Halloween!

I love Halloween.  I love to be at the school for the day.  I signed up to help with Macie's class party, then I realized it was from 1-2.  Nap time.  I asked Rachel to just come hang out at my house while Lexi was asleep, but then I started to worry.  What if she woke up and it was a stranger?  We already have huge momma separation anxiety and I didn't want to feed that fire.  So, I asked Rachel if she'd be willing to go to the class party.  She did!  She read books to a bunch of first graders for an hour.  She even borrowed her mom's festive Halloween vest to wear.  She saved my day! 

I then met up with her for the school parade.  Oodles of fun to see all of the costumes.  I didn't get a good one of Maddie, she was walking too fast. 

My sweet little kitty loved her costume.  When I told her it was time to put her costume on again, she immediately pointed to her cheeks.  She loved getting whiskers drawn on .  Once I got her whiskers on, she went to the mirror, giggled, then turned to see her tail.  I didn't have it on yet, and she was pretty upset about her missing tail.  So cute.  All day if you asked her about her whiskers, she'd cover her face up.  Or if you asked about her tail, she'd find it for you.  Kind of like a dog chasing its' tail. 

After the parade, I checked the girls out and drove them up for a free Jamba Juice.  They were not impressed and said mine are better.  Good kids!

Trick or treating was fun!  Lexi loved getting her own treats.  Such a fun holiday! 

Convention 2013

Every 18 months 4Life has a major convention for all of their distributors.  Last convention, I had a 6 week old baby, this time I had a 19 month old terror.  This time seemed so much harder.  Maybe it was because I kept getting pictures like this...

"Hey, look at me, I'm on the beach, it's beautiful."
"Look at my hotel view."
"I'm trying escargot."

Sigh.

This is what us gals did while Dad was in Miami. 

 We found the "wooden park" in Pleasant Grove.  Super cool park, but it was giving me anxiety that I couldn't see my kids very well while we were there because of all the structures.  And, after being there about 10 minutes, Macie fell and hurt her back and if Macie ain't happy, no one's happy. 

We babysat for a friend, we made dinner for someone else.  We babysat for someone else.  Took dinner to someone else. It was my week for service, but honestly, it was a good distraction!

 We went to soccer on Saturday, then to the ward fall carnival.  This year for our costumes, I was an iPhone.  I made my costume and had soooo much fun doing it!  Maddie found the idea to be popcorn on Pinterest and of course, I jumped on board to make it.  So easy and she got poked and oohhed and aahhhed at everywhere she went.  Lindsay wanted to be the mouse from the book "if you give a mouse a cookie" but we couldn't agree on what she would wear, so she decided to be a pirate.  Macie had her heart set on being an angel.  Not my best effort, but she was happy.  Lexi wanted to be a kitty.  (All right, I wanted her to be a kitty).  I made her ears when she was asleep, they're a bit larger than I thought they would be.  :)

We came home and made posters for Dad.  Lexi loves to color and thought it was the coolest thing ever to color on the floor.  We decided to miss church Sunday and go surprise Jeramy.  Super fun and a great distraction!  7 days without him was a bit too much for all of us!

What exactly is vintage?

My mother used to take me shopping in the most random "warehouse" fabric stores.  I'm pretty sure we were in garage a time or two buying fabric.  She was a great fabric "collector" and has a pretty extensive collection left today.  Over the summer she decided that we all needed matching maxi skirts.  I found a pattern on Pinterest, and she found the fabric.  LOTS of fabric.  She washed and prepared it for us, and as I started cutting, I noticed this...

The fabric was made in 1987.  Yeah.  I was 8.  I feel old.  I spent the day cutting and sewing skirts for me, Cindy, Savannah, Shelby, Katie, Lindsay, and Macie.  Then I ran out of energy on Maddie's. 

4 months later...

And no, Lexi will not be getting a skirt, and yes, I still have more navy/striped fabric.  She must have had 8 or more yards of it.  :) 

Halloween Festivities

 Bought these massive cookies at Costco...they were tons of fun to decorate, but awful to eat!  Rock hard and tasted like cardboard.  They girls only nibbled a little off and were done. 

I was reminded many times about my mystery dinner.  Lindsay made sure I knew it was a Halloween tradition.  Just because we've done it twice doesn't make it a tradition, does it?  The pictures are of The Zombie, The Skeleton and The Mummy.  So much work, but that's what makes memories, right?

20 months

 So...someone taught  Lexi how to say, "Cheese" for the camera.

Every

Single

Time

It was cute at first, not so much now.  I just want a picture of her without her eyes closed and her face tilted up.  But hey, she did master a new word...cheese!

Lexi loves toothpaste.  She has gotten really good at waiting until I'm in the shower, then she'll start to feel around on the counter for the tube, find it, smile, and run out of the bathroom.  This is what I found one day:

Pencil shoved down in the toothpaste, and her poor bear got his fur cleaned.  When I came in the room, she immediately fell on her blanket and wouldn't make eye contact. 
Every day we are getting new words.  It's so fun to hear her try to say things.  We've recently added, "See ya!" and "All done" and Jeramy got a kick out of "Mom, go!" When she wanted me to follow her into the other room.  She's still picking up more signs.  The other day she kept pointing to her shoulders and saying, "oooohh."  (It was cold).  She did it every time we were somewhere cold.  (Outside, produce room at Costco).  I asked her if she needed a jacket and she got excited and nodded yes.  Then it hit me, I wonder if she's signing jacket.  I came home and googled it and sure enough, she was signing jacket (baby style).  Thank you, movie, for making my child smart. 
She loves Baby Einstein movies, Finding Nemo (which she calls bah bah), Curious George (eee eee) and we just discovered Elmo (Eeyo).  She loves Abby, because she can say Abby!  She can't say any of her sisters' names, but she can say Emma, Lindsay's friend. 

She drew this picture - it's a baby.  She loves to draw circles with two eyes in them.  It cracks me up!  She loves to draw and color.  She will always ask me to draw either a baby, a heart or a dinosaur. 
Nursery is still the worst place in the universe.  She loves to be at Grandma Jean's though.  She doesn't even bat an eye when I leave her there.  Last week, she saw me heading for the door and she said, "See ya!" And waved.  Made me wish I was really going somewhere!  She's a momma's girl and it's super hard. 

Getting ready for college...

From a very young age, Maddie started saving money for college.  I don't think she even knew what college was, but she knew she needed money for it.  Now college is creeping up on us way too fast!  She wants to go to BYU.  Tonight we discussed what it would take to get into BYU, and I was a proud momma to realize that she really is well on her way to accomplishing that dream.  School is easy for Maddie.  She enjoys learning (lucky, right?)  She got a B+ on a test a few weeks ago and I seriously thought she was going to cry.
Last year she brought home an application to be on student council.  She had to write an essay about why she would be a good choice.  She wrote a fantastic essay.  She was selected to be one of the 24 children on student council at the school.  Maddie is in her element there.  She loves serving her classmates and loves being in charge and helping out.  Every Thursday, she gets to empty the recycle bins in other classrooms.  She loves missing her recess time to do this.  (Not even kidding!  Who's kid is this?) 
She got to miss an entire day of school and go on a field trip for just student council down to BYU (yes, she was thrilled to get her first look at campus).  They spent the entire day listening to motivational speakers and playing games to build character and such.  She came home just beaming! 

We have also become "official" volunteers at Thanksgiving Point.  We helped out twice for the Barnyard Boo.  The first night we were there, the weather was terrible and no one came.  I'm not even kidding.  We had 2 families in 4 hours.  We were so incredibly bored!  She and I started to play our games over and over to keep ourselves entertained.  It ended up being a fun mother-daughter night!  She wanted to go back another night, this time is was super busy and she had a blast!  Thanksgiving Point will log her hours and that will look fabulous also on the college application. 
Maddie seems to know who she is and what she wants out of life right now.  I hope she can keep this positive, motivated attitude up!