Eye exam

I decided it was probably time to go get my eyes checked, I thought it had been 2 years so now would be a good time to go in. Let it turns out that it had been 4 years, yikes, but no need to worry. They did the whole "better one or two, one or two...three or four, three or four and that seemed to go really well. They they put those numbing drops in my eyes along with those that dilate your eyes. Wow that was fun, especially as it got harder and harder to see up close. Needless to say my vision hasn't changed that much, but I still did get updated lenses. I worked at home that day and had to use sunglasses in our office because the glare from the computer hurt my eyes.

Here is a picture I took of myself after I got home. I couldn't even see what it looked like for several hours, but it was one of those must have shoots

Cookie fun

Tonight for Family Home evening the girls and I made sugar cookies for my visiting teachies and some for us. The girls helped make the cookies, pressed the shapes and of course wanted to decorate once they were done. Don't mind the naked child, I forgot that I had told her she could be naked before wanting to snap this picture.

Tori really enjoyed her cookie. She sucked that frosting off so fast, you can't really see here but she had a lot it on her face.

The passing of Gordon B. Hinkley

It with sadness that I add that Gordon B. Hinkley the 15th Prophet passed away today . He was a very great man with much influence through out the world. He served though out his life always giving to others. I am sure he is a happy man now to be reunited with his wife who passed away a couple of years ago. He was 97 and just as sharp as when he was 50. Here is a nice article on him from LDS living that highlights some of his many accomplishments.
He will be missed.

My little helpers

Abby and Tori helped me clean up tonight after dinner. Tori swept and Abby vacuumed. I have to say that they did a great job. I put this in here as record that she did ask to help and enjoyed it too, see the smile on her face? Earlier we did a cleaning of the house and I had to tell Abby that if she didn't listen to her Father that I wouldn't let her help me clean the bathrooms. Now for most children, they would say fine, but Abby actually likes to clean the bathrooms, so she listed right away.Oh if only that would continue for many years to come. Don't mind the outfit, Tori's pot belly was showing here, oops.

Our big girl

First let me say these are not the most beautiful pictures of my children, there is more to this then meets the eye...read on.

Tori wants to do everything her sister does and this can be problematic sometimes. Today for breakfast I was feeling brave and decided that I would let Tori sit with Abby at their table in the kitchen. I was very proud of how well she did.

Because Abby is a mommy now she has to take her baby with her almost everywhere. This morning she decided that the baby should eat with us. I was able to talk her out of the real food and into some play food. It is hard for a 3 year old to understand why they can't eat what she is eating and I was happy she let me choose the meal for her baby.

The Binkie Fairy??

Well I was talking to Stacie today from work about Abby's appointment and how we need to get rid of the Binky's before we cause 4-5 thousand dollars of damage and she introduced me to the Binky Fairy. She said it worked for her girls. For several nights you talk about the Binky Fairy and how she trades you all your Binky's for a lot of cool presents. She said they wished every night for a while for her to come and in the morning the girls would check and see if their Binky's were still there, which they were.
Then one night she did come while they were sleeping and brought them all kinds of toys and best of all it was sprinkled in Fairy dust (glitter).
The girls ate it up. Needless to say when I mentioned all of this to Abby she said she would rather have her Binky than all the toys. Well I guess we will work on that some more.

Check up Dr.

Abby's 3 year appointment was today. She did really good and didn't need shots (whew) and got 2 stickers for being such a big girl. She was about 28 pounds (25% tile) and 34 inches (40% tile). She passed all of the tests from the worksheet that they give you. I am sure it had nothing to do with the fact that we started last October and worked on any of the items she had difficulty with.
The Dr. had her walk backwards, stand on one foot and a couple of other "tricks" to show him how well she could do things.
He also said that she needed to lose the binkie and she needs to stay in her own bed all night. Well we will work on those, but I have no hard and fast promises.

Dear little puppy

Abby has been very into her animals latley. This is one of her puppies she received for Christmas from her cousin, and she is showing me just have cute she wrapped it up in the blanket (some of us would call it a dish towel). By the way that is Tori's schawl that she is wearing yes sadly enough they can almost fit the same clothes.

Oh yummy treat!!

Tori decided that if we kept moving her away from the cat food, there must be something really appealing about it. So today when we had our backs turned she decided to dig in and try some for herself.
Needless to say she would have kept eating if we hadn't stopped her when we did. I don't know why dog and cat food is so inviting for children, it doesn't smell good, look good and I am sure it doesn't taste good.

We have been watching Janae's cat this week for her while she is out of town, I am posting this picture to show her (and Tom) that the Mario does come out once in a while.

The girls both have been good little sitters, checking in on him often (don't worry he wasn't in there when Abby poked her head in). They have been gentle petting him and talking softly to him.

It has been fun having him here.

Happy Birthday Abby

So after finally dragging myself to bed last night at about 11:30, I set the alarm for 6:30 this morning to try to get up and get everything done for Abby's party. I first had to take down all the Christmas decorations, as I decided our house would be full enough today without all of those items and then began the task of putting everything together for the big day. When Abby and Tori got up I had Chris feed them breakfast so I could keep moving along. I finished Abby's cake (a zoo theme) which I think turned out great, here are a couple of photo's.

Then on to the other things like cleaning, putting together gift bags, and all the last minute things that need to happen. At 11 people began to arrive. We started with pizza, here are some pictures of some of the kids.

Here are Maren, Aspen, Abby, Kaylanie and Spencer.More party goers Josh, Ula, Jordan, Sky, Nick, Tama and JalenTori, Emma and Trish's back. Tori sure looks happy... Then we made cups that the kids could color and take home.Spencer and Josh both working on their cups.Jadon working on his cup.Abby was very into the presents and doesn't she look cute in her princess chair and her snow boots?Here is her strawberry pony, that she has loves to comb it's hair. Tori and Miss. Trish watching the action.

Abby with a Dora book one of her current favorites!

Abby also got a little doll that looks just like her and some changes of clothes, a baby with a playpen, stroller and highchair, and lots of other fun toys that she is already enjoying.

Abby was excited that everyone sang happy birthday to her and blew out those candles (with a little help.

So at the end of the party we had 15 kids, 2 teenagers, 4 parents and a whole slew of fun. I think all the kids and Abby had a lot of fun. I did determine that next time 1 1/2 hours is plenty of time for a birthday party and 2 hours was just too much time.

After all the kids left, my parents showed up and spent some time playing with the girls. Then it was naps for the kids and after they got up we took Abby for a birthday dinner. She thought it was really cool when they came out to sing to her. She didn't eat much, because there was so much going on so she ended up eating that on the way to Build A Bear where she choose (yes all on her own) her very own Shrek with the money from Grandpa Dennis for her birthday. Here she is giving her Shrek an air bath.Then she got him dressed and here she is with him all made up and ready to go. On the way home she kept telling him to be quite and when we got home, he had to sleep in the car because he was grumpy and already asleep so we just put a blanket on him and left him there until the morning. All said it was a great birthday for Abby and it was hard to get her to sleep (she didn't go down until after 10!

Misc

Wow, good thing I didn't make blogging every day a new years resolution, or I would have blown it already...well it has been crazy busy around here for the last couple of weeks, so I haven't even posted anything. Abby's 3rd birthday is tomorrow and I really should be working on a cake or cleaning the house or something else, but the guilt was just too much, so I thought I had better sit down for at least a minute and catch up. This is her first birthday party with friends so wish me luck, I will post pictures and more tomorrow about that.
This has been a long week, first because I haven't worked 5 days in about 3 weeks with all the holidays and I think I am just tired to have worked so much.
Secondly because I just need more hours in each day, I am behind on everything and just can't seem to catch up. For example I had high hopes of getting our Christmas letter out in early December, pictures scheduled and then Chris comes down with pink eye so I had to move them. Well we go for pictures last Saturday and they have taken down the "Christmas decor" and the photographer sucked, yes he was that bad, not to mention that Abby wanted nothing to do with pictures anyway so it was a lost cause. So here I am with no photo's and no Christmas letter and it is almost halfway through January. Well I have the letter done and I am going to just use the only photo we walked away with and call it good for this year.
Thirdly, I found out that it looks like my employment will end in June of this year. For those that aren't up to date, our company was sold last year and after looking at the options I decided that I didn't want to go work for the new company and wanted and needed to take a different job. A choice that I feel very good about. Well back to the second item, my current boss told me this week that come March 15th my position will no longer exist so I could either leave or find other work within the company. I opted to spend a couple more months with the company and do something different to get some good experience. So I stated having those conversations this week and hope to know something with in the next couple of weeks.
This is all kinda weird talking about your departure so openly and yet feeling a little slighted because my boss seems so anxious to move me out. In the end I have faith that it will all be for the best, just getting there is a little harder than I thought it was going to be.
Well now that I got all that out I think I best get back to getting stuff ready for the party.

Happy New Years

Well I think this was our best new years fondue party yet. We had enough food, but not lots of left over. We had good fondue and a couple of great choices, my favorite the Gorgonzola and a Cheddar cheese for the not so adventurous. Of course finished up with some yummy chocolate and white chocolate fondue with yummy things to dip like fruits and cream puffs.

Rachel and Abby ran around all night in their princess nightgowns and Grant and Tori went to bed. The adults all played several rounds of a very fun game called Apples to Apples. At midnight we toasted in the new year and then packed up kids and sent everyone home.

We got to bed about 1:30 and Abby was a trooper and stayed up all night with us. This morning we got up about 8:30 and headed over to the church for the new years breakfast. Yummy and then back home for some naps and relaxing. We had lunch about 3:30 and then shortly after that got ready for dinner (for the kids) and then bed.

It was a lot of fun with the kids and family. I am looking forward to 2008