Floor Gum

I took Izzy to check out a new place for gymnastics today. She hasn't taken gymnastics since we moved and we've just finally gotten around to checking some places out. Most of these places offer a trial class and I always take them up on them before "buying" no matter who recommended that place to me. If it doesn't feel right to Izzy then it just won't work. 

Today's gym was about a quarter the size of her last gym. It was clean enough and the people were friendly. I like that the class sizes were fairly small which meant she was given more attention. She also learned her coaches name after the first visit! It took her nearly two months last time. And she can now do a cartwheel.  

First time on a balance beam over 6 inches off the floor.

 I stayed to watch. Izzy likes spectators. Heck, she wear the brightest leotard out there it's hard not to watch her. There was plenty of space on the sidelines for HQ to roam free, but it wasn't enough. She wanted to roll, jump, skip, and play with the other kids. So to amuse herself she would say, "Bye!" to me and run to the other side of the building in the hopes that I would panic and chase her. With Locke on my lap and the knowledge that there was no where she could really go, that just wasn't going to happen. Especially over cement. Fortunately another little girl showed up and she and HQ played for the remainder of the class.

Sprawled over my legs. Watching Izzy. 

Playing on the bleachers under me and trying to pick gum off the floor...

All in all it was a good class. Izzy had fun and she seemed to learn plenty. We may have found our new gym.

About an hour before bedtime tonight our power went out. HQ screamed! For the next hour she repeated "want on! want on!" I broke out a couple glow sticks for the girls which ended up being turned into weapons... my little princesses. Locke didn't seem to mind much. They are all asleep now so they must not be too traumatized. Apparently a woman was stuck in one of our complexes elevators. Ty had gone out to help our apartment manager with emergency prep stuff and overheard that the woman said she wasn't worried since she had been trapped in an elevator before... what... luck?

I'm so Emo.

The end of November is an emotional time for me. And the emotion I generally lean towards is depressed. This is why I chose not to blog that past few nights. I didn't want to have depression typing diarrhea all over this page. I'm not going to get into depth of why, but we shall keep it simple and say that many of my loved ones died in the month of November. And I lost two on separate "Black Fridays". So I dislike that day in particular. Perhaps it's an immature emotional speed bump that I will need to get over, but it hasn't gotten better yet. A little icing on my depression cake was the fact that this was the first Thanksgiving I didn't have Izzy.

Ty could not get off this Black Friday to help distract me so he wanted me to do my best to distract myself (and not wallow in my emo self pity) by hitting up a sale that peeked my interest. My mom agreed to let the kids sleep at her house so I could get an early start. The night before, I went through their flyer with a notebook, highlighter, and pen in hand. I checked out patterns online (At $.99 each it was worth a look) so that if there were any I wanted I already had the number written down and wouldn't have to fight to look through the pattern books at the store. I found 2. I made sure I grabbed a number from the cutting counter right when I walked in. I know waiting to get your fabric cut can take up to two hours during a sale like that. Fortunately since I was one of the first people there it was only 45 minutes, but I was walking around looking for goodies so I didn't even realize it. There was no rudeness, pushiness, or anything I have ever heard about Black Friday. I did see a mother and daughter walking around the store in the "eye black" that football players wear. It made me giggle. The sale did it's job. I was distracted and was able to get everything I needed for Christmas gifts/wrapping.

My preparation paid off! See how much spent vs how much saved?!

 Ty and I also went out on our first late night date the other night. Since the kids spent the night at my parents' we decided to go to midnight Rock n' Bowl at our local bowling alley. We were pretty surprised at how unpacked it was. When Ty and I dated we had to wait in a long line about half an hour before it started. We got there a little after midnight and there were about 15 empty lanes! Has bowling gotten even less cool in the last 3 years? It also seemed like the music got louder... or is that just a sign of us getting older? Oh well, we had fun! Ty's actually pretty good. We always make "friends" with the people next to us because they are impressed by his skills. He also looks cooler because he owns his own bowling ball and shoes. He tries to give me pointers, but I must be a terrible student. I think my high was 78.. yeah. But it felt great to get out for such an extended date with my favorite person :)

Here are some pictures of the smaller ones from today!

He wants to get Rudolph.

She was so tired, but wanted to play... 

Thanksgiving Eve

HQ didn't have her nap yesterday so she woke up about two and a half hours earlier than she usually does. In true HQ fashion she made sure to make enough noise to wake her brother up too. 

A 5am concert with Elmo.

The first half of the morning we got our home studies done, cleaned, and waited for a package to be delivered. We finally ordered Izzy's prize for completing her level 4 phonics. She actually completed it about 3 weeks ago, but the item she wanted (a crochet bob-omb) had jumped from $30 to $80!! So we waited until we found something comparable. A few days ago we found a plush bob-omb for $18. Woo!

Her chosen prize.

Locke spent the morning rearranging our lower shelves. He would actually take all the books off and then put one back on the shelf sideways and try to shove it out the other end of the shelf. What goes on in that little head?

So helpful.

This afternoon we headed to my mom's to bake the pies for tomorrow. Izzy wanted to make the pumpkin ones all by herself. After pouring the pumpkin into the pie crust we noticed the bowl of sugar/cinnamon/cloves/ginger still sitting out. We almost had sugar (and taste) free pies!

We forgot to put in the sugar?!

 Our mailbox is a little walk away so I usually wait until all the kids are in bed and Ty's here for me to go check it. It's a nice peaceful walk at night. The buttons I ordered for the guys' shirts arrived (made from coconuts!) and also a package from my awesome seamstress friend. She had sent me a "just because" gift. I seriously choked up! It had an adorable little card, a bunch of little anime stickers for the girls (although Ty insists she meant to send them to him), and a fabulous necklace I totally would have purchased myself. What an awesome way to brighten someone's day! I am so blessed to have her in my life. :) 

Yay! Totally LOVE my necklace. And yes, Jess, just because gifts are always nice :) 

Heaven is sooo Lucky!

Ty and I learned that the world lost an amazing man last night. I have heard the quote, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." -Mohanda Gandhi. And sadly I think this quote can be very relevant, but to it I also say, "Apparently you haven't had the joy of meeting Ash". He wasn't judgmental, bitter, or unforgiving. He was loving, extremely giving, very honest, and with everything that was going on in his life he was joyful! He reached out to the "outcasts" and made them feel welcome. I'd say that sounds a bit like Christ.

To be perfectly honest I cried myself to sleep last night with my heart aching for his wife and their two little girls (who are also friends with my children). I can't even begin to pretend I know what they are going through. Not all that long ago our families had dinner together. During which Ty and Ash were reminiscing about when they were stewards at our church together about a decade ago. They laughed about the silly things and immature things they would do (he had since become a pastoral assistant and operations manager at the church). After a minute of silence Ash finally said, "Yeah, we were the type of stewards I would fire today". We all laughed. :)

We wish we could have known him longer. He has really touched so many lives. The last time we saw him he was telling us how excited and proud of us he was for adding "another soldier in His army". It was very refreshing from the normal, "well, are you done now?" that we usually got. We miss you already Ash.

To quote my husband, "Heaven is sooo lucky!"

Sleeping Through the Night

"Hewo?"

It was a beautiful rainy day!

  Locke officially sleeps through the night! Yay! I waited until he did it for at least a week to say anything. I learned my lesson after having Izzy. At 10 weeks she slept through the night 2 days in a row and I bragged to everyone how awesome of a mother I must be because my baby already slept through the night (well, not exactly like that, but I'm sure that's how it sounds to another new mother who isn't getting a full night's rest!). After that she didn't sleep more than 5 hours consecutively until she was nearly one... I assume it's mostly a "kids are individuals" thing and will sleep through the night we they are ready. Izzy it was near one, HQ around 6 months, and Locke at 8 months. Whatever the case, I was ready.

When Ty isn't home our morning routine is the following. Locke wakes me up sometime between 5:30 and 6am. He is changed, fed, and then hangs out in bed with me until the girls get up usually about an hour later. The girls then hang out in my bed (HQ will normally make sure the bed is bouncy), cuddle, and talk about their last nights dreams and hopes for the day. We then go downstairs and make breakfast. However this morning Izzy and HQ bypassed the hanging out with me part and went downstairs to make me breakfast in bed. I was served a bowl of cheerios in Izzy's favorite heart shaped bowl. Granted the bowl was 90% milk and 10% Cheerios, but she was so proud of herself! She even had HQ bring me an apple. HQ did take a bite out of it, but she came into my room with a huge grin on her face and yelled, "Tada! Mommy's apple!" What little sweethearts.

Locke and I watched the Vikings vs. Raider's game. Another disappointment (is it still a disappointment when you pretty much know how it will go?), but it did get interesting for the last half. Ty brought me home a "I'm sorry The Vikings sucked today" burrito from one of my favorite little Mexican food places. It made things a little better.

Ty and I finally found our anniversary gift certificate to Iccho and decided to use it for our date tonight. I love dating my husband! He is still my best friend and I get the added bonus of being married to him. It's still like I am living with a playmate. Is that weird? I don't know. All I know is I'm so grateful for him and we have a lot of fun together. But, he get's up at 3am and works for 12 hours, so we call it early, but we'll take what we can get!

Date Night! Yum :D

Party, Party

Last game for The Pink Unicorns and they tied! Well, they don't really keep score, but the parents are counting anyway. I think if a team received an award for "most improved" it would have been The Pink Unicorns. They were finally getting the hang of it. It was also nice that my oldest brother showed up to watch her game today. 

HQ and Locke eating snacks on the sideline. 

After their game the team met up at BoB's Big Boy for brunch and trophies. Izzy was so happy to get her first trophy. She believes it's made out of real gold. 

Poor Locke...

 The girls had a blast being able to hang out and see each other outside of practice/games. They harassed the poor plastic giant Santa and even proposed to him.

Speaking of which... my mom told Izzy today that Santa isn't real. I had always been on the fence about whether or not we'd "have Santa" at our house, but actually having my mom flat out tell her that REALLY bummed me out. Izzy believed there was a Santa last year, but it was never our "focus". We never did the pictures with Santa or mail him lists.  I guess I didn't realize how much I really was holding onto that tradition.

"MY TROPHY!!!"

So happy :D

Protecting her little sister from The Goblin King.

 Tonight we went to the birthday party of a fun little 5 year old! There was music, games, dancing, and of course cake. I cannot stand the song Cupid Shuffle, but I got to say that when I saw HQ clapping and dancing her little butt off to that song it made my heart melt! Is that wrong?

Celebrating her cousin's 5th birthday!

Her first Capri Sun ever... there was no water available so HQ enjoyed 3 Capri Sun's...
it was the best party she had ever been to.

Locke and my Dad.

Everyone had a great time. Plus Izzy scored an awesome pair of heart shaped Hello Kitty sunglasses in her goodie bag. I'd say the party was a success!

Crazy party guys.
(Both of them are asleep)

Helping

Today was Extra's at Hope. It's the last get together until January so I really wanted to girls to go today even though that meant bumming a ride off my mom. She didn't really mind. She got to hang out with some pretty great kids ;) 

I have been having Izzy help out with Locke. Today she fed him all by herself (well, HQ helped...). I ended up having to change his outfit again before leaving because she managed to get food all over his clothing yet the bib appeared untouched. She is some kind of wizard.

Feeding Locke some breakfast.

Extra's was great as always and we had the added bonus of my mom being able to see a little bit of what it was like today. Locke really liked having Gramma there too. Afterwards we hit up Target to get a birthday gift for a little friend of ours. HQ thought he would like sparkle Play Dough and a stuffed Elmo. Which is so weird because those are some of her favorite things too...

Tomorrow is the last game of the season for The Pink Unicorns. Izzy is ridiculously excited to get her first trophy. "I'm so glad we still get trophies even when we're terrible". She always makes me laugh!

"What?"

Busy Day

With the weather around here starting to make park days few and far between we wanted to find some other fairly inexpensive indoor places for the kids to expel some energy. Today we checked out a place called Scooter's Jungle. 

We LOVED it. First, it was $11 for all 5 of us. That's an awesome deal! Adults can play on everything there too (well, provided you don't weigh over 250lbs). There were slides, bounce houses, a zipline, ping pong, table hockey, a very large jungle gym, and other kids to play with. It was very clean, had a great atmosphere and it wasn't crowded, but I have heard that it does get pretty crazy in the summer. I suppose everyone wants to play in the air conditioning. Our only complaint was the music choice. They played mostly pop songs which included things like Outkast's "Roses" and Gorillaz's "Feel Good Inc" durning "Toddler Time"... They did bleep out the expletives, but really?

This slide was the girls favorite.

Ty and HQ up in the giant jungle gym.

Locke enjoyed the smaller bounce house where he could watch the zipline and giggle.
 

He also enjoyed these giant green things.

Waiting patiently for her turn at table hockey.

 When we got home, HQ went down for a nap and Izzy got down to business. Some serious homework business. Our Proverb this week is, "A fool always loses his temper, But a wise man holds it back." Proverbs 29:1. Izzy said she can't wait until she has learned all the Proverbs because then she will be "super wise". I gently reminded her that knowing them doesn't make you wise, living them does.

Homework!

 Today was Izzy's last soccer practice for the season. To be perfectly honest I am excited about soccer being over. The start of the season and the derogatory competitive parents (not our team) left a bad taste in my mouth. You don't see people acting like that at tennis, swim, dance, gymnastics, or volleyball! Perhaps we'll just stick with those.

Our "super delux oh my gosh it's coming towards me" stoller. 

We walked to soccer practice today. Our car has ben stalling and with the school being only 2.4 miles away from our home seemed it like a good healthy walk. I checked the GPS to see how long it would take walking and it said 45 minutes. So we left an hour before practice time... We were 20 minutes late! Apparently where we live was not meant for pedestrians with kids. Especially if you use a stroller. The sidewalk randomly ends and leaves you on the side of one of our busiest main streets. Parts of the road where covered in with tree stumps, weird looking shrubs I've never noticed, and weeds that we had to lift our stroller over. I know we had to look crazy to the people driving. Locke found the bumpiness excited and laughed the majority of the time, but HQ would yell, "HEWP!" and hang on to the sides of the stroller for dear life. Fortunately for us a couple of the mom's offered to bring us home after practice. Phew!

Looking for her balloon...

Tomorrow is Extra's day! Izzy asked to go to bed early tonight so that she will be really well rested for tomorrow. I wish I were that smart...

Bunny Ears

So every morning and evening I have my "get ready for" routine. Like getting ready for the day, going out, or bed. For this process I have bunny ear hair clips (I got them on clearance last Easter) to keep my bangs pulled back while I wash my face etc. Ty calls them my "Playboy Bunny Ears". He says this in jest because I am usually in sweats when I have them on. Anyway, part of this morning routine I added some spot treatments, so I had a few green polka dots on my face. To top everything off I was wearing my Victoria's Secret pj top. It isn't risque or anything, but it does say "Sexy Little Wife" on it (which is obviously how I was looking this morning). I don't look in the mirror to check anything half as often as I used to, you know, with being so secure with how fabulous I always look what do I have to check on?  Still looking like this I get a knock on the door while I was making HQ and I some breakfast. I answered it, shame be darned and I was greeted by our maintenance man. I had completely forgotten how I must have looked until I was actually standing outside... Ty's so lucky.

After the maintenance man left I immediately went to look in the mirror. I seriously lol'd at myself for a good minute. I then thought heck, why stop here. I grabbed my wedding veil, put it on behind my bunny ears, slipped into my old salsa heels (well, more like shoved my fat feet in my old salsa heels) and went to do the dishes. I just prayed Ty wouldn't come home early and wonder who the crazy person in the kitchen was. Locke liked it. Between the veil and bunny ears he had more stuff to try to grab off me. And HQ actually looked me up and down once and said, "no"... it was a good day.

 

Cutters

Boy do I feel swamped at work! (hehe) Not much house work got done in the past week with sickness and resting going on. So I tried to play catch up today. A few days worth of dishes (gross!), some bathroom scrubbing (which I still don't mind as much as dishes!), and some clothing organization. The floor really could have used some more TLC, but my mom lent us her Kirby to clean the carpet and we can't figure the thing out. 

Ty got me these food cutters a while back. They are awesome! Especially for picky eaters. All I have to do is cut whatever it is into a cute shape and it magically makes it taste that much better. Well, it backfired at first because then I had HQ cuddling with her heart shaped cucumbers, but she's grown since then.

Izzy watching some home movies. "Wow! These are really good!" .. they are mostly narrated by her. 

Cleaning is boring Mom, play with me!

My hand-me down pile so far. It's so weird to already have boxes of stuff Locke can''t fit in.
I felt like I was washing the same things over and over again that I never saw Izzy wear. I realized that she just kept throwing it in the hamper because it didn't fit... so we broke out the hand-me down bins!

Tonight I caught HQ smearing cream on her clothes. I knew that Ty had it just before she did so I jokingly said, "I don't know who I should beat, you or Dad". She thought a second, looked at Ty and then said, "Dad!" and giggled at her brilliance. I love that little girl!

Checking on the Kids

No more sickness in our home! ... for now. All three kids got the 24 hour tummy bug within hours of each other. Although that meant Ty and I were cleaning up mess after mess for a while it also meant it was over with pretty quick. Once the kids were healed it hit me. Then hours later it hit Ty. I'm so grateful that Ty and I were affected once the kids were fine! Sheesh.

Checking on Locke

When the kids are sick I can't sleep at night. I am constantly thinking what if they need me and I can't hear them? Sure I have a baby monitor.. but what if they are so weak I can't hear it over the monitor? My thoughts can get so weird as to all the possibilities of horrible things that could happen to them in the middle of the night while they are sick I hate it! So that means each child is tucked in with some form of liquid drink to combat dehydration(... which my mind seems to believe can kill a child within seconds) and that Ty or I go in and check on them all night long. If I fall asleep at all for any amount of minutes I feel guilty. I run and check for proof of life for all 3 of them. Are there any other moms that do this, or am I just crazy? I'm not sure if it's normal or if it just stems from the fact that my little sister died in the middle of the night. Regardless none of them ever needed anything or even woke up for that matter. They all survived the night without me, but the following morning I was exhausted. I am so grateful my mother was willing and able to pick the kids up so that Ty and I could rest. Thanks Mom!

Anyway, after being able to rest today things should be getting back to normal. Yay!

This is the fabric I am making Locke and Ty's Christmas shirts out of.
Just trying to locate some little wooden buttons :D 

Friendship Socks

My Pink Unicorn at her game 11/5/11

HQ giving her sister some homework help.

About a week ago I received the sales flyer for Joann. A TON of stuff was on sale AND the flyer included a coupon for 25% off your total (including sale and clearance items!!) anyway, it was a sale I couldn't miss.  I promptly called up my mother and booked her sitting services so that I could hit the sale sans the girls. I located my gift card and counted the days as if I were a little kid waiting for a trip to Disneyland. Sunday arrived. It was pouring down such beautiful rain. Yay! AND! I was surprised to learn that Ty had the day off and was planning on going with me. Double yay! We got there before the store opened and we saw many ladies waiting outside with their flyers in hand. Ty, Locke, and I waited in our warm car figuring out our game plan. I had already jotted down pattern numbers the night before (Simplicity patterns were on sale for $1 each), and we were ready. We found what we wanted pretty quick, but were then stuck at the cutting counter for 30 minutes.  My receipt said I had saved over $350 (we didn't spend anywhere near that). I found 10 yards of beautiful 100% cotton for $10.06. $10.06! It was a good day :)

I hear rain!

Rocking out with Elmo's guitar... and no pants.

Locke making Ty work at feeding him.

Today Izzy and I had some friends over. The girls did a craft and went to a tennis lesson. The girls wore "friendship" socks. Meaning they split up two pairs of socks and wore the opposite ones.  He each wore one pink ankle sock and one calf length black sock. They're so cool. Izzy later told me that she thinks she and her friend would make great sisters. 

Making pumpkin turkeys!

:D

These weirdos stuffed toys in their clothes trying to look like "lumpy old women".

Tonight we discovered all three of the kids got the 24 hour tummy bug. Harley was hit with it last night. Before bed tonight she was over it, but it hit Izzy at dinner and Locke about an hour before her. Let's pray Izzy's friend doesn't get it!

I was just given these stools. They are pretty darn comfy. I'm so excited to recover them!

Heart Shaped Pillow

I finally got some sleep last night! 5 magical hours. A friend brought by a natural remedy for insomnia and by golly it worked! I had no idea what caused my sleeplessness. I'm not anxious or worried about anything, I just couldn't sleep. So it was amazing!

In the afternoon we met some friends for lunch so our kids could play together. The kids entertain each other and the grown ups can get in a little grown up conversation between the "MOM! LOOK AT ME!"s. Play dates are fun for everyone involved!

After dinner Izzy wanted to sew. She had a tough time deciding what she wanted to make. She settled on a heart shaped pillow. She now has excellent control over the speed of her sewing machine, her hand sewing has improved tremendously, and she can use a seam ripper like a pro! I'm sew proud of her! (get it? "sew"? ...I still have sleep to catch up on) I am still super impressed with her little sewing machine. It's adorable and pretty darn sturdy.

She wanted to put a ton of stuffing in that little pillow! She ended up packing the heart until it was sold!

Tonight my mom called and said my little sister needed a Disney themed dress for her school dance on Friday. I was so excited! A million ideas popped through my head, but the excitement wore off when I remembered my sister's style. She is pretty much a tomboy and a minimalist. I can only use what I already have too, so this will be a nice little challenge. I feel so Project Runway.