Summer

It's kind of backwards that summer is here and we try and stay indoors as much as possible. It's so we don't melt. Last night at 10:00 pm it was 101 degrees! But the other day we ventured out to the pool and had some fun. I'd like to do this everyday but it's a little taxing if I'm by myself. Carly loves the water but she doesn't want floaties, a swim raft OR anyone to hold her. She is so independent that she wants to do it all herself but doesn't get the fact that she'll drown. Then there's Ella. She can swim but not like a pro. She uses her floaties as a crutch but I can't spend time on Ella b/c I've got Carly to watch out for aswell. It's nice when Joseph is home and can help out. Anyway, here's some fun summer pictures of our swimming adventure.




Ella loves wearing her floaties b/c she can do WHATEVER she wants as long as she's wearing them. She swims like a little fish and runs and jumps into the pool as much as she can. Toward the end of the summer last year she could swim a little by herself. She's regressed a little b/c of how long it took to get back into a pool but I've made it a goal to go out at Carly's nap time and work with Ella on swimming without the floaties.


Carly finally let us put her in the float but she didn't like it for long. She lasts about 10 min in that and then wants to get out and play like everyone else. She is SO independent!



Daddy and the girls.





Teaching Carly to swim. She's really good at putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles. The water in the face does't phase her a bit and she likes blowing bubbles. Still learing about kicking.






Carly cheesing it.


Ella's new trick. (hopping on 1 foot in the water. SO cool)


Me and Ella.

Father's Day

Joseph, nerding it up on Father's Day. :)


This Father's Day was nice. I got to spend it with my sweet hubby AND my dad. The girls love having him and my mom here. They play all the time. They get quite a bit of attention from my parents, it's nice b/c I feel like I get my 15 min. breaks. :) Anyway, not too much to say about it. We made daddy and pop a pancake and egg breakfast, went to church, listened to Ella sing for her first time in the primary program, came home and the boys watched golf while the girls made homemade pizza and a yummy dessert. Enjoy the pictures. They tell a better story.


Opening Father's Day gifts.




My dad, Carly (who only wanted to get down and eat cake), Joseph and Ella.


I found this cute "burger and fries" idea on Bakerella and thought I'd try it for Father's Day. It turned out cute but I didn't use the sesame seeds. I didn't want to go buy some just for like 15 of them so they got nixed.



Ella did a special "I Know My Daddy" question and answer paper. I asked her all these questions and these were her exact answers to them:

Favorite food: Pizza
Favorite sport: golf
Favorite color: white
What does daddy do?:Work
What makes a daddy a daddy?:They grow up, have a date and then they get married.
My daddy looks like...: Prince Eric
My favorite thing to do with daddy: Make Magic
Daddy loves to: go on a date with us to the snow, when it's snowing.
What does daddy do at work?:He gets groceries and food and drinks.
what does daddy wear?:Skirts. (lots of giggling) No, that's silly, he wears church clothes.
What color is daddy's hair?:Brown. But he wants it to be blue.
What can we say to daddy to make him feel special?: "Happy Birthday"

Well, there you have it, from the mouth of his 3 year old.... a bit of Joseph in a nut shell.

And last but not least a compilement of pictures of our daddy that we love.





with baby Carly.











With baby Ella.












I love you babe-a-lou! You're the best dad to these little girls!

Shark Attack!

ooo, sorry for the blurriness.





My camera is kinda going out so this shot is pretty dark but now days, you take what you can get. :) Both girls helping make the cake. Ella is used to the rules (washing hands, don't dip your finger in....OR your tongue!) Carly....not so much. We really had to watch that girl. But both were happy once they got their beater. (full of uncooked egg...happy salmonella!)


It was my friend, Susy's, birthday on the 9th so I wanted to make her a cake. I got this idea from the "Hello Cupcake" book, thanks to Monica (thanks Monica!)(And thanks to Crystal for the link help). (LOVE this book!) In the book it's supposed to be just a shark on the cupcake but I wanted to give her a whole cake so I put it in an ocean and put some teddy grams and lifesavers in for effect. Pretty morbid if you think about it. haha Don't worry though, the one in the book looks way better. I don't even have the book. This was the only idea I could remember from the pictures. So it turned out pretty good for not having the book. :) I had to improvise with a few things, like I only knew to make the Shark out of a twinki and to make his mouth out of fruit roll-up. The "gills" are chocolate sprinkles. The eyes are circle confetti sprinkles with chocolate sprinkles pieces. The fin is melted almond bark that I made into a triangle. The bears are...well, duh, teddy grams and I just put them in gummy life savors. It was fun to make and not too hard (I mean, I made it with out directions for cripes sake). You should try it!



In other news... Here's a random picture of the girls. In just the last few weeks they've been playing way more together and giggling at the lunch table at each other. The other day Ella and Carly were spinning in the living room and just feeding off each other, giggling till they were red in the face. I love it! Ella has memorized this book word for word so she is reading it to Carly (who is a fanatic about books!) in their tutus. I actually had one on too and was cleaning house in it but Joseph wasn't awake so I wasn't in the picture. :)




Oh, yeah, and a couple weeks ago or so I cut my hair. I told some people I'd post a picture of it but I either always look like crap or my camera isn't working. This one, I apologize, I look SO tired in but you can kinda get the gist of the cut. They took a good 10 inches off. Maybe more, who knows. There was just a TON of hair on the floor. Every stylist that walked by was like, "holy crap! you're brave" Yeah, no, just sick of long hair.

The things we say

Most moms of a 2+ yr. old know that you need to really watch the things you say. Even if it's just every day language. Yesterday I was trying on skirts to see what I was going to wear to church and of course Ella was there. (she's my shadow if you didn't already know) The convo went like this,


Ella: "Mommy, you look like a princess in that skirt"
Me: "Thanks"
Ella: "But not me. If I wore that skirt.....well....welll I would just look......(thinking of the right word)... disgusting! Disgusting and.....and weird! I would be a weirdo!!"

I was totally laughing by that time but trying to hid my snickers so she didn't think it was a big joke to say that all the time.

Wow.

Weekend Update

We've been quite busy lately. I feel like we're more busy and see each other less than we did when Joseph was IN school. Maybe he's just catching up on sleep. I don't know. I hope it works itself out.

Carly for one is really getting quite the personality. She can be so sweet and loveable or shy and kind of a snob. She will litterally turn her nose up at you and give you the cold shoulder if she doesn't know you and you try talking to her. It's funny but embarassing sometimes. She really is a sweetheart when she lets you get to know her. She's currently into books and will bring one to you while she climbs up into your lap and will snuggle for a good read. I love that. She is afraid of women, but not men. She is also afraid of all animals...including our friend's baby kitten. Ba ha ha, poor thing, but it's seriously so funny to see her try and climb up the kitchen cupboards or your leg when the little kitty comes up to her. Last week she was standing on a chair (where is this child's mother??) eating and the kitty jumped up onto the chair....Carly freaked and backed up, falling and smacking her face on the table and then on the granit tile....not so funny. She's following in her momma's footsteps and is obsessed with make-up, clothes, and underwear. I'm not even joking. You will always see her trying to put a sock on, a shoe on, shorts, wearing ella's panties like they are purses, walking out of my room with my panties rapped around her neck like a necklace or one of my personal favorites: walking around with a bra dangling from her back. I don't know how she did it but she came teeder totering out of our room with this bra on her rapped from one shoulder to the other.












Ella is as sweet as ever. She loves being a big sister and tries to "help" Carly all the time. She's always trying to make new friends and wants to dance and be a rock star. She's on the waiting list for dance class (yeah, momma didn't jump on the boat fast enough for that one.) and is signed up for summer movie camp at the local theater where she gets to see movies just for kids every Wed. So she's excited about that. She is still saying things that totally crack us up. The other day she said to her daddy, who had just woken up, "Daddy? Can you please have some gum? Yo bref sinks." and,(after I came home from the gym)"Um, mommy, I don't love your smell." Oh, Ella, thanks for being you. I'm pretty sure the word "like" isn't in her vocabulary. It's always, "I don't love these pants.", "I don't love it when you do that", "Do you love it??". She is really enjoying cartoons and I'm doing my best to think of things to keep her busy so she's not watching them. The heat is already in the high tripple digits out here so we've got to stay indoors most of the day. She loves to play board games, dolls, baby, play doh, swimming, water table, "school" and she just learned to write her name (well, like 2 weeks ago, but someone's been too lazy to write about our current family events till now.)







I've been trying to keep the house clean but I feel like I move one step forward and two steps back with the kids in the house all the time. I've been working hard to get to the gym 5-6 days a week which has been quite the feet. But I think I've got it down. Joseph sleeps till about 1 or 2 pm so I lay Carly down at about noon for nap and put on a movie for quiet time for Ella and go to the gym for an hour. Usually everyone is still sleeping by the time I get home but if I feel like staying longer then Joseph will wake up with Carly. I've also been "craft'n" lately. Yes, I said it. I know some of you ladies are crafty but those who know me know I've never really been like that. But some things look doable to me so I've tried them. Like:



wipe cases that match my diaper bag




The girl's Easter Dresses:






Made out of these(Thanks Swank for the heads up. They turned out pretty cute):




And Crystal, I've already bought a place mat to make a purse out of it but haven't found the time to get there yet so it's soon to come. If anyone wants to make any of these things I don't have the links b/c I'm computer illiterate and don't know how to set up the link. So you can just comment to me and I'll e-mail you the link. :)



Joseph is working hard. He's currently out of school and decided to take the break from school as opposed to going to school non-stop. (good call. We sure miss him!) He's doing great at his job right now and has really picked up on things and everyone seems to love him. He's only been there 6 months and is already up for a few different promotions. Nice job babe-a-lou! It's sure been fun to have him around but I can't decide if I'd rather have him right when he gets home from work and then spend the morning and afternoon with him or if I'd rather have him for after nap time and then to help me with dinner and bed time and then....alone time. Probably the latter. :)

We all are healthy and happy and are glad it's summer. We've got one summer vacation planned where we're hoping to see as many people as possible so we hope to accomplish that. In the mean time, if anyone wants to visit us out here in AZ feel free, we love to have our friends and family come see us.