5.31.2014

six on saturday

(one)  Monday was Jilly's last day of gymnastics.  It was so fun and so good for Jilly, we will miss her coach Miss Rachel very much!


(two)  The girls have been way into books lately.  Jilly has a few books that she has memorized and will "read" to us, and Mattie will open up a book and start jabbering to herself.  Makes me so, so happy.



(three) Did you know that you can listen to audiobooks on youtube?  This week I had some housework to do and didn't have a book to listen to so I found The Giver on youtube which made my chores a million times more fun.

(four) A couple weeks ago we celebrated Mattie's birthday one more time at Farrell's.  Mattie was feeling a little better and was all about getting her own ice cream sundae.  


(five) Thanks to a combination of the heat, lots of time playing outside and swimming, and 5:30 wakeup nearly every day since it is so stinkin' light already the girls have been extreme nappers lately.  Mattie will take two 2+ hour naps a day and Jilly has even been napping almost every day.  There are few things more lovely than a quiet peaceful summer afternoon.

(six) Today we took the girls to the Disney Store and they thought they had died and gone to heaven.  Mattie hugged every single stuffed animal in the store (and there are a lot), Jilly drooled over all the sparkly princess dresses, and then they noticed "Let it Go" playing on the big screen.  Jilly belted it out for the whole store.  I didn't get my phone out til the last seconds, but you get to see the best part here:


5.29.2014

Seeing Double

L- Jilly, September 2011  R- Mattie, May 2014

5.26.2014

Mattie turns One

We've had a lot going on lately so I've been stressed and less than patient with the girls.  I planned for Mattie's birthday to be a low-key family day.  When Mattie woke up with a cold our plan sounded even better.  It turned out to be a perfect, relaxing day.

Birthday pancakes

 What are sisters for if not to help blow out candles?


I really kind of let Mattie do whatever she wanted that day.  Take all the ziploc bags out of the box and spread them throughout the house?  Sure.  (I paid for this later, but that smile was worth it)

After her nap we went to Toy Time at the library.  Mattie loves this car so much and luckily there was hardly anyone else there so she got to play with it the whole time.

We picked up McDonalds to have a picnic with Bryan at the temple (Jilly's location choice)

It was a terribly hot day, but we walked around for a bit til we started to melt.

While Mattie slept Jilly and I made a little cake for her in a mug and also some cupcakes.  We had our friends the Clements over for hot dogs and cupcakes by the pool.  Mattie wasn't her usual perky self, but she still enjoyed her cake once I cut it up for her (she wasn't into the digging in.)



It was a fun day celebrating our sweet girl.

5.25.2014

To The Sea

Our family was made for the beach
On Saturday we spent the day in Santa Cruz
The girls were in heaven-
building sand castles, digging, and rolling (yes literally rolling) in the sand

Jillian wore her first swimsuit without any kind of skirt or ruffle
And her hair in a ponytail/bun
And suddenly she was all grown up
Mattie was messier and happier than I'd ever seen her
Bryan stayed in the water for three hours straight
And I snuck in a nap and some quality book time

After playing and relaxing and snacking all day 
We stopped at Pizza My Heart on the way home-
a perfect ending to our perfect beach day

q











5.19.2014

three and a half


Jilly turned 3 1/2 last week.  Sometimes she seems so grown up, but then other times she's still a crazy little girl.  She loves to dance and do tricks for us.  And, she loves to sing- she'll belt lyrics to princess songs and primary songs any chance she gets, especially when we're out shopping.  Her favorites are "I will go, I will do the things the Lord commands," "I am a Child of God," and "I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream."

Another favorite activity is to discuss her Halloween costume.  She always starts with the princesses then gets silly, "Maybe I will be a table... or a tomato!"  One night right before saying prayers she said, "Maybe I will be Jesus!"  She has 5 long months to decide and I'm 99.9% sure she'll end up being Elsa just like every other little girl in the universe.

Jilly begs alllllll day long to watch movies.  We both pretty much have Frozen memorized, and she loves all princess and Barbie movies.  She spends the whole week talking about what movie we'll find at the library on our weekly visit.  (It hurts my heart a bit that she's more excited about the movies than the books, but what can you do.)

Jilly loves chicken nuggets, pb&j sandwiches (cut into a heart shape), "granolar bars," strawberries, broccoli, chocolate milk, and rice.

She has started asserting her independence.  She loves to go through a different door or take a different path when we're walking somewhere.

She's already turning into me.  All the time I'll catch her saying the exact same thing I would say, and even in the same tone.  When Clark was upset about going home one day she said "I am so sorry you're sad Clark but we will just have to play another day" in her very best mom voice.  She's quite the bossy big sister (she learned from the best!)

Jilly is turning into such a great little friend for me.  I love that we can have real conversations and do fun things together.  She can drive me batty, but she is also sweet and funny and helpful and cheerful.  

5.15.2014

Happy Birthday Mattie Claire!


And, just like that, she's one.  

Twelve things about our twelve month old:
1. In one month she went from tentative steps to speed walking.  She has great balance and walks everywhere.
2. Unfortunately this means she tried to walk down the stairs and tumbled so is celebrating her birthday with a scraped nose and bruised forehead.
3. She has finally chosen a special blankie, and it is nearly identical to Jilly's (we have dozens of beautiful hand-made blankets and they both chose fuzzy store-bought ones.)


4. She loves peaches, applesauce (but only in a pouch), smoothies, yogurt, cheese, goldfish, and all desserts.
5. This week her first molar showed up and it's been awesome... not.
6.  She sleeps through the night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (except for when Mr. Molar causes trouble)


7. She is super chatty.  We have incomprehensible conversations all day long.
8.  I love her dark hair.  People tell me all the time that she looks like me which is funny because my hair was light like Jilly's when I was little.
9. She loves to dance and will often dance on command whether there is music playing or not.


10. She's a mama's girl through and through and even though it's occasionally inconvenient I secretly love it.
11. She looooves dogs.  She'll say "dada," wave, and run over whenever she sees a smelly furball (I don't share her sentiment.)
12. That smile?  Takes up her whole face and it's the best thing in the world.

Happy Birthday sweet girl, we love you!

Thanks to Lisa for taking these pictures when we visited last week!

Stroll down Memory Lane-

5.11.2014

Mother's Day

I always always knew I wanted to be a mom.  Playdates, library visits, snuggles, books, cute kids, no need to get dressed, sign me up!  I had no clue how physically/mentally/emotionally exhausting this gig would be.  But, I also never realized how deeply I would love these darling little troublemakers of mine.  There are times (many times) when I feel like I may just explode from happiness because they're mine!  Forever!  I truly couldn't be any luckier.


Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mom and mother-in-law, and to all the women who have helped to "mother" me (there are a lot of you- both young and old!)

5.09.2014

five on friday

1. On Saturday Bryan had a meeting so I put on my brave (crazy) pants and took the girls to Princess Night at Chick-fil-A.  It was packed and lines were super long, but we did alright.  We met Aurora, Belle, Elsa, and Cinderella, ate chicken nuggets, Jilly bounced in the bounce house, and she got a balloon "Aurora wand"- whatever that is.  I was happy to escape to peace and quiet at home with my little princesses.


2. We celebrated Cinco de Mayo in the very best way- eating ourselves silly.  We had taco chicken, Santa Fe lime rice, Mexican sweet corn cake, and black beans (my first time really enjoying beans- monumental.)

3. We also went to San Jose to see Lisa and boys this week.  I've said it 800 billion times, but Lisa really is the besty best friend a girl could ever ask for.  We had a great time chatting and the kids had so much fun playing together.  


4.  A couple weeks ago I made Jilly a Job Chart to hopefully help her be more responsible and helpful.  She gets stickers for putting her plate in the sink, putting toys away, putting her clothes in her laundry basket, etc.  I told her when she got enough stickers she could have some money and go to the dollar store and pick whatever she wanted.  At some point when I wasn't paying enough attention she asked if she could get an Elsa dress at the dollar store and I unfortunately said yes.  So, now her little dollar store reward has turned into an Elsa dress (that will not be found at the dollar store.)  But she is so, so excited- she tells everyone (gymnastics coach, Blake, my family on Skype, complete strangers) about earning her Elsa dress.  And, she really has been helpful.  Plus, I made the chart pretty big so hopefully we can draw this out for a couple months.  It's kind of scary that she's already figuring out how to get what she wants- too smart!

(one of her favorite activities- counting her stickers)

5. Next week is Mother's Day, Jilly's half birthday, and Mattie's full birthday.  Consider yourself warned as I plan to turn this blog into a full-on gush sesh.  

Happy Mother's Day to all!

5.07.2014

Friday Night

I'm not certain what we used to do on Friday nights- go to movies, go out to eat, hang out with friends?  But our Friday nights look a lot like this these days, and to me they're pretty much perfect.

We cashed in on some Coldstone giftcards we got for Easter and a love of ice cream is definitely something these girls inherited from their parents.  This picture really doesn't do justice- Mattie was covered from head to toe in chocolate by the end.


After ice cream we split up- Jilly and I went to Bath & Body Works and Bryan took Mattie to Best Buy.  Jilly and I walked around trying different lotions and deciding what we liked.  She kept repeating "Mommy, shopping is really fun!"  I'm glad because we've got lots of shopping years ahead of us.  When we were done we met up with Bryan at "Daddy's favorite store."  The girls ran around screaming and chasing each other then played a little Wii before we went home and tossed them in jammies and in their beds so we could watch a movie.  A Friday Success.

5.02.2014

five on friday

While You Were Sleeping- Jilly has had terrible allergies lately, which has made her super tired.  The girl who previously had completely given up naps took four 2+ hour naps this week.  One day she fell asleep right in the middle of eating a snack (see the cracker on the pillow that didn't quite make it to her mouth?)  And another day this is how she fell asleep in the car.  Naps are welcome around here any ol' time.

 

Picnicking- Jilly begs to eat dinner "outside by the flowers" every single night.  And we often do just that.  Usually we bring the high chair out for Mattie (buying a high chair with wheels was the best accident I've ever made) but on Sunday I was feeling adventurous so I let her sit on the blanket with the rest of us.  She wandered around picking food off of everyone's plates and by the end of the meal was cooooovered in sticky sweet mess and was happier than she's ever been.


Sleep, glorious sleep- Mattie girl has slept through the night the past two nights.  She did it once when she was about 3 months old but hasn't repeated til this week.  Yes, she's almost a year old, but Jilly didn't sleep through the night til . . .never so Mattie is shattering my low low low sleep expectations.  (For the record- each night I was up with Jilly who requested a tissue/drink/backrub/etc. before going back to sleep.  It's a darn good thing I don't play favorites.)


Books- I had a rough reading week.  I started listening to Monuments Men, but realized that I had accidentally picked up an abridged version and it was just too jumpy for me.  I think I'd really like the book so I'll look for the real deal sometime soon.  Next I started listening to Fangirl.  Ummm, not for me.  Luckily I had just gotten an email saying Unbroken was on hold for me at the library so I am loving re-reading (listening) to that wonderful book.  Also, a friend dropped off The Blue Castle which has been a very fun read so far.  Crisis averted.

In Summmer- It may be May but we are in full summer mode.  Bike-riding, popsicles, watermelon, rompers, swimming, flip-flops, and open windows at night.  Ahhh, it feels good.

Happy Weekend!