Party Like Movie Stars...

Yesterday was so gray and gloomy that I decided we should take the kids up to Park City. It is Sundance time, you know, and movie stars are crawling all over the place. I really wanted to see my favorite star, who I heard was up there yesterday. Who is my favorite star, you might ask?

Well, I'll tell you:

The sun.
We headed up Parley's canyon and it wasn't long before I got my first glimpse. There he was! Squeeeee!!! And he looked so GORGEOUS!!

We drove around a little just soaking up some rays and looking at those pretty blue skies. We drove up to Main Street thinking of grabbing some lunch there, but it was really really crowded and there were sure to be waits to get a table. So we lowered our sights a little headed back out of town a little. But before we knew it, Preston was partying like a movie star.

He was hanging out in Park City during Sundance. (okay, it was Kimball Junction, but close enough) He sauntered out of his car, followed by his entourage. (us, and he may have had to carry at least one member of his entourage). As he entered the restaurant (and I use the term loosely...it was an Arby's) everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look. (it might have been the noise) He had a beautiful blond on each arm. (Arden and Cora were sitting next to him in the booth) They couldn't keep their hands off him! (They were both climbing all over him trying to get his curly fries) His group was very loud and exciting! (or at least loud) The drinks were flowing freely! (we spilled some water). Everyone was staring! (did I mention we were loud?) He and his peeps completely trashed the place! (aforementioned curly fries were everywhere.)

The paparazzi were unfortunately unable to capture any of this on film (because I forgot my camera).

Boundaries

As Preston and I keep reminding ourselves, Cora is going through the "Testing her Boundaries" phase (as you may have noticed from prior posts). I had no idea how many boundaries she could test in so short of a time.
.
The other day I was trying to get everyone's socks, shoes and coat on and get them out the door to go somewhere. I got Cora's shoes and coat on first and started chasing after the other two. After I got them ready, I noticed Cora was missing. Uh-oh. I found her upstairs in my room. She had opened the "child-proof" (whatever!) cabinet and was applying mascara all of the surfaces of her face and clothing OTHER than her eyelashes.

So pretty! Too bad I didn't get a picture of her "lip gloss fiasco" too.

Good thing she is so dang cute! She really is very sweet and helpful 95% of the time...but in the other 5%....well.....

Fighting January

It is no secret that January and February are not exactly my favorite months. I seem to have to struggle through these short cold days once the holidays are over. This year I am trying to be proactive in my fight against the January blahs.

The first thing I needed was something I could look at and pretend it is springtime. Costco answered my prayers with these little beauties for only $8.99!

Just looking at them makes me smile. Worth every penny!
.

Of course, I have been relying heavily on my standard mood-lifter: Chocolate. Dax "helped" me make brownies the other day so he got to lick the spoon:

(look at those baby blues!!).

.

On Monday I was having a classic January moment. I was upstairs in my room cleaning NON-WASHABLE crayons off of my cream-colored carpet thanks to my boundary-pushing Cora (how did non-washable crayons even GET into my house???) and cringing as Arden and Dax played in the gargantuan pile of clean laundry on my bed that was waiting for me to fold it. It had been another grey day and I was generally feeling a little bit sorry for myself. But then the sun finally got underneath all of those clouds. I looked out the window and saw something like this:

It is hard to feel sorry for myself when this kind of crazy stuff is right outside my window. I guess clouds aren't all bad, after all.

Another thing that helps keep me smiling is finding a nice spot by a window to sit and soak up some sunshine:

It is even nicer if some cute kids will entertain me while I am soaking up said sunshine by spinning each other around in circles using one of Preston's office chairs. Daxton had the girls spinning pretty fast (see how blurry he is?).
Ahhh....office chairs. Hours of entertainment.

All of things things are helping...but if anyone wants to offer me a free trip to Hawaii, I wouldn't say no. :-)

The Twibs

I used to really worry that Daxton and Cora might never be good friends. Since they were only 10 1/2 months apart, Dax was obviously still a baby when Corbie joined our family. Of course, he had no absolutely no understanding as to what "gentle" meant, so we had to keep Corbie mostly out of his reach for the first few months. I was worried that the "twiblings" might have missed their chance to bond. I also wondered if Dax might somehow resent Cora for pushing him out of the nest before his time.

There have been (and occasionally still are) epic battles over my lap. There are also fairly regular yelling/wrestling matches over whatever toy both of them have decided is the ONLY toy among dozens that will make them happy at that moment. Daxton sometimes pushes and Corbie sometimes hits. But mostly, my two babies are inseparable:

That was Dax and Corbie snuggled up on the couch the other day watching TV. Dax and Cora do pretty much everything together while they are awake. They eat meals together, get dragged around town by me together, take baths together, play together, go sledding down the hill in Preston's lap together, etc. etc. Lucky for me, they even nap at the same time.

If Cora sleeps in much longer than Dax in the morning, he will go into her room, climb into her crib with her and wake her up. I love seeing their two little blond heads close together as they look at a book. Lately, their favorite evening activity is chasing each other around and around (and around) the ottoman in our living room, laughing hysterically.

Cora has been "testing her boundaries" lately (in other words, she has been being a little stinker...see previous post). If Daxton hears me putting Corbie in time-out or telling her not to do something, he will stop whatever he is doing, run up to me, give me a dirty look and ROAR! He is always looking out for his little sister. He will usually sit by Cora while she is in time-out, and she sometimes returns the favor.

It melts me.

I hope that they can always be friends and look out for each other, especially when they get older and I can't always be with them (DOES THAT REALLY HAVE TO HAPPEN??).

A picture is worth a thousand Trix...

Somebody's in trouble....

Purge and Hoard

I have been on a little bit of a "purge" spree lately. No, I am not barfing. I am just getting rid of stuff that we don't need. Throwing it away, giving it to the D.I. (Deseret Industries, a thrift store for those of you who may now speak "Utah"), or boxing it up and putting it in our basement out of my sight. It can get tricky, especially while trying to thin out the piles of toys around here. Arden caught me gathering up a bunch of old baby toys, and grabbed a bunch of RATTLES and said that she loves them and wants to play with them and I CAAAAAN'T give them away. Seriously? Rattles?

My kids have also destroyed their fair share of books. I have no idea how these books get so thrashed....oh wait, yes I do. The kids look through them over and over (and over) and drop them and throw them and stand on them and sometimes even take bites of them. We pretty much use them until they fall apart, and then I chuck them. I was going through the huge pile of books on Arden's bookshelf (while she was at preschool, of course), and taking the ones that were the most destroyed. I came across these two books:

In case you can't see, the spines on both of them are nearly completely gone, and soon they will disintegrate completely. Also notice the bite mark on the bottom left corner of the top book. Additionally, at some point a year or two ago, Arden was "helping" me clean things, and completely doused both of these books in hand sanitizer. They were very clean, but also became pretty sticky. Some pages stuck together and then ripped, like this: (I actually skipped this page when I read this book to Cora, because I was afraid that the "Phantom of the Opera" look that this little girl has going on might scare her.)

.

I brought these books, along with the others in the pile downstairs to throw them in the recycle bin. For some reason, I took these two books out of the pile. These were Arden's favorite books to read when she was a baby. I probably sat in her room, rocking little baby Arden in her rocking chair and reading these books to her a hundred times at least.
.

I miss those days.

.

But keeping these books isn't going to bring those days back, so why can't I throw them away?

.

Is this how "hoarders" start?

Holidays 2010

The holidays are over already?!? I can't believe it is January 2nd! The holidays were kind of a whirlwind for me, but here were some of my favorite moments:

• Getting Christmas cards! This was my favorite card this year, (thanks Arden!!!)

• Watching the kids sit on Santa's lap. I never know exactly what is going to happen when my kids are faced with sitting on the big guy's lap. I was pretty sure Arden would be fine, she was totally into the Santa stuff this year. I can't even count how many times I pulled out the "if you don't do/stop doing [insert action here], I am going to call Santa!" card during the weeks leading up to Christmas. Here is Arden, telling Santa about the scooter she wants for Christmas:

Dax did really well this year! This is the first year that he hasn't screamed when we sat him down with Santa, but you can tell from his face that he still isn't too sure about this guy with the beard:

Corbie wanted NOTHING to do with Santa's lap. Luckily for her, one of her very favorite people, my sister Val, was there to save the day and sit on Santa's lap for her so she could still get her present (what would we do without Val???):

• Hearing Cora refer to my brother Dan as the "pizza guy." My brother and his family came to stay with us. They arrived on Christmas Eve. Cora woke up from her nap and discovered Dan and his family in our house eating pizza. She kept watching him and then pointing at him and saying "Pizza guy??" She was pretty confused as to why the pizza guy and his family were in our house. She called him "pizza guy" all week, despite our attempts to straighten her out. She said things like "Pizza guy, where aahh you?" and "Night-night pizza guy!" Hilarious. By the end of the week, she was calling him "Pizza guy Dan," so at least there was some improvement.
  
• Watching Arden be so excited for Santa. She helped me make cookies for him and eagerly checked to make sure he had eaten them on Christmas morning (as with last year, Santa left half a cookie, which Dax finished up for him). Here is Arden with her spoils from Santa, includig the much-wished-for scooter:

• Watching the present-opening chaos that was Christmas morning:

• Seeing Dax try to carry around his haul of dinosaurs. Dax has been completely obsessed with Dinosaurs for a couple of months, and he could hardly contain his excitement as he opened all of his presents, 90% of which were dinosaur-related. He impressed everyone by spouting out their names ("Dis one Tyrannosaurus Reth! Dis one Tritheratops! Dis one Brachiosaurus! Dis one Ankylosaurus!"). He wanted to take each and every one with him wherever he went:

• Just watching the crazy things kids do. Dan's youngest boy carried around pencils and chopsticks in his pants, pretending they were swords. Dan's other kids were always climbing all over Preston and making him throw them around. Cora loves to eat oranges, but one day she tried something new (I have no idea what she is thinking here):

• Playing at Boondocks! Dan's oldest turned 10 on December 28th, and we went to Boondocks. The big kids and the boys (and Val) played Laser Tag, while the rest of us hung out and played games. Then we all went bowling, which included such highlights as me unashamedly using the gutter-bumpers and Daxton running down a lane and (of course) falling down and just laying there halfway down the lane until I could walk down and pick him up. Can you believe no one took a picture??? Oh well. Cora LOVED playing air hockey with Grandpa:

• Finding out that Corbie doesn't need a cast or a splint for her foot! Yay!!
• Playing in the snow! Christmas wasn't white, but the snow soon caught up to us. Daxton's favorite thing to do with snow is....eat it. Here he is snacking on some freshly fallen powder (how adorable is my boy???)

• Playing Uno Attack on New Year's Eve. It was too cold to try and do much on New Year's Eve, so we stayed home and watched TV and played Uno Attack! The grown ups played for a little while, but the kids played some form of Uno attack for about three hours:
  
• Fireworks! We put Dax and Cora to bed around 8:30 on New Years Eve because they were pretty worn out from the exciting week they had had. We let Arden stay up with her cousins for a while, and then at 10 p.m. we pretended it was midnight! Preston (brave soul) ventured outside in the 10 degree weather and set off some fireworks while we watched through the windows of the nice toasty house:

At least at first....eventually all of the kids were outside holding sparklers. They only lost a couple of ears and toes to frostbite:

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope that 2011 is a great year for all of us!!