How time flies!

My friend, MaryAnne posted a blog with pictures of her girls when they were babies. It made me want to do the same....

Ouch!

Well... apparently, Serayah has delusions of having superpowers. I'm not exactly sure what she was thinking, but she decided it would be a good idea to leap over a stack of pillows by jumping off the arm of the couch. I was not in the room at the time (bad mommy), but I heard the thud and subsequent wailing. Honestly, Serayah's pretty tough, so when she starts crying like that I knew something was horribly wrong. I ran into see what happened, and she was sobbing... holding her beloved Princess Glasses (which were broken clean in two at the bridge). I was afraid that she had gotten seriously hurt. Nope... although I know that rug-burn/thunk had to hurt, the real problem was the broken glasses. After I had assured her that I wasn't mad that her glasses were broken, and that we'd be able to replace them (thank you for the automatic 2 year warranties that come with kids glasses at our opthamologist's office), the tears stopped, and she wanted to try again. Obviously, I put a big 'ol kibosh on that (we'd just discussed jumping on the couch the night before), so she was bummed. Other than that, all was well with the world. She told me "I'm not gonna smile, 'cause I want grandpa to think I'm sad 'cause I broke my glasses". Okey dokey. Here's here non-smiling picture, which I took the next day.

Here she comes... Serayah the Diva!

Well, yesterday I cut Cam's hair. It was, once again, a traumatic experience. He just sat shaking all over, then had to be put in the shower when it was all over. He hates the shower. He screamed and shook the entire time. I have no idea what that's all about, but whatever.

Anyway, I cut it really short and wanted to take a picture. I brought out the camera, then out of nowhere, Serayah comes running over and wants in the action. I started to take their pictures by the front door in front of a blank wall, but Serayah wanted to sit on the stairs. Usually, I get a loud "CHEEEEEEEEESE!" from both of them, but last night Serayah was in fine form. I asked her to put her head down just a bit (to try and avoid flash-glare on her glasses), and she started posing like a contestant on America's Next Top Model. It was hysterical... She would give me serious looks, look at me from over her shoulder, give me 1/2 smiles, lay down on the stairs... you name it. It was like a mini photo session! We had so much fun...

I won't bombard you with many of the pictures from our "shoot", but here are a few I liked a lot, as well as a shot of Cam's new haircut and a shot of them together as well.... Enjoy!

Sleep with one (or two) eyes open... with your dinosaur, of course

A couple things about this post...

When you first start dating someone, all is bliss. You're so head-over-heels, that every little thing that they do is charming. You don't notice (or care) that they feel the need to get a new glass with every one of their 9 glasses of milk a day. You think the fact that they can't sit still while on the phone (if they actually answer it) and must do speed circuits around the house while talking is cute.

Then later... when the hearts fade a bit out of your eyes... things start to bug you a bit. Then they drive you nuts. Then you get married. Then 13 years go by. OK... by the time you're married for a while, the things either still drive you nuts (my grandparents were married for 50+ years and my grandpa's pseudo-whistling in the car would still produce teeth-grinding, lip-pursing stares out of the window by grandma. I'm pretty sure he knew, but he just kept on whistlin'... I swear that occasionally I'd see him slip her a glance, then grin... but he might have just been happy to see her there... might have). Anyway, you either let the quirks bug you, or you get over it.

One of the things that Art did at the beginning was fall asleep with his eyes open. The first few times he did it, it really creeped me out. Now, I don't even notice... and actually, he doesn't really do it anymore anyway. Anyway, he still has some quirks that get to me (see pacing/milk-cups at top of page), but others I've gotten over (the inability to swallow fluids without getting a big mouthful then taking 4 rather loud gulps to get it all down... no one else ever seems to notice it, but it took me a good 7 or 8 years to get past that one).

Well, I guess some quirks are passed down. Both of our kids must pace circuits while on the phone, and Cam sleeps with his eyes open. Whatever.

Cam must also have "Tromp the Dinosaur" to get to sleep. Tromp doesn't have to go anywhere with us (unless its an overnight trip), and can stay home and guard his bed, but when bedtime comes, Tromp is clamped into his arm, and Tromp's poor little head or tail goes in Cam's mouth. Fortunately, Tromp is machine washable (thank you, Ty corporation). We have 3 Tromps in rotation to facilitate washing. I know that Tromp is looking kinda gross, but after 2 years, that's pretty much what they look like right out of the dryer.

Here are a couple of pictures I took of Cam yesterday afternoon while he was napping on the couch.

Random pictures

Well, I don't have anything really interesting to post. It's been really cold here lately, and the other day we woke up to a serious frost. Here's a picture of a tree in our neighborhood. Also, a couple pictures of the kids. The one of them together was taken while they were curled up together on the couch watching WALL-E. Enjoy!

Snow fun

Well, we've still got the snow that came before Christmas... It doesn't get above freezing much here. We got another 1/2 inch or so last night, but nothing to get excited about.

The kids were getting a bit house-bound, so this afternoon we bundled them up and let them run around in the yard. Here are some pictures from their adventures. Oh, and the one of Cam licking the snow cracked me up! The picture below was after he realized that his face was getting really cold from the face plants. That kid really does make me laugh.

Mom... why are there socks in the fishtank?

This was hollered down the stairs by Serayah earlier this evening.

"What?!?!" I yell.
"Why are there socks in the fish tank?" pipes Serayah
"Socks...like you wear on your feet?!!?" (I'm clearly not getting this)
"Yeah"

Huh. I run upstairs to her room, and sure enough, there are two single socks... one beige, and one hot pink one (which float rather nicely about mid depth), one pair of red and white socks folded up from Cam's sock drawer (which sink), 2 of my ponytail holders (which sink), about 15 of Serayah's itty-bitty ponytail holders (which float), and a blue car (that I found later behind the fake frog on the bottom).

She's got 4 fish in there, 2 bigger white fish, and 2 smaller red fish. One of the red fish is pretty dumb and tends to swim into the side of the tank on a regular basis... I'm pretty sure it was the one trying to eat the beige sock. On a positive note, fabric softener doesn't appear to be overly toxic to fish. I'll let you know if there are any fish fatalities in the next few days.

"DANG IT!" I yelled (I was seriously proud of my verbal restraint)...to which Serayah started running around with her hands on her hips saying "Dang it! Dang it! Dang it!..."

"What on earth happened???"

One word... say it with me... "Camden"

Christmas Eve

Well, as is our tradition, we opened our gifts from family and friends tonight after we went out for some Chinese food (don't knock tradition!) and looked at Christmas lights.

After eating, we were setting out on our Christmas light adventure, and lo and behold, a low-flying red light glowed in the sky and flew right over us, and away! We pointed this out to Serayah, who was thrilled to have the chance to see Rudolf in person. We kept our eyes and ears open, but I guess Santa had made an early stop, because there were no more Reindeer or Sleigh sightings over Northern Utah.

After we got home, we opened our gifts, and Serayah and Cam both got new jammies, among other things. Their favorite things seemed to be a new WALL•E table and chairs, as well as a plastic food and pot/pan set. Who knew? Cam especially was thrilled with the play food, and proceeded to gather up all the food and plunk it down on the table and have at it. We had to tear him away to get him to finish opening up his gifts! Here are a couple of pictures of the kids in their new PJ's playing.







Now, I've explained to Serayah that Santa only comes when you're sleeping (because children's dreams are the key to his magic), so she knew that she would have to go to sleep for the big-guy to make his appearance. After everything was opened, she looked at us and asked about bed time. I reminded her that she'd have to go to sleep for Santa to come, so she took one look at me and proceeded to book up the stairs. We had to call her back to get kisses and hugs! (If only Santa came every night, and bedtime could be this easy). I read a couple of books to her and turned out her light and a little voice called out "Mommy... am I dreaming yet?" The excitement did keep her up for a bit, but it didn't take long before she drifted off.


Well, I'd better go, so I can get to my dreams too... Maybe Santa will leave something for me as well.


Merry Christmas to all... and to all a good night.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

Well, the snow gods have decided to finally hit Utah. It's been pretty dry up until now... we've had a little bit of snow here and there, but today we're getting hit by a doozy. Art doesn't have to work today (& he's SOOOO happy!), and went to go to the store, then hollered at me to come and take a look at the trooper. I knew that it had been snowing, but I hadn't really looked to see how much we'd accumulated. Wow! We've got between 10-12" in the yard, and it looks like it could continue through the day. We all got dressed in our snow clothes, and had at it. I'm not sure who had more fun, the kids or their daddy. Thanks to Grandpa for taking most of the pictures for us.

Cookie Mania!

Well, the other day, our wonderful friends Ellie and Tanner came over to decorate cookies with Serayah... They even brought their mommy, MaryAnne. We had a terrific time, and fun (and loads of frosting) was had by all. Here are a few pictures of the day.

Here's Tanner enjoying herself
Serayah with a prize-winning cookie


After the cookies were all decorated to everyone's satisfaction, the Cookie Fairies appeared!

Well, today was the annual "Here comes Santa on the fire truck" day here in Eagle Mountain. It's actually really neat... the firetruck hits every street and Santa throws out bags of candy to all of the children gathered on the sidewalks in front of their houses. You know that Santa is close, 'cause the firetruck has the siren chirping the whole way.

Serayah doesn't like loud noises so headed back inside (and looked through the window) while Santa came by, but Cam was thrilled about the whole experience.

I thought you might like to see the pictures...

Christmas Dance Recital

Well, I finally got the pictures of Serayah's dance recital downloaded. Her class performed to "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas". It rocked! They all did such a terrific job, and (no surprise) Serayah was front and center for the entire thing... No one was going to upstage her! There's not really a shy bone in her body. As soon as I got home, she was asking if she could go back on stage the next day. These pictures are from rehearsal (I figured things would be too chaotic to snap pictures during the concert). Enjoy!

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Out of the mouth of babes....

Well, as we all know, there are differences between boys and girls. This has a tendency to lead to gender stereotyping. Girls like flowers, dolls and princesses. Boys like bugs, slime and farts (we call them "toots" at our house). I thought we'd avoided all of this around here... sure, Serayah loves all the girly things, but bugs and slime work with her too. Cam loves make-up and tutus, as well as trains and other many pursuits. Well, both of them came up with new phrases the other day.

Serayah's new word:
Serayah saw a Santa/Christmas light display and said "Look!!! It's Cute-iful". This is one of her new favorite words... Personally, I have to admit... it's a pretty good word... and very ladylike.

Cam's new phrase:
The other day, Cam let out a huge burp. He looked and us... started cracking up, and said "I toot in my mowf!". He thought it was hysterical, and now "mouth toots" happen on a regular basis. Sigh.