while, Josi likes to play with my hair. I had laid down to rest, while Hyrum was napping, and dozed off. When I had woken a little Josi was all equipped with her choice of hair dressing tools. They consisted of these velcro rollers, a hair pick and hairspray. It is really relaxing to have her little hands play with my hair, and I almost fell asleep again. Fortunately, she didn't ever use the hairspray. They were really fun to take out!

Future engineer?

Here is our clever little Josi Sunday morning while we watched conference. Those are little boardbooks that are only 3/4 inch thick. She figured out that she just needed to fan each one out a little so that they would stack. She added a few more after the picture was taken. Can you tell she has engineer Grandpas on both sides of the family? She kept telling us it was the temple. Then Hyrum would run over and knock it down. He is such a brother! But, she was a patient big sister and would just stack them up again.

It figures, you buy them legos for Christmas and they stack books :)

Interview with my child Josi, age 4

I didn't get tagged and I usually don't do them even when I do, but I really wanted to hear Josi's answers. So, here they are:
1. What is something mom always says to you? Do the truth
2. What makes mom happy? If you give you a hug and give you a kiss
3. What makes mom sad? It makes you be naughty
4. How does your mom make you laugh? If you said a funny word
5. What was your mom like as a child? You were a baby
6. How old is your mom? I don't know (with a duh/confussed look on her face)
7. How tall is your mom? Big
8. What is her favorite thing to do? Clean up my (Josi's) room
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? If your hiding, somewhere else... When...I...I don't know.
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? If your big
11. What is your mom really good at? at playing games
12. What is your mom not good at? At baseball if you falled
13. What does your mom do for a job? to make your bed
14. What is your mom's favorite food? chicken and the corn
15. What makes you proud of your mom? if we love each other
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? A sweetheart (?)
17. What do you and your mom do together? We make our beds together
18. How are you and your mom the same? girls
19. How are you and your mom different? It's a really hard one
20. How do you know your mom loves you? If you tell me I did a good job to clean your room
21. What does your mom like most about your dad? doing his work
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? maybe if you're a sweetheart to go to the zoo

By the way, I'm not tagging anybody:)
*Can you tell she had to clean her room today?

Halloween

For Halloween Josi was Tinkerbell and Hyrum was Mr. T. This is just before we left for our ward Halloween Hulla-boo-lo. They had a chili dinner, mini carnival for the kids and then a costume parade with trick-or-treating. In the costume contest Hyrum won the "Most Clever Costume". Everybody loved his costume. Grown men were awed.

Afterward we took them around our block to do a little real trick or treating. I couldn't find the other trick-or-treating basket we had for Hyrum which was a jack-o-lantern so he had to use that yellow basket which looks more like an Easter basket.
Here is my last minute costume choice. It was definately one of a kind.

On a short lease

So, Josi is usually found toting one of her stuffed animals around on a homemade lease made up of whatever long and narrow item she can find. Like, Ben's belt or a scarf or ribbon. This time she found something much more interesting and Ben had to take a picture.

(It is just her panties censored)