This Summer

So yeah it's been awhile since I updated this thing. So many things have happened! We went to Hawaii for Brian's brothers' wedding which was alot of fun and flew by so fast! Elise had her 6th birthday which I still can't believe. We had 2 family reunions which was so much fun! Here are some little updates on the kids:

Elise

She is now six and just loves to talk. (The talk part isn't new though) She's an old soul in alot of ways. She even talks like me sometimes and it's so weird. She wants an answer for everything, saying, "because" does not work anymore:0) She loves to hum as she's walking around the house. She completely loves her little sister as well as telling her what to do. She is so helpful around the house and with Jovi. She has gotten into My Little Ponys which is fun. She really enjoys books and is getting better at reading. She LOVES swimming, she's our little fishy that we're hoping to eventually get into lessons. She loves to get her nails painted, go to Petco Park, the beach, the Park, the Library. Her favorite places to eat would be: El Torito, Chucky Cheese (duh), and Chick Fil A. She just started 1st grade today and she acted like, eh not a big deal :) The pic is of her first day!

Jovi

She is 19 months (almost 20). She is 35 inches tall and in the 99th percentile for height. My dad calls our girls Amazon women :0). She loves her Kitty of course, but now she gets excited to see Elise's stuffed animals too. When she sees Woody or Jessie she gets super excited and says, "Yeeeeehaw, Yeehaw!" Her other favorites are Tenkle (Tangled) and Doa (Dora). She now goes to the bathroom to grab the stepping stool, puts it on the floor by the movie cabinet and stands on her toes and digs through the movies till she finds a 'Yeeeeehaw or Tenkle'. She can count to 7 and can say half of her ABC's, the other half is mumbled or hummed. She also can sing twinkle little star :0) . She is growing so fast! She was our super eater, but now she developed some pickiness. She loves bread, cheese, raisins, strawberries, milk, goldfish and bananas. She adores her big sister and doing what she does. She is the first to run to her dad when he gets home to give him big hugs. When we're at the grocery store I am slumped forward quite a bit because she says "Iwahuk" with her arms out, which means I want hug. So I hug her while pushing the cart :0)

Yay for good deals!

So I honestly have a ton of things I should be writing about...which I will...eventually. But this one was quick and easy. :0)

My latest shopping trip was awesome! I have been using coupons for 3-4 years now, but it's been over the last year that I have been doing some serious saving, and not on junk food (which is SO much easier to save on (like Lucky Charms, un-natural margarines & PB, cookies, soda blah blah blah) but on natural, more healthy food! This shopping trip at Ralphs I got:

8 boxes of Mom's Best Natural cereal

4 Boxes of Ronzoni Wheat Pasta

1 tub Land O Lakes Butter w/Olive Oil

4 Protein Bars

2 Bags Quaker Rice cakes

2 Silk Almond Milk Cartons

2 Gallons Arrowhead Water

3 Voskos Greek Yogurt

2 Bottles of R.W. Knudsen Organic Black Cherry Juice

1 Boulder Organic Kettle Chips

And I spend a grand total of: $13.86 !!!

I have 2 more super awesome trips for this next week :0)

Easter!

Easter was alot of fun. Brian had a 3 day weekend, which started with a bang (literally). Brian started his break with an intense leg workout using dumbells during squats. He pulled his muscle pretty bad and needless to say he had an old man sore back the last four days. I've loved watching him grab the table or chair to bend over and awkwardly pick something up... it's a sneak peek to our distant future :0) .

We drove down to Brian's parents' on Saturday. After lunch, Elise and I left with Grandma and Lorin to Granny's Attic. It's a gem in Temecula filled with random treasures. It is used and new antiques and collectibles in a decorated warehouse with 50,60, and 70's music playing. They have everything from old records, girdles, Wash sinks, sofas and jewelry to toys. I felt like I was walking through the past and couldn't help but tap my feet to the music, smile and let my mind roam to some magical era. So many items reminded me of my Grandma Geitz's house and her many trinkets. So many fun memories of growing up and playing in her house. I also found a McDonald's toy that I had when I was 8. It was a plastic 80's barbie with crimped hair that I had LOVED. And well I had to pay the .80 cents to get it! For some odd reason it made me so happy to find it and brought back a pool of memories I had forgotten. When I got home Elise wanted to play with it, but I just said, "this is Mommy's toy".

That night Brian's dad treated us all to heavely fresh mex at Wahoo's. I am in love with Fresh mex... Baja Fresh is the best and has an awesome salsa bar, yes it is a party in my mouth! Later that night we rented the most confusing and badly written movie ever, don't see 'Fair Game' such a waste of time!

Sunday morning the girls woke up nice and early at 6:30. They were very excited to look through their Easter baskets; Elise got a Tangled book, doll and the movie, and Jovi got a movie and book as well... the stuffed animal she got was shoved aside when we showed it to her, as she moved over to grab her kitty, oh well :0).

We all got ready for church and the girls' dresses turned out all right I think, I learned quite a bit from making them, things I would or wouldn't do again. But I made them without a pattern and only using old T-shirts, so considering my resources they weren't too bad. We went to Bethanie and Jareds' ward because Jared was singing in sacrament meeting. He sang "The Greatest Gift" by Afterglow which was just beautiful, it was perfect for Easter.

After a little bit of lazying around, since I had lovely intense allergies, we had a very nice dinner and TONS of candy. The kids did their Easter egg hunt which was fun, then we all played games. I like hanging out with family, especially for holidays because it reminds me of growing up and my uncles hiding the Easter eggs in their front shirt pockets and the cousins parading off to play while the adults visited. I love that my kids have that. On the way back home we stopped at a friends' house to visit for about an hour which was so nice, our kids got to all talk about their Easter baskets, the Brians talked about cars and what not and Amy and I got to talk about girly/ mother things, good times.

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)