Utah

I'm more than a little late getting this blog together but here are a few snapshots of our trip to UT (that happened the beginning of August!).

Jace and his cousin Parker - the two of them kept us hopping! This is in Uncle Steve's backyard. All you need is a little bit of water and a couple of 2 year olds and you get a big sopping mess!

Here are the girls with their cousin Jenna. Abby and Brooklyn love being able to be around their cousins - especially if it means playing dress up!

Here we are at a restaurant I used to work at - The Mayan! We have never taken the kids there and I thought it was about time they saw just where their mother put herself through college and beyond!

I must say, I had several nightmares leading up to going to the Mayan.....we used to call them Mayan Mares when I worked there. I don't know how to explain it except to say that it was a high stress job. And apparently it triggers something in the far depths of my memory even after 7 years.

I'm so glad to be done with that place.

For those of you who know nothing about the Mayan I'll give a quick explanation.

It's a huge Mexican restaurant that has been built around a rainforest theme. It has no windows and very dim lighting to keep with a primitive Aztecian feel. The most drawing feature of the Mayan is a 25 foot (or therabouts) high cliff with a waterfall and small pool. The purpose of this (besides looking and sounding rainforest-ish) are for the shows that take place during dinner - namely the cliff divers that dive and flip off the cliff to the pool below. Very exciting.

Actually, one would think , a very cool place to work. Except that the restaurant has 3 floors. And if you are working on the top floor your food is being made on the first floor. And while you may not be solely responsible for getting your guests food to the table ( we had table runners) you were solely responsible for the tips you recieve for your guests not receiving their food - which was a very common occurance. And if the food did make it on time you can bet there was a reason it came so fast. Missing dressing, missing fries, missing beans, or whatever. You get the point. And while you were busy fixing problems with one table you could be getting 3 more at that very moment. And if you happen to not have a front row seat to the cliff divers you could have a very unhappy table insisting to be moved. Which sounds like a quick fix but in actuality the seating happens on the first floor long before the guests ever get to the table. So an empty table was never a "real" empty table and that takes some explaining. We also had to get to the bar for drinks which at best was not very close and at worst was a floor or two away. And it takes skill not to slosh the entire drink out before handing it over to a paying guest.

Let's just say there was a whole lot of running around. And a whole lot of nightmares about running around.

Anyway, it's a fantastic place to visit with kids. Very stress-free as guests. And they all loved it. I will say I was quite shocked at the menu prices after 7 years. I guess we're paying for the cliff divers insurance policies! But it was one of the highlights of our trip so it was worth it!

Swim Team

This year was also Brooklyn's first year of being on the swim team. We had two meets in Lamar and this was one of them. Brooklyn's age group just used the paddle boards and swam across the small pool. I thought it was a little lame. When Abby was that age the had to actually swim across the lap pool and do all the different strokes. The teachers had to help them across but at least they were practicing for a real race! They had too many kids on the team this year to be able to fit the youngest racers in so this was their compromise. The kids all had fun with it anyway.

Here's Brooklyn racing across the pool. She did really well with it and didn't even push off the bottom like a lot of the kids were doing.



And here she is with her participation ribbon!

This is Abby gearing up for her race. Abby is doing really well with all of her strokes but she loves freestyle and backstroke the most. We're trying to get her not to look around at the crowd during her race and stay focused! She's much faster that way! As it is she always starts out in first and then she gets too tired to keep up her pace. I think she ended up with a couple of first place ribbons, some second, and some 3rd for both meets. But she's usually only racing against 3 or 4 girls!

Grandma Lu and Grandpa Sim came to cheer the girls on. Jace loves Lulu (as he calls her)! And Grandpa Sim is always sure to bring some candy to keep him occupied! What's not to love?

T-Ball Recap

T-ball has come and gone but I thought I'd post a few pictures of the season. There's not a whole lot to say about it but we were lucky enough to have Abby and Brooklyn on the same team this year. It was very nice to only have one team to worry about instead of two separate teams! This was Brooklyn's first year of t-ball and she was the youngest on the team. She did a pretty good job - as long as she stayed focused!

Here she is up to bat.

Here's Abby coming to score. She really loves anything competitive ( as long as she thinks she's good at it anyway!)

Like I said, as long as Brooklyn stayed focused she was able to do a pretty good job........But most of the games we found her doing things like this. Back turned to the action, drawing pictures in the dirt, turning around in circles. Pretty much anything to keep from being "bored".



She did try to be in down and ready position. Luckily I snapped a picture!

Jace spent his time running around and riding his scooter.



And drinking lots of gatorade! It was HOT!!




Here's Abby swinging for the fences. One of her coaches (Darren was also a coach again) made a deal with the kids that if their ball made it all the way to the fence he would buy them milkshake. Abby earned three!



And here are my two little ball players. Good job Abby and Brookie!

Jace turns 2

Jace's birthday was July 26. We had to celebrate early because we were headed to UT so this was actually a week before his birthday. Jace didn't mind! We were driving to ID on his birthday so it was good to get it celebrated early. He also got presents from Grandma Dena when we got to UT so it was more like a birthday week.

Here we are opening presents. The girls were great helpers, of course.



We let the girls earn money so they could buy Jace a birthday present and this is the one Brooklyn picked out. It's a microphone. Abby chose a ball that has water and glitter inside. He loved both of them!



Here's the crew. Grandma Lu, Darren, Pa (my dad), Grandpa Sim and the kids. I was taking the picture (like usual:) and my mom was in CA with Heather and her new baby so she wasn't around.



The birthday cake was not a birthday cake....Jace doesn't like cake (or at least hasn't been eating it lately) so I decided to try something different. He LOVES fruit so I made one of my favorite desserts - Pavlova! I learned about this dessert at one of the restaurants I used to work at and it's fabulous (if you love sugar anyway;). It's a meringue shell filled with fruit (strawberries, blue berries, and raspberries), and whipped cream. Mmmmm, yummy. I will say not everyone agrees with me (booo, some people can't handle sweets...) but I think it went over fairly well. Jace loved it (or at least tolerated it) and that's really all that matters!

Some things about Jace at 2:

He's starting to say more and more words. Some of his favorites : Abby, Cookie (for Brooklyn since we call her Brookie alot it's his way of saying it - very cute I might add), hungry, WOW, scary, and Scooby-Dooby Doo are a few.

He's very in to things being "scawy" and runs to me anytime he deems it too scary to cope - such as when he's left alone downstairs or he hears noises outside.

He LOVES baths, 4 wheelers (he rode them at Grandpa Ed's), boats, and motorcycles. He's also very good at riding his scooter and we can get a lot of walking done while he's riding that thing!

He's pretty good at sleeping all night but still goes through phases of getting up - I know. Wait 'til I move him to a big boy bed. I'm dreading it.

He's been a fairly finicky eater lately but loves any kind of fruit, lasagna, mac and cheese, and go-gurt. He's obsessed with otter pops and drinks of any kind except milk.

Happy Birthday Jace! We love you!

It's Official

Whoooohooooo!!! It's finally happened - Abby's tooth came out!

To make a long story short, there were a lot of tears and drama involved but after a good nights rest Abby was ready to brave the "pull out". I got the job of tooth puller-outer and let me tell you that tooth was so loose it was nasty. Abby could wiggle it to 90 degreee angles. Ugh. I don't know how it didn't just fall out on its own. Needless to say, it made my job very easy. All I had to do was grab ahold of it and it fell into my Kleenex! When I pulled the Kleenex out of her mouth, Abby thought I had a fuzz ball and told me to hurry and get on with it and get that tooth out. She hadn't felt a thing!

Here she is very proud and relieved at having it done with ( and maybe a little psycho looking.....it was a stressful ordeal:)



Everybody was happy it was over with!! Hip-hip-hooray!


In other news, it's official that we are expecting! Ok, right off the bat I realize I'm late with this announcement.....I am 17 1/2 weeks along. And yes, I am showing, I was at 9 weeks.....(I try to forget about that), so people around me know, just you people who don't see me don't know:)

So here are some quick stats about this pregnancy:

I never really had morning sickness just mild nausea, but it's generally worse at night than morning.

I was plagued with headaches nearly every day for the entire first trimester and even a few weeks after (which I haven't had with my other pregnancies). Did I say EVERY DAY. Yes, well needless to say I'm glad that's over with. I still get headaches but not like in the beginning.

I started to pop out embarrassingly early (9 weeks, actually earlier but no one dared say anything at that point:) nobody noticed except family......or so I choose to believe:)

My skin broke out like a hormone crazed teenager and I am just now "recovering".

I had my first Dr.'s appointment at 16 weeks. That's when the lab tech drawing my blood told me congratulations and then asked what number we were on. I told him 4 and he gasped and then spluttered, "What! Are you kidding? Don't you guys have cable, or- or something better to do?!" Ahem. Well then. Apparently I've surpassed my child limit. No one let me know that bit of information.

I'm not really sure but I think I've gained about 5 lbs.

I'm still running but not as fast and more frequent breaks if I need it. I ran almost 4 miles yesterday but usually stop around 3.

No weird food cravings but many things I used to love don't taste good right now.

I guess that's all for now. I should have gender news soon so stay tuned!

Abby's tooth

About a month ago we made our bi-annual trip to the dentist. Abby and Brooklyn have a slight aversion to the dentist (probably because my "go brush your teeth" screech echoes in their minds as well as the never fail threat " Do you want a shot? In the mouth??...." ) but it generally turns out well for us.

And everything was fine this go around too. Yippeee!

But we found out some exciting news. Abby has her first loose tooth! We had no idea. It was just slightly loose but the technician thought she would lose it by the end of summer. Enter Abby wiggling the heck out of it day and night. How fun! How exciting!

Or at least it was. Until the tooth got super duper loose. And now Abby is rethinking losing that tooth. In fact, there really isn't anything exciting about it anymore (she was a sobbing mess last night about it). She might really need that tooth. And it doesn't seem natural to have a hole in your mouth. I don't blame her.

No one is allowed to touch that tooth anymore. If you want to know if it's gotten any looser you can watch it wiggle from a safe distance. I'm not sure if she'll ever lose it now. One quick bite of an apple and it would be gone. A glancing blow from Jace would take care of it. A little nudge from her tongue would send it flying.

But Abby has learned the art of keeping that tooth in. Only time will tell how long you can actually keep a tooth that's on its way out. I guess we'll just wait and see. We certainly won't be pulling it out..... Heaven forbid.

Rain, rain, rain

a few weeks ago, we got one of the biggest rainstorms I remember since living in Lamar. It started raining about 7:30 in the morning (which is strange to wake up to here) and rained hard most of the day and finally ended about 5:00 that evening.

Unheard of for Lamar!!

Anyway, the kids loved watching it all day and loved playing in the puddles afterwards.



Here they are seeing who can make the biggest splash.



Jace was doing all he could to make his little legs make a splash and it was really funny to watch. If only we could have rain like that more often. Maybe we wouldn't be considered a desert!