Five Little Monkeys

Since Anna was a baby, whenever she has been fussy in the car I have sung to her. It has always calmed her right down and she loves it. One of her favorite songs she loves me to do in the car is: Five Little Monkeys Swinging in the Tree.  

Last night on the way home from GG’s house I heard Elise starting to get fussy, then I heard some singing in the back so I turned down the radio and this is what I witnessed:  Anna was leaning over, focused on Elise, singing,, Five Little Monkey’s, in her little toddler gibberish voice, her little hands swinging in the air doing all the actions to the song, trying to sooth her fussy little sister.  I could not see Elise, she being rear facing, but she stopped fussing and her head was turned toward Anna. It made me so happy and grateful to see Anna helping her little sister and I was amazed at her soothing Elise in the exact way I have always soothed her. 

Our Sedona/Snowflake Getaway

We have never left our girls overnight and just gotten away by ourselves before; and every anniversary of ours, I have been highly pregnant soooo…. after 2 long years of waking up at night (I had not slept an entire night through for over 2 years) and constant care of little ones, we decided to get away by ourselves in celebration of our 3rd anniversary; and what a needed and amazing trip it was!!!
We left the wee ones with my parents and felt so light driving off by ourselves as the air of responsibility blew away in the breeze. This might seem weird but it was amazing to just jump out of the car, run into a store, come back out real quick, and get in the car and go.  We were headed for an adventure.
Our first night we stayed in Sedona, had Thai food, and went Mountain biking amongst the red rocks which was so awesome and fun. We biked Submarine rock trail loop and climbed up the formation at chicken point. Kent, the great handy man that he is, disassembled the two bikes, put them both in our little trunk, and reassembled them again at the trailhead. Our leg muscles and break fingers were pretty worn out after the ride. It was nice to feel worn out and tired after riding hard.


The second night was spend in Snowflake at the cute little Heritage Inn Bed and Breakfast. We love little towns and have been wanting to see Snowflake, the town where a lot of my Jesse N. Smith ancestors are from. It was a delightful little town and we had a fun time. Highlights were eating at the pasta Nazi, Enzo’s Italian Restaurant, and having to split a meal there 'cause we didn't bring enough cash, an amazing breakfast at the Inn with strawberry syrup, going to the Snowflake Temple, seeing where my grandma used to live, touring the Jesse N. Smith memorial home, the Trapper’s Diner, and standing on a corner in Winslow, AZ, such a fine sight to see. We had a wonderful, enjoyable time there.

Oh, and I can’t leave out another fun experience: We were getting ready to go the temple and Kent realized that he forgot to bring nice slacks to wear, and jeans or exercise pants just would not cut it. So we went on a mad search for any store that might sell some pants, but in the tiny town of Snowflake there was nothing, we even tried a dollar store in desperation. With only about 15 minutes before we had to be at the temple we spotted a sign for a yard sell and turned down that road, jumped out, and stared digging through some old boxes of clothes. To our luck we found some grey slacks just a few sized too big for Kent, but they would work! And that is when we realized that we only had $65 cents change and they cost a dollar. We dug under the seats of the car and in pockets and luckily found a few more coins to buy the slacks. We got to the temple properly dressed just in time for our session. :)
It was such a wonderful trip and we are so grateful that we were able to do it.

Here are some videos of the mountain biking (we are novices) but had fun anyway.

Anna’s 2nd Birthday

Anna turned 2 yesterday and I can’t even believe how fast she had grown. It seems like we were just bringing her home from the hospital yesterday, and now she is no longer a baby, but a beautiful little girl. In these last two years she has taught so much about patience, love, selflessness, joy and so many other things. She changed our lives completely and brought a new level of meaning and depth into our lives. She is a joy to have and we are so grateful for her in our lives.
We celebrated her birthday that night at my parents house and my grandparents came too.  I made Anna an animal cake with pigs, cows, horses, chicken, a cat and dog. She loved it, it was fun to make. 

When you ask her how old she is will hold up two fingers and say two!

We had fun celebrating she especially loved opening and closing her singing birthday card, playing with the balloons, and blowing in her birthday whistle. I love two year olds for that reason, the find fun in the littlest things. Whenever she would open one of her presents she would run over and show it to her great grandmother “GG.” Elise had a blast also running around with Anna and playing with all the fun things.




We have this little kid book called, Betty Bear’s Birthday and in the book the Father bear says to Betty Bear, “Happy Birthday Dear Daughter” so Kent made a sign on the wall that said this for Anna.

Maybe I'm Going Crazy?

At a playgroup get together, at my friends house, last week I was constantly trying to keep Elise from climbing the stairs; that's all she wanted to do. When it was time to go outside in the backyard for snacks I went to help Anna get what she needed and then all of a sudden I thought, "Oh no the stairs! Elise is probably half way up and about to fall on her head!" So I ran back in the house to find her, and she wasn't on the stairs, so I quickly scanned the kitchen, the family room, the backyard, everywhere and I could not find her anywhere. Panic was beginning to set in. Where was Elise!? As one of the other mom's walked back in the room I asked, "Have you seen my baby anywhere?" She gave me a confused looked and replied, "Aren't you holding her?" I looked over and realized I was holding her!!! What!!! I think I am going a little Crazy. :)

Rejected by My Baby- Goodbye Nursing :(

My baby rejected me when I went to nurse her. She pushed my breast away and kind of stuck out her tongue and gave me a dirty look; and I knew she was hungry! I couldn’t believe it! I tried again all day, and she rejected me each time, but she would take my breast milk in a bottle fine. So I pumped hoping she was just having an off day. Nope, she refused again all day yesterday, and when I tried to nurse her when she was half asleep to my surprise she flung herself from me and just sat there with her back toward me as if to say, “Mama, I know you want to nurse me still but I am done.”  I realized it was over and I cried. I don’t even know why I got so emotional about it because I hate pumping at work and I thought I was ready to wean.  My goal was to get to 10 months at least, and get past respiratory season, and here we are, she will be 10 months next week and it is getting warm. But I cried, I had worked so hard to nurse this baby and to my great surprise I didn’t want to let go yet. I don’t even know what it is, but there is some kind of connection I feel when I nurse my baby, a closeness, a bond, a love, a knowledge that I am giving her of myself something that will give her life, and an understanding that she is still my baby. And now it is over; I am sad.

Valentine’s Day

I haven’t posted for a while so rewind a few weeks to Feb 14th. We dressed our valentine girls in pink and red.

For valentines day I decided to make Kent a huge heart cookie from his favorite cookie recipe, Chocolate Chipper Champs. I gave a small cookie to Anna, while I was decorating the other cookies with frosting. She kept pointing to my frosting job, so I went over and put a small frosting heart on her cookie and to my surprise she burst out in tears. Big Alligator tears, her cookie was ruined! I had to laugh, but I removed the frosting heart from her beloved cookie and she was happy again.

Kent planned a fun picnic for the family than night with takeout from one of my favorite El Salvadorenan restaurants. We got to the park set out our food and picnic stuff and then it began to rain. It has not rained all winter except the hour of our picnic!! What kind of luck is that? We decided to have our swing jumping contest really quick anyway, (which I admit I am still all time champion, never been beaten,) then let the girls swing a little in the rain, then headed home.

We had the rest of our picnic inside then headed to mom and dad’s for a game.