Sherman Oaks 91403

RIP Britain

2011-12-29T17:26:00.000-08:00

Sad news, our dog passed away. She actually died on Dec 13th but I didn't want to lump it all in with a bunch of advent posts. The girls were very sad and when we told Kate she cried for about 45 mins and then because she was crying, Sara started. We all miss her though and the house is strange without her, yes she was a dog and not a child but over the past 12 1/2 years she has become a member of the family and its like I have one less person to worry about each day. Some of the worry I won't miss like what do we do with the dog when we want to go away but its weird not having to check her water & food every morning and take her for walks and just having her on the rug at night or looking up and wagging her tail when we open the back door. She filled a gap when we struggled to have children and was a first friend for Kate and over the past year as she has struggled with her old age both girls have loved fussing over and help take care of her. Anyway, here's to our dog Britain, good pup.

Countdown to Christmas Day 24

2011-12-24T18:48:00.000-08:00

Well this is it, the final countdown to Christmas post. Its been lots of fun keeping track of our activities.

It is hard to stand back and let the girls do everything when baking, it is against my perfectionistic tendencies but when I do allow them free reign there is so much satisfaction (and mess). Anyway, Sara measured all of the ingredients and made the sugar cookie dough.

Then she rolled the dough out, I told her to sprinkle a little flour on the counter and I'm sure there was about 1/2 cup of flour there.

Rolling was fun too, her first roll she pulverized the dough, we quickly gathered it and together we rolled it a little softer.

We made about 8 cookies and then I let her play with the rest of the dough, she loved it (literally as you can see her cuddling it to her face), rolling, cutting and smooshing it about.

Then we decorated, so fun for the girls, so messy and sorry Santa, there was a little double dipping but I'm sure you won't mind.

Then carrots, Kate with her love of animals has to put out some carrots, she wanted to peel a carrot for each reindeer but I told her she had to snap each carrot into several pieces.

Merry Christmas, hope you all have a wonderful holidays.
(PS if you didn't get a card we probably don't have your address so if you want to be added to the list just zip me your address)

Countdown to Christmas Day 23

2011-12-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

Easy, simple, cute.

Countdown to Christmas Day 22

2011-12-22T21:41:00.000-08:00

Today we created a mess with all of the crafty things to create these:

The girls love creating, I even made Eric get in on the action.

Idea from here.

Countdown to Christmas Day 21

2011-12-21T15:38:00.000-08:00

Snow globe broke and spilled all over the table this morning so this got a little wet, today was sew a felt ornament. I was really excited for this, I knew it would require a lot of patience but the girls LOVED it and I feel like sewing is a simple skill that they should acquire and what better way to start. They already want to sew something else, maybe we'll do snowmen in January, hearts for valentines.... anyway, felt Christmas trees, idea from here

Sew

Stuff

Decorate

Display, oh and a word to the wise, size matters here, I originally cut large trees but could foresee frustration creeping in quickly so figured smaller would be better.

Christmas countdown day 20

2011-12-20T09:23:00.000-08:00

I got my idea for this here, a really good one for smaller children I think, the girls seemed to like it but beware, they split open real easy and I had even but Elmer's glue around the seal. Still fun though, this would have been a good one if you had a friend to share the craft with, you can buy the little pieces in packages but I only needed 2 out of each. Must go sweep plastic filler pellets off the floor!

Christmas countdown day 19

2011-12-19T18:53:00.000-08:00

For their Christmas treat the girls picked gingerbread men.

As always I think Kate likes the process more than the cookie, and Sara licked the frosting off hers and didn't eat much cookie either. We also had these pine cone bird feeder kits we got from candlelight Christmas that we made today.

Also it was the first day of Christmas break today, I used to think my girls needed routine but I realise that is is actually me that needs it and so to keep some kind of order I'm a bit of a task master, I have a list of things the girls need to get done before they can play electronics or watch TV, here is Sara doing her reading lesson from this book, the witches finger is a great idea for them to use to point to each word as they read and Kate is working on some math practice. I also make them write in their journals, read, Kate has to do flash cards and Sara is learning to tie shoelaces.

Christmas countdown day 18

2011-12-18T15:24:00.001-08:00

This one didn't turn out quite as good as I had hoped, my trees dyed the water and after hot gluing the objects down they didn't hold very well. Oh well, it was a fun little project anyway and worth trying.

Christmas countdown day 16 & 17

2011-12-17T20:46:00.001-08:00

Too tired to blog last night, but for day 16 here was the activity:

Temple square was fun as always, Sara ended up being really tired and we didn't last all that long. Kate really wanted to see the Christus, I'm not sure what she is doing in the picture, she kind of looked like she was being called to prayer. It was fun and glad we got to share it with John and Cathy.

Day 17:

We began with the train ride and I had the genius idea of picking up some See's lollipops this afternoon, those things last for ages and at only 60 calories they aren't bad. Then we went around and hit all of the spots, here are some of the highlights.

The girls added their names to the nice list

Heard the story of St Nicolas and how the tradition of stockings were started

Wrote letters to Santa and then threw them in the fire so the smoke would send them up to Santa.

And saw the reindeer.

Christmas countdown day 15

2011-12-15T20:40:00.000-08:00

Inspiration for today's craft came from here via pinterest. It was a little harder than I thought and less hands on for the girls as it involved the hot glue gun, still they got to pick out the buttons they wanted and I added glue and they stuck them down, Kate is a little more nervous about getting the hot glue on her than Sara who touched it a few times and said "its not that bad" anyway, I think what they came up with turned out cute, Sara's is on the left and Kate's on the right.

And here is Cathy happily crafting away, she is here for a few days en route to Reno. Cathy is my friends mum and also a 2nd mother to me, she is from England as can be witnessed as you now open my pantry to tins of British chocolate, there is no better way to ring in the holidays:)

Christmas countdown day 14

2011-12-14T20:10:00.000-08:00

Christmas countdown day 13

2011-12-13T14:14:00.000-08:00

Kate got the book Russell's Christmas Magic, Sara got Merry Christmas, Splat. This was a fun excuse to add Christmas books to our library.

Christmas countdown day 12

2011-12-12T20:08:00.001-08:00

This morning we each drew a name for who in our family we would buy a present for, the girls picked each other. I'm not 100% sure how secret these presents will stay. On a side note Kate wrote a Christmas card to my dad, she wrote "Dear Grandad, we also miss you to" it seemed a little incomplete to me so I told her to add another sentence, here is what she added "I know that you really like to smoke, Love Kate" Eric and I were in stitches.

Countdown to Christmas Day 10 & 11

2011-12-11T18:30:00.000-08:00

Day 10

The girls had a blast. The first time around the ice with them was difficult to say the least but after that we got better each time, towards the end both Kate and Sara were trying all by themselves. Eric doesn't skate due to the fact that he has no feeling in one of his feet and so I would go around the ice with one of the girls and switch them out each time I passed Eric, it actually worked out pretty good and the girls are excited to go again.

Day 11

Kate was not excited at all about this activity but it turned out to be really good. These are the Utah Valley Handbell Ringers and this is part of their Holiday Concert Series. They were amazing and its all volunteer and so is free, all I had to do was go and pick up tickets a few weeks ago. Their performance was at the Springville Art Museum and they do quite a few concerts over the Christmas season. My pictures didn't turn out great and below is a video of them playing Sleigh ride with a short cameo of Sara, the video of them from the front is a traditional French Carol called Sing We Now of Christmas, my video's don't quite do them justice it was much better in person. My favorite was the Carol of the Bells that they played at the beginning. Afterwards I asked the girls if they liked it and Kate said "sort of I got a little tired" and Sara said "yeah, all you gotta do is listen". Q - which was your favorite? A - Kate "the last song" Sara "me too" Q - would you like to go and do that again? A - Kate "maybe I would" Sara "yeah". Tonight for prayers Kate thanked Heavenly Father that they could see the bell ringers so I think she did actually like it.

Countdown to Christmas Day 9

2011-12-09T22:31:00.001-08:00

Last night I made the examples of two cards for the girls to copy, courtesy of pinterest, I had in mind to have a few different ones they could try but realised late last night that simpler would be better. Also a good craft because you can use up a lot of scraps of paper and ribbon.

The girls crafting away, and yes we are very messy crafters.

The finished products, I think they turned out awesome.

Countdown to Christmas Day 8

2011-12-08T20:21:00.000-08:00

This activity was easy and fun, I got the idea here, I especially liked it because it gives me a keepsake for my tree and the grandparents.

Paint hand and then place ornament in painted hand. Grab the ornament, I found that I had to help kind of press their little fingers down so the whole print went on and not just the fingertips.

Decorate, I was being cheap and didn't want to splurge on colored sharpie markers, I have some scrap booking markers lying around but honestly I say splurge because Sara wanted colorful hats and the scrapbook markers didn't really show. BTW does Kate look tired or what? she kind of had a meltdown doing her homework, glad she had the craft to look forward to.

And voila, there you have it, cute tree decorations.

Countdown to Christmas Day 7

2011-12-07T19:27:00.000-08:00

Tonight I needed an easy one as I was at the Temple doing baptisms with the youth and this fit the bill perfectly. I used this cute template found here, Kate opted for just a blank sheet of paper. Kate is asking for a 'romote control helecopter' and Sara would most like "a squeeze a burp, because, it macs a jint burp' (it makes a giant burp) and if you don't get where that is from it is courtesy of Junie B Jones, she would also like 'a rapunzl borbey, stor for our trey and a unicorn toy' I love the way kids write their words when they are just learning, I also love that Kate only has one thing on her list.

Christmas countdown day 6

2011-12-06T17:45:00.001-08:00

There are so many things you can do with flowerpots.

Countdown to Christmas Day 5

2011-12-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

The girls were super excited for this, always feels more Christmassy once the tree is up. Honestly though, we need to invest in some more decorations, it needs to be a little more put together. Maybe next year, for now it works and the girls had fun putting on it what we have.

Christmas countdown day 4

2011-12-04T14:26:00.001-08:00

I redeemed myself with this one, the girls had lots of fun crafting.

Countdown to Christmas Day 3

2011-12-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure why my top picture is flipped sideways, anywho, today was the festival of trees. See Kate's face in the picture? that about sums up how much the girls enjoyed it. It was a little too crowded for them I think. It was kind of cool, some of the trees were beautiful and I'm realising mine will pale in comparison. Its a fund raiser for Primary Children's Hospital, there is tons for sale, wreaths, trees, quilts and lots more but we left because no-one was having fun. I'm wondering how much the Jazz tree and extras went for, there was so much stuff that went with it.

Countdown to Christmas Day 2

2011-12-02T16:46:00.001-08:00

Kate picked Elf, she finds that movie "hilarious" Sara on the other hand does not and so we had to get 2 movies, she opted for Barbie, in a Christmas Carol.

Christmas countdown day 1

2011-12-01T22:17:00.000-08:00

The countdown to Christmas has begun. Usually we do the $0.99 chocolate calendars from Trader Joes, this year I decided to step it up a notch, here is my calendar, each day the girls get to take off a number and behind it is an activity for that day, I also strung the chocolate ornaments from Costco between the little flags so they get a little candy each day too.

The girls enjoying their pre-breakfast chocolate. The activity for today - Go to see the Living Nativity.

There was a little skepticism about this first activity and a question from Kate that went like this "mom are all the activities going to be churchy?" Honestly this was awesome and we all loved it. To see how it began read about it here, also this is all done by volunteers and is free but they do have donation pots which all go to charity. It begins with some shepherds around a fire telling you they have seen a new star and then you follow a path up to some barns, along the path are more animals, donkey's, camels, goats and more people in costume. As you get closer there are men on horses dressed as Roman soldiers, you follow the path and go through the entrance to Jerusalem. As you enter Jerusalem the Magi greet you and tell you about the gifts they have brought for the baby Jesus. Jerusalem is filled with animals, people in costume and little areas where they depict life in Jesus' time. You leave that barn and follow another small path that leads to a smaller barn lit with a star and you can't see it in the picture but there is a group on a balcony singing Christmas carols, really sets the stage.

In this barn it is very quiet and reverent and the girls were mesmerized, Sara even asked if it was the real baby Jesus.

I think the live nativity may have to be a tradition, I thought it was amazing, we all had a great time and it was a great way to start the Christmas season by remembering what we are really celebrating.

Is Santa Real?

2011-11-30T12:45:00.000-08:00

This morning Kate asked Eric if Santa was real or if was just the parents that bought the gifts, he replied with, "time to get dressed." I don't think he knew what to say, stuck between not wanting to end the magic of it all for her and not wanting to lie. Let me know if you have any advice on how/when you tell your kids the truth about Santa or as we call him in England, Father Christmas. On a side note this is how my counter has looked in the kitchen for the past few weeks:-

I keep joking with Eric that I am amassing weapons of mass crafting, got lots planned for the countdown to Christmas for the girls, it all begins tomorrow, I love the holidays, especially Christmas because us Brits don't have Thanksgiving so Christmas is extra special fun.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-27T20:38:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving this year was fun, we headed out to Arizona. Now we are in Utah the drive is a lot longer but the girls did amazing in the car. I actually didn't take any pictures at all I've just pulled a few from Eric's phone. We went to Arizona for a family reunion for Eric's mom's side of the family, it was fun to get to know everyone. These pictures pretty much sum up our trip.

Cute pilgrim girl.

Meat lover. This was a smoked turkey, seriously the only way to go.And a visit with the Jesclards, so fun to catch up, I told Eric on the way home that if we were stranded on a desert island and had to pick friends to hang out with us there the Jesclards (and Everitts, both sets) make my list, awesome people.

Dolphin Tale

2011-11-21T09:50:00.000-08:00

Dolphin Tale finally came to the $3 theater this weekend and so Eric took the girls on Saturday, he said it was one of the best movies he's seen in a long time. Kind of fun because over the summer we went to Florida for a week and we went to the aquarium where Winter is, we got to see her and watched as she had her prosthetic tail put on. Amongst the other things we did it was a really fun trip.

We flew into Tampa and spent our 1st day re-united with the beach which is one of the main things we have missed since leaving CA.

Our 2nd day we went to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, see Kate's face? we were all hot but Kate doesn't do hot very well at all, good job the aquarium is small and so its easy to get to see everything in just a few hours. We saw the Winter presentation where they talk about her rescue and rehabilitation and then browsed the other exhibits they have, all of their animals are rescues, its was a fun place, they have movie props and some of Winter's older prosthetics.

After the aquarium we headed over to Honeymoon Island State Park, Kate was still feeling hot and wasn't so sure about this but we got out of the car and collected some awesome shells.

Then we wanted to hit another section of the beach there, we had to convince Kate to get out of the car and good job we did, we spent the rest of the day at the beach playing in the water and digging in the sand, the girls loved how warm and shallow the water was, this beach was awesome as there was a sand bar that created a little pool that the girls played in for hours.

The next day (pics on Eric's phone) we went to a place called Big Cat Rescue, anyone that knows Kate knows she loves big cats and its a sanctuary for rescued big cats, its quiet and you go around in small groups and can get pretty close to the cats. After that we headed to Orlando for the main reason for our trip, to see the cousins! My brothers girlfriend was there with her parents. The girls spent the afternoon getting re-acquainted with their English cousins and playing in the pool.

The next day we went to Daytona Beach, another day filled with sun, sand, sea and cousins. It ended with the loudest thunder storm I have ever heard in my life.

Our last two days we spent at Sea World, the girls had a great time there watching the shows, seeing the exhibits and spending time with their cousins. We had a fun time, it was great to get away and Sara asks me about every other day now about going to see her cousins again.

Halloween roundup

2011-11-14T12:00:00.000-08:00

In my feeble attempt to keep my blog up to date I should probably post about Halloween even if it is a week (or 3 late:) We went to Cornbelly's and met up with our friends the Francois', they had lots of fun things to do

Among the favorites were racing the ducks, bouncing on the pillow, Kate loved laying the huge volleyball game, Sara liked these go cart things and of course the corn maze was fun too.

School parade, Kate the magician and Sara as Ariel. I liked the way they did the parade here, in the past at Kate's other school it consisted of the parents cramming around the area where the kids paraded and you couldn't really see anything. Here they put the chairs around the edge and in about 4 rows down the middle of the auditorium and the kids parade up and down the rows so no matter where you are you get a good view.

And trick or treating. This wasn't Kate's best night, she did about 1 street and declared that she had enough candy, was cold and thirsty and wanted to go home. So we went home, I think maybe next year she's going to skip the TT'ing and just stay home and watch a Halloween movie.

New House

2011-10-28T12:42:00.001-07:00

As I am updating this blog I should probably put up pictures of our house, we moved here last Dec and were just renting, not really knowing if Utah would work out or where exactly here we wanted to be. When we did decide to look for a place I had my ideas though, something more in the city, no new tract housing, something old with character. Well, we didn't love the area where we were renting and I was looking for a better school for the girls, plus Eric was working in a kind of small dark dismal basement which led us to begin a house hunt, honestly things just fell into place, we put in an offer mid Feb and closed May 8th (it was a short sale so it took a little longer than a regular sale) and I have since been left to eat my words, we live in American Fork, in a new neighbourhood (not brand new, approx 9yrs old though) in a tract house and I couldn't be happier, our neighbourhood is crawling with kids and we are in a great ward. Anyway, our house is nothing spectacular but we love it and if your curious here are some pics:

As you come in the front door to your left is the formal living room. As we really have no need for a formal living room and we needed a place for Eric to work we had some doors put up and made it into Eric's office.

Kitchen, nothing special but I have lots of cabinet space which I love. That door under the clock leads to the laundry room, extra bathroom and garage.

Dining and living room.

Master bed and bath, never would have put the corner tub on my wish list but I really love it, behind the door is the shower and to the left of the bathtub is the toilet in its own little room.

The girls rooms.

Backyard swing set, the before's and after shots, it was a long day of work to put it together but worth the effort. And thats our house, we have been quick to find out that we have way more ideas than money. Before we moved in we made Eric the office, had the inside painted and put down new carpet, we still need to decorate the walls and put finishing touches everywhere but for now its great. We also have an unfinished basement that is the same square footage as the upstairs, so far with just our small family we're not desperate to finish the downstairs so with time and money we will eventually get it done. And the icing on the cake:

I finally got Kate to ride her bike to school and its so cute to see her and Eric head off together. Also Sara playing with the neighbour girls.

See the note on the mailboxes? there are always cute neighbourhood parties and this is the view down our street, our ward meets in the building right there on at the end of our street, its about 6 houses away, love that. Anyway, thats all folks!

Happy Halloween

2011-10-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

I really need to put up more posts, I have lots to blog about. Just to get started happy Halloween, a little craft the girls and I did a few weeks back to get us ready for October.

Made Sara this candy corn dress, she loves it, managed to make one for her doll that matches.

and yesterday checked out Little Haunts at Heritage Park.

Oh! and check out the view from my front porch, beautiful snow capped mountains, these pics were taken about a month ago when rained for a few days. The past few weeks the weather has been beautiful and I'm loving the fall here. Also house opposite us is for sale if anyone is looking:)

Saturday Hike

2011-09-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

Saturday we decided to hike the Y again, so that this time we could actually see it, (last time it was still covered in snow) it was fun to be with Eric this time.

Healing Field

2011-09-12T10:33:00.001-07:00

Can you believe its been 10 years since the Sept 11th attacks? I still remember the day, I was getting ready for work and watching the news and was in complete shock. Yesterday we went to the Healing Field in Sandy where they have a display of over 3000 flags to remember each of those who lost a life on that day in the attacks. It was even more impressive than I thought it would be as each flag had the name of a person killed, their age and a little bit about that person.

It was amazing to read about the people who died, those who worked for the companies, the firefighters, those aboard the planes, the delivery men just making their morning deliveries, executives, people working their dream job and cashiers who worked in the cafeteria's.

The girls liked looking at the tags, actually I think Sara did it to copy Kate as she can't read yet, Kate was just looking at how old everyone was.

Eric wanted to find the flag for the guy who said "lets roll" before they crashed the plane into the field in PA, here it is, the flag for Todd Beamer. It was a really nice tribute to all of those who lost their lives.

Pioneer stories - why tell them?

2011-08-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

I just heard this thought and wanted to share/document. I was at a bishop's fireside on Sunday and the speakers were Sis. Hinkley's younger sisters, (one of them is the mother of a guy in our ward) they were telling some pioneer stories of their family, they asked why should we tell pioneer stories and then offered this reason. In these days there are very little role models for us and our children to look to in the media, sports or even politics, heck I'm from England and I'm not sure that the royal family offer such great role models anymore. Anyway, they suggested that this is a good reason to look back to the pioneers of the church and their trials and commitment to the gospel. Anyway, just liked it and wanted to share.

1st day of Kindergarten

2011-08-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it, this day has finally arrived and in some ways the time has flown by and in others I can't believe it is already here, Sara started kindergarten today. Its only 1/2 day so it feels very similar to pre-school. She had a great day, was very excited and can't wait to go back tomorrow. Her favorite thing was doing the ABC's.

the tooth fairy visits Kate

2011-08-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

Last week Kate got an abscessed tooth. Not fun. We were actually out of town and the whole side of her face swelled up, she had a fever and was obviously uncomfortable so I took her to the urgent care and got some antibiotics for her. On Tues she had a dentist appt and the recommendation was to pull the tooth, didn't go so well, the needle in her gum was terrible and she screamed and kicked around and the dentist had to stop, after another attempt we left with the tooth still in her mouth. Yesterday I took her to a pediatric dentist, she was on nitrous oxide and watching Monsters Inc, she still didn't like having the shot or the tooth pulled but they were great and got the job done, I'm just glad its over. It was a big ole molar, she wanted to wash it, to make it nice for the tooth fairy I think, here is the note she left under her pillow. (sorry I can't get it to rotate)

Here is what the tooth fairy left her. (also I had to check with a friend that its still cool for the tooth fairy to visit a kid in 2nd grade, she was pretty excited this morning and I was a little worried her bubble would be burst when I dropped her off at school)

She was going to get a scooter this weekend anyway for this-

We love our neighbourhood:)

back to school

2011-08-23T10:45:00.001-07:00

Wow! life is just zipping by. Today is the 1st day back at school and a new school for the girls. Kate is now in 2nd grade. Sara is starting Kindergarten but that doesn't start until next Tues. Kate was a little nervous but I'm sure she will be fine, there are several kids from her primary class in her class at school so she will already have some familiar faces. I'm not sure about anyone one else but I think I could readily embrace a year round schedule, don't they do 6 weeks of school and then 2 or 3 weeks off? Kate had 11 weeks off school and boy am I ready to be back on a schedule. Still trying to convince Kate to ride her bike to school, we live close enough and did some trial runs over the summer but on 2 of those she fell off her bike, anyone that knows Kate will know that she lost some skin, not terrible but worse than a kid with normal skin and so she is too nervous to ride, my plan is to make her walk a few days this week and I'm sure by next week she'll want to ride:)

Brief Pause

2011-07-24T22:39:00.000-07:00

Even though I have a few more things to post about life here in AF I haven't felt like it as some dear friends of mine just lost their precious little baby boy, he was born very early and for whatever reason it wasn't meant to be that he stay here on earth. I have lost quite a few people in my family over the years so the experience of a loved one passing is not so unfamiliar to me, my great grandmother, maternal grandmother, sister, maternal grandfather my mother and paternal grandmother have all passed, the earliest of course was my great grandmother and at age 8 or so I was really too young to grasp any real understanding or sense of sadness but as the years have progressed and my family has dwindled I have a new perspective. Its always sad to loose someone but when they are older it almost seems natural and although we still miss them its easier to accept that their time here on earth is done but for those who leave this life earlier than we ever expected it is harder, or at least it has been for me. From these experiences it seems cruel somehow that life keeps going on all around you when this momentous occasion has happened in your life, how can something that has touched and affected you so deeply and left a huge whole in your life go so unnoticed, I feel like even if it's just for a brief second the world should just stop in acknowledgement. It never will and life will go on, and, as always time will help, it doesn't ever heal completely but makes things more bearable. So in recognition for that sweet baby boy this is the only part of my world that I can pause, and for his amazing mother and father I sent out my heart.

Life in AF part 2

2011-07-18T07:04:00.000-07:00

There are some things we miss about LA, here is top of the list: Trader Joes, friends and the beach. Not much I can do about Trader Joe's, there is nothing like it here, there's a little health food shop that has some good stuff but its no where near like TJ's. As for friends, to be honest, most of our friends were moving or moved away anyway, just a couple were left by the time we left, I have already been visited by a couple of friends and thats the good thing about being in Utah, people usually at some point will come to visit, even so, we will have to make new friends here, so far everyone is very nice but the friends thing will take time, for now we have family and that fills the gap quite nicely, last night Eric's oldest brother's family came over for smores.

Piling up on Lanie and a picture to prove that Britain still soldiers on.

As for the beach, there is obviously no beach here but close by is the pool at the rec center. The pool has a water slide, lazy river and a splash area, there is also a big pool. My girls did swim lessons thru all of June, it made the first part of summer fly by.

Then if we don't feel like going to the pool we head over to the splash pad in Highland, its a fun place to cool off.

yummy summer salad recipe

2011-07-16T18:36:00.000-07:00

I was going to do another post about what I like about life here but instead I'm going to share this yummy salad recipe I just found, yum, yum, yum. Served as is the cabbage is a little much so I'm going to tone it down and make it more of a salad to eat by adding romaine or some other light lettuce. The lime comes thru really strong in the dressing so as long as you are a lime fan you'll be ok, I'm not sure Kate would even try it but Sara loved it and Eric said he liked it too. I'm going to make it for dinner tomorrow with these baked southwest eggrolls and this peach punch. Happy weekend!

Life in AF

2011-07-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

I'm frequently asked by friends if I 'really like' it here, in Utah or in American Fork. Honestly I'm not too difficult to please and there are lots of things here that make it nice, here is one of them. The movies. As it warms up and we are trying to beat the heat the movie theater is a nice air conditioned fun place to be, today I took the girls to a second run theater, stadium and reserved seating, $3 a ticket and cheap popcorn, only $2 for a large, we saw Kung Fu Panda 2, cute show and honestly for the price we may go a few more times over the summer, 6 weeks down, 5 1/2 to go! Oh and the picture isn't from today as I didn't take one but one movie theater pic is pretty much the same as the rest.

Sara turns 5

2011-07-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

Still alive, computer had a virus, thanks to Kaspersky (on sale at costco.com) all is well. Lots to blog about but first up is Sara's birthday, she turned 5 yesterday. The day began with her gifts, a new doll, basket for her bike, streamers, spoke beads and a doll seat for her bike.

Then off to Monkey Island Fun to play for the birthday girl, this made for 2 very sweaty girls!

The day ended with family coming over for dinner and cake, it is Sara's cousin's birthday the day after hers so I made Lanie (turning 21, wohoo!) a little strawberry ice-cream brownie cupcake for her b'day. Sara really wanted a mermaid doll and so I made her a cake with the doll inside, forgive the ghetto picture of my dirty counters, I had just finished the cake and was super tired, just wanted to get a picture before I cleaned up.

Schools Out!

2011-06-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

Wow, time has flown, I feel like we left LA just weeks ago and yet it has been 6 months. Sara has finished pre-school and did really well, her teacher says she is ready for kindergarten.

Here are her teachers, Miss Kristy and Miss Camille

Here is Kate's teacher Ms Garrett
Kate did really well with the adjustment. It has been fun to see how different things are here, kids walking and biking to school, I still can't quite see myself letting the girls ride bikes or walk to school themselves, I remember doing it as a kid but it still seems a little strange to me to let a 7yr old walk off to school unattended. One of my favorite things about school here is the grass covered yard that the kids play on. In CA it was 90% blacktop, here is is 10% concrete and the rest grass (when it isn't snow covered in winter that is), plus its also at least twice the size of her schools yard in California with 1/2 as many kids. Well, here's to a great summer, swimming lessons begin on Monday:)

Happy Monday

2011-05-23T20:05:00.000-07:00

Mondays are early release days for Kate at school so we usually go to the library to check out books after school, this is what the girls look like as we leave, they are always excited to check out new books.

This Is The Place

2011-05-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

This was a few weeks ago, we took the girls one Saturday to This Is The Place Heritage Park, it was so fun to see life as it was in pioneer times, we bought a pass and look forward to going back when they have more open, I guess they don't usually open everything until the summer, here are a few things we got to see.

Kate's absolute favorite was the baby chicks, she could have spent all day in the barn picking them up and holding them, even Sara got brave enough to pick them up herself. They also had bunnies and other farm animals to pet.

Sara's favorite was the pony ride, unlimited pony rides with the membership, yep they go around like 2 or 3 times but Sara loved it and would get right back in line to ride again.

The school was fun too, Kate liked trying to copy the fancy writing demonstrated on the blackboard and Sara loved just drawing pictures.

Sheep shearing demo, amazing to see the difference in manual shearing and using mechanical clippers. Cool street performers, these kids were amazing, seriously they had to be no more than 15 and they were all amazing.

Pioneer games, so cute. At this house they also had a lady in costume showing how the laundry was done using the washboard, the kids got to help and Sara loved this one even though they didn't use any water because it was a fairly cold day.

better late than never

2011-05-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late on my Easter post, we had a good day, my plan was to do our egg hunt after church, the day began with these cute eggs from playmobil that had a toy inside.

Church isn't until 1pm and as the girls were completely ready and ancy to hunt for more eggs we ended up doing the Easter egg hunt before church, it was lots of fun.

This is not at all related, when I was primary president we gave a towel like this to each child turning 8. I lucked out because my super talented 2nd counselor made them all, I think she free handed the CTR and did a tight zigzag stitch around the letters, she made about 8 of them in an hour, its fairly inexpensive too because a plain white towel is only a few dollars and she used scrap fabric for the letters, they were super cute and so I wanted to make one for my friend in England (the one who introduced me to the gospel) who has a daughter turning 8 this month. I used this idea, I really need friends to sew with, I was having problems sewing mine, problems with the machine, needle, material who knows what, it took me about 3 hours. I'm pleased with how it turned out though, I just hope it arrives in time!

self control & geriatric dogs

2011-04-20T09:58:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling a little blah! lately, I eat too much sugar and watch too much TV, these things are becoming apparent as I have gained about 15lbs since leaving LA which sucks because I have also been working out 4 days a week, I'm also tired most of the time because I stay up late watching TV, then I'm tired the next day so after my girls go to bed I'm too tired to do anything and so I watch TV, stay up too late and the cycle repeats itself. So this week I am on a no sugar no TV break, I'm an all or nothing type and saying I am just going to eat a small treat each day or just watch 1 show doesn't work. Anyway, so far so good, a few sugar cravings but I'm managing and for my diversion from TV I checked out a book from the library, An Assembly Such as This, its Pride & Prejudice from Darcy's perspective, I'm only 1 chapter in but enjoying it so far and not feeling so brain dead from watching TV.

Then this is our dog, she's old, she just turned 12, see all that gray? the past few weeks she's been hobbling around, on Saturday 1/2 way around the block she gave up and sat down, Eric had to wait with her until she was ready to get up, we've been pretty worried about her so I took her to the vet on Monday, guess what he told me? "she's old" he also told me 3 of her 4 legs were hurting, he gave me some pain meds for her so we are going to see if they help, its really sad to watch her struggle, I think it makes me wonder if this is what old age is like, it creeps up on you and kinda sucks.

Spring break adventures day 5

2011-04-18T18:55:00.000-07:00

Yeah, again not so adventurous, here is what my girls did Friday morning, something they do fairly often and love to do, color while listening to Junie B Jones on the ipod, then went grocery shopping, oh and apparently Kate did some photography.

Spring Break adventures - day 3 & 4

2011-04-14T18:49:00.001-07:00

Yesterday and today have not been so exciting or adventurous, the girls went to grandma's yesterday to play with their cousins and I headed to the DMV to get my Utah license and register my car here, I guess that means we're staying. Today the girls and I went to see HOP, I know it got terrible reviews but I actually thought it was OK as far as a movie could be with a talking bunny in it, the girls liked it too. What made it even better was that for the 11:45 show we were having some projector issues, by the time they decided it wasn't going to work it was 12:20 and the next show was at 1pm, we all got free tickets plus if you took your ticket stubs to the kiosk we could exchange them for the 1pm showing, so we got to see HOP for free plus now I have 3 free tickets. I'm a little frugal when it comes to buying concessions at the movie theater but as it was lunch time and we had free tickets I bought a big tub of popcorn for the girls.

When we got home from the movies Sara's new doll house had arrived, she began talking before Christmas about getting a new doll house, she already had the fisher price one so I told her if she sold the one she had she could get a new one, we sold the other one a few months ago, after it sold I asked her if she wanted me to order the new one to which she replied that she wanted to wait a while, not sure what we were waiting for but fine by me, then on Monday Sara asked "when is my new doll house getting here?" and so I ordered it, today it arrived, took about 2 hrs to put together, its cute and she and Kate had a lot of fun playing with it. Also I hit a home run with dinner tonight making these, usually someone doesn't like dinner but tonight everyone loved it, I substituted ground turkey and doubled the sauce.

Spring Break Adventures - Day 2

2011-04-13T07:48:00.000-07:00

So day two didn't bring anything as exciting as hiking the Y, the girls wanted to go swimming and so that was pretty much our outing of the day. During spring break or any holiday from school for that matter my kids I'm sure are like most others in the fact that they want to watch TV and play video games to their hearts desire, I'm not opposed to either of these but if I allowed it I'm sure these activities would begin as soon as they woke up, in order to delay this as much possible I make the girls a chore chart. I'm not great at giving my girls chores, I never had chores growing up but I have come up with somethings that I want them to do each day, their chores aren't all that difficult, some are just good habit forming things like saying their morning prayers (we usually do a family prayer in the morning but I am bad at having them kneel by their bed an saying their own individual prayer), brushing their teeth and some are things that I want to get done like walk the dog, tidying up the bathroom and wiping down the counters, making their beds and some are just things they need to do before TV like reading for 20 mins (for Kate) and practicing letters for Sara. I did add a few things that I haven't done before that I want the girls to start doing like set the table for dinner and clear the table and wipe it (if they finish everything else they can watch TV or play the wii before these chores as these can only happen right at dinner time), so far so good, another I added is for one of then each day to help prepare dinner, here is a picture of Sara peeling sweet potatoes for dinner, she really liked doing it and did amazing and yes she made a mess but it swept up in no time once she was done.

So anyway, like I said its not really stuff they have to do, I like them playing together and if they do that for a few hours in the morning and don't get their chores done until 3pm so be it, the only consequence of not doing their chores is no TV or video games until they do, yesterday (yeah only day 2) Kate announced she wasn't doing her chores that day, fine with be but by 6pm she was scrambling to get them done because she wanted to play the wii for a little while.

Spring break adventures - Day 1

2011-04-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

The girls have the week off school this week, yipee, I love it. Today we hiked to the Y on the mountain in Provo, it was a beautiful day, the trail which is 1.2 miles to the top wasn't too bad, fairly steep on the first few switchbacks but the last 5 or so aren't too steep, good thing because the closer we got to the top the more snow there was. The Y was covered in snow so I really want to take the girls up again when they can actually see it. Beautiful day, beautiful spring weather and we got totally fried, got to remember the sunscreen next time!

The beginning of the hike and around the first switchback there was still snow.

View from the top, Kate is flexing her "I made it" muscles.

Field Trip Friday

2011-04-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

Today Kate has a field trip to the Hogle Zoo, wish her 1st grade luck, today it is rain/snowing and in the low 40's but you couldn't find a more excited 1st grader. To get the girls to school on time we need to be out of the door by 8:20, usually around that time I'm hustling them "hurry up, we gotta get going" today however by 8am Kate was asking "can we go already?"

crafty

2011-04-04T19:11:00.000-07:00

I have a project list that is as long as my arm, I love crafts but right now at the top of my list is getting my genealogy going and food storage, all that said I found a super cute store here in American Fork called Crafters Corner, they sell crafting kits and if you pay $5 you can use their craft room and supplies, totally worth it to me as I can get someone else's place all messy and don't have to go and buy a bunch of stuff that I will only use a little of, anyway, I made a couple of St. Patrick's day things and then went back to get some cute Easter stuff up in the house.

Also my new calling is activity days, I had an idea of what to do with the girls this Thursday but as I was listening to conference yesterday someone said "wouldn't it be great if each child had a picture of the temple in their rooms" I've heard this before but when I saw this temple block tutorial I thought it would be super cute to do with the activity day girls, for a practise run we did it tonight for FHE, I wasn't quite as organized as I needed to be but it turned out well and now each of my girls have a picture of the temple in their rooms.

The tutorial shows the wood block painted black but I let the girls choose from the paint I had and I like that they each chose a color that reflects them, I think they turned out super cute. The girls were excited to do a craft for FHE, we usually pick pictures out of the gospel art picture kit and each present one to the rest of the family (thanks for that idea Veronica). If your interested - we had I Love To See the Temple as our opening song, talked about what stood out to me in conference and the fact that we were going to make temple pics for their rooms, painted the block, while the paint dried we had our treat and talked about the importance of temples, then we distressed the block, glued on the pic, embellished and closing song and prayer and we were done. It was fairly cheap too, I bought a 2x6 piece of wood from Home Depot for $2.99, that will make about 6-7 of these, 40¢ for the picture and I had scrap ribbon, I also used tulle that I had made the girls tutu's with but they don't use anymore so I'm happy to rip those up and re-use. On the tutorial website she had tons of pictures of all the different temples. Now back to my genealogy and food storage, still waiting for it to magically get done by itself!!

WARNING!!

2011-03-31T19:24:00.000-07:00

I'm sure most people have given up on this blog by now but for those who stop by periodically here is a warning. Those cute crayola bubbles that I saw at Walmart (and bought as a birthday present for one of Sara's classmates, must apologise to the poor mother) and bought for my girls thinking these would be awesome, NOT! they are messy so if you are at all tempted you have been warned, stick with regular bubbles, these bubbles got everywhere, after a few minutes Kate came in and said she was done, green was all over her face, hands and shirt, I won't even go into Sara, she was purposely smearing hers on her shirt at the end and she had pink bubbles so when she came inside it looked as though her feet were all bloody, didn't get pics just tried to get her into the bathroom with the smallest trail possible. This is one of those where the clean up makes a mess as in the path to the bathroom will be caked in whatever color bubbles your kids are using, anything they touch such as the faucet. Anyway, gripe over and the good thing is they did wash out of the clothes, I did wash right away, you may not be so lucky if you let them sit until laundry day. Oh and also the bottle does have a warning that they are not for use at weddings or indoors:)

Kate's 7

2011-03-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

Its official, Kate turned 7 yesterday, the expression is true, time flies! Kate had a fun day, the best part was presents of course. The night before I wrapped them up and fit them all in 1 box, so it kinda look just like one gift but she would get a surprise when she opened it up.

I'm never sure when birthdays are on a school day how to do it, we still have to get up, get ready and get out the door, I feel kinda bad opening presents and then saying you can't play with them we've gotta get to school so the plan was to open Sara's gift and the big box after school.

As it turns out she managed to wake up a little earlier than normal and managed to get dressed super quick and for some strange reason was a little distracted about eating and not all that hungry so we had time to open the big box.

Lots of fun things in the big box, games, books, an animal play set she wanted and this Junie B shirt for a HUGE Junie B fan, she devours those books and laughs out loud whilst doing it.

This picture was taken today, the day after her birthday, I think all of the excitement and waking up early had taken its toll because she was being incredibly grumpy, a nice walk around the block with daddy and the grumpiness soon went away.

Birthday dinner was In & Out followed by doughnuts instead of cake.

Happy Birthday Kate, we love ya!

Another project

2011-03-16T19:16:00.000-07:00

Wow! I'm on a roll, two projects in 2 days, I'm not sure that this technically counts as a project as they are what Kate is handing out to her class tomorrow in celebration of her birthday, but anytime you make 30 of something I think it should count as as project. Doughnuts was the other option but when I saw this idea I couldn't resist and Kate really liked it too so tomorrow she will be handing out little pots of gold to her classmates. I modified it a little and went for just a round tag that says "Happy St. Patrick's Day".

Projects

2011-03-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

I have this friend, she is very crafty and talented, she is the kind of person who moves and has her house all set up the next day (and ready to host thanksgiving the next weekend), she is very project orientated and even has a blog to keep track of her progress, to top it all off she is super thrifty and does it all on a budget, she is an inspiration to me. I love projects too but it has taken me 3 months to get the motivation to clean up my basement so I can have space to begin, I have tons of projects and finally got going last night, Kate's birthday is St. Patricks Day so I am feeling like I should get things looking festive especially when I saw this banner and bouquet of shamrocks on a blog. Anyway, here are my finished products, I did spend about $15 on everything, I had plain green paper but I wanted something with some more pizazz so I bought some paper, I also had to buy string and buttons and glue but I'm happy with the way it all turned out.

My bouquet of Shamrocks on my entry table.

Banner of shamrocks across the fireplace, I opted for each shamrock being different rather than all just plain green, most paper I bought was double sided so I actually only bought 6 sheets of paper.

Dinosaur Park

2011-03-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we took the girls to Ogden to the George S Eccles Dinosaur Park, it was really fun, they have an inside museum with robotic dinosaurs, at first Sara was really scared of those but at the end she said she wanted to go and see them, they also have the several dinosaur skeletons, a woolly rhino model (I didn't know there was a woolly rhino) and a lab where you can see people working.

Outside there are 5 acres of over 100 life size dinosaur models, it was pretty awesome, a fun Saturday out that the girls both enjoyed.

Also, 3 day weekend! yeah, I really love 3 day weekends, today (Monday) is a snow make up day at school and as the school hasn't closed for snow at all they get the day off. Yipee, a lazy day at home.

Happy pancake day

2011-03-08T15:27:00.000-08:00

Stuck for a dinner idea? Today is Shrove Tuesday, also known in England as pancake day, based on the it being a last feast to consume rich foods such as sugar, fat and eggs whose consumption was traditionally restricted during lent (beginning tomorrow). I have fond memories of this day, we didn't eat pancakes regularly like we seem to here in the US and so on pancake day my mum would stand in the kitchen flipping pancakes and we would eat and eat and eat delicious pancakes drenched in sugar and lemon juice. Not your typical pancake though, more like a crepe. My mum never really followed a recipe but something like this 4oz flour, 1 egg, 1/2 pint of milk, pinch of salt, mix together until smooth and a little runny, let stand for 1/2 hour or so, fry in a pan and serve with lemon and sugar, delicious!!

Recipes

2011-02-25T16:40:00.000-08:00

I like to cook, I probably like to eat more and I'd rather eat food I don't have to cook but as it is not part of my budget to eat food I haven't had to cook on a regular basis, I cook, and for the most part I really don't mind doing it. Since about the middle of last year when my cyst began to grow I lost my cooking mojo, Eric and I would have people over for dinner almost every Sunday but as I started to feel worse and worse we had people over less often, when we did have people over I would pop an ibuprofen and do the best I could, I don't think my food was tasting very good though, I remember making orange chicken and I think my chicken had been in the freezer too long, it wasn't very good, I'm kind of embarrassed people came over and ate, oh well! Good news is since we moved and I had my surgery I feel like I've got my cooking mojo back, I'm enjoying being in the kitchen again and making food, only problem now is we don't have any friends to invite over and cook for, such is life. So for those of you I would like to invite over here are some recipes I probably would have served you, I'm a big fan of the Mels Kitchen Cafe blog and have been trying a lot of her recipes lately, here are some faves:

Breakfast: Kate likes pancakes, I usually make the recipe from the better homes and gardens cookbook with buttermilk but in an attempt to be a little healthier I think this Oatmeal Pancake Mix is really good, Sara won't eat pancakes but has found a favourite in these Welsh Breakfast Cakes, make them all on one day and the leftovers go in the toaster on the lowest setting for a very quick breakfast, I also tried these Refrigerator Bran Muffins, I really liked them but I think I was the only one who did.

For Sunday this Hearty Beef Stew was delicious, I try to keep beef just for Sundays if I cook it, also for Sundays is dessert, this was divine with the suggested frosting, these pumpkin bars were also amazing, one thing I found was it made a LOT so I sliced up the whole pan and froze the bars, we ate them all week, I would pull out 4 about an hour or so before we were going to eat and they were delicious, I want to make them again but I know how many I would be tempted to eat! This BLT pasta has also been making a regular appearance, what I love about this is I bought a larger bag of spinach than the recipe calls for so when I re-heated it for lunch I added extra of the fresh spinach and tomatoes and it was just as good as when it was made the first day. I also invested in a pizza stone and have been trying homemade pizza, the sauce is amazing, it seems to go over pretty well except Eric says "it has a distinct wheatiness to it" , he's one of those guys who can detect even the smallest trace of you trying to make things a tad healthier and kind of rolls his nose, but hey, I like the pizza and as I do most of the cooking (and shopping) the dough is here to stay.

I've also taken Mels tip on menu planning, I haven't always been good at menu planning as sometimes it gets to the day and I don't feel like making what I have planned but for some reason its working for me at the moment, hopefully I'm saving a little money too because I'm mostly buying just what I need and I think we are eating a little healthier too.

Oh! and I have been asked to cook the dinner for my ward for the RS birthday, yikes! I tried this recipe out on my family, baked manicotti, I didn't do the lasagna roll as I had lots of manicotti in my pantry (who knows why, I've never made manicotti before) so I was trying to use that up. It was fairly tasty and I think with a yummy salad and garlic bread it could make for a good dinner, if there are any other suggestions on a crowd pleaser for 50 please let me know.

lately

2011-02-17T08:14:00.000-08:00

Kate has been sick, fever and throwing up, yesterday her fever broke and she had kept food down all day, the little that she ventured to eat, so in the afternoon I took the girls for long over due haircuts, Sara got a trim and a style and Kate got a really cute bob.

See Kate's Jazz shirt? the Jazz bear was at her school last week and so to show Jazz spirit a very excited Eric went out to buy his girl a Jazz shirt, Kate loves it and said to him in the morning "dad, maybe now me and you should go to a Jazz game and we can both wear our Jazz shirts" so cute!

In the afternoon I saw Kate and Sara like this, they were playing 'mother and child' and Kate being the mother was reading to Sara

And lastly here is Sara eating breakfast, she is not a big breakfast eater and I often struggle to find things she likes to eat in the morning, Kate loves pancakes, Sara says "I hate pancakes" On Sunday I made Welsh Breakfast Cakes from here, Sara loved them, she asks for them each morning, probably not something I will actually make every day but to send Sara off with a full tummy I think they may make an appearance once or twice a week, not to mention you can pop the leftovers in the toaster the next morning on the lowest setting and they come out perfect, my kind of breakfast, quick and easy.

We're alive!

2011-02-08T19:14:00.000-08:00

So I meant to post a long time ago but you know how things are, I have just not gotten around to it so here we are, Feb 8th, alive and well. My surgery went well, recovery was about 2 weeks and I feel back to my normal self, which considering how long its been since I felt that way is a really good thing. Most people wonder how we are liking Utah and the weather, well, although the cold and snow may not be my favorite, things here seem to be going well, we may not have the beach and balmy weather that all my California friends are enjoying right now but there are plenty of good things about Utah, enough that I have to say for now we are happy here. One thing I enjoy the most is that things are so much more affordable, my girls are both doing swimming lessons and gymnastics, not something I could afford for them to do in LA. Anyway, here are some video's I captured of the girls practising their skills today, have you heard of the double rainbow? well Kate will show you the double hula hoop, enjoy:)

Christmas at our house

2010-12-20T09:10:00.001-08:00

I'm headed off for surgery today to remove an obnoxious 11cm ovarian cyst that messed up my whole summer, I'm a little nervous and it doesn't really hurt anymore but as of an MRI taken 2-3weeks ago it was still there and with deductibles flipping over Jan 1st I guess I may as well go ahead and get it done. Anyways, here is a cute Christmas video.

Rubbing off on me

2010-12-18T08:47:00.001-08:00

Utah is rubbing off on me already, I am not of the consensus that the bigger the bow the better, I'm not really the bow type at all but alas, my little Sara is, she found this headband with HUGE flower in a store and I admit she looks dang cute in it so I caved and bought it for her.

from Utah with love

2010-12-16T20:22:00.000-08:00

Yep, we moved to Utah, why? because we prayed about it and felt that this was the place to be for now, there were several other places I was wishing it would be right for us to be but this is it and after a week of being here it feels right. Its cold for sure and it will take some getting used to but there's a lot I like about being here, we are one house from the end of the street and across the street is this park

that is nice, even though we have a swing set in our back yard it is nice to walk across to the park for an hour or so. It is a lot more relaxed here and a big plus - Sara is going to pre-school starting in January! 4 mornings a week for $138 a month, its a program run by the school district. Also, being close to family, BIG PLUS, grandma is just a few miles away and Eric's oldest brother with high school age (insert great baby sitting age) kids is even closer. So far I'm still unpacking and finding my way but so far so good. Another plus about Utah is a lot of people come here so we hope that you will add us to your list of stops and if you don't have an ulterior motive for coming here then we would be quite happy to be your only reason for visiting, our place is a little smaller than our last but if you desire to stay at casa de Thompson we do have accommodation's in the basement.

Whats New?

2010-12-15T22:32:00.000-08:00

so.... we moved, this was our yard this morning.

1st grader

2010-09-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

So we made it back from our travels, the day before we left we all started with nasty colds but we made it back and are finally recovered. Kate started 1st grade on Monday, there is only 1 kid from her kindergarten class in her new class which is a bit of a bummer but her teacher seems real nice and so I'm hoping it'll be a great year. Here are the back to school photo's, Kate was very excited to wear her new shirt that Uncle James gave her which led me to finding out that there is a little girl in her class whose dad is also from Manchester, small world!

Ready to go! a little nervous.

Finding a friend on the yard and getting in line.

New classroom, looks like things will be OK, lots of new friends to be made.

Family Day

2010-09-06T09:36:00.001-07:00

Sunday brought me a difficult decision, go to church or spend the day with my family, I love going to church but I decided on the latter, my brother only has his kids every Sat afternoon until Sunday afternoon and so we played hookey and went out to Park Fold Open Farm, a cute little farm with animals to feed and a few different play areas. Before we were ready to leave Kate had a quick game of darts with Mikey and Sara and Gabrielle played inside the house.

At the farm they had pigs, donkeys, goats and reindeer to feed. The girls were a little too scared to put the feed on their hands and feed the animals, they went for just throwing handfuls of it on the floor. Mikey wasn't scared at all.

Sara and Gabby in the straw maze and Kate by some quail, q is often for quail in alphabet books so at least Kate has actually seen a real one.

There were guinea pigs to pet, all the kids loved this. Kate had Cinders and Sara held Maple.

Mini tractors to ride, such fun.

Boys will be boys!!

Uncles and cousins.

On the big tractor ride.

Fun playground at the park, Kate especially loved the tyre thing.

Pony rides.

And we ended the day with a late lunch at my dads golf club, this is the whole of my family that I have left on this earth, it was a good day.

Low Key Day

2010-09-05T01:10:00.001-07:00

Yesterday my dad was golfing and my rental car went back on Friday so the girls and I were limited to what we could do on public transport, here's how it went. We took the bus to Ramsbottom, a cute little town a few miles from my house, Sara enjoyed the bus ride.

Ramsbottom is small and quaint, my type of place, there was an old sweet shop there where the candy is in big jars and you pick what you want and they weight it for you, Sara got a 50p mixed bag, Kate got 50g of smarties (kinda like M&M's) and I got 200gramme's of army & navy sweets, those bring back memories.

Next to the train station in Ramsbottom, this is a heritage railway, we took the train from Ramsbottom to Bury, its a quick 15minutes but a fun little ride.

After we alighted the train in Bury we met the cousins to go swimming and took the bus back home, a low key but fun day out.

Wales

2010-09-04T00:44:00.001-07:00

These are from our trip out to Wales, for those of you who don't know my older sister was killed in a helicopter crash in 1993, the helicopter crashed into a Lake -Llyn Padarn- in Wales and each year my mum (who passed away in 2004) found solace in going out to the lake, my dad still tries to go each year and this year we were here to go with him. On each of their trips my mum and dad always stopped at this little town called Llanfairfechan, there is a little cafe right on the beach, its usually very windy but we managed to have lovely weather. The girls got an ice-cream and then played on the beach.

Our next stop was Llyn Padarn to leave flowers at the memorial for my sister and the 2 others killed in the crash. I got the girls a sunflower each and they wanted to leave theirs in the water.

Next stop (which I'm sure the girls had no interest in) was Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch the town with the longest name in Europe.

Next I wanted to take the girls to a castle, a real castle so off we went to Beaumaris Castle one of the 400 castles in Wales. At Beaumaris there are ducks and swans in the moat, in the pic with me and the girls a duck was getting very close to Sara and freaking her out. We ended the day at a little park on the other side of the castle wall, the camera battery died so no pics but I think that was the girls favourite thing of the day!

Moss Bank Park

2010-09-02T01:07:00.000-07:00

Tues we went to Moss Bank Park with my friend Emma and her brood. Fun park with some fun equipment, they have a small animal area which the girls liked with bunnies and ducks and ice-creams to round off the day.

Sara and Olivia, Kate, Annabelle & Emma

There was lots of fun equipment, most of it on the 'big kid' area and there were usually long lines of kids waiting to get on stuff, Sara immediately queued for this and waited and waited and waited to get on it, then Kate and Annabelle took a turn.

Sara and Olivia on a fun swing.

The girls having fun.

Emma and I with our kiddos.

Later we met Uncle James, Angie and cousins for some bowling, my camera battery died after these 2 pics of Sara and Gabby playing in the arcade so thats all I have of the evening.

My favourite place

2010-08-31T02:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was low key, we got back from London late and so the girls slept in, did some errands and then I took the girls for a walk up Holcombe Hill, its one of my favourite places, peaceful, quiet and the scenery is beautiful. Atop Holcombe hill is Peel Monument, its was built as a memorial to Sir Robert Peel a 19th century British Prime Minister best remembered as the creator of the modern British Police Force who was born in Bury, it can be seen for miles away as you come down the motorway into Bury. Anyway, we had a fun walk up to the top and played around the tower before coming home.

If you look closely you may just see the girls as they took a little break on the steps of the tower.

Here is the view from the back (looking south) as the tower looks over Bury and the street picture below is Holcombe Village, which I guess if I could live anywhere is where I would be, quaint and peaceful surrounded by beauty.

These are my brothers entertaining the girls, Uncle James and Uncle Peter.

Hotel Gray

2010-08-30T00:32:00.001-07:00

The girls and I headed down to the infamous Hotel Gray for the weekend and had a smashing time, the rates are very favourable, the food fabulous and the guided tours of London are top notch, I would highly recommend this if you are anywhere close. Here's a quick re-cap of our time there.

The drive down to London from Manchester. I probably could have avoided this but thats another story, really there wasn't much difference from trying to get around in LA except the steering wheel is on the otherside of the car and the cars around me look a little different but really this felt just like being on the 405!

Here are the proprietor's of Hotel Gray, couldn't find a nicer couple, see how excited they are to see us? I'm pretty sure they had no idea what was in store, first kid visitors I'm told.

It was of course raining when we got there and the girls loved exploring Emily's back garden and getting thoroughly soaked.

On my way down we pulled off into a Tesco's, they had these cute 2 piece top sets that I couldn't resist buying, aren't they cute? waiting for the train to go into London.

On the train, Kate looks a little bug eyed, there were several stops on the way to the underground and at each stop the girls had to switch seats.

Emily is a very seasoned tour guide now, she picked the perfect things for us to do with kids that captured a few things of the city without being too boring for the kids, we got off the tube at Waterloo and walked past the Tower of London onto a boat on the River Thames, we took the boat down to Big Ben, forgive my crappy camera, the girls and I with Tower Bridge in the background and Big Ben.

Outside Buckingham Palace, Sara was fascinated by the guards with the big hats.

Then onto the natural History Museum, at the end of the dinosaur exhibit there is a mechanical T-Rex, Sara was a little afraid, it was really cool though. Here is one of my seasoned travellers waiting at the tube station. London was fun but tough with 2 kids and a stroller, there are a LOT of people and most of them are rushing about and 2 little curious girls don't make it easy for them, plus the city is not very wheelchair friendly, ie no ramps and elevators are hard to find so lots of stairs. They are making a lot of improvements to make it more accessible for the 2012 games, so all in all the city was fun but for me a little tough and stressful with kids.

STONEHENGE!! I must be a country girl, the city was fun but this to me was bliss, Stonehenge is really in the middle of nowhere and the scenery is breathtaking.

Kate being super sweet to Sara and helping her with her audio guide of Stonehenge and here is a perfect example of my girls, Kate enjoying her savory sausage roll and Sara with her sweet ice-cream.

There are some fields behind Stonehenge with these mounds on that we let the girls run around on.

Sunday we went to church and then planned to take a picnic to the park, here's the funny thing about the weather here, go to church no rain, come home no rain, almost ready to head out for the picnic and it downpours, have picnic in Brent and Emily's living room, weather clears up and head to Richmond Park, beautiful, does it look like it was pouring down with rain just 30 minutes earlier? In Richmond Park there are wild deer that are roaming free, first few shots are from the car.

Then we parked and got out and wandered around by them, it was really cool and there really were hundreds of them.

So thank-you Gray's, we loved seeing you guys and had a blast. Emily, thank-you for taking us around even though you have done everything about 20 times already.

To my friends accross the pond

2010-08-25T13:53:00.000-07:00

This one is for my friends back home, for those of you in California I hope you are enjoying the heat, we had a pleasant day, no rain and we went to the park, it was lovely. I'm back in the drivers seat, although its on the other side of the car and the other side of the road, here is my nippy little Vauxhall Corsa, so far so good. While I enjoy the cooler weather I hope you all enjoy the gas prices, it cost me £47.37 to fill up this little car, thats a whopping $73 folks, I hope it gets some good mileage, off to see Brent and Emily tomorrow, wohoo!!

The rain in spain...

2010-08-24T11:49:00.001-07:00

Hows the weather where you are? are you baking in the heat? this is how my girls dressed to go out today, it was really wet but we are enjoying it.

Its rained everyday since we got here, although Sunday afternoon was very pleasant.

Today we took a trip out to the Manchester crematorium and found some plaques for my grandmother & grandfather and great-grandmother & great-grandfather, I love genealogy, hopefully I can fill in some blanks this trip.

And funny looking hand-driers that are in the public bathrooms here.

Not much....

2010-08-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

Not much doing today, went and ran a few errands with my dad and took the girls to the pool again, they love being here though, coming out of Costco Kate said "I wish daddy was here because I'm having the best time in England" hopefully tomorrow we'll do something more exciting, I'm getting bored and spending too much time looking through facebook, finally added a profile picture for myself. Here's the thing, I am not terribly photogenic (or maybe I just look like crap all the time!) and I was looking through Emily Gray's pictures and man are her and Brent photogenic or what??!!! I get to go visit them in a few days, hooray!! but the prospect of being in a picture with them is a little daunting! More to come.....

new 1st's

2010-08-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

Kate is very excited about some of the things she has gotten to do for the first time over the last 2 days.

Yesterday the girls and I rode the bus into the town and went to the leisure centre to swim, then we got home and the cousins arrived, they stay over every Saturday night, the girls and Gabby & Mikey caught a toad which Kate touched today several times which is a 1st for her.

Here is a close up of Mikey and Gabby with the toad.

Here is Kate picking up Buggsy the hamster, this is another first for her and both the girls enjoying an ice-cream from the ice-cream truck that drives around the neighbourhood.

And Kate's last first of the day was to play darts with her uncles, she thoroughly enjoyed this and can't wait to do it again tomorrow, watch out Phil Taylor!.

And a little bit of football with Uncle Peter, teaching her how to 'head' the ball.

Day One

2010-08-21T01:47:00.000-07:00

Let me just say I have angel children, they were perfect on the plane and waiting in the airports, we did travel at night time so we'll see if I have the same thing to say on the flights home (cross your fingers for me!). Waiting in LAX the girls found some other little girls to play with as they climbed about by the windows anxious to get on the plane, then we boarded, we left around 8:30pm Los Angeles time and about 2hrs into the flight Sara said, I'm tired and went off to sleep for the next 7 hours or so, Kate on the other hand stayed awake for the first 8 hrs of the flight and then finally succumbed and crashed. We got off in Heathrow and let me tell you that is one big airport and I am so glad I decided to bring a stroller because I don't think either of my girls would have been able to walk as far as we had to by themselves. We also had to take a bus to switch between terminals and Sara looked at me and said "I've never been on a bus before" it was pretty cute. So we made it, tired but all in good spirits. We spent our first day just chilling at Grandads house, the weather was rainy, not exactly cold and the rain was just on and off so we took the girls to the store and bought them some rain boots, and then they loved playing in the front garden in their new boots.

Girls playing in the airport.

Sara after her nap and Kate after she finally crashed. BTW invested in Kidz Gear headphone for the girls, best move ever, ear buds just don't stay in their ears and regular headphones are too big and fall off, these headphones were perfect!

1st bus ride!

The girls in their new boots, Sara picking blackberries & raspberries and Kate playing football with Uncle Jim.

Adventure awaits

2010-08-18T13:43:00.000-07:00

Ok so its been a pretty bum summer for me but hopefully things will start to pick up, the girls and I are headed off to see my dad tonight, wish me luck, 10hrs on a plane with my cute girls!

To sell or not to sell?

2010-07-08T19:09:00.000-07:00

I need advice, not sure if anyone is reading my blog lately but if you are stumbling across it let me know what you think. I'm a big ebay'er, craigslist'er for items around the house we no longer use, I don't really like clutter plus I can always usea little extra money. I have this cute lot of Fisher Price snap 'n' style dolls with outfits, Sara doesn't play with them too much anymore and they sell pretty well on ebay but part of my wants to keep them, they are super cute and come in handy if I watch younger kids or we have friends over for dinner with young girls or (and call me crazy) I am thinking way ahead and thinking maybe one day I'll have little granddaughters and they'll like to play with them. So keep em or sell em? that is the question, any advice?

Rain drops on roses....

2010-06-18T14:18:00.001-07:00

Here are a few of my favourite things lately.

Homemade popsicles. I was making my own mixture with berries, yogurt, bananas but this is way easier and just as good. I use Naked's mighty mango, pour into popsicle molds (4 for 3 on amazon, the rocket ships are my favourite for size), freeze and voila, healthy popsicles at a reasonable price too, the juice is $5.99 and I get about 30 popsicles out of it, maybe one or two more. Perfect for summer!

This cute girl who loves tigers and all other big cats, just ordered her Ranger Rick to keep her love of animals alive and click because she has also loved science this year. I googled and found a $9 off coupon.

How can this not be a favourite thing? she wanted her hair wrapped like mine after her bath.

And I'm getting into re-purposing stuff and loving it, I have 2 girls, but 2 very different girls, Kate loves to wear jeans and Sara calls them hard pants and loves to wear sweats and skirts, here is a pair of Kate's old cords that I made into a skirt using this tutorial, not the best picture but it did make a cute skirt, if anyone tries it I only did a 2 panel skirt and the tutorial is for an adult skirt just in case you have an old pair of pants you may want to make into a skirt for yourself.

loose ends

2010-05-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

Yippe, I finally managed to complete some loose ends, on a re-purposing kick lately, I've made a bunch of skirts for Sara from old dresses that are now too short but cut them off below the armpits, add a stretchy waistband and voila, cute skirt. My next project - making a dress from an old shirt (hence the nasty stain) of Eric's, neither girls would wear it, I think I need to work on the elastic around the arms but a shirt we were going to throw out so it was a good one for a practice run. Got the idea here.

Wanted an FHE board forever but never found one I loved, with ideas from a few friends I came up with this, (got the vinyl lettering here)I love it, and with my chalkboard paint I added some chalk areas to my kitchen for the girls to scribble on. Love the chalkboard paint BTW, wandered around thinking of what else I can use it on!!

Got the carpets shampooed, actually I should say cleaned as its a no soap thing, guy in our ward, very nice guy works for a company called ZeroRez, we have white carpet, it frequently looks very not-so-white, still haven't put the furniture back, the girls like sitting in the chair high up.

Hope you have a fun memorial day weekend, we'll be off to the beach to work on 'Kate's Shel Clecshin'.

Differences

2010-05-08T22:06:00.000-07:00

My girls are sooooo different, anyone who knows them knows this, here is an example

Sara for dinner chose a salad, Kate a hamburger.

Sara does not really like to eat out, Kate would eat at In & Out, Panda Express, The Habit or Old MacDonalds everyday if I allowed her to, or at home mac 'n' cheese, pizza or noodles would be her 1st choices, Sara would prefer veggies and fruit. This week though I have been on a roll, 3 dinners in a row have met with Kate's approval, Asian Lettuce Wraps, I made mine with ground turkey, salmon patties and pictured above a hamburger, grilled at home though and she actually ate lettuce on it (usually she is strictly a meat, bun and ketchup girl) because she had picked it at Underwood farms earlier that day.

Proud parents of.....

2010-05-04T19:57:00.001-07:00

.....a toothless wonder

Kate's 1st tooth finally fell out today, she was so excited, tonight it is under her pillow with a note that reads, 'please bring me a one hundred dollar bill, it will make me so happy' I think her expectations for the tooth fairy are quite elevated. My favorite phrase of the day today has to be when she got out of the shower, stepped onto my scale and said "lets see how much I weigh without my tooth." Its undeniable now, my baby is growing up!

Fun weekend

2010-04-25T22:42:00.001-07:00

A quick update, we're still around, having fun, we took a quick trip up to Hearst Castle on Friday, stayed overnight in San Luis Obispo and went to the Morro Bay kite festival on Saturday, on our way home we stopped quickly in Atascadero and Pismo Beach, so much fun to be with Eric and the girls. BTW as you drive north the landscape is breathtaking.

Hearst Castle, pretty amazing, not sure the girls truly appreciated it though!

Sara making her kite and flying it at the kite festival.

The girls loved being on the beach, this is Kate's rendition of Hearst Castle complete with Neptune pool and guest houses, she was very proud.

There were sooo many kites, a little hard to make out and on the pier in Pismo Beach.

The Irish

2010-03-14T22:22:00.000-07:00

OK so I am trying to be better about blogging, not gotten to the house yet! Something occurred to me Sat evening while I was in Party City, a lady was talking to the guy behind the counter (as she was purchasing some St. Paddy's day things) about how she was part Irish, it has always amused me how American's really celebrate this holiday, I don't ever really remember thinking about it when I was back in England, maybe it was an excuse to go drinking at the pub but as that was never my scene maybe I missed out on it all. Anyway, back to my pondering's, what I mostly remember about the Irish growing up was making fun of them, we would tell these Englishman, Irishman, Scottishman jokes, they go a little something like this:

An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman were without tickets for the opening ceremonies of the summer Olympics but hoped to be able to talk their way in at the gate. Security was very tight, however, and each of their attempts was met with a stern refusal. While wandering around outside the stadium, the Englishman came upon construction site, which gave him an idea. Grabbing a length of scaffolding, he presented himself at the gate and said, "Johnson, the pole vault," and was admitted. The Scotsman, overhearing this, went at once to search the site. When he came up with a sledge hammer, he presented himself at the gate and said, "McTavish, the hammer." He was also admitted. The Irishman combed the site for an hour and was nearly ready to give up when he spotted his ticket in. Seizing a roll of barbed wire, he presented himself at the gate and announced, "O'Sullivan, fencing."

I need a kick up the ass!!

2010-03-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

I like blogging, I have ideas, I take pictures but I never seem to sit down at the computer long enough to just do it, I'll get better, I love reading everyone else's blogs, I just found this cute blog and like this quote "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” Quote by William Morris, I need to clean my house this week, we'll see how that goes, good intentions and all, just like blogging!!

cute, funny, sisters

2010-02-11T19:55:00.000-08:00

This was too cute and funny not to post, the white paper on a white background is a little hard to see but if you look closely....

Dot kumin my room SARA, ah to be five (almost 6) and have a pesky little sister!

New Display Board

2010-02-10T12:05:00.000-08:00

Does your child bring home craft things they have made at school/pre-school/church that you don't know what to do with? Mine does so I came up with this-

For all the things Kate brings home from school, I feel slightly guilty to just throw it all away as soon as she brings it home so I made this big memo board for my kitchen, then each day we put up the beautiful things she brings home, they stay up for the whole month and the 1st of the next month it gets cleaned off for the next months treasures. I don't feel guilty about throwing it away as we have displayed it for a good amount of time and I don't feel like I have to keep/store any of it either, if she does indeed bring home something I want to keep I save it for the scrapbook.

Fevers and fun

2010-01-31T23:13:00.000-08:00

Wow, so neglectful of the blog lately, had the computer on all day to do a post and only getting round to it now. As I uploaded the pictures from my camera I realise that it has been way too long. Anyway, the girls have been sick, running fevers, coughs, sore throats and ears since Wed night, hopefully they sleep it off tonight, we have been laying low. Yesterday Eric had to take some pictures in Venice so we took the opportunity to stroll around the canals there, very peaceful and pretty, we then took the girls down to the Santa Monica Pier to ride the carousel, they loved it and rode it 3 times with their 100º fevers and all, are we bad parents?

The canals are really pretty, in defense of our taking sick girls out we did just bundle them up in the stroller and they rode the whole way, the only time they got out was to get onto the carousel which they would have ridden another time if we had let them...

Can't beat the carousel, kids under 6 are free, 50¢ if they are over and an adult is $1, also if you liked the canals there was a house for sale on the canals, it was a main house with 2 separately fully functioning guest houses all on one lot, very pretty and reasonably priced at $6,500,000!!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

2009-12-26T21:00:00.000-08:00

This is what we did Christmas Eve

Kate's favourite part: when Mary Poppins floated up over the audience at the end

Sara's favourite part: during 'chim chim cher-ee' when Bert walked up the side of the stage and across the top and down the other side.

It was fun, not like the movie but it worked.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-21T13:23:00.001-08:00

I had many grand ideas for cards this year, needless to say it didn't happen as I had planned, the time is flying by these days and I can't keep up. All that said I mailed something today, they probably won't arrive before Christmas but that's just how the cookie crumbles, I didn't have every one's addresses either, so for all of you who check my blog, Merry Christmas from the Thompson's, we feel blessed if you count us as amongst your friends.

AWESOME!!

2009-12-03T22:02:00.000-08:00

So the other day whilst I need the girls to be occupied for a little while I suggested to Kate that she write a letter to Santa from her and Sara, here is what she came up with (she's 5)...

Kate loves tigers and Eric was sharing this with his boss Dean, when he went into work today he found this in his chairEric and I feel so blessed to know such amazing and generous people, THANK-YOU Dean, I think Kate will be one of the happiest girls around on Christmas morning.

Love this girl

2009-10-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

Love this girl, she's a little under the weather right now but already on the mend.

I have the greatest husband....

2009-09-11T07:59:00.000-07:00

.....and he is the sweetest dad. As I work on a Tues and Thurs mornings Eric takes Kate to school on those days, last night (Thurs) he said to me "I was thinking that I might take Kate to school in the morning" he is so proud of his girls and loves to be involved in their lives, it melts my heart to see them both going off together in the morning.

Proud Parent of....

2009-09-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

a kindergartner!!! We dropped Kate off for her 1st day of kindergarten today, wow how time has flown. And oh! boy do those backpacks seem big!

meet kate

2009-09-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

This is Kate, she is 5 yrs old

This is Kate's foot

and boy is it bothering her right now, she is having a hard time walking today...

This is all due to her Epidermolysis Bullosa or EB for short. EB has been called "THE worst DISEASE YOU NEVER HEARD OF" its rare and we are very, very lucky that Kate's is mild but occasionally she still suffers. If you shop and Ralphs you can help by linking your Ralphs card to the community contribution program, (if you have done this before you have to re-sign up every September). Ralphs will then donate a % of what you spend to research for EB. You may be able to just click here and enter your ralphs card # to sign up, the organization name is EBMRF and the NPO # is 81963, if that link didn't work for you here is step by step:- Just go to http://www.ralphs.com/, and click on Ralphs Reward Card in the top right corner. Then click on choose your prefered store enter your zip and choose your Ralphs, when you click on 'make it my prefered store'you should get a page where one of the options is community contribution, click on that, then on enroll and you should be able to enter your Ralphs card #, the organization is EBMRF and the NPO # is 81963. If you want to sign up and have problems you can always call ralphs at (888) 437-3496.

This is life with EB, the good, the bad and the ugly....

2009-09-03T21:53:00.001-07:00

Only in Utah

2009-09-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

I admit to feeling a little mean but is anyone else with me on this? This is taking the big bow/flower thing to the next level!!

If it is actually your thing you can buy one here.

I'm, back!!

2009-08-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

I'm back, from nowhere in particular, just the abyss of summer and we've been up to nothing in particular too, being home, running errands, going to the beach, swimming with cousins and friends, going to the park, until it got hot about a week ago anyway. School doesn't start for another week and 1/2 so we are just going to enjoy these last few days, probably take another trip to the beach, we just went out to mothers beach and we had a blast, usually Zuma is our spot, its beautiful and you really feel like your out of the city but I decided to change it up and try something new. Usually I avoid the 405 like the plague (and it sucked on the way home) but my girls loved mothers beach, the best way I could describe it to you is that its like being at a lake, the water is still and that is what my girls loved, being able to get in the water, its shallow too, even when Kate waded far out the water still only came up to her waist.

splashing in the water and the girls walking on their hands "doing the fishy walk"

Kate made this island, she worked on it for a long time and was very proud of the finished product.

Sara loves to get the sand all over, at one point she would put her head down and just rub it around in the sand, she was one sandy mess by the time we headed out.

Whilst shopping for some new school clothes for Kate I found these cute dresses at The Children's Place on sale so I couldn't resist.

This is one reason I'm sad for Kate to start school, one morning a few weeks ago when the girls woke up it was pretty overcast outside, Kate was sure it was going to rain (it never did but I thoroughly enjoyed those summer days) and got herself and Sara all dressed for it.

Hope your enjoying summer too, its over for some already, I don't like the triple digit weather but its good for home made popsicles, Sara loves these things, frozen berries, plain yogurt and a little powdered sugar.

Sara's 3

2009-07-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

Sara turned 3 last Sunday, it was kind of a weird day with church for 3hrs smack in the middle, Eric also has to stay later as the financial clerk and then he had a priesthood meeting to go to in the evening. Even with all that going on we managed to squeeze in a little birthday celebration with family. Then on Monday we had a little party with friends.

As I look at the pictures I keep thinking its Christmas, its not, we just have lots of Christmas paper and no birthday paper! I think 3 is the first year kids get the whole gift thing.

Sara got a doll house, she played with it until the very last moment before we had to leave to go to church.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

Then came the celebration with friends, we had a few friends for some party games which lasted all of 15 minutes of the hour I had planned and then the kids played, some swam and I made hot dogs for lunch. We kicked off with a birthday craft, lots of stickers, another favourite of Sara's.

This is her little friend Xander, most of all she wanted Xander at her party.

We also kind of had a lollipop theme as Sara loves lollipops (notice the cupcake plus lollipop), plus purple and pink, so I scattered lollipop flowers and set out lollipop flower bouquet's.

Lots and lots of lollipops!

being one step ahead, and five others behind

2009-07-09T21:57:00.000-07:00

Last night was rough, Kate had a particularly sore foot (EB related) and rolled around (in my bed) for several hours during the middle of the night moaning in pain. Today my list of things to do is greatly increased by the fact that I didn't do yesterdays and I found myself too tired to do today's, that means tomorrow will be nuts! My friend Julie called me this morning and offered to watch my girls (just because she is nice that way) and that gave me time to run to target and toys r us, two places I don't particularly enjoy taking my kiddos. Anyway, checked off the list is the last of Sara's birthday presents and a gift for Kate's friend, then this afternoon we took butcher paper and made our own wrapping paper for the gift, the last few gifts we have given have been wrapped in Christmas paper, I give myself a pat on the back for being so organized to have a gift already bought and wrapped for Saturday. Now I just need to finish cleaning all of my windows inside and out (1/2 done), vacuum, mop all my floors, scrub down the kitchen and clean the hardwood floors!!

I picked up this little card game today at Target for the bargain price of $3.48 and am happy to report that it is quite cute and lots of fun, we must have spent a good hour playing this today, even Sara can get in on the action.