Winter Wonderland

Hello Everyone,

Our vacation home has been a whirlwind. I expected it to be on some level but it has been particularly chaotic at times. We have been able to do most of the things I wanted to while we were home but I still have a few more on my list. So far I got a hair cut, have gone shopping a lot, had a lot of time with family and enjoyed getting caught up on everyone elses lives and kids and showing off my own kids. Well the showing off part was a little postponed. Both our girls were sick from the time we arrived in Boise. And Calli was a terrible-two year old for close to the first week because her schedule was thrown off so bad and she was out of her element. Anyway, I'm getting too wordy in this blog already. All I have left on my list is home-made ice cream, a little bit more shopping for the other odds and ends we want to take back with us, a racquetball game with my hubby and visit a few friends. Most of all though I just want to relax more! :)

Enough with the words - lets get to the pictures...

The girls were pretty good on the flights. We love how heavy of a sleeper Calli is. Our backpack carrier worked great for both of the girls. We still can't get over finding it for $8!

We were in New York for three days with Ryan and Natalie. We definitely enjoyed our time with them. The photo below is us at the Rockefeller Center. It was so very cold but fun. Calli was spent and definitely didn't feel like smiling for the Camera and Juls is asleep in my arms. Natalie broke away from studying for finals (poor Natalie), study materials in hand, and met us at the Rockefeller center. Little Ewan is the bundle attached to Ryan's chest.

We also went to FAO Schwartz and the Santa Land at Macy's.

On our way back through we are hoping to make it to the Manhattan Temple.

Calli had fun helping them decorate their Christmas tree. Calli and Dawson were best buddies the whole time.

Our days went by fast in New York. It was short but sweet. We got off alright on our flights to Boise. We had a short stop in the Minneapolis airport and found this board. Cheesy priceless pics! We laughed so much!

I didn't know I could be so excited to see mountains. As soon as I saw them out the plane window I got SO excited and demanded Rob hand me the camera for pictures.

Sorry this is going to be an incredibly long post...

So, next, we arrived. Yay! It always feels so good to be greeted at the airport with family. We spent a busy week trying to get things done that we needed to in between spending time with family. Christmas was fun. It will be even more fun as the girls get older. We even had a white Christmas!Anyway, I'm tired of trying to catch up with all our stories and memories. We have many. It has been a great time here with family. We have been trying to soak up every moment.

Simple Pleasures

So I have to post this really quick. Juliana has fetishes. Is that how you spell that? Anyway, fetishes of things she really shouldn't be near. Namely, cords, shoes, dirty diapers, the bathroom... Another fetish she has developed, thankfully are more harmless one, is playing with the doorstop. It is so funny to me because she will be playing with toys in the living room and if I'm busy and she gets bored with her toys sometimes she will crawl around the corner into our bedroom, go behind the door and start playing with the doorstop. She loves watching and hearing it go "Boing!" Haha! She cracks me up.

I got it!

So this sounds really mean but I love Juliana's mad face. Hahaha.. it makes me chuckle just thinking about it. Now remember she is a girl that is full of smiles and almost always happy. But when she is mad or sad she expresses it so completely in her face! Also, because it doesn't happen all that often it is hard to catch on camera but I got it today! She was wining at me because she wanted out of the trike and I finally caught her face on camera! Sorry, I am so excited about it.

And the finale!....

Mom's Should Get Medals for Potty Training

I am declaring Calli potty trained. She really kind of has been for probably almost a month. We still put a diaper on her at night but most often she wakes up dry. It has been quite the process for us and I think we all should get a medal. It has been a year from when we first started trying. I take responsibility for that. I think if we had understood more and been more patient with her in the beginning she would have learned it permanently then but we were first timers and we didn't understand. So we took a long break, eased back into it, tried again, and made it! I've talked to too many mom's who said they took the diapers away and their kids was accident free for life after like three days. Our case was a long difficult process and that is why I think we've earned the medal. : ) After 152 accidents, 30 loads of pee laundry, and 15 rolls of paper towels we've made it!!! Okay, so I'm exaggerating maybe just a bit but that is our story. Sorry, no pics with this post! I decided to spare you the gross illustrations.

Trauma! You are never going to believe this...

So let me set the stage by telling you first that we have had virtually no problem with bugs here. We've seen only one or two cockroaches over the last year and rarely do we have ants. The most we get are the occasional gecko, lizard or frog but they're friendly. Anyway, last night I lived a moment from a cheap horror flick... I'm sleeping soundly getting some much needed rest after a full day. In my sleep I kind of feel something on my stomache and pull my hand up to brush the area thinking it is probably my shirt moving with the wind from the fan. Immediately I get a sharp pain in my hand! I sit up wildly to shake off my intruder. Rob wakes up asking what is wrong. "Something bit me! Something bit me!" I'm closer to the light switch so I get up and turn on the light. I sit back on the bed looking around for whatever it was. Then I feel something on my back! I look over my shoulder and see some black thing. I jump up and smack it off. I turn around and Rob and I see a scorpion on the floor! AAAAHHHHH!!! Bluagh! A SCORPION! How insane is that!!! So I'm really freaking out now because I know I just got stung by a scorpion! How in the world?? Where did it come from? How did it even get in the house? Why? What do I do? What do I do? Ice.. ice sounds good... I'll get ice. I left Rob to kill the invader in the bedroom and I got a package of frozen corn for my hand. I go sit down on the couch and try to calm down. We called the hospital to see if there is something we should do. I don't feel poisoned (although I don't know what that would feel like) so I think I'm okay but I want to know. The nurse said that the scorpions here are not poisonous or venomous so I don't need to worry about that but just watch for an allergic reaction. I could take benadryl and tylenol for the pain - pain relief sounds good! I iced my hand for like an hour. Rob took some picks of the dead scorpion and got rid of it. Then my sweet hubby stayed up with me the whole time I wanted to ice it and more until I felt better. It took me a while to even want to go back in the bedroom! After a nice and emotionally needed blessing from Rob, we decided to go back to sleep on the big bed in the girl's room but it still took me like an hour to actually fall asleep and I definitely wanted the night light ON! Talk about the heebyjeebies! A bit after the whole event I start to feel tingly all over which kind of weirds me out too but I've come to decide it is the trauma from the whole thing. I still feel tingly and it is the next day. My hand still hurts but luckily there really isn't any swelling and I am able to use it pretty well. So, I get to live the rest of my life saying I've been stung by a scorpion. Man... I hope I can sleep in my bed tonight. I am still very glad it was me and not one of the girls or something but it was so random that I'll always be leery of it happening again to one of us. I'm getting the shivers just looking at these pictures to post.

Hurricane Paloma

So first of all, what kind of a name is Paloma? I've never heard that before. Rob says it sounds like a benign tumor. he he. Well benign it was because we all survived here. We already told most of you all about the storm so I'll spare you the story all over again but I thought these pictures were kind of funny. This is Rob saving Calli's whale pool. I love how the whale is smiling too. Hahaha!

In the next picture Rob had walked over to the edge of the yard to get a bag of garbage. You can see how deep the water is there. It was almost over the edge of his boots and he was on his tippy toes on higher ground along the fence. The other picture here is of our neighbor Carl's studio apartment that is in the same yard behind us. He is smart and escapes to a friends house whenever there is a big storm but we still feel bad for the guy. That would be nerve racking to see the water less than an inch below your doorway!

Anyway, sorry we don't have cooler pictures of palm trees on the ground and the gigantic potholes that appeared in roads over night... but we have to leave something to the imagination. :)

Juliana Crawling

Juliana started army crawling the beginning of October. She got going so fast doing it that as she began to try to crawl on her hands and knees she would take a few slow steps on her hands and knees and then plop down on her tummy and take off. It has been fun to observe differences between Juliana and Calli. When Calli was at this stage she would wait and watch and figure things out mentally before she would really try it out physically. So once she did try something she got it fast because she took so much time studying it out. She was that way with crawling, walking, talking... Juliana doesn't care whether or not she gets something right the first time. She likes to try out everything. So she spends more time practicing something but she has a lot of fun along the way. Anyway, she is almost always crawling on her hands and knees now. Here is a video I took of her tonight.

Silly Girl Friends

This is how much energy little girls can have when they get together. This first video is of Calli, Oprah, and Kate. They ran around the table dozens of times. They were all so sweaty and on such a giggle high by the time they were done.

Then, when just Kate was here playing with Calli I caught them dancing to the alphabet on Calli's new-to-her Leap Frog Word Whammer. This also occupied them for quiet some time. Simple pleasures. We all should be able to have so much fun doing something so simple, ya know?

Happy Halloween

We had a lot of fun yesterday for Halloween even though nothing went as planned. Calli didn't nap, I took too long baking for the party, we didn't get to meet some friends we'd planned to but ran into others, and was over an hour late to the party we were invited too. We are lucky we to have such forgiving friends. This is our best family pic. Not many other adults dressed up but we hadn't done something like this in so long that we had fun dressing up too.

We through together simple costumes we could from things we had or could borrow. Calli was a cowgirl - only the second time ever she has let me french braid her hair. I was a hippie - pretty easy when you have naturally frizzy hair, an old pair of jeans with holes in the knees, and an ugly shirt from the thrift store. Rob was a tourist - socks with sandals and all. And Juliana was our little pumpkin.

We went trick-or-treating at a shopping center that was open to kids. Calli was too timid to say trick-or-treat or even hold the bag but I had fun trying to help her enjoy the whole experience. Here's our little pumpkin. I guess I'd give that look too seeing all these crazy people and kids running around in funny costumes for no reason. This next picture is of our friends Shalynna and David. The had the most originally costume I've ever seen and I thought it was awesome! They're on a theme park ride!

David's face looks more scared on the ride but maybe that is because his pants are falling off, haha!

Here is a pic of both girls knocked out in the car when we got home. .. I thought is was hilarious how Calli's foot was in Juliana's face. She'd never put her foot up like that before. Natural siblings even when they're asleep. Yay for holiday fun and great family memories.

Roseola? What's that?

So last week was a little interesting for us with Juliana. I learned one thing that is more stressful than your child being sick is your child being sick and not knowing what is wrong. Juliana had a fever randomly pick up one in the morning. She was extra sleepy but had no other symptoms. Her fever would stay pretty low but get fairly high in the evening - higher than what I would concider a possible teething fever. This went on for three days. Each day was a debate.. do I take her in? What would they be able to tell me? (I don't really like the pediatricians here.) The third night we gave her fever medicine to help her sleep for the second time. The forth morning her fever broke. Yay! Then an hour or so later a rash started to develope. Oh man, a rash? What is goin' on now? I let her try bread for the first time, maybe.. no, probably not. The bug bite she just got.. no, not likely. The fever medicine, shoot, an allergic reaction? Who knows? Again, the debate on wether or not to take her in. Day five the rash was looking a little better. That is when these pictures were taken. The rash looked a lot worse in person. Later I was IMing with Shaunna, whining about my worries. Ta, da! Shaunna solved my worries. Could it be Roseola? she says. Roseola? What's that? I love our age of the internet. The things I read sounded exactly like Juliana's symptoms. A basically harmless viral infection that will pass. Hooray! Now, do I like being a self diagnosis Mom? No, not really. I plan on talking to our pediatrician about it when we are at home in December. Jul's is doing great now and is back to her normal playful, crawling and getting into everything. And it only took me three days to get caught up on the house after pampering my baby for five days and not getting much else done.

Dinosaurs don't have anything to do with Harry Potter

Here is a story, Shalynna style... Yesterday, as a release from studying, Robert watched some of a Harry Potter movie. Katie:"Robert, it is too much for Calli - you are going to scare her. She covers her eyes when she sees the wolf for 'W' on her preschool website." Robert:"No, No, she is fine. These aren't even scary parts." Katie: "If she wakes up with a nightmare it is your fault and you have to be up with her." Robert: "She isn't going to have a night mare." 12:55 am - I am sleeping deeply trying to recover from going to bed later than I wanted to and already having to wake up once and take care of Juliana. 12:56 am - My heart skips about three beats and then races about 100 times faster than is normal for a mother's heart as I wake up to Calli screaming. It was one of those sincere whimpery high pitched screams that takes two years off of a your heart. I jump up and try to say some calming words as I walk across the hall toward her. Katie: "Calli, what is wrong?? Are you okay??" Calli (in a very fearful crying voice): " There is a dinosaur!" Katie: "Oh, sweetheart it is okay. Look around, there is no dinosaur. You're okay... here come cuddle in mommy and daddy's bed for a bit." Katie (as I walked in to our bedroom, my heart beginning to slow down a bit): "Robert, I could smack you for letter her watch Harry Potter!" Robert: "What?? Dinosaurs don't have anything to do with Harry Potter! It isn't my fault." Of course all the commotion woke up Juliana and I spent 10 minutes getting her back to sleep and then slept crooked in my bed sharing my spot with Calli. I can't remember the last time Calli had a night mare. Coincidence she had one the same night she watched part of Harry Potter?? .. I don't think so. (Yes, Robert watched the girls in the morning so I could sleep in an extra hour.)

Gotta love those faces!

I think Juliana was ready for food at 5 months but I did what I was told with Calli and waited until 6 months. I don't think I'll be so strict on that next time. We all had fun being a part of Juliana's first baby cereal experience. As you can see Calli was excited to help. She truly is a great big sister.

I love this picture because Calli is making a great face at Juliana. It is pretty funny when Calli imitates Juliana sometimes. Juliana has done really well and really liked the baby cereal. Life was great until... .. GREEN BEANS!

I wonder if I should feel guilty for laughing my head off at the faces she was making.... nah! She has also tried peas since these pictures and likes them okay. She made a lot of the same faces at first. I'm looking forward to letting her try bananas once I make it to the store to get them.

She's a rockin'!

Juliana just started getting up on both her hands and her knees at the same time and started rocking. She did it for the first time three days ago. This time of growth is always so exciting for me. We are constantly cheering her on. I finally caught her on video today. Sorry about the background musical, Calli was watching Mulan at the time. :)

Juliana's recent highlights

Juliana turned 6 months old last week. With Calli I had it ingrained in me to not do any foods until 6 months so I waited with Jules too but I think she was ready like a month ago. Anyway, she took to rice cereal great from the first spoonful. Look at those cheeks! You'd think she was storing nuts in those for the winter. She tried green beans today but almost gagged. I think I'll try peas instead.. or maybe mix it with the cereal. Dunno, the endless options of the exciting world of food.

Calli plays very well with Juliana and it is fun to watch them together. I wish I could make Juliana laugh like Calli does.

Juliana loves exploring the world around her. She will not sit still anymore. She wants to reach for anything close by and touch and feel everything. She would explore the whole world at once right now if she could and the poor girl is confined to our living room half the time. She is getting closer to scooting around and she really needs to get there. She gets quite boisterous when she is bored of the spot she is in.

Recent Calli Highlights

Calli loves to color now. This is a picture of her coloring with crayons but she also likes to draw on the chalk board and I have been opened up to the wonderful world of crayola color wonder markers.

This busy two year old almost never lets me do anything with her hair. Pigs must have been flying this day because not only did she let me play with her hair she sat still long enough to let me braid it for the first time ever! I was so excited I took like a dozen pictures. This is also probably why she hasn't let me do it again. Anyway, it was way cute and I thought I would share the pic with you.

Last Saturday the primary put on a Daddy/Child breakfast that was really neat. Rob took Calli and I had so much fun hearing all about it. I love this picture they took out in front of the church that morning. A great daddy daughter moment. They had a pretty traditional pancakes, eggs, and fruit breakfast. Then they got to answer questions about each other like toothbrush color, car color, what you are going to be when you grow up.. etc. Calli answered correctly to the questions! I don't even remember Rob's toothbrush color. Calli said she wanted to be a princess when she grows up. But little does she know she already is.

Little buddies

These are a couple fun pictures of our kids with the Wilson's kids (our friends that stayed with us). Our kids are fairly close in age and the had a blast having a permanent friend to play with. The first picture is Kate and Calli and then Porter and Juliana rolling around together is below. Calli has this magical ability to make Porter and Juliana laugh.

Thrift store score!!

Well we can't help but brag about this awesome find! We found this Deuter Kid Cumfort III child back pack in great condition. Brand new this is $250! We got it at the thrift store for $8.00!!! We couldn't believe it! I guess people don't care about back packs like this in a place where you can't really hike anywhere. We have to wait at least a year and a half to be able to use it hiking with more than a 20ft incline but it will be worth the wait. Jealous? You should be!

The whirlwind is over

August has been a busy month. Rob had finals while I was scrambling to pull together a good girls camp. Then we had girls camp on the 14th through the 16th. As soon as we got back from girls camp we through everything into the living room, showered, and ran to our friends, Junie and Mitchell's, wedding. I discovered there that I am "Junie's white friend." It made me laugh. We were the only white people in the church at the wedding. We love them, they are great friends. Then we had our anniversary. We kept it small but fun. We had some friends watch the girls while we went out to lunch. That evening there was a farewell barbecue for our other friends Leslie and Andras that moved off island the next day. We miss them and their little boy Zalan very much! Calli still asks to go over to his house all the time. We spent the rest of the week reorganizing our house to make room for all the food and odds and ends they still had to get rid of when they left. We got the house organized and clean just in time for Rebekah and Ashley to arrive. They our friend of our good friend Scott. And they quickly became our good friends. We enjoyed Sting Ray City with them and the Turtle Farm. They left just last Monday and now we have some new guests. Jeff and Kieren and their two kids Kate and Porter. They just moved here to start med school at SMU and haven't been able to find a plact to live. So we are helping them out while they continue their search. So, yeah, a busy month. :) Life has been fast and furious but good. The girls are still growing and are our pride and joy. Still loving and missing you all and greatly anticipating our trip home at Christmas.

Girls Camp

This is the beach we camped on for girls camp. It was gorgeous and so much fun. This is Jamie and Casey, the coolest helpers I could hope for. The really helped me out a ton. I couldn't have done it without them. They were good examples to the girls. They just slept out under the stars... or should I say coconut trees. Good thing the coconts didn't feel like falling.

These girls have never camped before. This is Chrishaunna, Payton, and Maurissa. They had so many bags you'd think they were going to be gone for a month. We made them pitch their own tents and they helped with meals.

Too cushy if you ask me. You can barely call that camping.

They hiked the mastic trail. If you can call it a hike. It is only two miles and the highest point is 60 feet above sea level. These girls grew up here and have never done this trail. They complained a lot at first but they enjoyed it by the end. They sure squeled when they had to get there feet wet in the wetland portion of the trail. We had a great time cooling off at the blow hole after.

Pretty easy camping when you have a pool right next to you. The girls swam a lot. It is the best way to cool off in the heat we have here.

This is Samantha. She got to join us the last night. She always helps me with the girls during church on Sunday. She sure loves Juliana.

The treasure hunt was a highlight of camp. The girls had to look up scriptures at each step to help them answer a scenario of a situation they might encounter in their lives before they would count pases and follow directions to the next step. This is them digging up the treasure.

..well, atleast Maurissa seems happy about the treasure. What were they expecting? Gold? This is eternal gold.. much better!

It was a great but short camp. For only having a month to plan it really went great. It went so well we might even do a longer camp next year... but I refuse to think about that for now.