A little crafting...

I did a little "crafting" yesterday....And today Caymbree decided to do a little "crafting" of her own...Ah crud.

SnOw DaYS

At least SOMEONE is enjoying the recent snow storms in MARCH.... Which reminds me that I forgot to post some cute snow pictures from a few weekends ago.

It was fun while it lasted but time to go.... SO LONG SNOW!!! (

Jekyll and Hyde

I swear sometimes Caymbree has two personalities. One minute she is so sweet and cute and the next she is defiant and mischievous. Oh, ya. The Terrible Two's are on their way!

Jekyll: Love her cheesy little grin. Truly. (Photo courtesy of Hope).

Hyde: Really? Is it necessary to make THIS big of mess at dinner? (Still hard to resist that cheesy grin though).

Jekyll: Caymbree LOVES this rocking chair in her room. If I can't find her, this is usually where she is. She will sit and rock herself for up to ten minutes.

Hyde: She is ALWAYS climbing up on the counters. This is how I found her the other day. Fully dressed, soaking wet, playing in the sink. Notice the empty container and the spilled cookies all over the counter. I'm still wondering just how many cookies she ate that morning.

Jekyll: I'd say she has the best manners in the house and is always the first to say "na-nu mommy." Seriously melts my heart.

Hyde: Stubborn as a mule. May be my worst one yet.

Jekyll: Loves to play in her room alone. First one ever.

Hyde: Determined. When she want something, good luck talking her out of it.

Jekyll: Loves to sing. Almost as much as Hope. Nothing makes me smile more than riding in the car, listening to music and hearing her sing the chorus. Today while listening to "Hey, there Delilah...." she broke out with "Ohhhhhh, dooooo me, Ohhhhh doooo me. (Oh, it's what you do to me, Oh, it's what you do to me). Ab-so-lute-ly priceless.

Hyde: Obsessed with coloring on walls. Sorry if she has got yours.

Jekyll: Loves her blankie. Key to her heart. She will cuddle with you forever as long as she has her blankie.

Hyde: Loves to empty drawers, cupboards, and toy boxes.

Jekyll: Sing the clean-up song and she is ALL over it.

Hyde: Caymbree's moto: "If it's mine....it's mine.

"If it's yours....it's mine.

"If I looked at it, touched it, or am thinking about it...it's mine."

Jekyll: She is learning new words every day. Is there anything better than hearing the new words of a toddler. Love it. Especially when she walks through the house yelling "Hopppeeeeeeeeee???" (I swore we would never let anyone call Hope "Hopeeeee" but it is too cute when Caymbree says it.)

Jekyll: She makes me smile EVERY SINGLE DAY. And what could be better than that?

No "Luck of the Irish" here....

So I thought today was supposed to be LUCKY. No I'm not Irish but you'd think a little bit of LUCK could rub off on me. Not the case.

While bathing Hope and Caymbee this morning Caymbree started throwing a fit and wanted to get out of the tub. I knew I still had to wash Hope's hair so I tried to stall her but she wanted OUT! No big deal other than Caymbree has a habit of pooping on the floor every time we let her run wild without a diaper. She had already had a messy diaper just about a half hour earlier so I figured I was safe. I wrapped her in a towel put her on my bed and then went back to wash Hope's hair. It took me about two and half minutes and I realized Caymbree was gone. I started calling for her and walked towards my door. That's when I saw it. Not only saw it, but smelled it.

I followed the trail of poop to her room where it all began. Apparently, she put on a pair of Hope's shoes, went in her room, pooped on the floor and then decided to have her own little mosh pit on it. After trampling on it she then walked all the way down the hall tracking poop with her. LOVELY!!!

The blank spot in the middle is where a pile of freshly laundered clothes sat. Yep, poop on the clothes as well.
Here's the trail down the hallway after I started scrubbing. There was A LOT of scrubbing.

Hope was traumatized when she saw her shoes...and well, so was I.

The best part is that Caymbree watched me and the entire time kept saying "Ewe. Goss (gross)Goss Mom." Oh, YA THINK?

My next UNLUCKY moment came when I tried to make a mad dash to the grocery store to get eggs for tonight's dinner. I had about 15 minutes before I was supposed to pick up Hope and her friends from school so I was in a big rush.

I went in the grocery store, up one isle, grabbed the eggs, down another isle and straight to the checkout stand. Paid, grabbed my bags and then went for my keys. NO KEYS. I distinctly remembered putting them in my pocket and quickly realized they must have fallen out. I went to Customer Service and asked if any keys had been turned in in the past few minutes and the guy said NO. At this point I knew I was in trouble and had to call a friend to pick up the kids from school.

Now I start thinking about all the cars that have been stolen in the area lately and think I better go out and check on my car. Still there. Search purse. Back to CS. No keys. Re-trace my steps through the store. No keys. Search purse again. Back to Customer Service. I ask if he (the same guy every time) can ask through the "PA" if anyone has found some keys and ask them to bring them to customer service. His reply. "Um....I can't." My irritated response. "You can't?" Then he says, what did you keys look like? I describe them as he walks to a drawer, opens it and pulls out my keys. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? I am so bugged but late to pick up the kids so I leave thinking about how I should really find a manager and tell him about his LESS than helpful associate.

I tried to salvage the day with an ALL GREEN dinner. In the past I have done green fettuccine noodles with green alfredo sauce, green beans and a green salad but this year I tried something a little different. (It's french toast and scrambled eggs just in case you couldn't tell from the picture).

Dressed in green and excited for dinner.

A leprechaun stopped by and left green treats on the girls pillows.

And after a fun dinner with the family, a night outside enjoying the unbelievable weather and now sitting here watching American Idol with the hubby I guess I don't feel so UNLUCKY after all.

P.S - Should I be worried that I had to go look at Hallee's spelling words for the week to know how to spell "leprechaun". It's a bonus word but sheesshhh!

Hope Moments

We've had some great HOPE MOMENTS around here lately. The problem is, without seeing her little attitude, facial expressions and body language it's just not the same. Oh well, I want to document them nonetheless.

SICK AND TIRED OF CLEANING
I've really been on the girls cases lately about keeping their rooms clean. Apparently, Hope is getting the message. I happened to overhear a conversation take place with her little friend Elle.
Elle: "Hope, let's go play in your room."
Hope: "No, I don't think that's a good idea."
E: "Oh, come on Hope. "
H: "Oh, fine. But you better listen. You can get out ONE toy at a time. When you are done playing with it, you have to put it away WHERE it goes. CAUSE I AM SICK AND TIRED OF CLEANING MY ROOM!"
Oh, brother.

SNAPPY PANTS
A few weeks ago Hope went with my dad to run errands. My dad was talking to her as they walked towards the car. Out of nowhere Hope says to my dad, "Get in the car snappy pants!"
WHAT?????

WARM HEART
Yesterday we took the kids to Artic Circle for shakes and to play in the playland. Hope comes off the slide, runs to us and says "When I was standing at the top of the slide a kid said, "you can go first." Hope pauses, rubs her heart and says "that just, (rubbing her heart still) (another pause), that just makes my heart feel so sweet."

A NEW KIND OF TALENT
This is one you have to hear to believe. Hope has developed an amazing (and absolutely annoying) talent. She will be in the middle of a conversation and will just switch to talking jibrish midstream. Not the typical jibrish that is obviously made-up. She keeps talking with complete composure, voice influctuations and facial expressions of a normal conversation. It usually takes me two or three sentences before I realize what she is doing. It is hysterical but maddening at the same time. She loves to hear me say, "What?" and gets a huge kick out of frustrating me.

Growing up

Our little Caymbree is growing up. She is a clone of her big sisters and mimics EVERYTHING they say and do. This morning during breakfast Caymbree copied everything Hope did including having to have her sleeves rolled up after watching Hope roll up hers.

I said to Hope, " Hope, Caymbree just loves you so much she wants to be just like you. She think's you're pretty COOL." Hope's response, "I'm not cool!" Me: "What are you then?" Hope: "I'm just difficult!" Hard to argue with that most days.

Back to Caymbree. She now thinks that she is old enough to go play at friends house just like her sisters and everytime one of them leaves for a play date she grabs her shoes and says "I GO MOM!?" So cute.


Just a cute video of Caymbree and her friend Jovie rocking it out to music. Probably only of interest to the grandparents but cute nonetheless. (pause my playlist first)

Cooking Contest

I'm not quite sure how it happened. One second Hallee and her friend Trinity are talking about having some cooking contest and the next thing we know they have invited (by hand made invitations) half of the neighborhood kids to make a treat and come to a cooking contest at Trinity's house.

It was so cute to see them plan for their party. And plan they did. Hours and HOURS of planning and preparation. They made cooking bingo boards for each guest.

They even made medals for each kid. However, we talked them out of using them. We just weren't sure giving kids "a" "b" "c" "d" medals would be good on the old self esteem :). Instead Tara, Steve and I "the judges" gave out awards like "BEST PRESENTATION", "MOST CREATIVE", "MOST UNIQUE", and so forth.




Other preparations included making all the decorations for the party. I wish I would have taken a close-up picture because they were pretty cute. They drew and colored things like a pizza slice, broccoli, cookies, and root beer.
The kids loved it and I think everyone had a great time. The greatest memory for me is when Hallee came home from one of her planning meetings with Trinity worried that she had cheated. When I asked her how she had cheated she said, "Well, I know that Steve is going to be one of the judges so I asked Trinity what his favorite food is. She said chocolate covered stawberries. Now, if I make that I will automatically win but I think that's kind of cheating." Oh, how I love Hallee.

Do you suppose...

it's time to take down my Valentine decorations??? Okay, okay already. I'm on it.

These are a few of my favorite things....

Last night was our Relief Society birthday party. Our theme was "These are a few of my favorite things". We asked each sister to write one of their favorite things about Relief Society on this board as they came in. We also had each sister bring a wrapped gift under $5.00 that represented one of their favorite things. I gave a gift certificate to SONIC with a list of my favorite drinks from there.

* Diet Coke with fresh limes

* Cherry Limade

* Orange Cream slushie

And I didn't put it on the list but one of my other favorites is a diet dr. pepper with 1/4th regular dr. pepper and FIVE maraschino cherries. Yep. Five. One for Hallee, one for Hope, and three for the drink. Oh how I would love to see the employees roll their eyes when I order this one!
We read a story about Relief Society and passed the gifts left and right when certain words were said.

This is my amazing enrichment committee. They are awesome and always do a great job.

Baby Lila

We headed up to Logan yesterday to see the SECOND of three baby girls to be born to one of my siblings. Sweet baby Lila is BEAUTIFUL!!!! My girls and I could not get enough of her!

It is SO surreal to see MY baby brother with his own baby. The highlight of the trip was when Lila not only peed all over her dad.....

but did the duty as well. Welcome to Fatherhood Rob!!

02/2004

So what's up with the date??? Um, that would be the EXPIRATION date on the sore throat spray Troy has been using all week. Is that a problem???

My sister (aka the expiration date nazi) may just go into heart failure when she reads this. She is the type that throws things out BEFORE the expiration date just to be safe.

Anyhow, I think my house needs to be quarantined. Seriously. It was just a few weeks ago that I had strep throat and felt better for about two and half weeks before coming down with a major cold. You know the one that starts in your head and sinuses, works it's way down to your nose where you can't breath and then breaks up into your chest. Ya, that kind. Just about the time I started to feel like maybe I could function again Troy and the girls (ALL THREE OF THEM) start coming down with it. Hope and Hallee have managed to only get the mellow version, Caymbree worries me, and Troy...well deathbed is a very appropriate word here. He has been down and out for the past FOUR days with no end in sight. Ughhhhhhhh..... I need a vacation.

Okay, enough whining. On to a more positive note. My dad had meetings down here yesterday so my parents were able to spend the day with us and hang out. We went to Paradise Bakery & Cafe for lunch (Oh, so yummy!) and then stopped by our favorite dessert shop. You can NOT come down to this area without stopping by NOTHING BUNDT CAKES and trying one of their cakes. Oh my, oh my they are amazing. Check out the link to see what they really look like. It makes me happy just thinking about them.

Ute Gymnastics

We went with our friends last night to a University of Utah Gymnastics meet. It was fun to watch an amazing team compete and see how much support they get from the community.

Lucas and Hope - two personalities that couldn't be more similar!

Hallee and Anika

The kids were thrilled when SWOOP came right to our seats to give high fives to everyone....

....that is everyone BUT Caymbree. When we first got there we pointed out Swoop clear down on the floor and she was NOT happy about it. She just kept pointing at him and doing a little fake cry sound. Imagine her reaction when he came within a few feet of us! After practically crawling out of her skin with terror she finally calmed down once he walked away. However, she made sure to keep her eyes covered for the next three minutes JUST in case he happened to come back. What a whimp!

Thanks for a fun time Grimes!!! How are we doing so far at our goal to get together more than twice a year? Twice in two months isn't all that bad hey?

Saved by G&G

We are SO NOT a one car family. And yet, we often find ourselves in that particular situation. It all stems from my husbands inability to keep a car for more than about a year. Half the time he puts our cars up for sale, forgets to tell me and the first I hear about it is when someone calls with questions about "the car you have for sale."

Well, this last week he decided to put his car up for sale and within a few days it sold leaving us with only one car. This meant on some days I was loading the girls in the car at 6:30am to take Troy to work and/or loading them back in the car at 9:30pm to go pick him up. On days he had auction I would be left without a car all together. I'm not whining (ok, maybe a little) but I was a little worried about how long we would be able to pull it off. That's where Grandpa Tom and Grandma Diane stepped. They where gracious enough to loan us one of their cars for a while until Troy finds another one. I AM SO GRATEFUL!!!! It has made life so much easier on ALL OF US!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Grandpa sporting Hope's Hanna Montana wig

They also came bearing gifts for the girls. As if loaning us their car wasn't enough! The girls love their Disney characters and sleep with them every night.

TROUBLE

EXHIBIT 1

EXHIBIT 2

Caymbree has now figured out how to undress herself. So yes, we spend a lot of time RE-dressing her.

EXHIBIT 3

The stool. This small little object has become Caymbree's personal assistant in getting into trouble.

Sisters

And this is when having a sister makes it all worthwhile....

Delightful chaos

This past weekend I took the girls to Logan for my sister- in- laws baby shower and to meet my sisters newest addition...Baby Becca. This meant six kids under the age of seven staying at my parents house. Who knew chaos could be so much fun! :) My sister has a boy the same age of Caymbree who kept us in stitches and awe as he proved just how much he could get into, take apart, and destroy within a short period of time. Within a few hours of being there we had to go buy child door locks for every door in the house. And yet, he still managed to get into everything. All we could do is laugh. Case and point....
We left the kids with a babysitter for a few hours and came home to find that Bridger had found a tube of red lipstick that he applied all over his face and the carpet in my parents bathroom. Thank goodness for GOOGLE!!!! I typed in "How do you get red lipstick out of carpet?" and it came up with rubbing a bar of IVORY soap and warm water all over the stain. And surprisingly, IT WORKS!!!! Good to know...good to know.

My kids were absolutely smitten with baby Becca and constantly wanted to hold her. Hope even more so. She would do just about anything to get to hold her and would just sit and rub her head while saying "Oh, she's soooooo sweet."

The girls got lots of dress up time with their extended cousins and felt it appropriate to do a fashion show in the middle of the baby shower. Sorry Rachel :)


Hope and Adi were constantly in grandma's play make-up and Hope would come up with quite the masterpieces. After taking the picture below I finally said, "Hope, make-up is suppose to make you look pretty not like a monster!" Whoops!!! Way to go mom. I crushed her soul and as the tears started to swell she said, "I was trying to make it look pretty." Ya, I had some making up to do. (And no, this picture is not Hallee. It is Hope. Scary isn't it?)

Bridger and Caymbree were so cute to watch together. He is ALL boy and constantly wanted to wrestle, chest bump, and tease and Caymbree is pretty much all girl. However, they squealed with delight everytime they saw each other and started giving kisses on demand to one another.

It was such a fun weekend, I just hope my parents and their house survived. The crazy part is that we only had 8 grandchildren 2 boys, 6 girls. With the birth of Becca a month ago, Rob and Rachel's baby girl due in a few weeks and Kory and Kristie's baby girl due the end of May we will be at 11 grandchildren 2 boys and 9 girls. YES, NINE GIRLS!!!!! We haven't even BEGUN to know the meaning of chaos. At one point of heightened craziness I looked at Rob and Rachel who had glazed over eyes and said, "just think, you will be contributing to all of this in just a few short weeks." I think I may have scared the tar out of them. All Rachel could say is, "I didn't think it could get any more crazy than this." Gotta love it.