Bad Mommy

I did something terrible last week Please don't turn me in. the below pictures might be shocking, but I really have reasons for my cruelty.

I am sick and tired of Angela eating only 5 things! I am being mean mommy now. Desperate times call for desperate measures...

I am making Angela eat apples now! Gasp! With cinnamon sugar to soften the blow! Eeek!

See the evidence below in the photo essay of "Angela and the Terrible Apple" I hope she is not scarred for life!

What a dirty look!

Bathroom Updates - I Know You're Dying to Know

This gold stuff has become the bane of our existence. Not so easy to get rid of as you might think!

We finally got around to working on the girls bathroom. We got it all prepped the Saturday night of spring break and were ready to paint when we opened up the can of paint. It was WAY too light. My feeling is that if we were going to paint the girls' bathroom girly colors, I wanted it to show and the color we brought home from Home Depot was almost white. So we put off painting until I could get more tint added on Monday.

This is our new shower faucet/head/shelf in brushed nickel. MUCH better than the gold, but after cutting a huge hole in the closet wall, buying the faucet/shower combo (NOT cheap anyway) and add to that the cost of having a plumber come cut into pipes and Sauter the new plumbing that went with the fixtures, well we could have stayed in a nice beach house for 3 nights for the picture you see above. But what would YOU rather have. Family memories to last a lifetime or a brushed nickel handle to turn on your shower water? Am I right or am I right? Here's hoping that our bathtub faucet isn't a 5 day stay at the beach. Ugh! Oh and I didn't mention the custom shower door we're having made because there was no way for regular people to buy the shower door materials and replace it yourself. We have to change the whole thing to replace that gold trim above. Well, the hard water stains on the glass were bugging me anyway. What the heck - throw it all out...

Here's the girls' bathroom "after" painting. When would anyone choose to paint a bathroom pink, you ask? When you have three little princesses to pretty up in that bathroom. (o: I'll take another after with our new pretty cabinet installed above the toilet and the new chrome faucet. Ahhh, at least one bathroom is finished.

You want to know something funny about the pink bathroom? Icabod*, the one person in the house who might not be a big fan of the pink bathroom actually doesn't even notice. It's perfect. He is color blind and the bathroom looks white to him! I'll have to remember that for future reference! Pink shirts, pink ties, pink office... he he he.

Check This Out

My new Costco find.

Our garbage can broke a couple weeks ago. It's one of those ones with the lever her step on with your foot to open the lid. After a couple weeks with it broken, we got tired of lifting up the lid ourselves (boo hoo, I know - life is hard). I wasn't too thrilled to spend 50+ bucks on a dumb garbage can. Many of the ones I remembered seeing when I've noticed prices of garbage cans were around $60 - for the "step on - lid lifter" kinds.

Well check out this sleek and snazzy contraption I found at Costco.

Not only is it pretty and the brushed nickel stays clean and doesn't attract fingerprints like some metal kitchen appliances, but it also has a battery operated motion sensor in the lid! You just wave your hand in front and WA-LA - the lid says opens up and says, "what can I take from you to ease your burdens today?" Okay it doesn't really say that. The only funny thing is that it also opens when you walk by, but I don't mind. I kind of feel like it's the garbage's way of saying "hello" to me. It's my new friend in the kitchen and I never thought I'd be so excited about a garbage can! It also has a snazzy way of concealing the bag to keep it looking sleek. AND it is much bigger than our other garbage can so I don't have to take the trash out every 2 days anymore! And the best part is that it was a pretty good deal for such a "fancy" thing - AND it came with a 2nd handy dandy motion sensor garbage in junior size.

Who knew throwing away garbage could be so fun?

The preschool kids this week went bananas over the garbage can. They were happy to throw away their own plates and cups this week.

All About Angela

Angela is following in her big sister's fashion footsteps. Even with pajamas, I am always interested what ensemble the girls will create. This is a combination of three different pairs of pajamas. This layering thing wreaks havoc on our laundry! But it's cute.

Angela has become more "vocal" lately when she gets mad, no, ticked off. We haven't used time out for a while, but it has come back in style in our home to help curb Angela's ticked off outbursts. As you can see, she was thrilled I was taking her picture above. I get this annoyed look from Angela a lot lately. Also, lots of dramatic sighs and eye rolling. And she's only 3!! (o:

But there are lot more cute expressions like this one that make up for the drama queen moments. (o:

We had my Butterscotch Bubble Loaf today for conference - more on that later. These are our traditional rolls (similar to monkey bread) that we have on Christmas morning and conference Sundays. Lately, we've dubbed them sticky buns, but Angela must have heard "stinky" instead. So all day she's been talking about the yummy "stinky buns". If you come over to our house and are offered stinky buns - it's more appetizing than you might think!

Angela's famous laugh continues to bring laughter and smiles to all within hearing range of her hilarious giggles. I had to bring the girls with me one night as I set up for a Talent Show with the young women. They love when I bring my girls and of course, there's always comments about and lots of effort into making Angela laugh. It's becoming well known. (o: I can't get enough of her cute giggles myself. It's one of my favorite sounds. I often use tickling as my method to get my fix every day. On more than one occasion, a tickling fest is interrupted between giggles by a cry out from Angela, "You made me peed!" Which only makes us laugh even more. (o:

See the last video clip below to hear the contagious giggle yourself. It was taken one night when we had the elders (missionaries) over for dinner. One of the elders was making funny faces at Angela while she showed him her frog from preschool.

I overheard Angela playing with her princess and prince Barbies yesterday afternoon. She must have heard a wedding ceremony on a movie or show. I was surprised and had to laugh when I heard her say, "And do you take this man to be your wife?"

Angela is my little buddy. Every weekday afternoon, we have time for just the two of us. Often this time is spent running errands, but Angela is a great sport. In fact, I am going to be so sad when the day comes that I don't have my little buddy to go around everywhere with me. Ironically, her favorite errand to do with me is grocery shopping at Winco. She always asks when we get in the car if we are going to Winco. Grocery shopping is my least favorite. But I love that she enjoys coming with me. In fact, last week we went on a day when she could have stayed home with daddy. She didn't want to stay home and play, she wanted to help me at Winco. She's such a good girl I didn't mind bringing her even though I didn't need to. What a sweetie.

Angela is also very sweet when I ask her to do things (85% of the time!). Almost always, when asked to put something away or throw away her trash or get her shoes on she says in a very perky and happy way, "Sure!" I was trying to capture this on video below, but once you start directing to get the same effect it doesn't sound exactly natural. Oh well! (o: You'll get the idea.

A Few Random Natalie Notes

Whew! Natalie picked this outfit last week. She still has her very creative Punky Brewster look, but some days her outfits are more shocking than others. I don't think this picture even does it justice. There are no similar colors in any of these pieces of clothing. (o: I almost talked Natalie out of the tights, but instead I just smiled and took a picture.

Natalie is addicted to ice lately. She eats about 20 cubes a day. She pulls over a stool and gets out a piece of ice and puts it in a towel and goes off to whatever she is doing. Then 5 minutes later she's back for more. She keeps doing this until I ask her to stop either because I keep running out of clean towels or I'm tired of running into the left behind stools she forgets to put away. The funny thing is that as I watched her doing this one day I had a flashback to my childhood. I used to do this at my grandma's house. I remember her teasing me that she was going to call me the ice girl because I would eventually turn into an ice cube myself. I guess it's genetic??

Natalie is always creating something. This was a funny little mask that she made - so cute! And below a paper fairy.

Natalie continues to love Twilight the kitty probably the most out of everybody in our family. She cannot get enough of her. She carries her around everywhere, wraps her in blankets and treats her like a baby. Many times it is very apparent the cat is not into it, but she goes along with Natalie's coddling. And sometimes, she can't take it and she tries to get away. Often Natalie ignores this obvious hint and ends up getting scratched, but she never gets mad at Twilight. In fact, she only lets go of Twilight long enough to get a band aid and then she's back trying to hold her again.

Any time we go to a store, restaurant, library, etc. etc. I have to remind Miss Nat to go to the bathroom before we go. Sometimes I forget and as soon or before we arrive somewhere I get the news. Often, even when I remember we STILL end up making trips to the bathroom. I visit public restrooms WAAAY more than I would ever like to. There are even times when we visit the same bathroom 2 or 3 times. Ben* just sits back and smiles as I take the princesses for our "potty parties".

Natalie and Angela are good buddies most of the time, but they can have their arguments. Last night, being a Saturday night, we let them have a little "sleepover". Natalie slept with Angela on her bed in their room. Around 2:30 in the morning Ben* got up to check in their room when we heard crying and screaming. Apparently, when he went in, the girls were yelling about something to each other. He said it sounded like they were fighting with each other, but they both still had their eyes closed and weren't responding to him - like they were fighting in their sleep!

Natalie says so many cute and funny things during her turn to say prayers. I wish I wrote them down so I could remember them all. One of the things she often asks for is that "daddy won't take too long to come home from work tomorrow." (o: And speaking of daddy's work, one afternoon when he came home the girls were playing the Wii. Natalie asked if daddy had a Wii he played at work. Maybe THAT'S why he takes so long at work sometimes! (o:

Natalie got her report card/progress report from school this week. She has improved in a lot of areas. Not that she was doing poorly, she just got more "exceeds expectations" this quarter. It seems that her ability to focus and get her work done is improving. (o: She is also doing great in her reading lessons that I do with her at home. We have been slowly, but surely working through the lessons. We are more than halfway through the 100 lessons and she is so excited about all the words she can read now. It's so fun to watch her confidence grow!

You're Not Going to Blog That Are You?

Sarah and I had a really great conversation the other night after a family home evening lesson she gave on Joseph Smith. She really thinks about things much deeper than I ever did at 8 years old. She had questions about the church. Specifically, what if our church isn't the right church? I was impressed with her thoughtfulness.

One of the basic doctrines of our church is that the LDS church is the only church that has the fullness of the gospel as it was set up when the Savior was on the earth. Many important components of the church that Christ set up during His short lifetime were lost or changed by corrupt governments and church leaders after the apostles that served with the Jesus all died. This is the time we refer to as the Apostasy. Then in the 1800's Joseph Smith, at only 14 years old was trying earnestly to figure out which church to join - they all had such varying interpretations of the bible, he was confused and wondered who was right. He wanted to know and one night while reading James 1:5 he read that 'if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God'. His prayer the next day, in a grove a trees, was simply to learn which of the churches he should join, which one what correct. The answer, that none of them were correct, was not at all the answer he was expecting and was the humble beginning of the LDS church. (click on the title for more info on the Apostasy and other Mormon beliefs if you're curious - FYI if you want to learn about our beliefs go to mormon.com - for correct information - don't trust other sources because there are a lot of lies about our church out there on other sites.)

That was the lesson Sarah taught for a Faith in God goal for primary. She did a great job, but it got the wheels turning in her 8 year old head. She wondered as many people do - could that really have happened? Is that true? Then she asked me about people in other religions and asked something I thought was very profound. "Don't the people, like daddy's friend from India, in other religions think that their church is true too?" (The friend referred to is Hindu.) Her next comment made me smile. "If we are right and he is wrong, he is going to be really confused when he dies and things are different from what he thought." Then she added, "But if he is right and we are wrong, then we are going to be the ones confused." (o:

I told Sarah it was good to question things because it motivates us to find out the answers for ourselves. I'm glad she is already trying to figure out big things like religion out early on. I was grateful for the opportunity to teach her about personal revelation. We can do the same thing that Joseph Smith did and if we lack wisdom, "ask of God". I believe that God answers prayers, but told her that we have to be doing good things in our lives to invite the Holy Ghost to give us the right answers in our hearts. He cannot be around us if we are not being kind and good. Then Sarah asked, "What if the Holy Ghost doesn't give us the right answers?" I told her that it is impossible for the Holy Ghost to give us the wrong answers because he is one in purpose with God and would never tell us anything contrary to what God himself would tell us. If we aren't humble and doing good things in our lives, however, then it is easy for Satan to whisper lies to our hearts.

Then she asked, "Well, he could make a mistake couldn't he? We all make mistakes. Like what if he told me 'there's a pickle in your pocket' when he really meant to say, 'there's a nickel in your pocket." At this point I totally lost it and couldn't stop laughing for about 5 minutes. She was laughing too and then I reasurred her that the Holy Ghost was not prone to the same weaknesses people are and he wouldn't make a mistake - especially not about pickles and nickels. (o: I encouraged Sarah to work on gaining her own testimony by reading her scriptures and praying for answers. She looked a little disheartened and acted a little disappointed because she knew that she wouldn't get to have Heavenly Father and Jesus answer her prayer like Joseph Smith did. I agreed that this probably would not be the case - but that an answer from the Holy Ghost - while not as spectacular visually - can answer prayers just as powerfully as if we were in the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus. The feelings can be just as amazing as I'm sure the feelings Joseph Smith felt. I hope she will work on finding out her own answers and loved this conversation with my sweet Sarah.

Sarah keeps referring to daddy's new phone as his blueberry. You can probably guess what kind of phone he just got last week. Close enough. (o:



Sarah said something so hilarious to me that unfortunately for this audience I cannot divulge because I promised Sarah. It was something that would be very embarrassing if anyone outside of our family knew what she said. As soon as she said it, I laughed and laughed and laughed. When I was done, her face went pale and she said, "You're not going to blog that are you?" I promised I wouldn't, but thought it was funny that immediately she thought of where I write all the funny things she says.




This was Sarah's journal entry regarding that scary incident I wrote about in my "Guilt-o-meter" entry...


4-03-09 Dear Journal,

Well, what I did with my grandparents and my aunt Chrissy was, we went swimming in their swimming pool. And that was my favorite part because I became a life guard because Angela got into the deep part of the water while I was in the shallow water but I was the only person in the water with her. So I quick swam under water over to were Angela was and I dove down to get her and brought her up to the edge where mom picked her up. But the problem is they never got me and award. They're lucky I don't throw tantrums anymore. [heart] Sarah

After general conference today Natalie asked, "Dad, you're not going to go on a mission again are you?"
Sarah replied, "No, he's too old to go on a mission - he's not flexible enough." I'm not sure why you have to be flexible - I don't think doing splits is a requirement.

Sarah loved the funny April Fool's trick I played on her this week when the milk for her cereal magically turned blue! I got the idea from Family Fun, of course. (o:

What a Wonderful Woild

No that is not a typo on the title of this entry - isn't that the way Louis Armstrong pronounces it in the song? (O:

These are just some piddly pictures I shot with my point and shoot through a dirty window on the drive to Sherwood for an ice skating adventure during spring break, but they give you an idea, if you haven't visited our neck of the woods - of what a beautiful place we live. We live in the suburbs, yes, but we are literally on the edge of the suburbs and live right across the street from miles and miles of open farmland, fields, groves of trees, etc. I love going for drives just minutes from our home - it is absolutely gorgeous. I've always wanted to go on a random drive - headed to no where in particular and just stop every time I saw something worth photographing. With all the beauty so close by, it would easy to fill up a few memory cards full of pictures.

Spring Break Fun Continued...

Our bathroom "remodeling" woes continue, but we didn't let that ruin our Spring Break. The girls did have to put up with more trips to home improvement stores than they would have liked and staying home when the plumber and custom shower door guy came, but they were rewarded.

One of our favorite activities as of late is going ice skating. As some of you have noticed, we've also gone roller skating a couple times recently, but we've decided that we actually like ice skating the very best. Unfortunately, we have to drive a little farther for this activity. Our favorite venue so far is in Sherwood - about a 1/2 hour drive away. (But a pretty drive - see my entry later in the blog).

We noticed a big improvement in the girls' ability to skate this time around. It made the whole time even more enjoyable. Sarah can almost skate as fast as Herb* and I can. Natalie is getting better and Angela lets us skate around with her in between our legs.

Check out a couple cute videos below of our outing.

Our other special outing with the girls was going to see Monsters vs. Aliens on opening night! Wow - we felt fancy. We hardly ever go to the theater and never on opening night. I worried about getting there early to get seats. It turns out we didn't have to fight too hard with the 8-10 other people in the theater. (o: Apparently 5:00 isn't a busy time to see a movie. The girls loved the movie. I enjoyed B.O.B., but Herb* and I both agreed it wasn't the greatest animated film we've seen. We won't be buying the DVD, but it was fun to do for a family outing. Much better than Coraline as far as age appropriate-ness goes. (O:

All in all it was a nice spring break - we loved having Herb* home and all being together and SLEEPING IN! Oh do we miss that part! Monday after spring break was a killer! Even though we didn't go anywhere fancy - we had so much fun together. We didn't save any money due to the bathroom adventures, but hey - we'll have a nicer bathroom to show for it someday. I hope.

Check it out - it's Herb*!

Natalie and one of her many silly faces...

Not Home Depot AGAIN!! (this picture taken at around 10 p.m.)

Real Deep Thoughts by Da Vinci

I loved visiting the Da Vinci exhibit at OMSI and especially loved one quote about nature. I searched for it on google and found some other gems. What an amazing person - I would love to hang out with him someday in the "next life" (o: I love the way he is portrayed in Ever After. I'm not sure how accurate that is - I don't think he was that silly, but he was definitely always inventing or trying something new.

Here's the quote I loved first and a few more ones I liked from the website I linked to the title of this post. (FYI http://www.brainyquote.com/)

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.

I love this one too ...

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.

The Two Dancing Princesses

Sarah and Angela made up this lovely dance today. I thought the grandparents would enjoy this. I was kind of rushing them at the end because they were getting interrupted by Miss Natalie who apparently REALLY needed to talk to Sarah as you will notice.

All Work and No Play - NO WAY!

While we have spent way more time than anticipated doing home improvement projects this spring break, the girls have had plenty of time to play and we have tried to do a few fun things as a family - taking breaks from plumbing and painting.

The girls have been getting along so well this week. It has been so great. Not only that, but they have been busy doing creative endeavors while we work away - hardly any time in front of the boob tube! I'm proud of them for getting along so well and spending their time in creative pursuits. They are at such fun ages and really are the best of friends most of the time. I LOVE listening to them play together and pretend and create. Here's a sampling of what they've been up to this week. . .

They've played a lot of "school" lately. The whiteboards are one of their favorite "toys". This was a story that Natalie narrated and Sarah wrote. Sarah also teaches spelling (She helped Natalie practice her spelling words last week - he he - Natalie didn't even know she was doing homework with my "brilliant" idea. It happens every so often.) They also do very ornate drawings on the whiteboards.
The girls love to pull out all their art supplies and this week I let them spread it all out in the "running room" (aka living room). They make the cutest things with their fun art boxes they got from grandma P. for Christmas. One of the girls got the idea to make people and now we have a house full of them as you can see below.

Natalie was whipping out "Franks" and "Frankettes" like crazy! She made quite the crowd. Sarah even made a dog one. We call them Franks because we have an inside family joke about how the girls really have a little brother named Frank, but we keep him on top of the cupboards above the fridge. Natalie's first "person" she made was Frank. He's the one with the blue shirt and blue hat. Sarah made him a paper HAM radio so he could communicate to us when he is up on the cupboards! (o: Pretty funny.

Taking a break and watching a movie with their new friends.

The girls have been having "sleepovers" together a lot this week. They sleep in different locations each night. I think it's Sarah's room on the floor tomorrow. This is something they LOVE to do together. Even though Angela "learned to snore" according to Sarah. They are so cute singing primary songs, drawing on Magna Doodles and telling stories together until they fall asleep.

Today, in between trips to look at plumbing stores, we discovered a very fun bowling alley. It is a little farther from our house, but it has some very cool features like bumpers that move up and down depending on which players want them or not. That way Ned* and I can play 'real' bowling, and the girls don't get a million gutter balls. Actually, I kind of missed the bumpers when I played today. Perhaps it has been too long since I've played without them!

We really have a lot of fun bowling together and get some good laughs when Angela's ball goes so slow that it completely drops. Or when one of the kids bowls better than us "big kids".

Angela playing by the finger blower/dryer thingy. (o:

Natalie really gets into bowling. You wouldn't know she was pouting just minutes before this picture. (She wanted to go ice skating rather than bowling. But she warmed up to the idea pretty quickly.)

Sarah did a great job bowling today. She is VERY competitive though! She wanted to win so bad. She wasn't far behind, but ended up coming in third behind mom and dad. She was miffed about this and pouted a little. We talk a lot about being a good sport these days, but she's getting better.

Guess who got a hold of my camera? (o: