The Turkey Trot and Thanksgiving

So I decided to run the Mesa Turkey trot this year, it is at 10k, 6.2 miles; so I would actually have a goal and make myself go jogging. I went out running several times a week training for this. So, the crazy thing is Kent randomly decided to do run it with me, and push the girls in the stroller along with too, and he hadn't even been training at all! Ok, if I hadn't been training and I had to push the girls in that heavy stroller for 6.2 miles, I would have fallen over dead after 1/2 a mile; there is no way. I thought maybe I can beat Kent; yeah, that would be so awesome to beat Kent in a race! But, then I came to, and remembered that Kent isn't normal, he has some sort of running super powers or something.
It was a good dream though. :)

We were all happy to accomplish our goals. I finished in 58:50, Yes I made it under an hour! Kent and the girls were especially excited to have beaten the Turkey with a time of 47:05. There really was a person running  dressed up as a turkey.

Following the Turkey Trot, we hurried home to make our part of the Thanksgiving feast and give the girls a short nap. After all the hard running, the girls were exhausted and fell asleep in the car on the way home. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time for naps for Mom and Dad.

We then hustled off to my grandparents home a great family gathering. The food was great! Though Anna wouldn't know because she refused to eat the amazing food, instead she only wanted to eat dinner rolls and tangerines. So sad, but what can you do.

Overall, it was a great Thanksgiving Day. We have a lot to be thankful for. (Like oranges turkeys that are pretending to be pilgrim so they won't be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner.)

The Crazies and the Fun

Now that the girls are no longer babies, they have started palling around a lot more and the synergy between them is taking off. Just recently they have started to encourage, cajole, snicker, and rial each other up. Sometimes it gets a little crazy for example:

Today a little while after putting them down for naps I started hearing laughing, talking and pitter- patters in the girls room. I went in to see what was going on and I found Anna in Elise's crib with dolls and stuffed animals piled around her, and Elise carrying the dolls to Anna. What! How did Elise get out of her crib and how did Anna get in it? They have never before left their beds, once put down.  

Yesterday, I heard them playing nicely in the bedroom and when I went to check on them, there was water covering their bedroom floor and coming into the hall, and they were dancing in it, with their empty sippy cups in their hands.

And later in the afternoon I found them sitting on the bathroom floor, surrounded by pads, unwrapping my sanitary supplies as if they were opening presents on Christmas morning.

They keep us on our toes.

On the other hand they girls can be quite helpful. For example I hate bugs and when Kent is not here and I  find one in our house and I kill it, Anna will get a napkin and pick it up for me and put it in the trash. Thank you so much Anna. She also puts clean trash bags in all the trashes by herself once we take the trash out; very helpful. When I don't know what to make for dinner she will sing the, "What should we make for din din?" song with me. She always asks daddy for a dance when their is dancing music going. When we are tired she will sing us a song. She always lets me know when there is a stop sign and makes sure I stop all the way even when we are out on a jog. When I went to the lab to get my blood drawn and they poked me with that ginormous needle she was there to say, "oh, poor mama!" I really appreciated the sympathy, as the lab tech had none.

Elise is quite helpful too. She will bust out biggest smile whenever the day is rough. Oh and she is a cuddle bug and loves to snuggle and makes me feel loved. She runs with her arms behind her and makes me think of a little bird. She will make me laugh with her little sense of humor. She even helps us load the dryer and unload the dishwasher. And she will point out all the planes that fly by in case we did not notice them.  

These are our girls, crazy and fun as ever.

Two Girls in a Box

This is what Anna and Elise were doing tonight.

Halloween

I didn’t think Anna could draw a face, I handed her an erasable marker just thinking she would scribble on the pumpkin while I got ready. When I came back to look, there was this cute face; I was so surprised, so I carved it!

We made Halloween crafts one morning. The witch we made would fly to a different wall every morning! The girls would wake up and run out to see where the witch had moved to. It even flew to Nana’s house one morning; silly witch! And some more carving pics.

I had the cutest little frog for Halloween. She kept pointing to her frog costume and saying, “frog!”

. I had both girls practice saying, “Trick or Treat, Thank you,” all week long so they were ready for the big night. Elise would pitter patter following Anna up to each door. After the first door we went to Anna realized she got candy for trick or treating, she got so excited she giggled and yelled, “I love candy, this is soooo fun. Let’s go to the next house.” Whenever Elise saw a a Halloween decoration she would point at it and say, “witch or ghost, or pumpkin.”We stayed at my mom’s house for Halloween since Kent was out of town.

Anna’s favorite part was not the trick or treating, it was passing out candy. She got even more excited about that. When she heard the door bell ring she would jump up and run as fast as her legs would carrier her to the door and put candy from the bowl into all the trick or treater’s bags. For a long time she wanted to just sit on the porch with the bowl on her lap waiting for the dressed up kids to come by.

We had fun decorating Nana and Papa’s house with cobwebs. The girls loved it and Papa was prompt to take it down when Halloween was over. I think he thought it was too scary for his house :) We also had fun at my parents Halloween neighborhood party

Here is a video of Anna singing her Witch song.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Just pictures but the faces tell everything.

Bartlett Reservoir and Dreams

Kent and I would drive out to Bartlett Reservoir often the summer before we had kids just to swim and enjoy ourselves. We didn’t have a boat or any fancy lake toys. We just went exploring, found a quite cove and went swimming; we had fun. Every time we were there we talked about getting a little raft so we could explore the lake more. That fall we did buy a little raft, excited to go back to the reservoir and try it out. But the weather cooled down, then we had a baby, and another summer past, and we had another baby, and another summer past and that little longed for raft never got used.

The other day we had a rare Saturday free together as a family.This is very rare for us as I am working whenever Kent is at home with the kids and he is working whenever I am at home with the kids. So we don’t have many “Saturdays” together as a family.

Our opportunity had come. We got the kids and that new-old raft and headed to the reservoir. We wanted to go back for a long time.

Ok, I am not going to lie. When I had imagined that raft three years ago I had imagined Kent and I just paddling together around so nice and peaceful. Stopping here and there and and jumping out and swimming together out to some rock and back. Exploring the shores, no time restraints, no worries, just us, the sun, the water, and the raft. This trip with our long hoped for raft wasn’t at all like I imagined. I guess I knew it wouldn’t be, but I still wanted it to be. 

We still had fun out there. I loved watching Anna and Elise sitting in the water, smiling as the waves splashed up on their legs and becoming so interested in picking up handfuls of wet sandy rocks then letting them drop through their fingers. I guess having children means giving up some dreams for better ones.

Duck Duck Goose at our House

Duck, Duck, Goose!!! A simple game, right? At our house with a 2 year old and a 1 year old this game is fun and has a few changes. Here are a few of the things that the girls have done to make this game special at our house.

First, the funnest part is chasing around the circle. Therefore, there should be more of it. That means multiple laps around the circle. You don't stop running around the circle until mom or dad remind you that you are supposed to sit.

Second, The emphasis on running also means that regardless of whether you were it or tagged you can also stand up and join the frenzied chase. The more the merrier.

Third, you can show off your ability to learn new words. Elise learned to say Duck and Goose in order to play this game. She was so proud of herself learning the new words that she would stand behind a single person and continuously pat their heads saying Duck. This would go on until mom and dad reminded her to walk around the circle touching other peoples heads and reminding her that she can say Goose too.

Tea Parties and More

Ever since Anna got invited to a cousin’s house for her first tea party she has been asking to have another one. So I promised her if she would learn to do poo poos in the toilet, 3 times, we would have one. She did it, and we bought a tea set and had a party. Note: a table cloth under the party area is a must with a 1 yr old.

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The girls also love love love to have popcorn parties which we do here and there, especially on stormy days.

I will often find the girls playing with random things in the closet like this,

or Anna squeezing Elise to death like this, or this.

Elise has been spending hours lately trying to figure out how to put on her sandals by herself. They usually end up like this and then she will go walking around the house with them flopping around her ankles.

Every time auntie Shay Shay calls Anna will sit and talk to her for awhile. She thinks she is so grown up talking on a phone.

And of course when things are going smoothly, sickness strikes. This past week Anna came down with roseola and let me tell you it has been a hard week of no sleep, fevers, and crankiness. Oh dear, let this be over and let Elise not get it too.

Songs By Anna

Anna is our little Bird. She loves to sing and to be sung to. She knows lots of songs too and is always walking around the house singing. Here is a few for you...

Ward Campout -2012

We couldn’t wait for our two day ward campout, to get out of the heat, and especially to let the girl run around and experience the outdoors. We prepped Anna by telling her how we were going to the mountains and we would sleep in a tent by lots of trees. She was pretty excited. We bought a new family tent since our old one was just too small for all 4 of us. This new tent is awesome and huge, an 8 man tent. The funny thing about tents is a "4 man tent" is really a 2 man tent.
When we first got there all the girls wanted to do is play in the car. We used the back of the car as our table. Kent was awesome and planned all the meals, shopped for the food, and cooked all the meals. Pretty sweet!

Kent made some scrumptious chicken dumplings for the Dutch oven potluck.

Elise, oh dear, had so much fun but she came home looking like a homeless person. She had scrapes and bruises all over her arms and legs, a cut lip and covered in dirt. Silly girl would not stop putting rocks, sticks, and dirt in her mouth. Anna was so excited about finding worms, caterpillars, bugs, neat leaves and rocks.

I took the girls on several bear hunts and they both loved it. Elise kept thinking she saw a bear and would point and say, “grrrr.”  Anna loved going through the long wavy grass, “swishy swashy swishy swashy, and through the thick ozzy mud, “squelch squerch squelch squerch” etc. At the end of the hunt we did run into a big bear in the trees which got us pretty scared, though if you looked close it might resemble a black cow, and the grrrs did sound an awfully lot like mooos, but only if you listened carefully.

We hiked in to see the Tonto Natural bridge which was pretty neat. We carried the girls in the carriers and hiked about a mile in, across boulders and over streams. There were several swimming holes and the girls loved it.

We stopped at a swimming hole and let the girls swim. They loved it.


My favorite part was hanging out with the ward members at the campfire in the evening. Such a fun ward. One night while we were all by the fire a little gnat flew in my ear, like way down in my ear and I couldn’t get it out, and nobody could see it, but I kept hearing buzzing at my ear drum; I was going crazy. The Ironic thing was when I was packing my first aid kit the one thing I took out was my otoscope thinking “why would I ever need this camping.”

We ended the campout with a nice Anna sized hike out to the Mogollon Rim.

And I think we broke our curse this campout; we left 5 minutes before it started raining.