A Day At the Beach

Brian had worked a late day on Thursday, so we decided to make it a beach day on Friday. He got off work at 1 pm and off we went to Moonlight Beach! It was so much fun. Elise has always loved the beach and we were excited to see Jovi's reaction. Jovi has been to the beach quite a few times, but never in the ocean. Well she LOVED it. She only cried once throughout the whole time we were there and it was when we took her away from the water.

Elise was busy filling a big hole with water for Jovi to play in and looking for rocks. It was so fun to see the two play together, that is something I have wanted for Elise for a long time.

Kevin and Lorin showed up too which was fun, and I am bummed I didn't get any pictures with them! Afterwords we all went out for pizza, some of which was eaten off the floor...haha don't ask.

On the drive home Elise told us about 100 different April Fools jokes. Some where, "Hey mom there's a tree on our car!... April Fools!" Or, "Hey guess what it's night time now so you will all turn into buildings!...April Fools!" She so silly, but she loves this day :0)

Jovi started to fall asleep on the drive and we tried hard to keep her awake since we needed to bathe her when we got home, but she was so exhausted. She was smiling and laughing the whole time though, even with her eyes half open, right until she was completely out.

Sweet Growing Girls

JOVI

So, Jovi is officially walking! She's been walking for 3-4 weeks (a step here and there) but she can now cruise around the whole house! She loves that she can carry things and move around. She used to hold things in her hand and then crawl using the tops of her hands (it looked EXTREMELY uncomforatable). She also now has 10 teeth! She's getting quite the mouthful! One of the sweetest things ever, I saved for last. Since Monday, February 27 Jovi can now give kisses! I was holding her when I kissed Brian goodbye, so after she leaned over and planted a big one on my lips!! Haha, it was adorable. Now we say, "kiss kiss" and she leans over and kisses us, then we all clap our hands. (It's become a big part of our day :0) )

ELISE

Elise LOVES to fix hair. She's quite good at it too, in the picture she said, "I will turn you into a princess mommy!". Such a little hair genius. She has been doing both addition and subtraction in Kindergarten now! She's doing pretty well, her common quote when she does her homework is, "Easy peasy lemon squeezy". Not sure what she thinks that means. She is SO excited for Nana and Papa to come stay with her. She says, "Papa is funny huh mom, cause he's always like tricking me." She has written out a list of everything she wants to do while they're here, she is stoked!

BRIAN & I

We are super excited for our upcoming sweet escape! Thanks to my awesome parents coming up to watch our little princesses! It's been two years since we've had one, and that has felt SO long to us! I am in the middle of condensing and organizing our house (it's taking me forever). And Brian has been working hard with his clients and knocking doors still occasionally. We both have our weekly one hour getaway, good for you activity. Mine is Yoga, and his is church basketball :0) .

PS......Did you notice Jovi's pacifier? Yes she likes it. NOW. After a year of buying every kind I could find and trying to keep them in her mouth. Now, when she randomly found one in their toy box, and we don't give them to her anymore. She loves it, and puts it in her mouth all the time. NOW. At 13 months. When we would be breaking her of one, she wants it. Not cool.

More To Learn

I am in love with this quote, it has so much meaning to me, and really was one of those, 'huh' moments that I love to get.

"We've all known a teenage beauty who's convinced she's hideous. Or a macho daredevil who is driven to prove he is not a weakling. Or a "supermom" keeping the family going by her indefatigable efforts and struggling to fight off depression over her inadequacies. The beauty would never had suspected herself hideous if she had not made her appearance a major issue by wishing to be gorgeous. The macho punk would never had doubted his strength and courage if he had not first indulged in fantasies of himself as strong and courageous. The mother who doubted herself to a point of depression would not have sunk so far had she not gotten herself into the business of proving herself to be a "supermom"."

-C. Terry Warner

Loving Me

So, I have been thinking alot ( too much lately if you ask Brian :0) ) but I want to love myself more. Haha....do I sound full of myself yet? No I mean to accept my outer flaws, all of them. To give myself comments, to avoid insecurities. I know working on my innerself will take my whole life, but I figure, if I can have a better attitude about the outer, then I could be an all around better person. Take for instance I was thinking for this post, I'd put a picture of just me. And did you guess what happened? I took about 20....didn't like any of them. For some reason I've always thought I look worse in pictures, or from a diagnal....stop laughing. My biggest complaints are usually my pores, my scar, my unproportional face, my stretch marks, my toes, skin coloring, hair color, crookedish teeth/mouth, my eye shape/position and one other area to which those of you who know me, know what it is. Do I sound negative yet? Don't you dare look for them next time I see you! But a change of plans has been made to order! I want to focus on what I do like, or make what I don't like silly or acceptable in my mind....maybe even eventually positive? I mean, can't thinking more positively make something look better? I sure do need to....cause exposing my insecurities all of the sudden made me feel naked!

So I will say what I do like:

I like my nose profile :0), my ears (eh what's not to like), my hair thickness (not too thick or thin), the few freckles I have (they seem to have disapeared over the years), my arms, the mole by my belly button ( too personal? naw it's just my button!-Elise's words), my fingernails, the fact that I only have peach fuzz above my knees on my legs, my hips, and then there are a few others that are in the 'pending' state that I am working on.

I have a goal to enter into a state of acceptance first. Then maybe turn some of those 'acceptable traits' into unique, cool traits that make me different or special.

I'm starting with, "Huh, this body gets me from here to there, how nice of it. This body is my friend, helping me do so many things, like hold my baby. No matter how much I haven't liked ____, it works, how blessed am I? Well geeze, it's not all that bad, it kinda gives me character!"

You're probably thinking, "Whoa, why would she tell everyone this?" or "Dang now everyone is going to know what she does!" Well, I don't care. I like being honest with myself, and I have come to a realization that something shared is something gained. Admitting imperfections that I have (character ones) doesn't bother me. I think it shows strength. Because I have discovered a fault, admitted I have it, and now am working on it. That's growth in it's beginning stages and is a beautiful thing. Being positive in any aspect is really so refreshing and inspiring. In fact, I have my best days when I am optimistic. Everything is so much happier, beautiful and just less complicated. My biggest goal for the year 2011, being more optimistic in every area and Loving Me :0)

Elise lost her first tooth!

She was so excited to lose her tooth. But I'm not quite sure she realized it would hurt when she told Brian to pull it out :0) She got a bag of change and some chap stick for those chapped lips! She insisted that the tooth didn't go under her pillow because the fairy wouldn't be able to get it, smart girl!

The other day when I was driving her to school we had the radio on the song Marry Me by Train. She said, "That's weird, he's saying marry me. All he should do is just do something for her, like make her food." I love my Leiser.

She also learned to braid only after being shown twice, it was a new years goal for her, and she is so motivated!

Jovi's 1st Birthday!

Jo's 1st Birthday! The cake was super yummy, served with strawberries and vanilla frozen yogurt!

Mom and Dad Schrock, Jared, Bethanie, Mason and Lorin came to help celebrate which was awesome! She loved her presents and had so much fun with family! :0) The kinect was pulled out and well, it was too hilarious....even mom Schrock pulled out her dance moves! We feel truly blessed to have had Jovi join our family 1 year ago, she is just the perfect daughter and little sister.

It's almost Christmas

Yay! School is out, and Elise doesn't go back till January 18th! Pretty awesome! To start off the Christmas break we made cookies, wrapped presents and are about to watch a Christmas movie!

The picture is Elise's and Jovi's first time on Santa's lap!! Woohoo Elise, her first Christmas not afraid to sit on his lap!
This season has been so fun with her, she is really getting into it, wanting to Christmas shop, wrap presents, look at lights. It has been so fun!
Brian has been out of town for a few days, which has been kinda fun and lonely all at once. For one, mental note to Tara: Don't watch a scary movie before you go to bed you dork, it results in pocket knife under your pillow (apartments are loud!). On a more positive note, I have been getting some projects done that I have put off FOREVER, which I have to say feels so good.
Elise got her first award at school today, which we are so proud of her for! There were about 7 out of the 25 in her class that got one. Hers was for: Outstanding student,careful worker, Consistent work in everything and very responsible.
Elise has shown all kinds of interest in church, and has been asking so many questions. Her most recent thought was: "You know, That really isn't fair that we didn't get to see Jesus when he was a baby!" Yeah, that would have been fun huh? " I know, and I would bring him my toys for my gift! Did you get to see him as a baby mommy?" No Elise, that was 2,000 years ago. "Oh....were you alive then?" Huh....no.
This morning I made Elise breakfast. After I handed it to her I said, "How is it?" She tried it and thought for a second and said, "Pretty salty", What, really? "Yeah......but that's okay mommy, it's a.......... good salty!" She is so sweet!

We spent Thanksgiving in El Paso which was alot of craziness and fun! There were 4 babies and 3 little kids! It was a full house but it was alot of fun and went too fast! We were very lucky that everyone could make the trip, and for a whole week!