Ally turned 4!

I can't believe Ally is already four! She can be such a handful sometimes, but overall she is a really good girl who just wants to entertain everyone and make them happy. There are so many things I love about Ally, but here are my top 10:

10) Her curiosity

9) Her genuine love of animals/creatures

8) Her desire to "protect" her family

7) Her desire/ability to make you laugh (even at the risk of getting into trouble)

6) Her smile

5) The sparkle in her beautiful blue eyes

4) The way she says "thingers" instead of fingers

3) The way she cries when someone else is hurt

2) Her sense of humor

1) Her love for her sisters

The moon is out tonight!

Ok, so I was going to write a post about my wonderful weekend with my kids. Matt had to work and we had no particular agenda and spent a lot of time playing on the floor, making a cake, etc etc and the two little ones were amazing angels. You know those moments when you stop to really look at all their features and you can't stop smiling about how cute, and perfect they are???

Well, that was my weekend, then Matt and Britt came home and we went to dinner at Outback, where Ally decided it was appropriate to MOON BRITTNEY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RESTAURANT!! I am talking, full moon, wiggling the thing around! LOL Then, she had a total look of surprise when we had to have a discussion about not showing your butt in public. Like she had no idea that such a thing was wrong.

Crazy kid...I must have lost my mind to think she was anything but TROUBLE!

Swimming

Swimming in the Winter is a great way to get out of the stuffy house and burn off some of the kids' energy. We had a great time and I had to wake them up for dinner! Sorry for the picture of me in my swimming suit...I am far from swim-suit worrthy, but what do you do??

New Traditions

This year we went sledding on Christmas Eve day, and I hope to make it a yearly tradition. We all had a great time (except for Cedar who did not care for it much), and the kids were nice and worn out. It made for an early bedtime so Mr. and Mrs. Clause could work their magic, and hopefully it is something the kids will remember and look forward to each year.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

So, I know I have posted pictures of the girls playing dress-up before, but these were so cute that I couldn't resist. And, we have a little problem at our house with clean-up and I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions.

Ally LOVES to play dress-up. It will entertain her for what seems like hours, but she REFUSES to clean it up. Matt go sick of cleaning it up and she wasn't able to play with them for a month! I felt bad for her and partly responsible for not having an organized place for her to store them in, so I fished them out of the basement after I thought Matt had cooled off. I bought a six drawer organizer and put them in all neat and tidy. I thought for sure she would be ecstatic to have them back and would NEVER leave them about again......WRONG!

It only took two days and although she was playing with them like crazy, she was refusing to pick them up and told Matt "just throw them away, I don't need them". So, Matt literally threw them out in the garbage and I once again had to fish them out (I want to at least save them for Cedar). UUUGH! What am I doing wrong?? How do you reason with or discipline a child who has an "I don't care" attitude?

5-minute salsa

This is my new favorite, EASY recipe. I could eat this stuff all day long and it literally only takes 5 minutes......so fresh and awesome. Let me know what you think.

Ingredients: (I don't follow it exactly...add more or less of what you like and I am lazy so I use the easier versions vs "fresh" but it is still amazing.)

1/2 small onion
1/4 C fresh cilantro
1T lime juice (Iuse the bottled stuff)
1 garlic clove peeled (I use minced garlic)
2T jalepenos (I use the canned diced stuff)
1/4t salt
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes (drained)

Directions:

Put everything except the tomatoes in the food processor and pulse 1minute x5 or until well blended, then add tomatoes and pulse quickly to desired "chunkiness".

The Polar Express

So, we had heard that the Polar Express expedition in Heber City was AMAZING....so we nearly killed the entire family getting there and spent a good deal of money on tickets, only to be dissappointed in the end.

They tell you that you are going to the "North Pole" to see Santa, when in reality, you go BACKWARDS (which really bothered Ally) on a train going 10mph, in the dark with no lights or attractions along the way until you see a man in a Santa suit standing in a snowbank with a sign that says "North Pole" and red flood lights......then, you turn around and go 10mph back, but at least you go back FORWARDS I guess!! LOL

In all fairness, they gave us hot chocolate and cookies and sang a few Christmas songs while waiting for Santa to stroll through the train cars.....needless to say, we won't be rushing back next year.

Poop?

It is so amazing what kids remember......

As a family tradition, Matt takes the kids to The Festival of the Trees every year and they get to see Santa.....last year was the second year and when I asked Ally if she was excited to go and see Santa, she said "No, he stinks!". I started to laughed and asked her what he smelled like and she said "Poop, I think" with her nose all turned up like the memory was just as vivid as the day she first smelled it. I thought that was so funny that she could remember that from the year before, when she was only 2 years old.....

Today is the day that they are headed out for 2008 and SHE STILL remembers! I asked her about it this morning and she still claims that Santa smells like poop. She was scarred for life by some dirty Santa with gas at The Festival of the Trees!! Poor Kid....

Family Pictures

We decided to brave the photo studio for Christmas pictures this year and we actually did OK considering 2/3 kids were running 102.0 degree fevers just a few days before the occasion. Next year I think we will all have an attention span long enough to make it through the sitting. :o)

Life Lessons with Daddy

Poor Matt...I think this is a life lesson meant for a son, but he's making the best of three girls! I suppose it might come in handy one day, like learning to tie a tie, but for now Ally sure had fun helping Daddy clean up for Thanksgiving Day. (Maybe they ought to work on his chest next???)

Big Enough

For a few weeks now Ally has been asking to play on the computer and telling me "I'm bigger for it now, Mom", so I finally sat down with her to see if she could do it....WOW, she is big enough!

She can move the mouse all around, click to match numbers, letters and play all sorts of games. I knew she was "pretty smart" (we all think our kids are smart), but I really did not know she could do all that!

I guess she is getting bigger for lots of things right before my eyes. It is amazing to think that I didn't get my first computer til I was a senior in High School and she is starting at three years old! Boy will I feel dumb when she gets into school and I don't know how to do her homework, LOL.

Mad Hatter

Cedar is obsessed with hats lately, whether it is a winter hat, ball cap or just the hoodie on her jacket, no outfit is complete without a hat. These are a few of her latest fashions and the funny this is...she will walk around like this for hours! I'm afraid she is going to be my little (expensive) fashionista!
What you can't see in this picture is that she has red velvet Christmas shoes on her feet...what a stylin outfit eh? I blame this one on dad, and he even took her out of the house in such a get-up!

And don't even think about asking her to take it off...she will respond with a resounding, NOOO!

Who me?? Yeah, I'm cute! (at least mom gave her a hat that matched, LOL)

So Thankful....

So, with Thanksgiving right around the corner, I think it is only right that we all stop and ponder our lives. It is so easy to find things to complain about and have the "poor me's" but if you REALLY stop and look at the world around you, most of our complaints are pretty trivial.

DID YOU KNOW THAT IN AMERICA.....

-According to the Bread for the World Institute 3.5 percent of U.S. households experience hunger. Some people in these households frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for a whole day. 9.6 million people, including 3 million children, live in these homes.

-According to America’s Second Harvest, over 41 billion pounds of food have been wasted this year -Proportion of Americans living below the poverty level: 12.7 percent (34.5 million people)

-The average poverty threshold for a family of four: $16,660 in annual income

-The number of children under age 6 living in families with a female householder and no husband present: 54.8 percent.

IF YOU COMPLAIN BECUASE YOU DON'T HAVE "THE RIGHT PAIR OF SHOES", HOW WOULD YOU LIKE THESE:
IF YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE MISTREATED BY SOCIETY, LOOK AT THIS LADY:
IF YOU THINK YOUR JOB SUCKS, CHECK OUT HIS GUY:

IF YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT YOUR COMMUTE TO WORK, CHECK OUT THESE PEOPLE: LASTLY, IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE HAD A BAD DAY....THINK AGAIN

I am SOOO, grateful for everything that I have and mostly for my wonderful family and friends. Life gets busy and I may not tell all of you as often as I should, so Thank You for your unconditional friendship, love and support.... I Love You!!

Disney Or Bust!!

DISNEY WORLD

We just got back from a week in Disney WORLD with my Mom and Happy...and for those of you who haven't been there, it is HUGE! I took over 400 pictures, so I will just show you some of my favorites.

Ally was so funny on the airplane....when it was taking off she was patting her legs, and when I noticed it and asked her what she was doing she said she was going "super-fast" like The Little Einsteins...she cracks me up. Then once we had been flying she asks with all seriousness "how are we going to get down? I don't have a parachute on my back!" We had to explain that the plane would land so we could get off...she felt much better.

All of the kids were amazing....after days and days of walking, not sleeping well and generally burning our candles at both ends, no one was fighting about bed time and I can't believe how well they did with the whole experience. Matt vows that we won't return until the kids can all carry their own luggage and meet height requirements for ALL the rides, but I bet we'll go back sooner than that. :o)

The Queen of Far, Far Away

Monkeying Around!

This year was my favorite Halloween in a long time! My mom came over to see the kids and we took them trick-or-treating around the neightborhood. I thought Cedar would lose interest and fall asleep, but she LOVED IT!

No matter how tired she got, she was up and ready to go to the next door, in hopes of CANDY. (This child runs if she thinks food is involved in anything!! If I even open the fridge or the pantry door she is hot on my trail to see what I am getting. It reminds me of a cat we had once that could hear the can opener). When her bag got heavy she insisted on carrying it and would not let anyone help her for fear that we would steal some. :o)

Ally would have gone door-to-door all night if we had let her. Thank goodness it started to rain, and that was finally a good enough reason to come home. We had a lot of fun and I can't wait to do it again next year. Ally already informed me that whe wants to be a T-rex next year....we'll see if she remembers.